1956-02-14

HON. MEMBER FOR FORT WILLIAM  BIRTHDAY ANNIVERSARY CONGRATULATIONS

Mr. Speaker:: Hon. members will allow me, I am sure, to point out to them that today is the birthday anniversary of the dean of our house, the hon. member for Fort William. I want to tell him how pleased we are to see him looking so young and full of activity. We wish him very many happy returns of the day.
Whereupon the members of the house sang Happy Birthday to You.


Mr. Daniel Mclvor (Fort William):: I am
quite tickled at hearing your words, Mr. Speaker, and especially at the fine music that has come from the house. I enjoy living very much, and I am going to carry on as long as a wise Providence permits and my better half helps.



NATIONAL DEFENCE


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. G. R. Pearkes (Esquimalt-Saanich):: Mr. Speaker, may I direct a question to the Minister of National Defence, notice of which I have given him? Will the minister give consideration to the provision of Canadian security guards at United States army posts in Canada, such as the radar stations on the "Pinetree" line, so the men responsible for dealing with the public are Canadian rather than United States personnel?


Hon. R. O. Campney (Minister of National Defence):: Mr. Speaker, I thank the hon.
gentleman for giving me notice of his question. In view of his representations, I shall review the situation, and in so doing will be pleased to give consideration to his suggestion.



DISABLED PERSONS


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. J. Wilfrid Dufresne (Quebec West):: Mr. Speaker, I should like to direct a question to
the Minister of National Health and Welfare. Will the minister tell the house if he intends to amend at this session the Disabled Persons Act, following the discussions held last week among himself, officials of his department and representatives of the medical profession throughout Canada?
(Translation) :


Hon. Paul Marlin (Minister of National Health and Welfare):: Well, Mr. Speaker, we are giving this matter serious consideration at this time.
(.Text):



LIVESTOCK


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. C. E. Johnston (Bow River):: Mr. Speaker, I should like to direct a question to the Minister of Agriculture. Can the minister tell the house in what part of Alberta the disease scrapie has broken out? Are there any other parts of Canada where this disease has broken out? How many sheep have been condemned for slaughter in Alberta and in other parts of Canada? What compensation, if any, does the government intend paying for each slaughtered head?


Right Hon. J. G. Gardiner (Minister of Agriculture):: Mr. Speaker, the question asks in what part of Alberta the disease scrapie has broken out, and whether there are other parts of Canada in which it has broken out.
The use of the term "broken out" in connection with scrapie conveys a wrong implication. This is not a highly infectious disease which spreads rapidly from flock to flock, as do such diseases as hog cholera and foot-and-mouth disease. It is believed to be transmitted to some extent by breeding, but much research is still required to determine its exact mode of transmission.
Although it has been known to exist for some time in Europe and Great Britain, it is relatively rare on this continent; and in both United States and Canada the practice is followed of slaughtering infected flocks, with compensation, as a general safeguard and protection to the sheep industry.
Scrapie was recently diagnosed in one flock of sheep in Alberta, and at the present time that flock is in the process of being ordered

Inquiries of the Ministry slaughtered and arrangements made for compensation. In the meantime, the flock is quarantined. Pending completion of arrangements it is not considered desirable to release details, but such details will be made available, if desired, when the disposal operations have been completed.
Scrapie has not yet been diagnosed in any other flock of sheep in Canada since 1954. It was first diagnosed in Canada in 1945 in an Ontario flock. Since that date, and not including the present instance in Alberta, it has been diagnosed in five flocks, all in Ontario. In each case the infected flock was destroyed. The total number of animals involved in all five flocks was 287.
The general plan that is followed in such cases will be followed in Alberta.


Charles Edward Johnston: What was the compensation paid in Ontario when those sheep were slaughtered?


James Garfield Gardiner: It is worked out on that basis. As far as the present herd is concerned the owner has suggested a certain compensation. We have had the herd inspected and we have proposed a certain compensation. The matter is still under discussion.


Charles Edward Johnston: May I ask a supplementary question? In the latter part of my question I asked the minister what compensation had been paid in 1954 to the Ontario people? Do I understand that the herd has not been paid for yet?


James Garfield Gardiner: No. That has been taken care of. The total number of animals involved in all five flocks was 287, but I have not the amount.



IMMIGRATION


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. E. D. Fulton (Kamloops):: Mr. Speaker, , I should like to direct a question to the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration. Now that the Supreme Court of Canada has dismissed the appeal of the government in the Brent case, will the minister bring about an immediate change in the administrative policies of the department to bring them in line with normal standards of Canadian justice, as so often urged by the opposition in the house?


