1956-06-04

PRIVILEGE


Mr. M. J. Coldwell (Roselown-Biggar):: Mr. Speaker, I rise on a question of privilege. On page 1 of the Ottawa Citizen of Saturday, June 2, the following sentences appear:
Then, white-faced, but determined, the Speaker moved the next vote. The opposition could restrain itself no longer. Coldwell, shaking his fist, advanced on the Speaker. "You bloody fool," he shouted above the bedlam.
Mr. Speaker, I wish to say that never in my life anywhere, at any time, in any place, have I used those words to anyone. Earlier above the din I had sought to be heard on privilege. I advanced toward the table and I said: "You are a dictator, Mr. Speaker," and I repeated "dictator" several times. Again, let me say that I have never in my life used the foul language attributed to me.



MR. DREW    MOTION OF NON-CONFIDENCE IN PRESIDING OFFICER OF THE HOUSE

Hon. George A. Drew (Leader of the Opposition) moved:: In view of the unprecedented action of Mr. Speaker in (a) improperly reversing his own decision without notice and without giving any opportunity for discussion; (b) repeatedly refusing to allow members to address the house on occasions when the rules provide that they have the right to be heard; (c) subordinating the rights of the house to the will of the government, this house resolves that it no longer has any confidence in its presiding officer.
He said: Mr. Speaker, this motion is placed before the house with full recognition of the seriousness of the motion itself, and also of the nature of the tragedy that has happened here in this House of Commons.
The Speaker has held the regard, I think I can say without any question the deep affection, of most members of this house. It is with the utmost regret, not only on my own part but I know on the part of others, that a motion of this nature should have become necessary at this time. On the one hand, there is a very real sense of break which has occurred between the Speaker and many
members of this house. On the other is the equally deep regret that the high office of Speaker should be called in question.
I need not remind any hon. member here that the office of Speaker is the cornerstone of our parliamentary structure. That name was first formally recorded in the roles of parliament at Westminster in January 1377. For nearly 600 years the name of Speaker has been associated with the authority and dignity of parliament. There have been times when disputes have arisen; there have been other occasions in other jurisdictions when the position of the Speaker has been challenged and when he has been censured for the conduct that has occurred.
At times, in fact, in days gone by the position of the Speaker was an extremely serious post because of the dangers which resulted from the conduct of that office under certain circumstances. It is a lonely office. In one of the many books dealing with the role of the Speaker he has been described as the loneliest man in the house. I do not think there is an hon. member on either side of this house who is not extremely sympathetic with the severe demands which are imposed day by day upon the Speaker, whoever he may be, to rule even without anticipation of what will arise and to rule in a manner which will be acceptable to the members.
I do not think that any hon. member at any time is likely to raise serious issue about a mistake which may be made in the haste of debate and with the infinite variety of possible resolutions, points of order, questions of privilege and other matters which may come before the Speaker for his decision. It would not be upon a question of any mere mistake that the indignation of hon. members of this house would be aroused. Most certainly this motion would not be before the house at this time if it were not for the fact that the continuing confidence in the office of Speaker and the continuing confidence in the present Speaker had been challenged by events of the past few days.
When a statement is made that the rights of parliament are at issue I think it should always be remembered that it is not the rights of the individual members here as individuals which are of importance. What is important is that this is the place where the nation's business is conducted and that what happens here deeply affects the life, the future and the happiness of every Canadian.
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We use the words "House of Commons" very often without pausing to reflect upon what those words mean. After all, it is the House of Commons with which we are now concerned. The other branch of parliament is not affected by the discussions here today except to the extent that each one of the members of that other place also has a deep concern about what happens here. The word "Commons" means the people. This is the house of the people.
Sitting on both sides of this house and on both sides of the Speaker are representatives of every constituency of Canada. Collectively, those of us who meet in this chamber represent all Canadians. That is our responsibility; that is our duty. Our rights are important only to the extent that those rights represent the rights of the people themselves. If the traditional rights of the members of this house are debased, limited or arbitrarily curtailed in any way, it is not our rights that are of concern. What is vitally important is that in that curtailment of rights there is a limitation of the rights of the people themselves.
The freedom that we have here to shape and guide legislation, no matter on which side of the house we may sit, is part of the very freedom which we cherish here in his country of ours. It is here in the House of Commons, to which all the people of Canada must look for just laws properly considered and properly made, that Canadians in every part of Canada must look for the greater part of their freedom and for the assurance of that type of government which will be in itself an expression of the freedom which has come down to us through so many generations of sacrifice and of tremendous effort.
It is with that thought that I submit that we should discuss what has taken place and that we should place before this house the problems which now confront us. The ceremony we witness every day at the opening of the house symbolizes the long historic background of the authority, position and tradition of the Speaker. The mace, which is placed upon the table when the Speaker occupies the chair, is an expression of all the great and honourable things wrapped up in this high office which means as much to every one of us as it does to the occupant of the chair himself. I repeat again, that system was not designed for the advantage or convenience of the members of parliament. It was designed for the protection of the freedom of the people of Canada.
What has happened here is something which goes to the very roots of our free institutions. It is something which could affect, and gravely affect, the rights, the freedom and the happiness of Canadians not only for
fMr. Drew.]
generations but for centuries to come. We all know that we follow the traditions of Westminster and it is, therefore, of importance to us when we examine the position of Speaker that we should recall the history of that office at Westminster, and we should remember that the position of Speaker in the British parliament, before we had any parliament in Canada, had come to represent an institution unique in the annals of parliamentary government. In fact, the independence of the Speaker, as it has been established over long years at Westminster, grew out of the fight between the crown and the members of parliament in the reign of the Stuarts.
Some may wonder at times why we go through the rather cumbersome procedure by which parliament is opened and also why we see the mace removed from the table when the Speaker leaves the chair and placed below the table when the chairman of the committee of the house proceeds to take over. This practice stems from the fight through the Long Parliament in the time of Charles I. The members of parliament suspected that the Speaker was the King's man, and in point of fact they had good reason for entertaining such suspicion. Therefore, when money bills were before the house these assumed special significance. They refused to discuss money matters until the Speaker had left the chair and one of their own members could become chairman of the committee. It was out of that simple and historic fact that this practice and this tradition grew. It has developed as part of their tradition in Britain that the Speaker is not in any sense beholden to the government for his appointment or his continuance in office. We know that there is a different practice there. However, the rules and the traditions are mainly the same. Our own are set out at some length in Beauchesne's, third edition, at pages 52 and 53. I quote paragraphs 105 and 106:
105.	The presiding officer, though entitled on all occasions to be treated with the greatest attention and respect by the individual members, because the power, and dignity, and honour of the assembly are officially embodied in his person, is yet but the servant of the house. He is selected and appointed to the trust of presiding officer, in the confidence and upon the supposition of the conformity of his will to that of the assembly.
106.	The Speaker's duty as the official mouthpiece of the house is extremely well expressed in a few words by Mr. Speaker Lenthall, who, when that ill-advised monarch, Charles I came into House of Commons, and having taken the Speaker's chair, asked him "whether any of the five members that he came to apprehend were in the House, whether he saw any of them, and where they were?"-made this answer:-"May it please your majesty, I have neither eyes to see, nor tongue to speak, in this place but as the House is pleased to direct me, whose servant I am here,

and humbly beg your majesty's pardon that I cannot give any other answer than this, to what your majesty is pleased to demand of me."
There are three branches of government here, in Britain or in the other nations with a similar parliamentary form. If the Speaker of the Canadian House of Commons or of any other house of commons under our traditions is in any way subservient or beholden to the government, the situation is not in principle different from that which the members of the Commons in England faced when the Speaker was beholden to the King. When you, Mr. Speaker, assumed your office on November 12, 1953 you expressed what we all believe to be the true function of impartiality on the part of the Speaker of this house. These were your words as recorded in Hansard of November 12, 1953 at page 3:
The honour which is being bestowed upon me is high indeed, but greater still are the responsibilities. I beseech Divine Providence to grant me all the help necessary for the fulfilment of my duties, in accordance with our noble traditions.
My dear colleagues, it is my duty to maintain decorum and order in debate, to preserve our traditions, privileges, liberties, usages and customs and, in particular, to exercise impartiality and fairness and protect the rights of every individual member. My experience as Deputy Speaker has amply shown me that only with your advice, counsel and co-operation can I succeed in my new task. I shall, I assure you, strive to deserve your effective support, and endeavour at all times to prove myself worthy of your trust.
It is, I believe, true to say that the eyes of other nations, more than ever before, are turned towards Canada. Therefore, I realize that the dignity of this high office and the reputation of our parliament must be most carefully safeguarded, and I shall govern myself accordingly.
I pray to Divine Providence for all assistance necessary so that I shall be able to fulfil my duties in a manner that will do justice to you and this house, whose servant I am.
I said that we have held the Speaker in respect and affection. We echoed, in our own hearts and minds, those words which the Speaker uttered at the time he took this office. It would have been our desire, the earnest desire of every one of us, that the relationship which existed for so long had continued unimpaired. It would not be possible for anyone to pretend that it has been only in these few days that questioning has arisen, and that uncertainty has beclouded that relationship which we desired, just as much as did the Speaker himself.
During this present session it must have been recognized that there has been a steady deterioration in the relationship of the occupant of that high office and many of the members in this house. I should like to emphasize that long before there was any open criticism in this house there was widespread
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criticism in the press of the conduct of the Speaker in the performance of his duties. That was not good for Canada; that was not good for the people of Canada whose servants we all are. It could have been overcome. Even though the criticism had raised some questioning, it could have been overcome if the Speaker had listened to the advice which was being given to him outside the house as well as inside this house.
Unfortunately for all of us the criticism emerged openly in the house during the debate on what we have come to know as the pipe-line bill. It came to a head last week. Hansard records several expressions of that criticism on earlier occasions, but it was during the last two days of the past week that all the criticism was brought into focus by events which every member in this house must greatly deplore. I know that for all of us the last two days and the past week are days we would like to erase from our memories, erase from our hearts, erase from the records that are kept of the proceedings in this house. But, unhappily, that cannot be.
Therefore, it becomes necessary to review what did take place and to consider what our position is in relation to those events. On Thursday night the hon. member for Nanaimo (Mr. Cameron) raised a question of privilege shortly after nine o'clock. He spoke of two letters which had appeared in the Ottawa Journal. He was given permission to read those letters. It was open to the Speaker at that time to rule that a question of privilege sufficiently important to be discussed in that way had not been raised. That he did not do. On the contrary, the Speaker found that there had been a question of privilege. In fact, he aided in the drafting of a subsequent resolution which came before the house on Thursday night.
So that the words may appear in their context with what I am saying now, I would recall that on page 4529 of Hansard these words of the Speaker and the hon. member for Nanaimo appear:


Mr. Speaker:: 
Mr. Cameron (Nanaimo):: My proper order is to send this to the Clerk of the house now, is it?


Mr. Speaker:: Provided that the hon. member wishes to go through with the motion I have indicated.


Colin Cameron: I have called this to the attention of Your Honour and-


Mr. Speaker:: Order. The hon. member must
understand that if he wishes to make a complaint against a newspaper he must, on a question of

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privilege, do it in the proper manner, and that is not to stand up only and call it to my attention, but to send the paper to the Clerk who will stand up and read the paragraph complained of, which will be inserted in the Votes and Proceedings', and the hon. member must conclude his question with a motion stating that the article complained of is in breach of privilege and deserves the censure of this house.


Colin Cameron: Yes, I will do that. Do I send this to the Clerk now, Your Honour? Do I read it first?


Mr. Speaker:: The hon. member was going to indicate what is the paragraph he is complaining of.
Then there was a further exchange, the letters were read, and on page 4531 the following is recorded in Hansard:


Mr. Speaker:: Mr. Cameron (Nanaimo), seconded by Mr. Ellis, has moved that the statements in the Ottawa Journal of May 30 and 31, as just read by the Clerk, are derogatory of the dignity of parliament and deserve the censure of this house.


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


Mr. Speaker:: Is the house ready for the question?
Then at that point a debate proceeded on the motion which had been presented.
Now, Mr. Speaker, that situation was where we left off on Thursday night. I rose to speak and had spoken for a short time when the house adjourned at ten o'clock on Thursday night. Then we met on Friday morning at eleven o'clock, as recorded in Hansard at page 4537. We find that the very opening words of the record are as follows:
On the order:
Resuming the adjourned debate on the motion of Mr. Cameron (Nanaimo), that the statements in the Ottawa Journal of May 30 and May 31 are derogatory of the dignity of parliament and deserving of the censure of this house.
Hon. George A. Drew (Leader of the Opposition) [DOT] Mr. Speaker-
I had then risen to speak continuing the debate which had started the night before. Mr. Speaker then rose and this is what he said as recorded in Hansard;


Mr. Speaker:: Usually the deputy clerk reads the order, but I rise at this moment in order to deal with this order which appears under "Motions" as follows:
Resuming the adjourned debate on the motion of Mr. Cameron (Nanaimo), that the statements in the Ottawa Journal of May 30 and 31 are derogatory of the dignity of parliament and deserving of the censure of this house.
I have read carefully the articles complained of and I have come to the conclusion that because of the unprecedented circumstances surrounding this pipe-line debate and because of the remarks that were made in this house by members themselves, it was and it is impossible, if we are to consider freedom of the press as we should, to take these two articles as being breaches of our privileges. It is my opinion that if it had not been for some of the insinuations or attacks directed perhaps to one another or the Chair or to the occupants of the chair, these articles may not have been written. I think we should settle our problems among ourselves and that those who outside of this house, either in editorial 
comment or by letters to the editor, write what I consider to be-and this is the case of these two articles-comments which do not go beyond the bounds of unfairness, I think they should be allowed. Therefore, I rule the motion made by the hon. member for Nanaimo out of order. Do hon. members wish to appeal?
Mr. Speaker, that was an unprecedented action. No one on the government side of the house had challenged this motion when it was presented on Thursday night. The debate had proceeded without any challenge from anyone. The Speaker made some point on Friday of the fact that as he is the servant of the house it is the house which must decide. The house had decided on Thursday night by its acceptance of the motion without any question being raised that this was a matter that was to be taken under their consideration. It had become seized of the issue raised in that motion. The merits of the motion, until some new motion had been presented, were not in question before the Speaker. It was in the hands of the hon. members of this house. The Speaker had not only accepted but had guided the framing of the resolution which introduced this debate. There is no precedent of any kind in this house or elsewhere for such action as was taken. Not only was there no motion but there had not even been a question raised in the house about the propriety of the course that had been followed on Thursday night, nor as to the propriety of proceeding in the usual way with that debate.
Under those circumstances I submit it was not the Speaker's right to withdraw this matter from the house. The supreme authority to which he referred on Friday had accepted that motion. It could only have been withdrawn properly by a decision of the house itself upon some other motion properly presented. The Speaker could not have done that; the Speaker cannot present a motion. Whether or not the motion would have been in order, the government might have presented a motion and it might have been debated. It certainly should have been debated if decisions made the night before were to be reversed.
One of the most serious aspects of this strange course was that when I attempted, as did many other hon. members, to be heard in regard to this matter on a point of order the Speaker refused to hear a word from any member in regard to this completely strange device which had been employed or which was then under consideration. At the moment the Speaker called the vote without permitting any point of order to be raised or any discussion whatever on the proceedings which were taking place, at that moment confidence in the Speaker disappeared in the minds of many members of this house.

Then, as though this were not enough in itself, as though this were not defilement of our rules sufficient for one day, the Speaker after the vote on that decision had been taken announced that he found he had made a mistake in the ruling he had made about 5.15 p.m. the day before and for that reason all subsequent proceedings should be declared a nullity. Mr. Speaker, there can be no precedent for any such course. This is what the Speaker said, as recorded on page 4539 of Hansard:
I said earlier that I am prepared to take full responsibility before this house and before the country for what I am doing. I consider-and I have thought very seriously about this-that yesterday around 5.15, when I was called back to the chair for the purpose of receiving the chairman's report, I made a very serious mistake in allowing the point of order and the other dilatory motions; and I feel that the house should not suffer any prejudice or detriment on my account. I want to say this to hon. members-it has been said very often-the rules of this house are devised in order to protect the minorities; yes, they are. But I will add the counterpart to that. I will say-and the authorities support me in this- that the rules of this house are devised to protect minorities against the oppression of the majority and the majority against obstruction by the minority.
Now', the house is master of its own rules and it is my right to submit a matter to the house. I intend at the moment to submit to the house that, in my view, the house should revert to the position where it was yesterday when I was brought back to the chair to receive the chairman's report at 5.15. I submit to the house that the intervening proceedings should not be superseded, and it is up to the house to decide as to the situation which
I	take at the moment.
It is difficult to read those words again and realize that they were in fact uttered by a Speaker of this house. There is no precedent for any such reference to a statement of that kind. There is no precedent for the Speaker saying, "I made a mistake some time ago and because I made that mistake everything that has happened in the intervening period is a nullity." On earlier occasions, perhaps unnecessarily, the Speaker has referred to times some distance back when in his opinion on later reflection he felt that he had made a mistake. If this practice were to be permitted, then if the Speaker found that on January 11, the day after this house opened, he had made a mistake it would be appropriate for him to declare that everything which had happened since then would be a nullity and that we should wipe out every-think that had taken place. There is no difference in principle between saying that everything that has happened since 5.15 p.m. yesterday will be wiped out and saying that everything that has happened since January
II	will be wiped out.
What might have been more appropriate still, if in fact such a strange procedure as
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this were ever accepted as part of our proceedings in this house, would have been for the Speaker to have gone back to a week ago Friday because there might well have been some consideration of the strange decisions which were made on that day.
In order to test the propriety of the course which was undertaken at that time, just let me submit it to one proof. The Speaker said that it is for the house to decide. What he meant by that of course was that it is for the majority to decide. I have been in different legislative bodies and I have been on the government side as well as on the opposition side. I have asserted strongly the rights of the opposition and I hope I am just as fully aware of and just as ready to concede the rights and the duties of the government. When the Speaker declares in his oath that he is the servant of the house he is declaring that he is not merely the servant of the majority but that he is the servant of all members. That is the bedrock upon which respect for our parliamentary system rests.
When the Speaker said that the house should not suffer because of his mistakes, let us consider if he was not actually saying "the government must not suffer in its arbitrary course by what I do." That was what he really meant. That is the only interpretation that can be placed upon the words. That was the effect because the Speaker was not prepared to listen to a single argument as to why this course was not proper. Members on the opposition side who were affected by this course had no opportunity to say why this was so improper. I ask the Prime Minister (Mr. St. Laurent), I ask members supporting the government, what they would say if the Speaker picked up something which had been adverse to the opposition say a week before and then had said, "in spite of all the government business that has been done I am not going to let the opposition suffer by my mistake and am going to declare as a nullity all that has taken place."