Hon. J. W. Pickersgill (Minister of Citizenship and Immigration):: Mr. Speaker, it would require no change in the practices of my department to achieve the result that the hon. gentleman has suggested is desirable. As for the decision in the Brent case, the

supreme court has not yet given the reasons for judgment. Until I have seen them I do not intend to anticipate them.


Edmund Davie Fulton: May I ask then if the minister does not know that the government's appeal was dismissed?


John Whitney Pickersgill: I am very well aware of that fact.



SUGGESTED INCREASE IN TIME FOR APPEAL

[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. Stanley Knowles (Winnipeg North Centre):: Mr. Speaker, may I direct a question to the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration. Will the minister consider extending to a longer period of time the 48 hours within which a person ordered deported may appeal to the new immigration appeal board, which the minister has established to be effective as at March 1?


John Whitney Pickersgill: Mr. Speaker, I shall be very glad to give consideration to the advantages there might be in extending the 48-hour period. I have some doubt in my own mind whether there would be any advantages but certainly I have no desire, and I am sure the government has no desire, to deny an appeal to any landed immigrant, and if a longer delay would make that end more certain there will be a longer delay.



BURSTALL SUBDIVISION


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. W. M. Johnson (Kindersley):: Mr. Speaker, I should like to direct a question to the Minister of Trade and Commerce. Has the minister been made aware of the severe box car shortage on the C.P.R. lines in the Burstall subdivision? If so, what action has the minister taken to correct the situation?


Right Hon. C. D. Howe (Minister of Trade and Commerce):: Mr. Speaker, I thank the hon. member for having given me notice of this question.
I keep in touch very closely with the general transportation situation, but this is the first time the particular problems of the Burstall subdivision have been drawn to my attention.
I am advised by the Canadian wheat board that the unit delivery quota has been taken care of at all points on the subdivision except Gascoigne, where four cars are still required. There are enough board orders out now to take care of the one-bushel quota for the

whole subdivision and the board is pursuing the matter with the railway to facilitate the car supply. From February 3 to February 10, 32 cars were supplied in the subdivision.



POST OFFICE DEPARTMENT


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. W. M. Hamilton (Notre Dame de Grace):: Mr. Speaker, will the Postmaster General inform the house when his department plan to commence operations in their new building in Nanaimo, British Columbia?


Hon. Hugues Lapointe (Postmaster General):: Mr. Speaker, my understanding is that the department will probably move within the next two or three weeks into that part of the building which has been assigned to it.



PRIVILEGE


James Garfield Gardiner: Mr. Speaker, on a question of privilege I should like to point out that on page 1107 of Hansard of yesterday the hon. member for Rosetown-Biggar (Mr. Coldwell) is reported to have said:
But I do know that on one occasion when a colleague of mine simply inserted in Hansard the words "Mr, Speaker" indicating that I had risen to speak, the Minister of Agriculture not only objected to it but he pursued the former editor of Hansard with letters of criticism almost until he went to his grave.
I can quite understand, after listening to the discussion yesterday, why my hon. friend did not undertake to have that taken out of Hansard, but I do want to refer to the fact that I asked him if he would produce the letters.
I wish to place the letters on the table of the house. I wrote one letter, and I wrote it within the time that is allowed to me under the rules of this house to have a matter corrected in revised Hansard. It was not corrected in revised Hansard, and I had one letter back. I did not take the matter up with the editor of Hansard; I took it up with the Clerk of the house. The letter was to the Clerk of the house and the answer was from the Clerk of the house. They have to do with the matter of the discussion which took place. The hon. member for Rosetown-Biggar and I were more or less playing for position in order to get the right to be the last speaker, and a discussion arose as to whether the rules were being followed. I am not going to go into that; I am simply going to ask hon. members to read these letters, which will be on the table.
Hansard-Altering of Report
The reference in the letters to the insertion of the words "Mr. Speaker" at page 3228 of Hansard for April 22, 1948, by the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre (Mr. Knowles) will be fully understood by hon. members if they will read the discussions between Mr. Speaker and myself and' between the hon. member for Rosetown-Biggar and Mr. Speaker. There was only one letter written by me and it was to the Clerk of the house, and was intended to refer to revised Hansard.
The words still remain in revised Hansard and if it is correct to have them there the ruling of the Speaker was wrong at the time I appealed to him to make a ruling. I wrote to the Clerk to call attention to the fact that if those words were properly there, then the order of the Speaker should have been different. I only say that because of what was said yesterday by the hon. member.
I want to say in addition that I have had five experiences of this kind with the hon. member, and the causes of them were exactly the same as with the hon. member for Moose Jaw-Lake Centre (Mr. Thatcher) as discussed in this house the other day when he was referring to what happened in Moose Jaw following a certain discussion here.