Mr. Speaker:: I do not want to intervene in any way in the presentation of the hon. Leader of the Opposition (Mr. Drew), but I know he wants to be fair. It strikes me that when he puts forward the contention that when I said that the intervening proceedings should not be superseded I meant by that that all that had taken place from 5.15 on Thursday until Friday should be declared a nullity. I see that there is a serious misunderstanding of what I said or intended to say. By "intervening proceedings", as mentioned on page 4540, were meant the proceedings which appeared on the order paper as being first readings of Senate public bills,

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government notices of motions. At the time I was trying to bring the house back to government order No. 2 on Friday and I wanted to do it before first readings of Senate public bills and government notices of motions were taken. I did not want these orders to be superseded by the course of action that I was tasting. Then the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre (Mr. Knowles) said, "No, let us go to first readings of Senate public bills and government notices of motions, and then when we reach orders of the day the matter can be brought up." But I want to say that it was not my intention to say that the proceedings that had taken place on Thursday should be declared a nullity.


George Alexander Drew: Mr. Speaker, I submit that what was said is open to no other interpretation. The words referred to what happened at 5.15. These are the words that are recorded at page 4540 of Hansard:
I submit to the house that the intervening proceedings should not be superseded . . .
That means that for all practical purposes they become a nullity. We were then carried back by that extraordinary device to the position in which we were at 5.15. I do not believe that any word that I have said in any way stretches the effect of what took place at that time. I submit again that in this case, as in the other, there was no precedent for what occurred.
Whatever the intention may have been, and it is not for us to interpret intentions, the result certainly was not open to question. By that advice, upon which there was allowed no comment and no debate to show what a dangerous precedent this would establish, the way was clear for an immediate presentation of a closure motion which the government wished to have placed before this house. Whatever the intention may have been, whatever the motives were, the Speaker in that act subordinated the rights, the traditions and the practices of parliament to the will of the government. It is almost unthinkable that at such a moment, and with something so strange and new placed before the members here, the Speaker would not hear a word, to protect himself, as to why he should not do this. He declared when he became the Speaker that he sought the advice of parliament. I know that on that occasion he did not mean to suggest, and did not suggest, that he was seeking alone the advice of the government and its supporters. I am sure he meant that he sought the advice of all members. One of the reasons members are permitted to rise on points of order is so that the Speaker may have advice from every

part of the house on questions set up before the house. That adds to the seriousness of all that has occurred.
If there were any justification for this course, then I submit again that it would be equally proper to follow that course in relation to some event a week earlier, a month earlier or even longer. The very fact that this would be the natural result, in itself, indicates the seriousness of what has been done. I repeat, need there be any doubt about what the government would have done if the Speaker had followed such a course and had said, as he might well have said with equal validity, that he had made a serious mistake on the previous Friday, when events occurred which are equally distasteful to the memories of every one of us? If any question the indignation expressed by the members of the opposition, just let them ask themselves what the indignation of the government would have been if the Speaker had followed the same course and it affected them as we were affected by these proceedings. It is not difficult to imagine the indignation that would have been aroused. The very suggestion of that in itself deals with the question as to whether there conceivably could be justification for this course. It was indeed black Friday for this house and for the people of Canada. The damage that was done cannot be undone.
The government cannot divorce itself from the tragic downfall of the Speaker on this occasion. He is the victim. He is a casualty of the government's overbearing conduct during this debate. We had done what we could do to prevent the government proceeding on the arrogant course which has produced this sorrowful result. That was our only recourse; that in fact was our only right. It was the duty of the Speaker to protect our rights just as it was his duty to protect the rights of the government.
Whatever may be said of the ugly things that happened here last week, I think it can be said with certainty that every hon. member is equally sorry that they ever happened. No hon. member of this house will want to see a repetition of the turmoil into which this house was thrown last Friday. Let it be admitted immediately that we all share some responsibility for that turmoil. We all took part in it. We can have no happy recollection at any time of that sad event. May I point out, however, that, confronted as we were with a rigid denial by the Speaker of our fundamental rights to be heard in regard to these issues, we had no course open to us but to register our anger in the way we did.


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh! Hear, hear.


George Alexander Drew: Were we quietly to submit in the face of this course that savoured in every way of the dreadful dictatorships that have grown up in Europe in these past few years? It was Junius who said that the subject who is truly loyal will neither advise nor submit to arbitrary measures. The subject who is loyal will neither submit nor advise. We were not prepared to submit to as arbitrary measures as ever denied to the sitting members of a legislative body the rights to which they were entitled by tradition, by the rules and by all the declared purposes of this parliament. Mr. Speaker, this subject now is before the house. It is before the people of Canada. But, above all, it is now for the government to consider the course that it has followed and what it should do to deal with so grave a situation, with a situation which threatens the future of this house and of the rights of the people themselves as represented by the members here.
Under our system of government the Prime Minister (Mr. St. Laurent) must assume the first responsibility for all that happens under the government he leads. The fact that the course which led step by step to this inevitable result was initiated by the Minister of Trade and Commerce (Mr. Howe) in no way limits the responsibilities of the Prime Minister as head of the government. For all that happened here last Friday the Prime Minister must accept the responsibility. Most of us have little but sorrow in our hearts for the plight of the Speaker who was the victim of the government's action.
The Prime Minister could have prevented the dreadful scenes we witnessed here if he had asserted his authority along the lines of our parliamentary traditions. The Prime Minister saw where all this was heading. Starting with the motion of closure presented when the resolution was introduced that it was expedient for the pipe-line bill to come forward and following through step by step when the other arbitrary motions were presented, the Prime Minister saw what was happening in the house and he should have foreseen, as could be foreseen, what the consequences of that erosion must certainly be. I am not seeking for a moment to leave the impression that the opposition did not contribute to the disturbance, as did all the members on the other side. I repeat again, however, that we used the only weapons that we had as free men and women to bring to the attention of this house and to
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the attention of the people of Canada the disgraceful denial of our rights which had taken place.
We had no choice but to assert our rights as we did. We had no choice, moreover, but to bring this matter to a head by the motion that is now before us. It is not necessary to enlarge upon the facts. Many incidents could be cited where step by step during these recent weeks we have gone along the course which has led to such a serious result. One truth does emerge, however. Beep are the wounds that have been inflicted upon parliament, and nothing that the Speaker can now do, nothing that the government can do, can restore this parliament to the atmosphere, to the state of mind, to the manners and to the decencies which existed here before these dreadful events occurred. I should like to quote words written by the great Gladstone in 1878 and published in the North American Review in the issue for September and October of that year. He said:
It is a cardinal axiom of the modern British constitution that the House of Commons is the greatest of the powers of the state. It might, by a base subserviency, fling itself at the feet of a monarch or a minister. . . . The commons are armed with ample powers of self-defence. If they use their powers properly, they can only be mastered by a recurrence to the people, and the way in which the appeal takes effect is by the choice of another House of Commons more agreeable to the national temper. Thus the sole appeal from the verdict of the house is a rightful appeal to those from whom it received its commission.
Here we had no power of self-defence. We have none but to declare what we believe to be the rights of the people of Canada and their representatives here in this house. We shall not be subservient to false interpretation of the rules. We shall not be subservient to anything that savours of dictatorship here in this house. We shall not be subservient to the will of the majority expressed by the Speaker, as it has been in this case, in a manner which no longer seeks to define the right of the majority but establishes for the time being mob rule.
I said before that I can only express sorrow for the plight of the Speaker on this occasion. The Prime Minister has the responsibility. He could have prevented this happening. He can prevent anything of a similar nature happening in the future. A partisan vote on the motion now before us will not relieve the unhappy situation in which we now find ourselves. Never before has this house been faced with so serious a situation. Never before were members of this house conscious as they now are that something good, decent, precious and valuable has been destroyed. There is only one way this situation can be relieved. I appeal with all

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the earnestness I possess to the Prime Minister as head of the government to follow the only course which will restore the dignity, honour and traditions of parliament. That course is to dissolve this house and let the people elect a new parliament more in harmony with our traditions and concepts of government. To let this motion go to a vote that divides the house denies the very basis upon which the Speaker occupies the chair.
It has long been our tradition that the Speaker is the unanimous choice of the house. Let there be no uncertainty about the fact that the Speaker is not the choice of most of the members on this side of the house at this time. The situation can only be cured by the course that has been suggested. It can only be cured in the manner that was so well set out by Gladstone as long ago as 1878. That I believe is now the compelling duty confronting the Prime Minister of Canada (Mr. St. Laurent).
I support the motion that is now before the house.


Major James William Coldwell: Mr. Speaker, I think all of us today assembled in this chamber realize the serious situation with which this house and the members of this house are confronted. I join with the Leader of the Opposition (Mr. Drew) in saying that, in my opinion, the introduction of this motion is something of a tragedy. I remember very well what took place about a year ago when a group of members of parliament in my office were discussing parliament and what had transpired. Among other things, we came to the conclusion that the time had arrived when this house might choose a Speaker who would preside over the house not for one parliament but for a number of years; and each and every one of us-may I say we were not of the language of the present Speaker of the house-were of the opinion that the present occupant of the chair at the end of this parliament should be offered that position on a longterm basis. I therefore say that what has happened at this session-and particularly what happened during the present debate-is indeed a tragic circumstance.
Quite early in the debate, Mr. Speaker-as no doubt you knew from a casual remark I made in the house-I thought that some of your rulings were partisan, and I so expressed myself to some of my friends on both sides of the house. As the days went by I felt that instead of there being protection of the rights of the minority, the majority opinion-that is government opinion-must of necessity prevail. I was saddened by that thought but then, as the time passed and various other rulings occurred and members who rose on this side of the house were denied the right,

now and then, which I thought was legitimately theirs to express their opinions on points of orders, that feeling turned more or less to anger.
I join with the Leader of the Opposition in saying that I am sure all of us regret the scene in this house last Friday afternoon. The bells were ringing even after some of us had risen to try to get a word in on a point of privilege which we felt was justifiable at the time. Members were called in to vote, I thought, without being given the opportunity to express themselves on a point of order or a question of privilege that I believe was really valid. I felt that the division had been hurried along in order, once again, to prevent those expressions of opinion that should have been heard by the Chair.
The Leader of the Opposition has, I think, fairly well expressed the view of those of us who felt that way. I think he has dealt with this problem. I have often disagreed with the Leader of the Opposition and probably on occasions shall do so again; but this afternoon I thought that the manner in which he dealt with this situation was a credit to him. He dealt with it in a statesmanlike and dignified manner and I hope that the example he set will be followed by all of us. He dealt with the events of Thursday evening and of Friday. I want to say just a word about that matter because I think that was the crucial point at which the opposition was really aroused. On Friday morning, as reported at page 4540 of Hansard, the Speaker said this:
. . . yesterday around 5.15, when I was called back to the chair for the purpose of receiving the chairman's report. I made a very serious mistake in allowing the point of order and the other dilatory motions; . . .
He then goes on to speak of the rights of the majority, with which I have no quarrel as long as the rights of the minority are safeguarded. Then he went on to say this:
I intend at the moment to submit to the house that, in my view, the house should revert to the position where it was yesterday when I was brought back to the chair to receive the chairman's report at 5.15. I submit to the house that the intervening proceedings should not be superseded, and it is up to the house to decide as to the situation which I take at the moment.
As has already been said, Mr. Speaker, this was a most unprecedented request to the house. Indeed it so surprised me that, as reported on the same page, I called out as loudly as I could, "What are you doing, Mr. Speaker?" I did so because I felt that what was being done was something that was going to stifle parliament in the future, change our procedure in the future, and make it possible on some other occasion for a Speaker to rise in his place and say that

the business which had been done heretofore should be wiped out. I thought that was a most unheard-of procedure.
Then later on the Speaker spoke of placing a proposition before the house. There was, of course, one way in which the Speaker could have got his views before the house, and that way has already been indicated. He could have got some member of the house to move an appropriate motion or to give notice of an appropriate motion. That was the proper procedure to follow if it was desired to make a change in what had already been done.
I am not going to speak very long because, as I have indicated, I do not think that any of us like the position in which we find ourselves. We do not like the breaches in those personal friendships that have been established over the years in this house. Some of us do not like the feeling that we have perhaps lost respect for one another. In this connection I should like to feel that we could go back to the position in which we found ourselves three weeks ago and wipe the slate clean. But that cannot be done. We must face up to this situation. There is no doubt, Mr. Speaker,-as the Leader of the Opposition has said-that no matter what we may do or say for the balance of this parliament, the Speaker has not the confidence of the entire house, something which is so necessary to conducting the business of this house. I agree with the Leader of the Opposition that, under these circumstances, there is only one way out. Regardless of our individual fortunes in an election period or of our party fortunes, I think that way out should be undertaken. It is the only way. I think that way should be taken in order that a new House of Commons might assemble in a few months' time; in order that that new House of Commons could come here with a new and fresh feeling; and in order that we might once more in this house establish the kind of atmosphere which has prevailed during most of the 21 years that I have been in this House of Commons.
I may say, Mr. Speaker, that this perhaps is unprecedented in our parliament. Of course, Mr. Gladstone refers to some of the turmoil in the British House of Commons, where events similar to those of last Friday have not been unknown even in the past half century and less. But it is today a great misfortune that we have to face the situation with which we are confronted. As the Leader of the Opposition (Mr. Drew) has said, and let none of us deny it, some responsibility rests on all of us.
The other afternoon I rose to speak and the shouting and so on from those on the 67509-295
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other side was certainly enough to make one feel rather angry. I wish that I had suggested what I think might have been a way out at that time. In view of the tempers of hon. members of the house, the sittings might have been suspended while we cooled off a bit. But that was not done. So, we support the motion of the Leader of the Opposition. I suppose that it will be a vote directly along party lines. That seems to be indicated, and that is unfortunate. I know the feeling of my own friends. The Leader of the Opposition has indicated the feeling of his friends, and there is no doubt that there is no way out other than for the Prime Minister (Mr. St. Laurent) to dissolve this house and go to the country so that a new parliament, with all this sort of thing wiped out, may be assembled within the next few months.


Mr. Victor Quelch (Acadia):: I have listened with attention to the two previous speakers, and I agree with the leader of the C.C.F. party that the present situation is an unfortunate one. Let me say right at the start that I do not like the motion that is before the house. The suggestion that the government should resign as a solution is, of course, a suggestion that the government should surrender to the minority.
I listened to the Leader of the Opposition (Mr. Drew) and it seemed to me that his main weapon was that of exaggeration. It is true that he was able to keep himself fairly well controlled, mainly no doubt because there were no interruptions. He referred at length to what transpired in this house on May 31 and June 1. I would say that what transpired on Thursday and Friday cannot be judged by those days alone. It was the culmination of days of lawlessness in this house; shouting and defiance of the Speaker. I am not surprised that the Leader of the Opposition would say he would like to forget those days. It is not easy to forget what transpired in this house during that time. There was the phony display put on by the hon. member for Eglinton (Mr. Fleming) and action taken to deliberately force this house to expel him. We will not forget that. Hon. members can groan, but they should have been groaning at that time and not now.


Mr. Fleming:: I rise on a question of privilege, Mr. Speaker.


Mr. Speaker:: Order. The hon. member for Eglinton rises on a question of privilege.


Donald Methuen Fleming: The hon. member for Acadia (Mr. Quelch), Mr. Speaker, has just made two remarks which are a grave offence against privilege and a falsification of fact. He has referred to a "phony display" and has also

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said that there was, on the part of the hon. member for Eglinton, an attempt to bring about a certain course of action that the house took. Mr. Speaker, there is not a measure of truth in one word, one syllable, one letter of what the hon. member said or what was said in my absence on Friday night by the hon. member for Iles-de-la-Madeleine (Mr. Cannon).
You know, and most members of this house know deep down in their hearts, that no member of this house was more surprised than I that the government took the partisan and vindictive course it did. The hon. member for Iles-de-la-Madeleine said, speaking on Friday night, that I had defied the Speaker. There was no defiance of the Speaker. He said also that the action on my suspension was the action of the chairman. It was nothing of the kind. My suspension was due to one thing and one thing alone, a government motion introduced by the Minister of Finance (Mr. Harris), the government leader. The first vote cast to suspend the hon. member for Eglinton was cast by the Prime Minister (Mr. St. Laurent). There was nothing premeditated. No one was more surprised than I.
The immediate situation that brought this about, as hon. members will remember, was one in which the Deputy Speaker of this house had said, while he was standing on his feet, he would not hear me on either a point of order or a question of privilege. He did hear the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre (Mr. Knowles) and he did say, at the very same time and under exactly the same circumstances, that he would hear my colleague the hon. member for Greenwood (Mr. Macdonnell), but he would not hear me. That was the situation, and that was the fact. Any member, whether in this house or outside, who says I sought to provoke this suspension, had any idea that it would be made or made a show here for the purposes of publicity commits the most vile kind of falsehood. Let there be no mistake about that.
I just make one further observation. It has been said outside the house by the hon. member for Timiskaming (Mrs. Shipley) that there was something very strange about the appearance of the flag. I want to say this. When I took my departure from the house that day following the passing of this partisan and vindictive motion, I did not know there was any flag going to be put on my desk.


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh.


Donald Methuen Fleming: 
Mr. Maclnnis:: Mr. Speaker, I do not like to stop anyone talking on a question of privilege or any other question, but it seems to me that if there was a question of privilege to begin with it disappeared long, long ago.


Victor Quelch: Mr. Speaker, so far as the point the hon. member has raised is concerned, I will just say this. I will allow those hon. members who sat in this house at that time to decide whether or not the statement I made was correct. We had the display put on from time to time by the hon. member for Kamloops (Mr. Fulton). I could not help thinking at the time that probably the hon. member had taken so much time in reading crime comics he had absorbed the mentality of a juvenile delinquent.
The Speaker of this house is the unfortunate victim of circumstances that were not of his making. I think that this is something we must keep in mind at all times. He was not responsible for the situation that developed in this house during the past few days. I think most of us will agree, and the Leader of the Opposition has already stated it, that he had earned a fine reputation for impartiality and for fairness. I would say that he invariably leaned over backwards in order to meet the requests of the opposition, and it was probably that very action that got him into trouble in this debate. It is a very fine way to act in normal times but you cannot act that way in times of lawlessness because those who are committing those acts will take advantage of that type of leniency.
Let me go back to May 9 when this matter first came up. The opposition has blamed closure for their obstruction but of course that is not true. It started several days before the motion for closure was moved; that is, when the notice of motion first appeared in Votes and Proceedings on May 9 it started and it continued on May 10, a long procedural wrangle with four divisions, and then resumed again on May 14 when two more divisions and more wrangling took place. Finally, when the Minister of Trade and Commerce spoke, he moved closure, no doubt because the government realized that so long as the opposition was going to

continue that type of wrangling and obstruction there would have been no hope of ever getting that bill through without closure.
Again I stress the fact obstruction started first and closure followed. The opposition then became angry as a result of closure being moved, but unfortunately instead of fighting the government or the measure they should have fought they vented their spleen and their spite upon the Speaker, the Deputy Speaker and the chairman, and in my opinion that was a cowardly procedure to follow.
Since then they have tried to dictate to parliament. They have tried as a minority to tell the majority how the affairs of this house should be conducted. We have seen in other countries what happened when a minority is allowed to dictate to the majority. We saw that when Hitler was borne to power, then Mussolini was borne to power, and we have seen it in Russia, and we do not want that kind of thing to happen in this country. You cannot appease that type of mentality. Every time you appease that type of mentality they want more concessions.
Instead of debating the legislation before us the opposition staged a number of attacks against the Speaker, the Deputy Speaker and the chairman. It has been said by those on my right that we in the Social Credit group have nothing to talk about in relation to this matter because we filibustered the Bretton Woods agreement and on the rivers bill; but let me point out that there is a great difference between the filibuster we staged and the one we have witnessed in this house during the past two or three weeks. When we opposed the Bretton Woods agreement and the rivers bill we attacked the legislation. We did not at any time enter into a procedural wrangle and we never defied the chairman or the Speaker.


An hon. Member:: Nor did we enter into the debate by insult.


Victor Quelch: House of Commons
ihajority from having an opportunity to manifest its will in accordance with our constitutional principles.
This has not failed to be obvious to persons outside the house. I have here a clipping from the Montreal Star-not an unimportant newspaper in this country. It is from its edition of May 30 and is headed "The Speaker's Dilemma". It reads in part as follows:
The Speaker's first duty is to keep the business of the House of Commons moving smoothly. When the opposition embarks upon a planned campaign of obstruction, it is obvious that the Speaker (or, in committee of the whole, the chairman) will become a target of attack-
Not because of the qualities of the Speaker or the chairman but because of the fact that there is a contentious measure that is being opposed by all means that can be devised under the rules of the house to bring about delay and to waste time.
' The editorial continues:
Every restriction on debate, from the sharp weapon of closure down to the hour-by-hour * rulings of its presiding officers, is challenged in extreme terms-so extreme indeed that they arouse laughter and contempt among the thinking public which is not so dumb as to believe that free discussion is being slaughtered.
I think the concluding paragraph should .-also be put on the record. It reads:
As to Mr. Beaudoin's present unhappy position, a study of recent Hansards reveals an extraordinary patience and courtesy in dealing with a series of heated situations. He has proved himself to be a good Speaker. When the present row is over, and tempers have cooled off, it would not be surprising to hear compliments about his conduct from the opposition benches.
What is it that has brought about the unfortunate situation in which we find ourselves at this moment? On Thursday I made *a motion to apply closure based upon a 1932 precedent. A point of order was raised by the hon. member for Kamloops (Mr. Fulton). That was one point of order in this whole long series to which I took no exception whatsoever. I did think that when the .government was resorting to a procedure so rarely used as standing order 33 has been, and when there were two precedents which might be applied, it was a quite proper question to raise as to which was the really valid precedent. I am sure that all hon. members on both sides of the house will admit that we on this side listened with great respect to the arguments presented from the other side of the house. I attempted to present an argument in support of the precedent we were invoking. In due course, and not until every hon. member who desired to speak on the point of order had had an opportunity to be heard, did the chairman make his ruling. That ruling was immediately appealed 'toy the hon. member for Winnipeg North

Centre (Mr. Knowles) and the appeal was reported to Your Honour.
It was at this point, if, with respect, I may use the words you used, that a mistake was made-you used those words the following morning-but nowhere in the use or application of those words was there any suggestion to declare as a nullity what had taken place from the time you referred to as being the moment when you made the mistake of not enforcing the usual practice that you were back in the chair merely for the purpose of receiving a report from the chairman of the committee, and putting the appeal which had been made on the question contained in the report to the house for its decision. You did commence to put that question. You had previously ruled on numerous occasions that when such an appeal came before you through the report of a chairman there was nothing else before the house and that that report had to be put to a vote.
The hon. member for Winnipeg South Centre (Mr. Churchill) rose and raised a point upon what appeared to me and what appeared to many to be an academic question. You allowed him to proceed and he did proceed at considerable length. After he had submitted his point and when you were on the point of making your ruling, it was suggested to you that you should not complete your ruling until after six o'clock. We all know what took place after the dinner recess. We know that there were then various proceedings which were obviously undertaken for the purpose of taking up time and preventing the report from the chairman of the committee being submitted to the house and the house getting back into committee.
In the course of the discussion Your Honour indicated to the house that the point raised by the hon. member for Winnipeg South Centre was merely an academic point and there was nothing on which to rule. Your Honour then proceeded to put the question on the appeal of the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre, the question which was before the house, the only question which could be before the house at that particular time. Your Honour had actually called the yeas and, according to Hansard, you were about to call the nays when the hon. member for Winnipeg South Centre, although Your Honour was on your feet, rose in an insistent manner and demanded an appeal from a ruling Your Honour had not made. The appeal was granted and Your Honour's opinion was sustained on the appeal.
At this point the hon. member for Quebec West (Mr. Dufresne), although a motion to adjourn the house had previously been disposed of and had taken, as these proceedings do take in our house, about three-quarters of

an hour, renewed a motion for the adjournment of the house. That motion was put and decided and according to page 4528 of Hansard Your Honour then rose and said the following words:
The question is now, shall we-
At that point the hon. member for Nanaimo (Mr. Cameron) rose and raised what you have since declared to be an improper question of privilege and which I am informed the hon. gentleman himself was astonished to find was taken seriously. On this the hon. member founded a motion which Your Honour put to the house. At that point the Leader of the Opposition (Mr. Drew) rose to speak and after he had proceeded briefly he asked this question:
Do I gather that some members opposite do not think the rules were properly applied?
That was the first opportunity that any member of the government had had to raise a point of order. The Minister of Finance (Mr. Harris) raised again the point of order which he had raised at six o'clock and once more drew Your Honour's attention to the fact that no intervening business could occur, and that the only purpose of Your Honour being in the chair was to put the appeal of the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre which had been reported to the house at 5.15. The remarks made at that moment by the Minister of Finance will be found at page 4531. When the hon. Leader of the Opposition said this afternoon that there had been no objection to the course which was being followed he evidently overlooked this paragraph in the second column of page 4531, which reads:


Hon. W. E. Harris (Minister of Finance):: Mr. Speaker. I do raise a point of order now that the Leader of the Opposition (Mr. Drew) has made that inquiry. As I recall the situation, a short while ago Your Honour ruled that you must put the question which was submitted to you from the committee of the whole. From that ruling there was an appeal to the house and the house upheld your decision. That being the case I suggest to Your Honour that no intervening proceeding can occur, because you had in effect said that the interpretation of the rule was that you must then put the motion. If that is so then I suggest that nothing can happen until-


Mr. Rowe:: You have thrown the rules away.


Mr. Speaker:: The matter raised by the hon. member for Nanaimo (Mr. Cameron) is one of privilege and is one that is very serious. I had not seen the letter entitled "They Will Pay" but I had read the letter written by Mr. Eugene Forsey, in which he discusses instances in which I was myself involved. It would seem to me, however, that in a matter of this kind the thing to do, after having placed ourselves in a position where we can deal with the matter, especially since I am concerned. is to postpone the consideration of that motion.
Normally when a member brings to the attention of the house an article which concerns privilege and in which someone in the house is involved, after he has made his motion it is up to the other member
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involved to be heard. If hon. members care to debate this matter before I myself am heard on the subject, I am not going to object; I am just going to let them go right ahead, but at one stage of the proceedings I want to say that I will have to be heard.
There was no decision made upon the point of order or the motion. The motion was before you, and on that and on another occasion you had suggested that the matter should not be further considered but should be adjourned. As recorded at the foot of the second column of page 4532, this is what you said, sir:
As regards the article by Mr. Eugene Forsey, in which he writes under the title "About Closure, the Speaker, and Rights of Parliament", there may be more paragraphs there which are incriminatory, but certainly not the whole of the article. This is a matter on which perhaps I might give a ruling on a future occasion, but at this moment I would ask hon. members to consider that there is a very serious matter before this house, perhaps much more serious than one foresees at this moment in the midst of other proceedings. I repeat the suggestion I made earlier, that this matter for the moment be adjourned.
Your suggestion was not accepted, and the Leader of the Opposition said:
Mr. Speaker, with deference, I do not believe this should be adjourned.
He went on to discuss the matter until we reached the hour of ten o'clock. You had already made it quite clear that you felt you might have to make a ruling upon the question at some time. On the following morning, when the matter was called, you did give the ruling that was cited in the Votes and Proceedings of June 1 by the Leader of the Opposition. I shall not read it again. You stated at that time that you were sufficiently informed and did not need to hear any further discussion on the point of order, or the matter as to whether or not this was a proper motion relating to privilege.
Sir, it has always been my understanding that points of order were not matters for debate. Points of order were matters to be decided by the Speaker, about which any remarks that were made by hon. members were not remarks in the form of a debate but remarks designed to inform the Speaker, to call his attention to certain other precedents or to what should, in their view, be the manner in which the point of order should be decided.
These rules in their application, sir, are made to protect the rights of parliament in the psychological atmosphere where the business of parliament is being carried out. They are not rules designed to furnish weapons to delay the passage of the regular business of the house. If it were to be decided that when a point of order is raised it is a subject that is open to debate for every hon.


Donald Methuen Fleming: Why not give them a chance?


Mr. St. Laurent (Quebec East):: This situation will appear to many, in spite of the elevated tone of the addresses made in the house this afternoon by the Leader of the Opposition (Mr. Drew) and by the leader of the C.C.F. party, as being one more attempt to prevent the majority in parliament from reaching a point where it would be entitled to vote upon the propriety or otherwise of this controversial measure.


George Alexander Drew: Mr. Speaker, I must intervene on a question of privilege. I think it is a most improper suggestion that a matter
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brought forward in this way should in any way be suggested as a means of delaying debate in the pipe-line proceedings.


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Mr. Speaker:: Order.


George Alexander Drew: I repudiate any suggestion of that kind and greatly regret that the Prime Minister (Mr. St. Laurent) would have thought of making such a suggestion.


Louis Stephen St-Laurent: Mr. Speaker, not even the Prime Minister could avoid thinking that each and every move that has been made since the pipe-line resolution was first brought before the house was designed to prevent it from reaching a point where it might become a statute of the Canadian parliament. It may be that hon. members will contend that we have improperly used the closure rule, that we have improperly attempted to make the will of the majority prevail in the House of Commons. That also was dealt with by the Montreal Star on June 2, and I think there is much in this editorial that is deserving even of the reflection of hon. members opposite.
The editorial reads:
The pipe line debate in the House of Commons began formally on May 10, though the subject had been frequently discussed long before that date. Today is June 2, ample time, one would think, for adequate public discussion of the merits and demerits of the legislation. The bill, however, has not yet passed. If the Progressive Conservatives and C.C.P. parties have their way it never will. Their way, it is to be noted, is turbulent. Loss of temper, either feigned or real, is frequent.
Since May 10, on every conceivable pretext, these two parties have with endless ingenuity blocked or attempted to block the orderly passage of the bill. This is their right. They both disapprove the measure, though on very different grounds. They conceive it to be their solemn duty to kill it if they can.
The government, on the other hand, is equally determined to pass the pipe line bill into law, as it possesses a large majority in the House of Commons, its success is likely.
To read Hansard for the last three weeks is to be given the impression that there is something dirty about the word "majority". It happens, however, to be quite respectable. A democracy works by majority rule. There is no other way it can work, and the government is just as entitled to use the rules and procedures of the House of Commons to make the majority will effective as the opposition is to block it. The air has been filled with hot air and nonsense about the death of liberty because the government has used the weapon of closure. Closure has been applied in the British House of Commons 122 times in the last five years,-


Mr. Diefenbaker:: By agreement, mostly.


Walter Edward Harris: Nonsense.


Louis Stephen St-Laurent: The article continues:
-and liberty seems to be doing all right over there.

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Donald Methuen Fleming: A different thing altogether.


Louis Stephen St-Laurent: Yes; a different thing, in a different climate, and a different conduct by the opposition.


Donald Methuen Fleming: A very different kind of government.


Louis Stephen St-Laurent: It is a very different atmosphere. You find no revolt against constituted authority there, and even when there is dissatisfaction, no attempt to resist the processes that have been established by the practice of centuries to bring about orderly government in organized society.


Donald Methuen Fleming: You will find even-handed justice there.


Louis Stephen St-Laurent: The second charge, if I may call it so, in this motion is that Mr. Speaker repeatedly refused to allow members to address the house on occasions when the rules provide that they have the right to be heard.
I have carefully examined Hansard for June 1 and I can find no occasion when Your Honour refused to hear any hon. member when he had the right to be heard under the rules. On the contrary, I find several occasions on which Your Honour, as a courtesy, permitted hon. members opposite to speak on Friday when they had no absolute right under the rules to interrupt the proceedings. The first attempt is reported at page 4537 of Hansard, immediately after you made your ruling on the motion of the hon. member for Nanaimo (Mr. Cameron). At that point the Leader of the Opposition (Mr. Drew) rose and said:
Are you prepared to hear any discussion on that, because-
And you indicated that you were not prepared to hear discussion. I would remind hon. members that, at that point, the Speaker had just completed a ruling, that rulings of the Speaker are not debatable under our rules, and that the only legal recourse open to an hon. member who is dissatisfied with a ruling of the Chair is to appeal the ruling. That right was exercised by the Leader of the Opposition. The second case is to be found at page 4540. Your Honour had completed a statement about the business of the House and you had actually put the question:
Those who are in favour of sustaining the Speaker's ruling will please say yea.
Then some hon. members had said "Yea". Then the Leader of the Opposition-who I submit was clearly out of order to do this when Your Honour was on his feet-interrupted the proceedings and claimed to be rising on a question of privilege. At the same

time the hon. member for Eglinton (Mr. Fleming) also sought to take the floor although the Speaker was on his feet. Your Honour permitted the Leader of the Opposition to rise. Instead of stating a question of privilege the Leader of the Opposition attempted to make a motion of want of confidence in the Speaker. Your Honour properly ruled, I think, at that point that such a motion must go on the order paper and that there must be 48 hours' notice.
Instead of proceeding with the vote on which Your Honour had already embarked you extended to the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre (Mr. Knowles) the courtesy of speaking on a point of order to the effect that the hon. gentleman had already made a motion to adjourn the house before Your Honour had embarked upon that proceeding. Your Honour allowed the hon. member's point of order. I refer to the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre-that he had been entitled to have his motion put. You put the motion and it was defeated. At that point the hon. member for Eglinton rose on a point of order and was heard. Your Honour pointed out that his observations did not relate to the matter before the house and the hon. member for Eglinton said, "Perhaps I can stake out a claim".


Donald Methuen Fleming: He did not hear me. That is not right.


Walter Edward Harris: Page 4542 of Hansard.


Donald Methuen Fleming: The Speaker did not hear my point of order then.


Louis Stephen St-Laurent: No. The
hon. member said, "Perhaps I can stake out a claim", as though there were anything in the rules to give any hon. member the right to preempt a position in the house for some future occasion.


Donald Methuen Fleming: How ridiculous!


Louis Stephen St-Laurent: Your Honour rose and had completed part of your speech when you were interrupted by the hon. member for Nanaimo (Mr. Cameron) who claimed the right to speak on a question of privilege. He was not allowed to proceed, quite properly, because Your Honour had the floor. Your Honour then indicated again the course of action which you were proposing to take, upon which the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre, the hon. member for Eglinton and the hon. member for Kamloops were all permitted to speak on a point of order. Then Your Honour indicated that you intended to proceed with routine proceedings before placing before the house the course of action which you had already outlined.

At this point the Minister of Finance (Mr. Harris) again rose and said this:
Mr. Speaker, some time ago I thought you had come to this point. In fact, I have already said that I supported the proposition that you were putting before the house, and I hope that you do put it before the house for the reasons you have given.
The Minister of Finance was here alluding to the course of action Your Honour had been putting before the house and on which you had called for and obtained the "yeas".


John George Diefenbaker: What page was that?


Mr.   Si. Laureni@Quebec East: Page 4543. Notwithstanding the submission of the Minister of Finance as leader of the house that you should put the question to the house, Your Honour decided to proceed first with the routine proceedings of the house. In other words, at this point the question of the government, as expressed by the Minister of Finance, was not accepted by Your Honour and we have no criticism whatsoever of Your Honour for not accepting the minister's suggestion. On the routine proceedings the hon. member for Nanaimo was heard on an alleged question of privilege. Then as reported at page 4544 of Hansard Your Honour interrupted him in the following words:
Order. The hon. member at this moment is not stating a proper question of privilege.
Then we had the incident to which I have already referred and about which I read to the house the only authority I have been able to find in Redlich, volume 2, at the page I have cited. If one examines Hansard one will find that there is not a single instance where any hon. member had a right to speak and was refused that right; but there are examples of the courtesy which you extended to some hon. members although they had no real right to be heard, according to the rules.
The fact is, as Your Honour indicated on Friday, that, because you had made what you yourself described as a serious mistake, the rules of the house had been disregarded to what amounted to the prejudice of the government in this contention over the effort to bring the measure then before the house to the point where it could be voted upon.


John George Diefenbaker: To the prejudice of the government, did the Prime Minister say?


Donald Methuen Fleming: Yes, that is what he said; "to the prejudice of the government".


Louis Stephen St-Laurent: To the prejudice of the government's position. With respect to the procedure in the house the Minister of Finance, as leader of the house, had drawn Your Honour's attention to this disregard of the rules and practice, first in the 67509-296
House of Commons
afternoon and then in the evening of Thursday. On neither occasion had Your Honour seen fit to rule on the point of order raised by the Minister of Finance. When on Friday Your Honour put to the house the question that the house, which is the master of its own proceedings, should be placed in exactly the same position it was when you resumed the chair on Thursday to submit the chairman's ruling, you were met by very strong objections and there occurred the incidents which we all deplore.
Now I recognize, sir, that strong feelings and great heat have been demonstrated in this debate. I recognize that hon. gentlemen opposite felt, and probably still feel, that the government has applied standing order 33 with undue severity. We do not feel we have done so. We have acted within the rules to protect the rights of all hon. members on both sides of the house to express their opinion by their vote on this measure in time to be effective. There is a legitimate difference between two sides of the house; it is the normal working of our parliamentary system. On Thursday, I will not deny we were disappointed at the manner in which the rules had been applied, but we created no scene. We made no manifestation. We submitted to that.
On Friday Your Honour, having examined the situation and having come to the conclusion that you should at the first opportunity put the appeal that normally should have been put at five o'clock on the day before, without nullifying any proceeding, you proceeded to submit to the house the question as to whether that should be done. The house having approved that course, you did so.
There was, and still is apparently, the suggestion that in doing so you were subordinating the rules of parliament to the will of the government. Well, we absolutely repudiate any such suggestion. We do say that proceedings of the character of this motion would constitute a very serious precedent that would enable any factious group that was opposed to any bit of legislation to resort to it, and thus prevent the normal operations of the House of Commons in the progress of its business. I should like at this point to refer very briefly to something that was said by an hon. member who was the then hon member for Vancouver East, as recorded at page 41 of Hansard for January 28, 1949:
Surely this is a question of orderly procedure in parliament, and whether we agree with it or not is a matter to be decided by the vote of parliament.
It has been stated, and we must all recognize it, that if there are hon. members who are prepared to vote for this motion

House of Commons
there are very many more on both sides of the house who are prepared to assert by their votes that they still have confidence in the presiding officer of this house. Such a vote would not be a happy situation. It may be an inevitable situation. It is one about which those who have spoken for the other three groups in the house have made their positions clear.
I feel that, on this side of the house, we are entitled to some time for the consideration of what should be the ultimate disposition of this motion. It is not a situation which cannot be cured. It is not a situation which is going to destroy this parliament; and there should be in the minds of reasonable men, after they have had an opportunity of expressing their views, the feeling that, after all, something has to be done to allow parliament to continue to operate in the true traditions of British institutions and to carry on its work effectively. This would not be achieved by the adaption of this kind of motion, and is not apt to be achieved by the repudiation of this kind of motion, no matter what the majority opposed to it.
I therefore move at this time, seconded by the Minister of Finance (Mr. Harris):
That the debate be now adjourned.


Donald Methuen Fleming: Another closure!


Mr. Knowles:: The guillotine again.


Mr. Fulton:: That is your answer to everything; chop it off.
Hellyer	Patterson
Henderson	Pearson
Henry	Philpott
Hollingworth	Pickersgill
Holowach	Pinard
Hosking	Pommer
Houck	Poulin
Howe (Port Arthur)	Power (Quebec South)
Huffman	Power (St. John's West)
Hunter	Proudfoot
James	Prudham
Johnston (Bow River)	Purdy
Jutras	Quelch
Kickham	Ratelle
Lafontaine	Reinke
Lavigne	Richard (Ottawa East)
Leduc (Gatineau)	Richard (St. Maurice-
Lefrangois	Lafleche)
Legare	Richardson
Lesage	Robertson
Low	Robichaud
Lusby	Robinson (Simcoe East)
MacDougall	Roy
MacEachen	St. Laurent (Quebec
MacKenzie	East)
MacNaught	Schneider
Macnaughton	Shipley, Mrs.
McCann	Simmons
McCubbin	Sinclair
McCulloch (Pictou)	Smith (Battle River-
McDonald	Camrose)
Mcllraith	Stick
Mclvor	Stuart (Charlotte)
McLeod	Thibault
McMillan	Tucker
McWilliam	Valois
Marler	Viau
Matheson	Vincent
Menard	Weaver
Michaud	Weir
Mitchell (Sudbury)	Weselak
Monette	White (Waterloo South)
Nickle	Winters-134.
Nixon


John George Diefenbaker: That is the epitome of parliament.
NAYS Messrs:



MR. SPEAKER    QUESTION AS TO PROPRIETY OF PRESIDING OVER HOUSE

[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Angus MacInnis: Mr. Speaker, before the orders of the day are called I should like to direct a question to the Prime Minister. I should like to ask the Prime Minister if it is fair to ask Your Honour to preside over the sittings of this house when the motion which we were debating this afternoon still stays on the order paper without a decision by the house?


Louis Stephen St-Laurent: Mr. Speaker, I understand that,
however distressing it may be to Your Honour, it is your duty to preside in the house even as you did during the course of the discussion on the motion the debate on which has just now been adjourned. I can see no reason why there should be any kind of admission that this motion is warranted.


Major James William Coldwell: May
I ask a supplementary question. I think the Prime Minister missed the point of my hon. friend's question. The question was whether it is fair, not only to the Speaker but to hon. gentlemen who have criticized the Speaker, that the Speaker should remain in the chair until this matter is settled. I think the matter should be settled and then perhaps we can arrive at a good basis again.


Louis Stephen St-Laurent: It is my
understanding, Mr. Speaker, that, under the statute and the interpretation of the rules by Bourinot, you are required to continue to occupy your office even though there may be a question which concerns you personally involved in the proceedings.


Stanley Howard Knowles: Mr. Speaker, may I direct a supplementary question either to the Prime Minister or to the leader of the house. In view of the Prime Minister's assertion that on important matters the house should be permitted to reach a decision, will he undertake that when this motion is reached again on the order paper in its ordinary place the debate thereon will proceed?


Louis Stephen St-Laurent: Mr. Speaker, the business of the house will be announced in due course.


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh.

On the orders of the day:


John George Diefenbaker: should like to ask a supplementary question of the Prime Minister. Does he suggest that, having adjourned the debate on this important motion before it, the house has no right to know when the matter is coming up again?
67509-296J
House of Commons
Is this but another example of the kind of thing we have to put up with-


Some hon. Members:: Order.


Louis Stephen St-Laurent: No, this is not an example of anything that anybody has to put up with. It is a decision of the house that the debate is adjourned, and I cannot at this moment tell the hon. gentleman when it will be possible to continue the debate, but it is not a matter that can be delayed very long.


An hon. Member:: Does the Prime Minister have no immediate plans?


Stanley Howard Knowles: Mr. Speaker, may I ask
a supplementary question? Does the Prime Minister realize that, according to the way the order paper is set up, this adjourned debate will be on page 2 of the order paper tomorrow under routine proceedings and that the house will be permitted to proceed with it unless the government takes the initiative in preventing that debate?

On the orders of the day:


Mr. E. G. McCullough (Moose Mounlain):: I should like to direct another question to the Prime Minister. In view of the fact that the house now has voted against the motion to carry on the debate of the censure motion, and in view of the Prime Minister's statement, can the Prime Minister inform the house now whether this chamber will proceed on the rules of the house rather than on a majority rule?


Louis Stephen St-Laurent: This house has always proceeded on the rules of the house.

On the orders of the day:


John George Diefenbaker: I should like to ask the Prime Minister a question, and I do so for the sake of information. Does he not consider that it would be manifestly unfair to Mr. Speaker not to have this matter dealt with at the earliest possible date, and when it comes up tomorrow will he give the assurance that it will be proceeded with immediately instead of being allowed to remain over?


Louis Stephen St-Laurent: No, I cannot give the hon. gentleman that assurance. I consider that it is a matter that should be dealt with expeditiously and will be dealt with expeditiously.


Donald Methuen Fleming: Why not today?



USE OF RED ENSIGN IN HOUSE ON MAY 25

[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. A. W. Stuart (Charlotte):: I should like to direct a question to the Minister of Public Works. Was the red ensign used on the after-
4662	HOUSE OF
Inquiries of the Ministry rioon of May 25 to drape the chair of the hon. member for Eglinton (Mr. Fleming) the property of the Department of Public Works? If so, how did it come to the hands of the hon. member for Hamilton West (Mrs. Fair-clough)? Can the minister assure the house that there is a sufficient supply available for other members of parliament who may need them?


Hon. Robert H. Winters (Minister of Public Works):: To the best of my knowledge the flag was not the property of the Department of Public Works. I have asked to have the matter investigated, and I expect I shall have a full report later.


George Alexander Drew: I wish to direct a question to the Minister of Public Works. I assume the Minister of Public Works has issued no orders that restrict the use of the flags that are available in this building for appropriate purposes.


Robert Henry Winters: To the best of my knowledge the flag was not the property of the Department of Public Works.



INQUIRY AS TO POSSIBLE INCREASE IN PREMIUM

[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Edward George McCullough: Mr. Speaker, I should like to direct a question to the parliamentary assistant to the Minister of Agriculture, as I understand the minister is away at the present time. Can the parliamentary assistant inform the house whether the government is giving consideration to increasing the premium on bacon hogs from $2 to $4?


Mr. Roberi McCubbin (Parliamentary Assistant to the Minister of Agriculture):: Mr. Speaker, I shall take the hon. member's question as notice and an answer will be given later.


Edward George McCullough: I should like to ask a supplementary question. Can the parliamentary assistant inform the house whether or not the government has given any consideration to making the floor price which is applicable at Montreal equalized throughout the various provinces?


Robert McCubbin: Of course that is a matter of government policy, and these things will be announced in due course, as any changes are made.



PRIVILEGE


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. W. G. Dinsdale (Brandon-Souris):: I rise on a question of privilege, Mr. Speaker, to make a correction in Hansard on page 457 of Friday last. The hon. member for Iles-de-la-Madeleine (Mr. Cannon) said:
How did that flag happen to be in this house or in the lobby?
The next line states:


Walter Gilbert Dinsdale: It was an organized affair.


An hon. Member:: Honesty is the best policy.


Donald Methuen Fleming: Why don't you start that practice, and soon?


Walter Gilbert Dinsdale: Hon. members will recall that that was a very noisy period during that particular part of the sitting. Certainly that observation did not come from me. It gives me the opportunity to say that I was aware that when the motion for suspension was moved a frantic search took place for the flag. It was not premeditated in any way.



COMBINES INVESTIGATION ACT


[Stage Direction]
fishermen's union
On the orders of the day:
Mr. F. G. J. Hahn (New Wesiminsier):: should like to direct a question to the Minister of Justice or, in his absence through illness, to the Secretary of State. Would the minister make a statement regarding the charges circulated in a letter to the British Columbia member of parliament by the united fishermen and allied workers' union to the effect that there are certain irregularities in the methods employed by departmental officials in carrying out their duties in obtaining information from the union, as compared with the canners with whom they are associated?


Hon. Roch Pinard (Secretary of Slate):: Before answering this question I wish to say that notice of the question was sent to the office of the Minister of Justice, who is away through illness, and it was referred to me for an answer. Before giving a reply, I would refer my hon. friend to the practice in matters of this kind that was outlined on May 21 last by the Minister of Justice in his statement, and I quote his words then:
The general rule is that no information is given out as to whether or not an inquiry is being pursued in a particular industry unless and until a report is made to the minister by the restrictive trade practices commission and duly published.

Later on in his remarks, the minister qualified that by saying that the parties themselves appeared to have made public the fact that there was an investigation going on. With these qualifications, I am ready to answer the hon. member concerning the charges to the effect that the canning companies were not treated, in the matter of search, in the same manner as the union to which he has referred. I can assure him that all questions as to premises to be visited and the order in which they are visited are being dealt with in the ordinary way and without any discrimination. I should like to add that I feel, as the minister said at the time, that no other information should be given at this time on the matter.



PIPE LINES


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Stanley Howard Knowles: Mr. Speaker, may I direct a question to the Minister of Trade and Commerce. I wonder whether he has obtained the answer to my question of May 29, as to whether there has been any correspondence, confidential or otherwise, between himself and Trans-Canada Pipe Lines Limited at any time since May 8 of this year.


Right Hon. C. D. Howe (Minister of Trade and Commerce):: I did obtain the information and I am sorry I have not given it. There has been no correspondence.



NORTHERN ONTARIO PIPE LINE CORPORATION


Clarence Decatur Howe: the third reading of Bill No. 298, to establish the Northern Ontario Pipe Line Crown Corporation.


Louis Stephen St-Laurent: Mr. Speaker, on the motion there is not very much that I feel is required to be said. The bill is in the same form in which it was introduced and in which it received second reading and in the form in which it was for several days before the committee of the whole house. There have been no suggestions that there should be any changes in its language or form, and it now comes up for regular consideration on the motion for third reading in the normal way.
Pursuant to standing order 33, I wish to give notice that immediately before the
4, 1956	4663
Northern Ontario Pipe Line Corporation order of the day is next called for resuming the debate on the motion for the third! reading of Bill No. 298, an act to establish tiie-Northern Ontario Pipe Line Crown Corpora-, tion and on any amendments thereto, I shall1 move that the said debate shall not be further adjourned.


Some hon. Members:: Shame.


Stanley Howard Knowles: I rise on a question of privilege. In his remarks just now in giving:, notice of this motion the Prime Minister said,, if I heard him correctly, that there have been< no suggestions made as to any changes im the form of the bill. There might have been something else in what he said, but substantially that was the import of what he intimated to the house just now. I remind you, sir, that I indicated when Your Honour was in the chair before second reading was called that the bill should be made to include the agreement referred to in clause 7 of the bill.


Mr. Pickersgill:: That is not a question of privilege.


George Alexander Drew: Oh, stop admonishing the house.


Mr. Speaker:: Does the hon. gentleman contend that in what he has just said he had a genuine question of privilege?


Stanley Howard Knowles: I do, sir. The Prime Minister made a misstatement and you, sir, have said that when a misstatement is made the time for a member to correct that misstatement is after the person who makes the misstatement sits down. I waited until the Prime Minister sat down and raised my question of privilege at the very time that you have told us we should raise such questions of privilege.


Donald Methuen Fleming: On the same point, it will be remembered that when clause 1 of the bill was called in committee and closure was moved on clause 1, I stated then that I had an amendment I wished to move on that clause and subsequent clauses and had no opportunity to do so owing to the guillotine applied by the government.


Edmund Davie Fulton: You will also recall, Mr. Speaker, that just before the bill went into committee motions were made that instructions be issued to the committee as to specific amendments, which motions Your Honour ruled out of order at that time, but the suggestions were very specific.


Mr. Sinclair:: Four members have now spoken in the debate. Carried.


John George Diefenbaker: We are to be harassed out of existence.
4664	HOUSE OF
Northern Ontario Pipe Line Corporation


George Alexander Drew: Mr. Speaker, the manner in which the Prime Minister (Mr. St. Laurent) has introduced this motion for third reading is as accurate an expression of the attitude of the government toward the business of the house and towards the house itself as anything which has come before the house in recent days. It displays the utter contempt of the government for parliament and for the business that is before the house. The Prime Minister as head of the government on this occasion chose to rise on the third reading of a bill which relates to what has been described to us as one of the greatest and most important ventures to come before this country for some considerable time, and simply tell us that there is not very much that requires to be said.
There is a great deal that requires to be said. There is a great deal that requires to be said about the steps by which we have come to this ignominous position in dealing with this bill. We have had exactly the same conduct on the part of the government at each stage, but at least it can be said that on no earlier occasion was there such a summary dismissal of the proceedings before parliament as that *with which the Prime Minister has placed (before the house for third reading a bill of .such importance as is suggested by government spokesmen.
Then again, there was the statement by the Prime Minister, in the very few words he spoke before he again applied the gag, that there had been no suggestion that there should be any change in the language or form of this legislation. What a travesty on what has taken place. There were plenty of changes that were going to be made. There were (plenty of changes that would have been suggested if the government had dealt in an orderly and sensible way with the legislation which is now before the house.
Let us just review what has taken place, now that we have reached the very final stage, again under the shadow of the axe. The first stage in the introduction of the bill was a motion standing in the name of the Minister of Trade and Commerce (Mr. Howe) that it was expedient that the bill be introduced. That was the first step. That motion was brought before the house long months after it had been announced in the speech from the throne that legislation of this nature would be brought before us. The government waited until the very last possible day to introduce this legislation, and then has talked of the need of haste.
In January the government knew what was needed. In January the government, in the speech from the throne, stated that we would
,[Mr. Diefenbaker.l

receive legislation of this kind; yet it only came before us three weeks ago today. That is the haste that has been precipitated and forced on this house by the government as a result of its dilatory conduct since this legislation was first announced on January 10 of this year.
When the resolution came forward three weeks ago today, before a single word had been said by any member of the opposition the Minister of Trade and Commerce introduced the first closure motion. That was unprecedented in the history of this house. That was the use of the axe in the most coldblooded manner. Never before has anyone ever thought of introducing closure before there has even been an indication from the opposition as to its views on the particular measure in question. Do not let anyone say there had been views expressed before. This measure only came forward in these very recent weeks after the government had decided to change its original course and halt the proceedings which began on March 15 of this year.
Then in the ordinary course of events we came to second reading. Again there was closure. Then we came to the committee stage, which is the stage where the bill can be discussed in detail. The Prime Minister says today there was no suggestion that there should be any changes in the language or form. What chance did the government give us to deal with this bill properly? None whatever. The moment clause 1 was called the Minister of Trade and Commerce immediately applied a particularly vicious form of closure and moved the adjournment of consideration of that clause. The moment clause 2 was called the same procedure was followed. Again there was closure of this special type. Clause 2 is the defining clause, the clause that tells us what the terms mean, all the terms that give meaning to the language and form-to use the words of the Prime Minister-of the rest of the act.
Then the third clause was the clause which established a corporation. The Prime Minister said, "Oh, we thought we would just pass over these clauses so we could come to the clauses that were the important ones". That clause establishing the corporation was an important clause, as also was clause 2. Then clause 4 was called. Obviously at that time the ears of the government had been opened a little, not too much, and it was decided to permit a limited amount of debate. On that occasion there was actually a discussion on clause 4.
Mr. Speaker, there has been talk of obstruction. The delay there has been, the discussion there has been, has related to the

rights of the members of this house as representatives of the people of Canada, and the discussion which has taken place here has been a fight for the right of the people of Canada to have their legislation properly presented in this house.
Now the legislation is before us in its final stage, and it is clear that the government is not prepared to concede the possibility of any change. In what it has done today in moving closure once again the government makes it clear that it is determined to go ahead with this act unrevised and unchanged.
This act is a mongrel if ever there was one. We have first of all an act that was framed with the idea of setting up the Northern Ontario Pipe Line Crown Corporation. Then instead of revising the act to make it an intelligible piece of legislation we find that the government has left there part II which has nothing to do with the northern Ontario part of the line but which provides for the section of 574 miles from the Alberta boundary to the vicinity of Winnipeg.
This act in its dual form does two strange things. First of all it sets up a crown corporation which is going to receive-if the act is passed as the government is determined it shall be-$130 million of public funds. For what purpose is that $130 million advanced? For the purpose of building the northern Ontario section of the pipe line. Is that $130 million to be used for that purpose? Certainly not within the framework of this act for the time being, because part II of the act provides that of that $130 million up to $80 million is to be advanced, by the crown corporation set up for the purpose of building the northern Ontario pipe line, to Trans-Canada Pipe Lines for the purpose of building that western section. That is not one of the declared purposes of the Northern Ontario Pipe Line Crown Corporation, and it is not a proper use of the funds that are to be advanced to the Northern Ontario Pipe Line Crown Corporation.
We objected in the first instance to the advancing of Canadian funds in this way to build a pipe line, to the use of Canadian money for the purpose of handing over a pipe line to a company which is 83 per cent United States owned. Again we have this confused picture; Canadian money is to be used for the purpose of financing a venture that was to have been financed by the Trans-Canada Pipe Lines company itself. But we have this dual arrangement: Advance the money for the construction of the western portion and deny immediately to the Northern Ontario Pipe Line Crown Corporation the opportunity to build, until that money is repaid, the part of the pipe line which it was intended to
4, 1956	4665
Northern Ontario Pipe Line Corporation build. That is using this crown corporation's money for a purpose that was never intended.
Mr. Speaker, over and over again we have heard talk about the desire of this government to welcome investment from the United States. It is not getting the investment from the United States. We have heard from this government that Canadians cannot finance this effort. Canadians are going to finance this effort simply because this government is going to use the Canadian taxpayers' money, whether or not they want it to do so. They are not even going to let the Canadian taxpayer have a chance to say what he wants done about this matter. We have urged for some time that this government take this matter to the people. There was never any suggestion that the Canadian taxpayers' money was to be used for the financing of a venture of this kind. The government has no mandate whatever to use the Canadian taxpayers' money in this way.
Whether or not the money will be repaid by Trans-Canada Pipe Lines, the fact remains that to the extent of over $200 million this government is proceeding to help to finance this United States-controlled organization. Let it not be said that this is just an advance which will be repaid. From time to time we hear of rotating funds. This is a rotating fund if, in fact, it rotates. This is a fund which, first of all, helps in the financing of the western section up to 90 per cent of the cost, and then in one way or another proceeds with the construction of the northern Ontario section if the government goes ahead with that venture.
Whether Trans-Canada Pipe Lines repays or not, the financing of the western section up to $80 million is to be done with public money; and then in turn, if the government proceeds, up to $130 million is to be used by the crown corporation for the construction of the northern Ontario section. That means- and it means nothing else-that over $200 million of public money is to be used in helping to finance a company which said it could finance this whole venture without government assistance.
Here we are at the third reading stage and the Prime Minister, instead of telling us today that there was not very much to be said, could well have been explaining to us at this late date why it is that he is now supporting a plan which he said last year he did not like. He has not yet at any stage explained when the transition occurred and when he moved from plan 1 and plan 2 to plan 3 and gave it his blessing and approval. Not only has he not explained why he is accepting this plan which he did not like, namely the northern Ontario construction under the
4666	HOUSE OF
Northern Ontario Pipe Line Corporation crown corporation. He certainly has not explained in any satisfactory way how he justifies that still greater expenditure of public money to build this western section in the way it is to be built.
Last night I listened to a panel discussion over television, when a number of men who have interested themselves in the trans-Canada pipe line were discussing this subject. One of the things which interested me greatly was the extent to which even those who have followed this matter very closely do not yet realize that there has been a great departure from the original plan and that, far from having a venture which is being financed by United States investment, we now have the reverse of what was originally proposed here in this House of Commons; that instead of having a venture financed by United States investment, we have a venture financed by Canadian taxpayers' money and the advantages turned over to a company that is controlled in the United States, under an arrangement which will give the profits to the stockholders in the United States.
I have said this before and now on this motion for third reading I say it once again: If a group of Canadian investors, headed by someone who happened to know the minister responsible at Washington, went down there and asked them to put up the funds of the United States taxpayers to finance a Canadian venture which would have substantial control over great gas resources in the United States, does any hon. member opposite suggest for a moment that there would be the slightest chance of any person in congress doing anything but laughing at the proposal?


Clarence Decatur Howe: Would my hon. friend like a case of that kind? I would suggest Steep Rock might be a case, where the United States government put up $10 million.


George Alexander Drew: That case has no similarity
whatever to the case in question. In that particular case, about which the Minister of Trade and Commerce knows a great deal, his friend Cyrus Eaton succeeded in arranging-


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh.


Clarence Decatur Howe: He is not my
friend.


George Alexander Drew: -succeeded in arranging a loan from Washington because of the assurance that the United States was going to be able to get iron ore out of a Canadian mine after this company was organized.


Clarence Decatur Howe: I would ask my hon. friend, as a matter of courtesy to me, to withdraw his statement "my friend".


George Alexander Drew: He certainly tells everybody he is your friend, and I certainly would be very surprised if he is not because the Minister of Trade and Commerce and Mr. Cyrus Eaton have worked in close co-operation, not only in connection with Steep Rock but also in connection with the iron ore mine in Ungava, with which he has had something to do.


Clarence Decatur Howe: Once again I
must intervene. I did not work with Mr. Cyrus Eaton on the iron mines in Ungava. I worked with three gentlemen from my own district who were the discoverers and owners of Steep Rock, and when Mr. Eaton entered the scene I retired.


George Alexander Drew: Retired from what?


Clarence Decatur Howe: Any further
interest in it.


George Alexander Drew: The minister is certainly seeing something sinister in the word "friendship" or the word "friend". I would have thought he would have immediately claimed the friendship of Mr. Cyrus Eaton. Certainly there are many who have done so. Mr. Cyrus Eaton is a Canadian who has made a great success in business in the United States. When the minister talks about there being a parallel, I talked about Canadians going down there. Mr. Cyrus Eaton is carrying on business in the United States. He got the advance from the government at Washington because that mine was going to be made a captive mine to the iron smelting industry in the United States; that was the reason.
Of course I would point out that there is some affinity in another way, because one of the purposes for which the gas is going to be used which will cross the border at Emerson, if this plan goes through is that 152 million of the 200 million cubic feet a day that are supposed to cross that border are to go to three of the steel companies in the United States which will be competing with steel companies in Canada, where we could still be using that gas in competition with them. In fact it is likely that some of the gas will be used for the purpose of processing Canadian iron ore on the other side of the boundary. There is no similarity between the two situations at all.
I repeat, since I was interrupted in that statement by the Minister of Trade and Commerce, that any group of Canadians who went to the congress of the United States with the proposition that they should incorporate a company under Canadian control which was going to have a substantial monopoly on the resources of the gas areas in the United States, and then asked the government of the United States to put up the money to finance the

venture, would be laughed out of congress.
I am inclined to think someone would suggest that they go before a doctor to see if they should be certified. It is not possible even to imagine that such a proposal would be made. Certainly it would be considered least of all if, in the proposal that was made, they made it quite clear that Canadians were going to get the United States gas cheaper than the people of the United States were. Yet that is the situation with which we are confronted here today.
Some question has been raised about the cost of gas in the United States and in Canada. Some question was raised about the accuracy of figures that were put before the house. I propose to place before hon. members the figures that were submitted to the federal power commission on April 11, 1956, by Mr. B. E. Lowe, in support of his evidence on behalf of Trans-Canada Pipe Lines Limited. Reference has already been made to these figures by the hon. member for Prince Albert.
We have the statement of the Trans-Canada Pipe Lines company itself as to what the average cost of the gas is going to be at various points. These figures were used in support of the application of Trans-Canada Pipe Lines for permission to import this gas into the United States. I wonder if part of their argument was that this was a desirable thing for the United States because in spite of the fact that the gas is produced in Canada, it is going to be sold to United States consumers cheaper than it is to Canadian consumers in Canada. That is the situation.


John Whitney Pickersgill: The same old fable.


George Alexander Drew: What interjection did I hear from the pipsqueak?


John Whitney Pickersgill: I said, the same old fable.


George Alexander Drew: Mr. Speaker, it is now six o'clock.
At six o'clock the house took recess.


[Stage Direction]
AFTER RECESS

The house resumed at eight o'clock.
George Alexander Drew: Mr. Speaker, when the house rose at six o'clock I was dealing with the statement of average prices of gas, according to the statement filed by Trans-Canada Pipe Lines in Washington in April of this year. I want to put those figures on the record for the year November 1, 1958 to November 1, 1959, because at that time the distribution will have been spread out over the various units that will be receiving gas from Trans-Canada Pipe Lines.
1956	466?
Northern Ontario Pipe Line Corporation
I know there is a difference in load factor, and the suggestion was made that this in itself presented some explanation of the difference in prices. If it were possible for me to place on record in Hansard the various tables which show the variation depending on the change in load factor I would do so, but this is a very involved compilation of figures and it would not be a practical possibility at this time.
I know what the Canadian consumer will be interested in is the average cost; after all, that is what will determine the cost to the consumer. Now, I would assume that the government, which has shown such unfailing solicitude for Trans-Canada Pipe Lines Limited, will not challenge the accuracy of their own statements. While load factors, may provide an explanation in some degree,, and only in some degree, of some of these differences, the fact remains that these are the average rates per thousand cubic feet of gas at the different points across Canada and at the point where gas will be sold in the United States. These are, of course, wholesale figures to the distributors. As I said before I am taking the year November 1, 1958 to November 1, 1959 as a year when the distribution will have become effective over a fairly wide area.
These are the figures presented to the federal power commission in Washington by Trans-Canada Pipe Lines. They are not mine; they are not the figures of the hon. member for Prince Albert (Mr. Diefenbaker), who first discussed these figures a few days ago. These figures are a part of exhibit X33, docket No. G presented in support of the application of Midwestern Gas Transmission Company in the United States for permission to receive gas from Trans-Canada Pipe Lines for distribution in the United States. These are the figures in the order in which they appear as the average rate per thousand cubic feet: Saskatchewan, 26-6 cents; Manitoba, Winnipeg and Central Gas, 32-9 cents; others, 35 cents; Midwestern Gas Transmission at Emerson, 25-3 cents. That is the place where the gas is sold to the United States. Ontario Union Gas Company, 39 cents; western Ontario to other distributors, 42-2 cents; northern Ontario, 52 * 7 cents; International Nickel, 51-5 cents; North Bay to Toronto, 77-5 cents; Provincial Gas Company, 46-1 cents; Dominion Gas Company, 66 [DOT] 2 cents; Toronto and area, 51-5 cents; east of Toronto to Montreal, 54-7 cents; Ottawa and area, 52-1 cents; undistributed gas delivered at Niagara, 35 [DOT] 67 cents; Quebec-Montreal, 52-1 cents.
Those are the figures submitted by Trans-Canada itself. The significant figures here are the figures at Emerson and at Niagara. Whereas the city of Winnipeg will be paying
4668	HOUSE OF
Northern Ontario Pipe Line Corporation 32-9 cents Emerson, which is some distance beyond that and an extension for some considerable distance of the pipe line from Winnipeg, will be paying only 25-3 cents. Now, let us not be misled by talks about load factor. That is going through the same pipe line. The wholesale price to the Canadian purchaser at Winnipeg is 32-9 cents. The sale price to Midwestern Gas Transmission Company, a subagency of Tennessee Gas at Emerson is 25-3 cents.
Then we have these interesting figures as far as eastern Canada is concerned. The gas will go through the pipe line across northern Ontario when it is completed and Toronto and area will pay 51-5 cents; yet after the gas has gone beyond Toronto and through the pipe line from Toronto to Niagara the Tennessee Gas company or its agent will pay only 35-67 cents at Niagara for the gas to be sold in the United States.
These are the figures put forward by the applicant company. These are the figures put forward by the company that is being financed by this government with the Canadian taxpayers' money. That gas is going to be piped through at a lower figure than it will be available to any Canadian purchaser in the east, and is then going to be stored in the storage areas of Tennessee Gas to balance up their prices so they can use Canadian gas for their gas war in the United States.


Clarence Decatur Howe: Would my hon. friend permit a question?


George Alexander Drew: Surely.


Clarence Decatur Howe: Does he appreciate that practically every town on the route of the gas line has now signed a contract with Trans-Canada stating the terms under which that town will buy gas?


George Alexander Drew: What has that got to do with it?


Clarence Decatur Howe: I wondered who my hon. friend thought he was fooling by putting his figures on the record?


George Alexander Drew: I must say that at this stage it is extremely interesting to hear the Minister of Trade and Commerce talk about anyone fooling this house, when the person who has fooled this house from the very beginning is the Minister of Trade and Commerce.


John Whitney Pickersgill: The one person who has never fooled this house is the Leader of the Opposition.


George Alexander Drew: Are those strange sounds from the same source?


Mr. Hees:: Louder, squeaky.


William Earl Rowe: No wonder you put closure on that deal.


George Alexander Drew: As far as these gas prices are concerned these are the figures that are put before us. Now, if the Canadian taxpayer's money is going to be put up let us assure that we are going to get the advantage of the best prices here in Canada. One of the reasons for these prices in favour of the United States is that this is controlled by a big gas selling organization in the United States which is not concerned about the Canadian market, but is simply concerned about getting gas to sell in the United States at the lowest price possible. That is the reason they are in this venture, and that is what this government is doing with the Canadian taxpayers' money. It is the worst sellout this country has ever seen. The Canadian taxpayers' money is being used to finance an operation of this kind.
Those are the figures. If the Minister of Trade and Commerce wants to talk so much about load factor, then let him explain to us why it is that the Union Gas Company, which is in Ontario and is buying this gas, is going to pay 39 cents as against the price of 35-67 cents paid at the United states frontier at Niagara when the Union Gas Company has its own storage here in Ontario. Why are we not going to store the gas in the available storage in Ontario instead of pumping it over to the United States to keep an equal level over there to give them the advantage of the easier prices?


Clarence Decatur Howe: Mr. Speaker, my hon. friend has asked for an explanation. The explanation is that Trans-Canada is not obliged to deliver any gas at Niagara. Any gas it does deliver there is gas surplus to the system. The rate at Windsor is a rate that is low in comparison with Toronto for the reason that Windsor can take gas at a uniform load throughout the year by reason of the fact that Windsor has available storage.


George Alexander Drew: I am not going to repeat my description of the interjections of the Minister of Trade and Commerce, because I have already applied the appropriate terms to them. The fact is that the figure for distribution in the year between November 1, 1957 and November 1, 1958 at Niagara is 102,000 cubic feet.


Clarence Decatur Howe: Who gave you those figures?


George Alexander Drew: What is that?


Clarence Decatur Howe: Who gave you those figures?


William Earl Rowe: Trans-Canada.


George Alexander Drew: Oh, the Minister of Trade and Commerce says, "Who gave you those .figures?" Those are the figures of your own chosen agent. Those are the figures of the (organization you are financing.


Clarence Decatur Howe: They are absolutely phony figures.


William Earl Rowe: You have these figures yourself.


John George Diefenbaker: They were given in evidence before the federal power commission.


George Alexander Drew: These are the figures given in evidence before the federal power commission in Washington by the company that this government is supporting with the Canadian taxpayers' money.


Clarence Decatur Howe: You might be reading them, but I have never seen them.


George Harris Hees: Those are Clint's own figures.


William Earl Rowe: They are certainly a distortion of the facts.


George Alexander Drew: If there is any distortion in those figures then that is the best possible evidence that this deal should not proceed. If there is any distortion then it is distortion at Washington by the chosen agency of this government, Trans-Canada Pipe Lines Limited, who submitted those figures in the evidence they gave this year in Washington. If the minister wants to talk about people being fooled, and he questions these figures, let him agree to the setting up of a committee now, bring Trans-Canada Pipe Lines here and let us find out where those figures came from.


Clarence Decatur Howe: I placed the correct figures on Hansard. Why does my hon. friend want to put on phony figures?


George Alexander Drew: Mr. Speaker, the Minister of Trade and Commerce has placed figures on the record, and then has had to change them, but the fact is-I repeat if repetition is necessary-that these are the figures put in in solemn evidence before the federal power commission at Washington on April 11 of this year in support of the evidence submitted by Mr. B. E. Lowe of Trans-Canada Pipe Lines Limited when they were seeking approval of their application to deliver gas to Midwestern Gas Transmission Company so that Canadian gas could be distributed in the United States.


Clarence Decatur Howe: Will my hon.
friend please table that document; I would like to see it.


Mr. Speaker:: May I suggest to the minister that if the Leader of the Opposition does not consent he may not speak.
4, 1956	4669
Northern Ontario Pipe Line Corporation


George Alexander Drew: I have fully identified the document. I am convinced the document was in the hands of the Minister of Trade and Commerce before it was submitted at Washington.


Clarence Decatur Howe: You are absolutely wrong.


William Earl Rowe: They are not private and confidential, are they?


George Alexander Drew: That matter stands as something to be explained. It is certainly something for this government to explain, why it is financing the operation which is going to sell our gas more cheaply to United States purchasers than to purchasers here in Canada.
Today we heard some talk about obstruction in this debate. I reviewed today the different stages of this bill. The first motion of closure was moved immediately, before we had said a word. Where was the obstruction there? Second reading, again a motion of closure. Where was the obstruction there?


John Whitney Pickersgill: Not for two days.


George Alexander Drew: I do wish somebody would find a can of oil to end that squeaking door that is moving on the other side.


John Whitney Pickersgill: Very funny.


George Harris Hees: Back to your trawler.


John Whitney Pickersgill: Stick to the facts for a change.


William Earl Rowe: Get up and say it; we did not hear you.


George Alexander Drew: This is not a humorous subject. If it were I might express the hope that the hon. member for Bonavista-Twillingate might have seen the television last night and watched some of his fellow Newfoundlanders singing "Squid Jigging Ground". It would have been a peculiarly appropriate song for the occasion. However, we do not expect songs here tonight and they are not appropriate to the occasion, but I would hope that without any interruption from the same source it might be possible to proceed with these figures, which are facts, and which the hon. member will have an opportunity to examine at any time if he will only seek from the Minister of Trade and Commerce the information which was made available to him by Trans-Canada Pipe Lines Limited.
I was referring to the mention of obstruction that had been made by those opposite, by the Prime Minister (Mr. St. Laurent) today, as though it were an excuse for the procedure that has been followed. I mentioned that on second reading we again had closure moved. I would point out also that when we came to the committee stage, closure of the most arbitrary type was imposed immediately.
4670	HOUSE OF
Northern Ontario Pipe Line Corporation The section was called and it was adjourned before there was any debate.
Yes, we wanted information and we have sought information. Neither the Prime Minister nor any hon. member opposite who adheres to the truth can suggest that they were not given ample opportunity at each stage to provide all the information that was required. In the speech from the throne read on January 10 it was stated that legislation to incorporate a crown corporation would be brought forward. In January I asked that this be referred to a committee so that information could be obtained. I have continued right through this session to ask that this be referred to a committee so we could obtain the information which was essential.
We came into the various stages where there has been closure, and now there is closure on third reading to be applicable tomorrow. We have wanted information, we have sought information. We would like information from Trans-Canada Pipe Lines as to why these deals were made to the disadvantage of Canadian purchasers. Those are the kind of things we want.
Then in case once again the Prime Minister should suggest that we have delayed proceedings here let me remind you that we made a perfectly clear submission on March 15, now considerably more than two and a half months ago. When the first motion for the setting up of the crown corporation was presented to this house I had this to say, and I place it on the record again. I pointed out that there were certain suggestions which I wanted to place before the house. Let no one now suggest that we only came forward at the last minute to ask that this be referred to a committee or that other applicants have an opportunity to build this pipe line and to be heard. Over two and a half months ago this is what I said, as reported at page 2182 of Hansard of March 15:
Before I close I want to put certain suggestions before the house and for the consideration of the government, in the hope that they may be prepared to listen to the words of the Prime Minister when he told the house last year that he did not like this method. First, refer the whole question immediately to a committee of this house to obtain the facts and make appropriate recommendations. Second, insist upon the reorganization of Trans-Canada Pipe Lines as an all-Canadian company which can proceed immediately and under Canadian control. Third, if Trans-Canada cannot carry out its undertaking, then open the whole matter and permit new interests to make their proposals for an all-Canadian line, Canadian controlled. Fourth, if it can be shown, and I doubt that it is so, that part of the pipe line must be built as the government asserts on this occasion, then instead of building a part which could become an orphan under certain circumstances in the future, let them build the whole pipe line and lease it for operation under Canadian control.
rMr. Drew.]

That was the proposal which I placed before the government in explicit terms on March 15 of this year. If a committee had been set up at that time it could have heard all the evidence which would have been submitted. We could have heard from Mr. McMahon, and there is a lot more to be heard about that. The Minister of Finance may laugh but I think the minister knows a great deal more about the McMahon transaction than he has yet disclosed. I think there are other ministers whom I could name who know a great deal more about it and who are not as uninformed on this subject as was the Prime Minister. The Prime Minister had heard nothing whatever about Mr. McMahon's proposal until after the new agreement had been made with Trans-Canada following their default. I think perhaps the Minister of Finance had heard. I should like to hear from him what he knew about Mr. McMahon.
At any rate we have the right to know, and I suggested on March 15 that this should go to a committee so we could obtain information. If that committee had been set up we could have had Mr. Gairdner of Gairdner and Company come here so we could find out what their proposal was. In addition to that we could also have had Mr. Champion come here, whose information was placed before the Minister of Finance. There would also have been many other Canadians who would have come before that committee if it had been set up. What is certain is that there were a great many Canadians who could have undertaken this task if they had received as favourable terms as are being offered by this government to the United States-controlled company now before us, but this government refuses to consider the setting up of a committee.
Every relatively unimportant bill that comes to this house dealing with a matter connected with transportation is referred automatically, as a matter of course, to the committee on railways, canals and telegraph lines. Any small rail line, any small transportation operation that comes before this house by way of a measure to build it or to set it up or to give it rights is submitted automatically to that committee.
Why not in this case? The fact is that in those cases they have nothing to conceal. They expect to have to bring the facts out into the open. In this case the government was not ready to let us have that ordinary committee inquiry to which we were entitled as a matter of course. I need not point out, of course, that every one of these pipe-line applications in the first instance was submitted to that committee. Every charter,

when the application was made, was submitted to this committee automatically before it was dealt with. Why not in this case? I think the answer is clear, but do not let the Prime Minister suggest to us that we did not offer in plenty of time an opportunity for all the facts to be obtained.
Now we recognize the fact that if the Trans-Canada company were prepared to carry out its undertakings, then under the ordinary contractual obligations it would have the right to do so. I remind this house again that when we spoke about the reorganization of Trans-Canada Pipe Lines, we were suggesting that action in view of the fact that this was the organization which without any reservation had stated in this house through its spokesman that it could construct the whole Canadian line without any export and without government assistance. As a matter of fact as recently as last year Mr. Clint Murchison, the favoured figure for this whole transaction, the man who has the largest single block of shares in this whole transaction, this wealthy man who does not put out his money unless he has to-and he certainly is not being called upon to do so in this case-in his letter to the Minister of Trade and Commerce left no doubt about his assertion that this could be built without government assistance. Then all this has fallen apart.
How they must be laughing at us. How Mr. Clint Murchison and Mr. Gardiner Symonds and the other United States promoters associated with this operation must be laughing at us here. They get the charter on the promise that they can build the line and then, just because they are the only people that know everything about it, this government promises to do the major financing with the Canadian taxpayers' money. What nonsense to suggest that these are the only people who can do it. Look at a map of the gas transmission lines in the United States. They are like the veins in the human body. We could engage the services of experts from any one company or scores of companies that have had experience in this line. There is no question about the possibility of being able to get expert skill of this kind that is needed.
Then I go back to the fact that if Trans-Canada was not able to carry out its undertakings, then it had no right to be the chosen instrument any longer. Under those circumstances I proposed on behalf of our party that if Trans-Canada could not carry out this undertaking, then the whole matter should be placed before the committee and the opportunity presented for offers to be made. After all, it was well over two and a half
4, 1956	4671
Northern Ontario Pipe Line Corporation months ago when I made that suggestion, and all the facts could have been accumulated and examined long before this if the proposal had been accepted.
Now we are on third reading, and in presenting the motion I shall before I sit down

I shall present a motion that will cover the points we had raised at that time-I recognize nevertheless that we have now come to a stage when this government has made it quite clear here on third reading, by the further gag they have now imposed, that this is going through and that after the brief period that will elapse in the other place this is going to go forward under the arrangements they have planned, doubtless also under closure there. The habit is catching, unhappily.
But the point is that if anybody opposite asks us if we know the detailed information of how any of these private enterprises would have undertaken this, the answer of course is no. They denied us an opportunity in committee to obtain the information. We say without any reservation that we believe there is enough initiative in Canada for Canadians to have undertaken this if anything even as remotely favourable as is being extended to Trans-Canada Pipe Lines had been extended to Canadians here in our own country.
That has been denied us, and we are denied the opportunity to learn the facts behind the Trans-Canada operation. We therefore come to the fact that it now seems clear that this goverhment is going to proceed with construction of part of the pipe line under government ownership. Let them not pretend any longer that they are not getting into government ownership. They are. The moment this passes and they set up the corporation to build this northern segment, then they are setting up a corporation which will build 675 miles of this pipe line as a publicly-owned pipe line. That being the case, let us see the result.
We have this strange picture. We have the western section of 574 miles from the Alberta border to the vicinity of Winnipeg, to be financed by the Canadian taxpayers' money to the extent of $80 million, or up to 90 per cent of the cost of construction. Then there is the stretch of 110 miles between Winnipeg and the Ontario boundary. We do not know yet how the government is going to help finance that. We have not been told a word about that, not a word as to how they are going to link up the Winnipeg Section with the northern Ontario section. Then comes the northern Ontario section of 674 miles to be built by a crown corporation. Beyond that is the section of 432 miles from Kapuskasing
4672	HOUSE OF
Northern Ontario Pipe Line Corporation to Toronto, and then the pipe line from Toronto to Montreal to complete the whole line.
How are these others to be built? We do not know that, but we know that this government is committing this parliament and the people of Canada to public construction of a stretch of 675 miles across northern Ontario. Now we are on third reading. We have passed the preliminary committee stage. We have passed the stage when this could be discussed on second reading and the principles considered. We passed through the committee without being given the opportunity to even examine six of the seven sections, and now we are on third reading, the final stage.
That being so, I want to go back to what I said on March 15, and to any who are uncertain in any way about the position we have taken may I emphasize the words I spoke at that time on behalf of our party, as recorded at page 2180 of Hansard:
Therefore If it comes to the stage where this government forces through an unnecessary venture of this kind, then there is only one thing to do and that is build the whole pipe line and not just part of it, and have control over the whole line.
That, Mr. Speaker, was what I said on March 15. That was the position I put forward on behalf of our party at that time, and I put that position forward today.


An hon. Member:: Public ownership.


George Alexander Drew: "Public ownership", I hear on the other side. Yes, this government is committing us to public ownership. This government is placing before us now a bill to set up a crown corporation to build 675 miles under public ownership, but then adds this mongrel arrangement under which it puts up the taxpayers' money to hand over to Trans-Canada Pipe Lines to build the other section out in the west, and does not even tell us what it is going to do with the 110 miles between Winnipeg and the Ontario boundary or the stretch between Kapuskasing and Toronto. This pipe line through northern Ontario, if they get to that stage, could be an orphan.
Now, Mr. Speaker, we believe that if a committee had been set up, if the proper inquiry had taken place, this whole line could have been built by Canadians under such a plan of private ownership as has been set forth in this house. However, we recognize now that this stage is past. We recognize now that this government commits itself here on third reading to proceeding with public ownership of a part of the line. It would be an absurd position to have public ownership of the 675 miles and then have private ownership of the parts on both sides,


with all the conflicting difficulties which: would be raised by that situation.
There would also be the fact that if for any reason Trans-Canada Pipe Lines did not fulfil its undertakings-and it will be the first time it did if it does now-then in that case the government would be left with an orphan. There would be only one thing the government could do and that would be to proceed to expropriate any other parts of the line then in existence to complete the whole line. Let us anticipate that, then. If we had had the opportunity in committee to deal with these matters we could have made recommendations.
The Prime Minister said today that we made no suggestions. We were not given the opportunity. There could have been proposals. Now, on third reading, we say to the government: You want to get ahead with the pipe line. All right, if you are determined to follow the course of going ahead with the-pipe line with a crown corporation, go ahead with it but expand the crown corporation and give that crown corporation the power to build the whole line from the Alberta boundary right through to the east. That was what I said on March 15, and I repeat it:
Therefore if it comes to the stage where this-government forces through an unnecessary venture of this kind, then there is only one thing to do and that is build the whole pipe line and not just part of it, and have control over the whole line.
Now, Mr. Speaker, the government surely is not going to tell us that it cannot obtain the pipe to proceed with this construction. That pipe has been ordered for this particular construction. There is no other operation on the North American continent that is at this moment in need of 34-inch pipe. If the crown corporation is expanded and given authority to build the whole line it can, without any question, acquire that 34-inch pipe to proceed with the western section right away, and there need be no delay.
But just at this point let me deal with the suggestion that has been made that there might be two or three years' delay if we do not proceed, no matter what the terms are, with this chosen instrument of the government, Trans-Canada Pipe Lines. Why, Mr. Speaker, this 34-inch pipe was only ordered last October, and it was proceeding to delivery in six months' time. There is no reason in the world why similar pipe cannot be obtained at any time within six months after the order has been placed. But that is only a speculative proposition. Talk of two and three years is sheer and unadulterated nonsense, the kind of bluffing this government has been doing from the very beginning in connection with this whole operation.

Let them go ahead. Let them introduce a bill to expand the operation of the crown corporation to embrace the whole line. They can get the pipe. They can proceed with the construction; we can assure control of the pipe line for Canadians, and we can assure prices that are advantageous to Canadians instead of permitting big gas operators in the United States to set prices that will be unduly favourable to them. In this way if the government, having committed itself to public construction under a crown corporation for the 675 miles, will expand that operation to embrace the whole line, it can start immediately. It can start with the pipe that is available and with the skill that is available as well.
In that way we will have Canadian gas moving in Canada and we will be able then to lead from strength and not from weakness. If we want to get the best prices for Canadian gas in the export market the surest way to get those prices is not to be dependent upon permission to enter the export market. The best way is for us to have our own line and then, having our own line, make the best deal we can and be sure that we are not simply being taken for a ride by the Tennessee Gas company and their subsidiaries in the United States. Now, Mr. Speaker, this is now in its final stage.


Walter Edward Harris: Hear, hear.


George Alexander Drew: Yes; and in spite of the fact that the Minister of Finance says "hear, hear", I feel sure there are to be some further speeches on this subject before the axe falls tomorrow night. This thing is in its final stages. It is in the position where, after it is passed tomorrow night under closure, there simply ensues a brief intermediate period and then royal assent. Let this government, even at this late date, act as though they really were representing Canadians. Let them speak up for Canada. Let them take a course that will preserve this great natural resource for the benefit of Canadians in the years ahead, and let us make sure that the profits that are going to accrue from these resources will be for the advantage of Canadians and for those who follow after us.
Above all let us make sure that as this line goes through Canada the policies that are adopted will be policies which will encourage Canadian development.
I move, Mr. Speaker, seconded by the hon. member for Dufferin-Simcoe (Mr. Rowe): That the bill be not now read the third time but that it be referred back to the committee of the whole with instructions that they have power to amend sections 5, 6 and 7 thereof to include the agreements made with Trans-Canada Pipe Lines
Northern Ontario Pipe Line Corporation Limited as schedules to the bill and add other sections necessary to ensure that the bill shall give effect to one of the following principles:
First, the immediate agreement of Trans-Canada Pipe Lines Limited to reorganize as a company under effective Canadian ownership and control and to undertake construction without a grant of public money, in accordance with the assurances upon which its charter was granted by parliament: or
Second, failing such agreement, the immediate consideration of other proposals submitted by any other persons or companies for the immediate financing and construction of the pipe line under effective Canadian ownership and control and without a grant of public money; or
Third, enlarge the powers of the crown corporation so that the entire pipe line may be constructed immediately under public ownership.


Walter Edward Harris: Mr. Speaker,-


Mr. Speaker:: Order. This is the first round of speakers on third reading. It is customary to recognize the leaders of the three* opposition parties before a government member is recognized. The person who moved the third reading could have made a speech. I recognize the hon. member for Rosetown-Biggar (Mr. Coldwell).


Major James William Coldwell: Mr. Speaker, as the Leader of the Opposition (Mr. Drew) said in his concluding remarks, we are now in the final stage of this bill giving certain powers to the crown company and authorizing the building of the pipe line from the Alberta-Saskatchewan border to a point in the vicinity of Winnipeg. At the very outset of my remarks I want to say that I consider this to have been one of the most revealing debates we have ever had in this parliament. It is revealing because of the fact that the opposition has been gagged and muzzled at every stage; and, may I say, it was misled earlier than it was gagged.
Hon. members of this house may recall what happened on the afternoon of May 7. There had been some reports in the newspapers and elsewhere that the government of Canada had entered into an unusual agreement to finance the line from the Alberta-Saskatchewan boundary to a point in the vicinity of Winnipeg. Therefore because we felt that the proposals we had been making ever since this pipe line was first talked about in this country should receive some consideration before any agreement of the type that was rumoured was made and because we felt that the house should have an opportunity of expressing itself before a final resolution and bill were introduced, on that afternoon of May 7 I rose in my place and moved:
The adjournment of the house under standing order 26 for the purpose of discussing a definite matter of urgent public importance, namely, the advisability of this house expressing its opinion
-4674	HOUSE OF
Northern Ontario Pipe Line Corporation on the method to be employed in the financing of the western portion of an across-Canada gas pipe line.
I deliberately refrained from calling the gas line the trans-Canada line because I knew that adjective had a peculiar connotation; and I wanted to discuss how best we could build the pipe line to convey the quantities of gas which we all want to see utilized in the best manner for our country and most economically in most parts of Canada.
The Speaker suggested that there was a resolution on the order paper but the Minister of Finance intervened and, as reported at page 3612 of Hansard, he said this:
On the point of order, it seems to me that we are doijig by indirection what cannot be done by direction. The leader of the C.C.F. party is seeking to have an expression of opinion in favour of an expenditure of money for a particular purpose which can only be recommended by the government to the house.
I quite agree that the expenditure, when it came, had to be recommended by the government and what a recommendation we got!


An hon. Member:: More trickery.


Major James William Coldwell: The minister went on to say this:
Then I am not just sure what else could be in the motion except that. If my hon. friend makes the point that he does not propose to seek to have the house declare itself in favour of a public ownership system, then I am not aware of what the point of the motion is.
The point of the motion, of course, was that we should endeavour to discuss an important proposal in order that the house might give the government some direction. But the government, of course, never needs any direction from the house; it never needs any direction from anyone except the ministers who sit on the front bench.


Stanley Howard Knowles: It just follows its own blind course.


Major James William Coldwell: The minister had something more to say. I am quoting from page 3613 of Hansard of May 7. He said this:
Just in order to clear up the final point-
That is the point of what was going to be done:
[DOT]-Mr. Speaker, may I say this. It seems to me that when the present resolution on the order paper with respect to Trans-Canada is called for discussion, every avenue of discussion with respect to the building, the financing or the like is open to opposition members.


Mr. Dufresne:: A one-way avenue.


Major James William Coldwell: "Every avenue", he said. On the introduction of the resolution foreshadowing this particular measure-at that


very moment, before one solitary word of criticism had been uttered from this side of the house-the Minister of Trade and Commerce gave notice of the motion for closure. He did that before one word could be said on this side of the house. Mr. Speaker, I say that was an unprecedented thing to do. I have never heard of it being done anywhere else. It was the most deliberate attempt to gag this parliament of which I have any knowledge. Then the Minister of Finance went on to say this:
It may be true-although I do not think in this house we accept these statements at face value- that it is the case that the western section will not be built this summer unless certain action is taken immediately. But in any event that is not a reason for urgency.
That is not a reason for urgency, the minister said, referring to the building of the line this summer.


Walter Edward Harris: No; urgency of debate.


Major James William Coldwell: He said further:
The urgency is on the matter of debate . . .


Walter Edward Harris: Quite.


Major James William Coldwell: The minister said this was not a matter of urgency, giving me the impression at the time that there was plenty of time to consider and debate this particular matter-when it came before the house. The next afternoon, on May 8, the Minister of Defence Production-


An hon. Member:: The Minister of Trade and Commerce.


Major James William Coldwell: -or the Minister of Trade and Commerce, I mean, rose in his place and said he wished to make a statement; and he made a statement, confirming what the newpapers had been saying, about the proposal to build the line from the Alberta-Saskatchewan boundary to a point in the vicinity of Winnipeg. Then a resolution went on the order paper. That was a resolution which was, Mr. Speaker-and I say it once again although the contention has been disallowed by Mr. Speaker and by the house- absolutely out of order when there was another resolution in exactly similar terms, except that there was something added in the second one, already on the order paper. I say that at the very first opportunity closure was indicated. Then closure was moved. Of course the opposition objected to this. The opposition fought this gagging strenuously throughout, and indeed we almost lost sight of the pipe line in this house in the fight for the rights of the members of the House of Commons.
We have to have speed. Speed was the issue. This measure had to be put through

by June 7. Well, I am going to say something about that date in a few moments. June 7 is very close and we are under the gag again tonight, under the axe. We had to have speed. I was looking at a very interesting article tonight in the Ottawa Journal written by Mr. I. Norman Smith, and he refers to the matter of speed or the lack of speed. It reads:
There has never been any dispute about it: by abandoning certain old-fashioned rules of parliamentary procedure Mussolini did make the trains run on time.
And certainly by burning the Reichstag Hitler removed irritating obstructionist tactics that were in the way of the will of the majority.


John Whitney Pickersgill: The same tactics which have been used by Britain for years.


Major James William Coldwell: I used to think of the hon. gentleman as a Liberal. I do not think of him as a Liberal any more. The article continues:
Russia, too. a zealous devotion to the ends regardless of the means has developed the country to great power and the voice of the meddling dissenter is gone from the land.


Mr.   Good@: I think the hon. gentleman can do better than that.


Major James William Coldwell: You can groan all you like.


Frederick George Hahn: Tell us about the cement factory in Saskatchewan.


Major James William Coldwell: As a matter of fact I could expose every falsehood that has been put on the record with regard to Saskatchewan. As I said at the beginning, I am not going to fall into the trap-


Frederick George Hahn: No, you bet you are not.


Major James William Coldwell: -I am not going to fall into the trap set by our semi-fascist opponents as a diversion and discuss the Saskatchewan election, the New Brunswick election or the Quebec election. I am not going to do any of those things. I continue quoting from the article.
For sheer headlong efficiency and "getting things done" there can be no doubt the nice-Nellieism of parliamentary procedure, its yeas and nays, its checks and balances, is hopelessly even ludicrously inadequate.
I thought that was a very good summary of the house at the present time.
Let me take a look at the bill again. We have had no opportunity to discuss this bill clause by clause.


John Whitney Pickersgill: Through your own fault.


Major James William Coldwell: The hon. gentleman says, "through your own fault." I want to say to my hon. friend that I think it is not a fault but a virtue on the part of parliamentarians to fight for the rights of this parliament.
1956	4675
Northern Ontario Pipe Line Corporation When clause 1 came before the house, the clause upon which members of parliament can find out the implications of the bill by questions and discussion, what did the minister do? He moved that further consideration be postponed, further consideration when there had been no consideration. He merely read a few lines to indicate what the clause was. Clause 2 received the same treatment; clause 3 the same treatment. We were denied the right to discuss the clauses which named the corporation in the agreement.
We got to clause 4. Clause 4 spoke of a corporation which it did not name, and because of the outcry in the country, because of the attitude of the press, we discussed clause 4. Then we were under closure. Clause 5 was moved; clause 6, clause 7 and the title were moved under closure without one sentence of discussion. I said that evening, and I repeat, that the people who were in the well-filled galleries of the house that night saw a mockery of this parliament and of parliamentary procedure.
Let us look at clause 5. What does clause 5 say? It says:
The corporation-
Named in an earlier clause.
-is established for the purpose of
(a)	acquiring real and personal property for the construction, maintenance and operation of and constructing, maintaining and operating the northern Ontario section;
(b)	leasing, with an option to purchase, the northern Ontario section to Trans-Canada and carrying out such lease, including disposal by the corporation of the northern Ontario section in accordance with such purchase option; and
(c)	doing such other matters or things as the governor in council may deem necessary to fulfil-[DOT]
Notice the following words:
-any agreement or arrangement, made before or after the coming into force of this act-
This gives authority to the government to make any agreement, the one that was tabled in the house and the one which should be attached as a schedule or appendix to this bill and which I venture to guess quite a number of the members have never read and never had in their possession.


Stanley Howard Knowles: Not	enough	copies	were
made available.


Major James William Coldwell: Not	enough	copies	were
made available; we had to hunt around and get mimeographed copies of the agreement in order that we might study it. The clause continues:
-between the government of Canada and the government of Ontario or the government of Canada and Trans-Canada with respect to the financing, construction, leasing, operation maintenance, improvement and disposal of the northern Ontario section.
4676	HOUSE OF
Northern Ontario Pipe Line Corporation We have been told that this agreement must become effective by June 7, otherwise the company would not go ahead with it. Yet what has the company been doing? In the past couple of weeks we have read in the newspapers that they have placed contracts for pipe in Britain. I am glad they have placed some there. They have placed contracts in Welland, and again I am glad they have placed some contracts there for pipe to build the northern Ontario section. We have been told that unless we approve this bill it is doubtful whether the Trans-Canada company would undertake the task of building the line. Either they have an understanding with the government that at all costs this measure will be rammed down the throat of parliament, or they have greater faith in the word of the ministers than some of us feel inclined to have.
Now, what about this agreement? I am going to jump over to clause 7. We are told in that clause:
Pursuant to an agreement in that behalf made, with the approval of the governor in council, before or after the coming into force of this act, between Her Majesty and Trans-Canada . . . the corporation may, on behalf of Her Majesty-
-do certain things. Now, how many hon. members of the house have seen the agreement? How many have read the terms of that agreement? On the second reading of the bill I put on the record the safeguards the company demanded so that if they did not complete the pipe line by next April they could find numerous excuses for the delay.
I put those on record on the second reading of the bill. When we look at paragraph 13 of the agreement, for example,-an agreement made in the interests of Canada-what do we find?
It is a condition of the making of any loans hereunder that the crown company be provided with a favourable opinion or opinions, upon such matters relating to such loans as are required by the crown company,
(a)	by the solicitors for Trans-Canada and
(b)	by the solicitors for the crown company who may in giving their opinion or opinions rely on the opinion or opinions of the solicitors for Trans-Canada.


Walter Edward Harris: Or their own solicitors.


Major James William Coldwell: I beg your pardon?


Walter Edward Harris: Read the next one.
Mi Coldwell: Read the next paragraph? Certainly. However, I point that out:
. . . who may in giving their opinion or opinions rely on the opinion or opinions of the solicitors for Trans-Canada.
Now we will read on:
Trans-Canada represents, warrants and covenants that
(a) it shall upon the execution and delivery of this agreement use its best efforts to obtain as 

soon as possible all necessary permits and licences and orders or amendments or renewals thereof from all authorities and persons including the board of transport commissioners for Canada and the petroleum and natural gas conservation board of Alberta to enable it to proceed with the construction of the western section-
I am not going to read all these; I will let the minister do it. However, Trans-Canada warrants and agrees to do certain things, and paragraph 13 certainly says what I have just read:
. . . such matters relating to such loans as are required by the crown company,
(a)	by the solicitors for Trans-Canada and
(b)	by the solicitors for the crown company who may in giving their opinion or opinions rely on the opinion or opinions of the solicitors for Trans-Canada.
I would like to revert' to the purchase of pipe for a moment, if I may. You know, one of the newspapers that has been giving a great deal of attention-and practically all the newspapers of Canada have been giving a great deal of attention-to this particular deal is a paper which has a long Liberal tradition. I suppose there is no paper better known in Canada for its fundamental Liberalism through the years than the Winnipeg Free Press, either under its present name or the name by which we knew it in the early days in western Canada, the Manitoba Free Press. What does it say?
I may say, Mr. Speaker, I am about to quote from an editorial. In doing so I am following the example of the Prime Minister of Canada who this afternoon read into the records two rather long editorials.


Donald Methuen Fleming: From the only newspaper in Canada that supports him.


Major James William Coldwell: I am aware of the fact that the Prime Minister was not checked by the Speaker and that, of course, according to the rules neither he nor I should read editorials regarding the business of the house; but since the Prime Minister did it this afternoon I am going to claim the same right.


Colin Cameron: It is just another rule that' went out the window.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: I believe the actual wording is if it "reflects on the proceedings".


Mr. Stewart (Winnipeg North):: This does.


Major James William Coldwell: There was reflection on parliament this afternoon. The editorial reads:
The government's bill creates a crown corporation which will build and, for a time at least, own the northern Ontario section of the pipe line, leaving it to the Trans-Canada company to operate. On Tuesday Mr. St. Laurent was asked how the building of this section of the line would be carried out. He replied that-

And they quote him:
"It would be built by the crown corporation, of [DOT]course, under contracts for which tenders would be called in the usual way."
The editorial continues:
Unfortunately, the Trans-Canada company has in fact now ordered the pipe for this "crown" line. Mr. Howe on Wednesday calmly confirmed this; indeed, he had suggested that Trans-Canada place "the order with it-[DOT]
And this appears in inverted commas:
-"clearly understood" that the government could take over the pipe.
The editorial goes on to say:
This is extraordinary. The whole argument for providing the Trans-Canada company with the money to build the prairie section is that it alone can have the necessary pipe. Why on earth should the government depart from the ordinary rules governing the open dealings of crown corporations and put the northern Ontario section into a position of dependence on what Trans-Canada does or does not do? All the rush in parliament is supposed to mean, after all, that the new crown corporation can be in existence in a matter of days. Why would it not have been possible to put off the pipe order that long, and so get it in the proper way without dependence on Trans-Canada?
The editorial concludes:
This episode is even more mysterious than the previous one which showed the inadequacy of Trans-Canada's option on the pipe for the prairie section of the line. If Mr. Howe has any explanation, it is urgently necessary for the government's case that he give it promptly and fully.


William Earl Rowe: What paper is that?


Major James William Coldwell: That paper is the Winnipeg Free Press. One can look at the papers published throughout this country and see papers which normally support the government publishing the same sort of editorials.
I do not know how many of you can see this, but I hold in my hand a cartoon published in another of the leading western newspapers where it is said there is so much support for this particular proposition. This cartoon is from the Saskatoon Star-Phoenix. The cartoon shows, of course, a balance, a scales. On the one side there is depicted a pipe-line start in 1956 away up in the air, and weighted down heavily on the other side we have parliament gagged and muzzled, a big bag containing the $80 million loan for the prairie section and $118 million for government loans for the northern Ontario section.


Mr. Knight:: What is the title?


Major James William Coldwell: The title is "Is it Worth the Price?" I wonder, is it worth the price? In my opinion, Mr. Speaker, the people of Canada are being betrayed and they are being delivered, as this government has
Northern Ontario Pipe Line Corporation delivered us, gagged and muzzled, into the hands of this powerful group of United States oil magnates.
That is what is happening in this country today, and when we are fighting this proposition we are fighting to preserve the right of this country to control its own destiny. We have watched our natural resources, resource after resource, slip into the hands of powerful foreign companies for processing, so that our iron ore goes from this country and steel comes back at a high price and high profit. Our pulp and paper crosses the line and comes back to us in the form of all sorts of magazines, some of which are good and some of which are objectionable. It also comes back in various other forms. Now we are going to give them one of the greatest sources of power, if this Tennessee Gas company can secure licences from the federal power commission to import the gas into the United States.
I welcomed tonight the statement of the Leader of the Opposition that the first three propositions he made some time ago are now beyond the realm of possibility and that consequently he falls back on the fourth proposition he made on March 15, that this line should be built by the public of Canada, owned by the public of Canada, controlled by the public of Canada and operated by the public of Canada to distribute across Canada first a valuable and great Canadian natural resource. That has been the position we have taken from the outset.
Oh yes; we have been told there are difficulties in the way of the government operating a line like this. Of course there are difficulties. The government would have to negotiate for the gas with the producers in Alberta. How many producers are there in Alberta? In the main not more than a dozen companies are involved, and those companies are United States companies who have gained control, and I am not blaming them. I am not blaming even the province of Alberta, in the financial situation in which the provinces find themselves, for entering into the agreements, although I cannot agree with some of the ideas behind the Alberta agreements with the companies which discovered oil and gas in that province. But I am saying it is not a case of negotiating with thousands of producers; it is a case of purchasing, if you will, gas from wells that are under the control of a few powerful private corporations.
I know that the president of Gulf Oil company stated some months ago that he would not allow his gas to be used by any corporation in which the government was involved. Who does he think he is? This
4678	HOUSE OF
Northern Ontario Pipe Line Corporation United States financier comes into Canada and tells the Canadian people that he will not allow them to use one of their own great resources. Where has this country got to; where is this country going?
I want to say, as I have said before in connection with this matter, that if this kind of thing continues for any greater length of time the day will come when we shall have lost our economic independence and will be dependent upon the United States of America. An attempt will be made ultimately to make this country part of that one. I want none of that, because in spite of all the disappointments we have suffered in this parliament in recent days I still believe that the parliamentary system of government is better, provided we can preserve it, than any other form of government of which I know. But in the past two weeks we have seen it steadily undermined by a government which should be doing its best, particularly in these days, to preserve it and the autonomy of our country.
It is said it would be difficult for the federal government to distribute this gas to consumers. I grant that immediately. We have never suggested that the federal government should distribute the gas. What we have said is what Mr. Leslie Frost, the premier of Ontario, said some time ago. Remember that Mr. Frost only accepted this, as the Ontario Hansard bears out, because it was the federal government that had made the decision. When the bill was introduced into the Ontario legislature, Mr. Porter and Mr. Frost made it abundantly clear that their bill was drafted in such a manner that if this parliament felt the present proposition unwise or if for any reason the present plan fell through, they could enter into any other arrangement with the government of Canada. That was his original idea.
I want to say tonight that under a plan whereby the government would own and operate the main gas line the gas could be distributed by any means a province desired to use. If a province wished to distribute the gas by a private enterprise corporation the government could enter into an agreement with that private enterprise corporation to distribute it. But my expectation is that the provinces would do as they have done with electricity, that they would decide to distribute gas through public ownership.
Under this plan the figures produced by the Minister of Trade and Commerce and even tonight by the Leader of the Opposition may make some people think they are going to get pretty cheap gas. But when we look at the figures for the city of Winnipeg, for example, we get some idea of what they are


going to pay. The gas company at Winnipeg will pay 28.3 cents per thousand cubic feet. The Central Gas Company are asking permission to charge $1.10 per thousand cubic feet for the gas they are going to get for 28.3 cents per thousand cubic feet. I hear one of my Social Credit friends saying it will be 90 cents in Saskatchewan, but I do not know that it will be 90 cents in Saskatchewan.


An hon. Member:: Rosetown-Biggar.


Major James William Coldwell: My friends in Rosetown-Biggar are delighted that the small towns: along the way are going to have the benefit of this gas. They are not complaining, because they know that the long pipe line and the cost of distribution and hooking up with little places like Delisle and others along the way have involved the government in more expenditures than a powerful company would put up merely to link city to city.


An hon. Member:: How about the small towns in Alberta?


Major James William Coldwell: They get gas at a lower price because they are near to the gas fields, but that is not the real reason. When I was in Alberta over 40 years ago there were places with natural gas. The pipe lines were put in when the cost of construction was quite low and the development could be done for very little.


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh.


Major James William Coldwell: If my hon. friends want to make a speech let them do so.


Stanley Howard Knowles: They voted for closure.
Mr.-Coldwell: They are hooked up with the government so completely that they are speechless, therefore they have to mutter. They had their gas lines laid when the cost of laying was quite low. They are paid for now. If the consumers of Alberta are not getting the benefit of lines which have been paid for, then it is a case for investigation.
I am quite pleased and happy to know that the government of my province is trying to give the people in the smaller places a break in connection with this great natural product. The people of Winnipeg are being told by the local company that they are going to have to pay $1.10 per thousand cubic feet for gas which that company will receive from the pipe line for 28 * 3 cents per thousand feet wholesale.
When you look at this agreement and this project you begin to see the extent to which parliament should have gone into this matter.
I agree with the Leader of the Opposition completely that this proposition should have

.gone to a committee of this house for investigation. There is no question about it; the more we go into it the more we see the need for that investigation. But that we were denied. Of course it was referred to .a committee five years ago. Five years ago when the hon. member for Yegreville (Mr. Decore) came to this house to get a charter for Trans-Canada Pipe Lines he told us that this would be a Canadian project, that every [DOT]cubic foot of gas would be available for Canadian consumers, that the gas would be distributed right down into the province of Quebec, and that the company would be financed by Canadians.
Then it went before the committee and the officers of the company confirmed those statements. They went further and said it would not be necessary to export any surplus gas to the United States in order to make this economical, that it would be economical without it. Now we are told that unless this company can export gas to the United States they cannot get the line through. What chance have they of getting permission from the United States? It is now before the federal power commission and is likely to be before that commission, I was going to say for months-I am certain I am right in that- and it may be before that federal power commission for years. Then I suppose we shall have other propositions made to us.
The Leader of the Opposition drew attention to something else that is worth drawing attention to; that is, this $80 million or 90 per cent of the cost of building the line from the Alberta border to the vicinity of Winnipeg, which the people of Canada are going to finance by way of a loan to the company. We are going to finance this just as we are going to finance and build the northern Ontario bridge-so we understand though it looks as though Trans-Canada is going to build it, without tender, by the manner in which they are purchasing pipe in various parts of the world. We have not been told of what is going to happen to the 110 miles from the vicinity of Winnipeg to the Manitoba-Ontario border. Are we going to have an empty pipe line across northern Ontario and a pipe line delivering gas nowhere except to the city of Winnipeg and vicinity?
Who is going to build the 110 miles, and when is it going to be built? We do not know. The company says it cannot proceed with this line unless we lend it up to $80 million or 90 per cent of the cost. They have no money. Yet associated with this proposition are some of the most powerful United States companies. Of course they would rather get the money from Canada at 5 per cent, because
Northern Ontario Pipe Line Corporation they probably can utilize their own resources and finances to greater profit in the United States or elsewhere. So they come to us and ask us to lend this money to a company which is 83-4 per cent United States owned. I am not going to put the breakdown on the record again, because it has been put on on so many occasions.
I see my time is running short. I am told it is up.


An hon. Member:: Go ahead.


Major James William Coldwell: No, I am not going ahead, because I do not want to impose on the rules, particularly as there will be closure tomorrow and I may prevent some of my friends from making contributions they wish to make. Though I have something else to say, Mr. Speaker, since my time is up I am going to sit down.


Walter Edward Harris: Before the leader of the C.C.F. party preens himself too much on the capture of the Tory party, may I point out to him that in the amendment moved by the Leader of the Opposition there is no reference to public ownership in any positive sense whatsoever.
There are three propositions in the amendment. The first one-and mark that it is the first one-is that there should be a reorganization of the company. The second one-and mark that it is the second-is that there ought to be some inquiry made about other persons who might do this work. Then in the third -and the third only, the leader of the C.C.F. party should note-if all these others have failed, we should consider public ownership. May I tell my hon. friend that this is consistent with what the Tory party did when it voted down public ownership on his amendment on second reading.


An hon. Member:: They did not throw
democracy out the window.


Walter Edward Harris: I have been wondering about this alliance for some time. I have been wondering what has been happening in the last few hours in this house. It seems to me that perhaps something did happen in Toronto the other day. I have not had an opportunity to read the newspapers at any great length, but I did understand that the hon. member for Eglinton (Mr. Fleming) was on a platform in the city of Toronto and delivered an attack on this government. I also understand that on the same platform appeared the leader of the provincial C.C.F. party, and if I understand the report correctly it said that he took some skin off the Tory provincial premier.
What a combination. The hon. member for Eglinton in this house interjected in the
4680	HOUSE OF
Northern Ontario Pipe Line Corporation speech I made two weeks ago today that it was not true that his party was in any sense attached to the McMahon plan. Since I pointed out to him the quotation from his colleague the hon. member for Broadview (Mr. Hees), I have not heard from either any denial.
Now let us look for a moment at the amendment the leader of the Tory party has moved. The second proposal was that we should consider certain other alternatives, and he mentioned, among others, the Champion plan and the Gairdner plan and the McMahon plan. I am going to refer just briefly to the Champion plan, in case his colleagues in the C.C.F. party have never bothered much about it.


Major James William Coldwell: I have.


Walter Edward Harris: The Champion plan was one which said at the very beginning that Mr. Champion did not believe in a trans-Canada pipe line. That is one of the alternatives the leader of the Tory party wants us to consider.
What was the other one he suggested? He suggested the Gairdner plan. I wonder whether the members of the C.C.F. party have read the correspondence on that. I point out to them that clause 4 of the memorandum for discussion sent to this government by the Gairdner company said that agreement would need to be reached with the government of Canada to relieve the company of the necessity of paying corporate income taxes for a period of ten years from the commencement of operations.


Major James William Coldwell: We would never have supported that. We supported the one course.


Walter Edward Harris: In complete fairness to the Gairdner gentleman who proposed this, I want to point out that later on he sent a telegram in which he said in effect, "Since no one has complained about my plan, I think everybody is in agreement with it". Well, it was in such a condition that no one would take it seriously, and that is why he received no protests about it. Yet the Tory party would have us consider this plan. They would have us take the time of a committee of this house to consider a plan put forward for exemption from corporation income tax, something which I think, except within the statutes which provide for certain conditions of exemption for three years and so on, has not been proposed in this house by any party at any time. It makes me think a little of the Tory party of a former generation which at one time issued tax-exempt bonds in this country.


There is another feature to this debate that has been extremely interesting, and that is; what has been said by my hon. friend from. Prince Albert (Mr. Diefenbaker).


John George Diefenbaker: Speak about the McMahon plan.


Walter Edward Harris: I am going to speak about the McMahon plan again. The hon. member for Prince Albert was the one who spent, I would say, almost two-thirds of his speech advocating the McMahon plan without quite advocating it. You know how the hon. member for Prince Albert can make a speech for 40 minutes and when it is all over he can deny every word in it because he did not really come out and say he was in favour of anything. The McMahon plan was a simple one. I went over it-


John George Diefenbaker: Did you see Mr. McMahon^


Walter Edward Harris: No, I do not know Mr. McMahon and I have not seen him. Mr. McMahon made a proposal, which was perfectly simple. It was a proposal that he be permitted to export out of Emerson 400 million cubic feet of gas per day, twice as much as this government was prepared to grant, and if that were done he could finance the thing himself. Sir, I am not familiar with the technique involved, but it does seem to me that anyone could finance it under those conditions.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear.


Walter Edward Harris: But I come back then to the real restraint on this parliament with respect to this particular legislation, and that is that the government have said that at the present time we will not permit the export out of Canada of more than 200 million cubic feet a day, and any company concerned with this matter will have to take that into account in their proposals. So far as I know McMahon has never made a proposal to this government based on 200 million cubic feet a day, and I doubt very much if he would be likely to do that.
At the same time the leader of the Conservative party took a strange line tonight which I want to talk about for a moment. I think perhaps what I said two weeks ago might have been considered a little in the meantime. In any event, he began to complain tonight not that 400 million cubic feet a day were going out of the country but that 150 million to 200 million feet were going to some particular steel company in the United States. Yet his own follower two and a half weeks ago was recommending that twice as much should leave this country, something

which would be selling out the country far more than any protestation they may have about this particular deal.
Now, sir, may I speak for a moment about prices. Tonight we have heard a long speech by the leader of the Conservative party about prices and average prices; and this, of course, is a follow-up to what the hon. member for Prince Albert (Mr. Diefenbaker) said. You know, sir, somehow they do not seem to have considered what the law of this country is, and I want to repeat something that has already been put on the record but which is blissfully ignored by all those who speak in the opposition.


John George Diefenbaker: You had better tell Trans-Canada not to make these false representations.


An hon. Member:: Oh, shut up.


Walter Edward Harris: In the regulations under the Exportation of Power and Fluids and Importation of Gas Act there appears regulation No. 9 headed "Export Price", which regulation is as follows:
The price charged by a licencee for power or gas exported by him shall not be lower than the price at which power or gas, respectively, is supplied by him or his supplier in similar quantities and under similar conditions of sale for consumption in Canada.
This means, Mr. Speaker, that when a licence is granted for the export of gas out of Canada-and that licence has not yet been granted-it is going to be subject to these regulations, and these regulations will be enforced by the government of Canada to see that the export of gas is not at a price lower than the price for gas supplied in Canada.


John George Diefenbaker: Is Trans-Canada falsifying its evidence?


Walter Edward Harris: The hon. member for Prince Albert, by the way, has made me think again of something the leader of the Conservative party said a matter of ten days ago. At that time he was moving an instruction of some kind that we should split the bill so he could discuss separately the loan for the western leg and then the northern Ontario section. I have been wondering about that. I have wondered whether he was trying to get out of the trouble that the member for Prince Albert had got him in with his famous broadcast when he threatened us with a filibuster in this house.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


John George Diefenbaker: That is just a childish
remark.
4, 1956	4681
Northern Ontario Pipe Line Corporation


Walter Edward Harris: After all, the northern Ontario crown corporation, for the purpose of constructing in conjunction with the government of Ontario the northern Ontario line, was something on which the hon. member for Prince Albert was threatening us with a filibuster because we had not yet produced the bill that is now before the house.


John George Diefenbaker: That is a false statement and you know it.


Walter Edward Harris: At that time the hon. member threatened that we would indeed have difficulty in putting that particular bill through. It seems to me that if the leader of the Conservative party had been able to divide the bill it might be possible that he would have gone along with the premier of the province of Ontario in his agreement with this government in order to construct the northern Ontario section.


George Alexander Drew: What a silly statement.


Walter Edward Harris: But the member for Prince Albert had already nailed him down to filibustering the bill, and he had to go through with it. As a matter of fact, sir, after I spoke on this subject the hon. member for Prince Albert was kind enough in his reply to say that I had, with a certain specious sanctimoniousness, addressed myself to the subject of his remarks. Well, I had not been conscious that I had had that air in this house, but if I did I respectfully ask all hon. members to forgive me and I will try to practice getting away from it. But I do want to say that if there is one member in this house, as I said before, who makes speeches without really wanting to have them held against him, I cannot recommend anyone better than the member for Prince Albert.
May I speak now for a moment of the leader of the C.C.F. party, what he has read from the newspapers and what he said about what has happened in parliament in the last two weeks. I wonder whether he has forgotten his history when he speaks about the Reichstag. It was not Hitler with his majority who ruined democracy in Germany. It was Hitler with his minority who upset the government of the day. It was only after he had forced on the people of Germany two or three general elections-I have forgotten the exact number, but shall I say three?-within two years and after he had made demonstrations both in and out of the Reichstag and had beaten up his opponents on the street corners and had done many other things of that sort that he brought the democratic process to an end. It was only then that he took over and for the first time the condition arose to which my hon. friend referred.
4682	HOUSE OF
Northern Ontario Pipe Line Corporation


Major James William Coldwell: You are achieving it just a bit earlier.


Walter Edward Harris: Mr. Speaker, I am going to pursue the subject a little further, and I am going to discuss what has happened with respect to this bill in the past three weeks. It began three weeks ago today. I do not recall a bill being before parliament for three solid weeks, except perhaps for one day, in my time, although there may have been such occasions and if there are I accept the correction. But three weeks today we introduced the resolution preceding the bill and we have been talking about it every day with the exception of perhaps one-half day on a Wednesday.
But what has happened in that time? I have made some hasty calculations which may be wrong, but they will not be wrong by more than two or three. I find, for example, that during that period the leader of the C.C.F. party has spoken 15 times. I find that the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre (Mr. Knowles) and the hon. member for Kamloops (Mr. Fulton)-I am not sure which is the senior partner but I accept whatever definition they want to make-have spoken more than 30 times in three weeks.


An hon. Member:: A good team.


Walter Edward Harris: I find that the leader of the Conservative party and the hon. member for Fleming-


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh.


Walter Edward Harris: I must apologize, sir. I have known the hon. member for so long that I am inclined to think of him personally rather than as a member. The leader of the Conservative party and the hon. member for Eglinton (Mr. Fleming) have spoken more than 20 times in the past three weeks.


Donald Methuen Fleming: Are you counting the times we tried to speak and were not allowed to?


Walter Edward Harris: Mr. Speaker, if this is a gag I think I ought to have a new definition of what a gag is.


William Earl Rowe: We were speaking about the gag.


Walter Edward Harris: Yes, I am going to speak about that right now, and I am going to ask the hon. member for Prince Albert and the hon. member for Eglinton what they meant when about two weeks ago and again this afternoon they referred to closure in the United Kingdom being by consent. Mr. Speaker, I have never heard of closure by consent, and if they were suggesting that they would have been agreeable to closure here then it is something new in Canadian parliamentary history.


Donald Methuen Fleming: I did not refer to it being by consent.


Walter Edward Harris: I can tell you about closure in the United Kingdom, Mr. Speaker. Closure in the United Kingdom is closure. Some time in the middle of an afternoon someone moves, in the United Kingdom, that this question be now put. In this house that is nothing more than a motion which will prevent further amendment to the bill. It will not prevent discussion. Everyone can speak on it. But over in the United Kingdom it means what it says. The question is put at that particular moment.


John George Diefenbaker: No. The Speaker determines that. You are wrong.


Walter Edward Harris: Then at ten o'clock that night, if that motion happens to have been made on an amendment, any member in the United Kingdom parliament can get up and claim that all the preceding motions-that is including the main one-be put; so that between three o'clock in the afternoon and ten o'clock at night you can pass a bill through all its stages. The Prime Minister put on the record the other day a quotation from the labour prime minister of the United Kingdom in which he said that now that he was in government and had been in opposition for some time, he knew perfectly well that it was the duty of the government to govern and to do what they thought was in the interests of the country, and to take the responsibility for doing so.
What is the situation with which we are now faced? We are faced with a Conservative party that now comes forward with an amendment which it hopes will bail it out of the difficulties it has been in ever since this resolution was introduced. This is what they say in effect, and I think I can quote almost literally the words of the Leader of the Opposition. They say in the first place: "When this bill was introduced we were against it; we believed in private ownership; we believed that someone else should build this pipe line except this particular group, and we will try to prove it before a committee of this house".


George Alexander Drew: You are so far from the truth that there is no use in challenging you.


Walter Edward Harris: I am repeating almost literally what the Leader of the Opposition has said. But he left the door open for himself and that door was this. He said, "But if by any chance the government is able to bring this bill forward and put it through, then I am ready to jump over into another position on the last night but one before it happens". What is that position? The position is that

perhaps-and just perhaps-it will be public ownership. We have been through that in this house already. When this debate began we made it abundantly clear that we thought this was the only way of getting this pipe line started this year; and no one, not a single person, in the opposition in three weeks has been able to refute that statement in this parliament.
What then is the situation today? We are approaching a deadline. It is a deadline which means what? It means that if it is met, it is just possible that with the winter coming on my friend the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre may have gas delivered in Winnipeg before then.


George Alexander Drew: And your friends in the United States will be happy.


Walter Edward Harris: It may well be that if we had followed the course suggested by the leader of the Conservative party we would be sitting in the committee on railways, canals and telegraph lines or whatever committee it may be, consulting all kinds of people who have had no connection whatever with the province of Alberta with respect to natural gas, and we would have ended up at this time with a group of people who had yet to go to the province of Alberta and get from them an agreement to export gas out of that province. Those are the facts of life. I wonder why hon. members try to avoid them. As I said before, this government is not in a position to dictate to the province of Alberta anything whatever about the natural gas of that province.


George Harris Hees: Just to parliament.


Walter Edward Harris: The Leader of the Opposition has boasted a little bit about what he has done in northern Ontario with respect to the development of natural resources there; and when he was not doing it, the hon. member for Dufferin-Simcoe (Mr. Rowe) was doing it for him. What did the Leader of the Opposition do?


Mr. Hodgson:: He gave you fellows an awful trimming.


Walter Edward Harris: What he did was to permit the exploitation of natural resources in northern Ontario under certain conditions which he no doubt laid down. Upon those conditions being met, certain royalties, stump-age dues and the like accrued to the benefit of the province of Ontario, and everyone was happy. But the Leader of the Opposition must understand that this is the precise position we are in with respect to the province of Alberta, with government control of natural gas that comes out of the ground. Every word he has used throughout this whole 67509-297
4. 1956	4683
Northern Ontario Pipe Line Corporation debate has been designed to confuse that issue in the minds of the Canadian people.


George Alexander Drew: Nonsense.


Walter Edward Harris: The Leader of the Opposition says "nonsense". Mr. Speaker, I say again when we build a pipe line, have we any control over the natural gas that comes out of the ground of Alberta? We have no control whatever. The province of Alberta has complete control of it. Only in so far as they sell it to some agency for export do we come into the picture. When my hon. friend speaks as he does, and when the leader of the C.C.F. also speaks as he does, they seem to think that we have control over that natural gas and that we can dictate to the premier of the province of Alberta what he will do about it.


Major James William Coldwell: They want to sell the gas. We want to buy it. A crown company could do it just as well as a private company.


Walter Edward Harris: Oh, no.


Major James William Coldwell: Read the British North America Act.


Walter Edward Harris: The alliance will break up if you suggest that this government should buy natural gas which comes out of the ground of Alberta. Two weeks ago I pointed out that the premier of the province of Ontario said he did not want to distribute through the Ontario hydro the natural gas which came there.
Mr: Coldwell: He could set up a company of his own.


Walter Edward Harris: He does not want to do that. He wants it to be a private company and only to be public ownership by alternative.
The hon. member for Saint John-Albert, possibly the hon. member for Esquimalt-Saanich and possibly my friend the hon. member for Burnaby-Coquitlam are the only members in this house who have questioned the desirability of building this pipe line. All the other discussion has been because hon. members opposite seem to think they can do the thing better than we can. But, Mr. Speaker, so far they have not been able to demonstrate it to anybody in this country. It seems to me that if we could get back to a consideration of what we are trying to do, this parliament could settle down, as it should have settled down, and we should not have had the scenes which we have had recently.
I am going to say something that is rather difficult for me to say under the circumstances. Both the Leader of the Opposition and the leader of the C.C.F. this afternoon said that all of us ought to regret what has happened, particularly what happened on

Northern Ontario Pipe Line Corporation Friday. I am going to agree with both of them. However, I hope that in expressing agreement in that sense I am not to be taken as having accepted any responsibility for it.


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh.


An hon. Member:: Oh, you hypocrite.


John George Diefenbaker: Now we have sanctimoniousness.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: Order.


Donald Methuen Fleming: What did you say about the word "sanctimonious"?


Walter Edward Harris: A week ago Thursday night I did what no other member who has spoken in this debate has done. I rose in my place and appealed to the followers on this side of the house to remain in a condition which would not excite any feelings in this house, and from that day to this they have done so.


An hon. Member:: They did not pay any attention to you.


Walter Edward Harris: No other party has done so.


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh.


Donald Methuen Fleming: That is a ghastly untruth.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: Order.


An hon. Member:: How sanctimonious can you get?


Walter Edward Harris: I have read Hansard with great attention.


An hon. Member:: Read the papers for a change.


Walter Edward Harris: I am prepared to accept responsibility for what I have said. I am going to say to my hon. friends opposite that except for the singing-and I say "axcept"-that went on here after the division bells began to ring on Friday, I want my hon. friends to try to show me wherein anyone on this side of the house has been the slightest bit disorderly.


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh.


Donald Methuen Fleming: A travesty of the facts!


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: Order. I think perhaps we might return to third reading of this Bill No. 298.


Stanley Howard Knowles: Is the minister aware of the fact that this afternoon he and the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration both turned around and tried to shush their members in the display they were making at that time?


Walter Edward Harris: I am quite aware of that, but I want to point out that what we did this afternoon was merely to stop the continuation of the normal applause which goes on. We were trying to save time. On that point I am

going to say to my hon. friend that throughout this debate there have been a good many people on this side who would like to have taken part. But let us be perfectly frank about it. When this government imposed closure we knew, as we had been warned by members of the Tory party and the C.C.F. party, that we would have every possible obstacle put in our way to prevent closure, and time was always running against us every day.


William Earl Rowe: After five months or five years.


Walter Edward Harris: It is for that reason speakers on this side have not taken nearly as much part in this debate as they might otherwise have done. If it is the contention of my hon. friend that we were doing the Christian act of turning the other cheek, I can assure him we were. We were making absolutely sure that closure was operative because we believed, and so far no one has been able to shake that confidence, it was in the interests of the Canadian people that this pipe line get started this summer. It does seem, as a matter of fact, to have been the deliberate attempt of the two parties opposite to prevent that very beneficent act.


William Earl Rowe: You read the Winnipeg Free Press and the Toronto Star and you are afraid to speak.


Walter Edward Harris: I am not afraid to speak on anything in this house. My hon. friend knows that, because one of these days we are going to have a little contest. During an election the hon. member always makes a point of coming over to my constituency. He comes to my riding and makes a speech, and it has always been a difficult one to make because everyone up in my part of the country-


George Harris Hees: Just loves Walter.


Walter Edward Harris: -remembers-


George Harris Hees: Everybody loves Little Lord Fauntleroy.


Walter Edward Harris: -and wants to know how the hon. member for Dufferin-Simcoe (Mr. Rowe), who is the only remaining member for the R. B. Bennett government, can ask for support for his party when the last time that party was in office the price of agricultural products in that part of the country was about three or four cents a pound and today it is over 20 cents.


William Earl Rowe: Tell us about the days when you would not give the Tories a five-cent piece.


Walter Edward Harris: In the course of the discussion the other night the hon. member spoke about

this terrible example of closure. He carefully avoided making one reference I thought' he might make. I do not want to embarrass him but I am going to ask him now, did he vote in the division on that particular form of closure at that time?


William Earl Rowe: If you will sit down, I will explain it.


Walter Edward Harris: Yes or no?


William Earl Rowe: Yes; Mr. Speaker, the hon. member has asked me a question.


Walter Edward Harris: Did you vote?


William Earl Rowe: Yes, Mr. Speaker. The hon. member has asked me. The reason I voted for it was that for 21 days your party had refused to give a five-cent piece to a Tory province even if the people were starving, and we voted for closure. It was an entirely different situation.


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh.


Walter Edward Harris: Here is a man, Mr. Speaker, who as a private member in 1932 voted in a division to support closure which he now says is out of order, and although he was a member of that government at a later time, is now saying they did this wrong at that time.


William Earl Rowe: On a point of privilege, Mr. Speaker; I have never said closure was out of order in this house. Closure is in order, but it was placed out of order on this occasion.


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh.


William Earl Rowe: I have never at any time said that closure as such was out of order. It is something that could be resorted to, but the difference between the closure I voted for and the closure you and your sidekicks imposed was that we debated for 21 days on the first item and you did not take 21 seconds to put it in when you brought in the resolution.


Walter Edward Harris: I hope, Mr. Speaker, that it will be borne in mind that I only have about two minutes left at this moment, though I think I shall have a carryover until tomorrow. Let me point out to my hon. friend there is no particular difference between 21 days of debate which builds up to a filibuster, and responsible members of opposition parties saying even before a debate began, that they were going to filibuster this bill if they could.
4. 1956	4685
Northern Ontario Pipe Line Corporation
The leader of the C.C.F. party is trying to suggest that they did not do that. Do you know, Mr. Speaker-


Major James William Coldwell: No, I did not say that. I said it showed how scared you were.


Walter Edward Harris: I thought he was going to deny it. In this whole debate as I recall it, and I may be wrong, the hon. member for Assiniboia (Mr. Argue) who made that threat, has never spoken and, he will excuse me if I say it now, he has been out of the house a lot of the time.


Major James William Coldwell: He is like the Minister of Agriculture; he is engaged elsewhere.


Walter Edward Harris: I do sincerely hope that what has been said by both hon. members who have spoken before me, and the recognition that it is likely this bill will receive third reading some time in the next few days, will remove a great many of the difficulties under which we have laboured.
Now, I heartily agree with all that has been said today. I sincerely hope we can get back to our old standard of conduct, and I will join with both members opposite in saying that I understand, under the circumstances, how strongly they may feel about the conditions attendant on this bill. But do not let them forget that we on this side have feelings in the same way. We feel that the bill is a good one. We do not feel that it is as bad as they make out. We feel strongly that it ought to go forward.
If I have any time tomorrow, Mr. Speaker, I shall explain my final reason.
On motion of Mr. Harris the debate was adjourned.



BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE

Walter Edward Harris: We shall continue with this debate tomorrow. May I just interrupt for one moment to remind hon. members of the pleasure that will be accorded us in receiving the President of the Republic of Indonesia tomorrow morning at 10.20. I am only saying this in order that hon. members, who may perhaps have forgotten it, will be reminded that if they wish to participate they should be here a little before 10.20.


[Stage Direction]
At ten o'clock the house adjourned, without question put, pursuant to standing order.
67509-297i
[Stage Direction]
Question

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

Mr. Follwell: 1.	How many mines are in production in the county of Hastings?
2.	Where are they located, what are their names and what are they producing?
Answer by: Hon. George Prudham (Minister of Mines and Technical Surveys):
1.	Five.
2.	Near Marmora, Ontario-Marmoraton Mining Co. Ltd. Iron ore-operating open pit mine with beneficiation and pelletizing plant handling 4,250 tons ore per day.
Near Bancroft, Ontario-Faraday Uranium Mines Ltd. Uranium-underground operation, opening up uranium deposit and erecting 750 ton mill; expected to be in production in 1956.
Near Bancroft, Ontario-Greyhawk Uranium Mines Ltd. Uranium-the company is exploring property, and have outlined ore and have applied for a marketing contract to Eldorado Mining and Refining Ltd.
Near Madoc, Ontario-Canada Talc Industries Ltd. Talc-operating talc mine and 150 ton mill in which ore is crushed and sized for the trade.
Near Belleville, Ontario-Canada Cement Co. Ltd. Cement-quarry supplies limestone for their No. 5 plant which has a capacity
of 16 million bags per year.

Tuesday, June 5, 1956