Edmund Davie Fulton: Would the minister explain?


Mr. M. J. Coldwell (Rosetown-Biggar):: Mr. Speaker, if I was in error yesterday I should like the record corrected. As a matter of fact I was speaking from memory. I remember very well the incident to which the hon. gentleman has referred, and the taking up on the floor of this house of the matter of the insertion of those words. I remember too that I understood that the correspondence to which I referred was not with the Clerk of the house but with Mr. Earl Young. Apparently on that point I was misinformed. If there are other respects in which I was in error yesterday I would certainly wish to set the record straight, because I try to be straightforward and fair. I think the minister could profit from some examples of that description.


James Garfield Gardiner: Mr. Speaker, I have been meeting my hon. friend now for about 30 or 40 years, and on every occasion that he has attempted to misrepresent something I have said he knows who has lost the battle. He has lost it on every occasion, and this is the first time he has apologized for having lost it.


Major James William Coldwell: I made no apology other than to say I would be glad to set the record straight.


James Garfield Gardiner: You are not big enough to set an example by making an apology.

Inquiries of the Ministry


An hon. Member:: You are not so big yourself.


Mr. Speaker:: Order.


Stanley Howard Knowles: I rise for just a moment on a question of privilege. Earlier today the Minister of Agriculture was permitted, on a question of privilege, to table certain documents and make a statement in which my name was involved. My question of privilege is that in making that statement the minister asked members to look at page 3228 of Hansard for April 22, 1948, if they wished to study the incident to which reference had been made, but that is the only page in Hansard to which he referred. What the Minister of Agriculture failed to do was to point out that on pages 3623 and 3624 of Hansard for May 5, 1948, the whole incident was discussed and, with the assistance of the late member for Danforth, Mr. Joseph Harris, was cleared up to the satisfaction of all who wished to study the incident. My point of privilege is that any reference to this incident should have included both of those references in Hansard and not just the one the minister placed on the record.


EXTERNAL AFFAIRS
[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Hon. L. B. Pearson (Secretary of Slate for External Affairs):: Mr. Pearson-


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh.


Lester Bowles Pearson: Mr. Speaker, I apologize for putting myself in your place.


An hon. Member:: You are speaking to yourself.


Lester Bowles Pearson: On February 10 last the hon. member for Mackenzie (Mr. Nicholson) asked the following question:
In view of the Canadian Press stories in the morning papers to the effect that Bussia may buy $5 million worth of wheat a year from Canada, would the minister consider recommending to the cabinet the accepting of the U.S.S.R. invitation for a Canadian parliamentary delegation to visit Russia, which was transmitted to the Canadian embassy in Moscow on January 6 of this year?
May I say first that the stories in question in so far as the shipment of wheat was concerned were inaccurate in a number of important respects. But apart from that, and with respect to the suggestion that there be an exchange of parliamentary delegations between Canada and the Soviet union, I do not think that this should in any way be related to the current trade discussions, as

they are two quite separate matters. Recently, at the request of the Soviet foreign ministry, I conveyed to parliament through the Speakers of the two houses the translation of a resolution passed by the Supreme Soviet on December 28, 1955, which expressed support for parliamentary exchanges, of which you, Mr. Speaker, have already informed the house.
I understand that members are being given an opportunity of expressing their views regarding this invitation. Any attitude the government as such might take with regard to exchange visits of this kind will, of course, be taken in the light of the views of members as and when determined by them.


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Stanley Howard Knowles: Mr. Speaker, I should like to direct a question to the Minister of Justice. Will the federal government consider suggesting to the provinces the holding of a federal-provincial conference to integrate Canadian prison policy, as was suggested yesterday in Toronto by the John Howard society?


Hon. Stuart S. Garson (Minister of Justice):: Mr. Speaker, I wish to thank my hon. friend for giving me notice of this question. Of course the answer to the question is yes, but I think we would be wise to postpone calling such a conference until after we have received the reports of the Fauteux inquiry and the McRuer commission, in order that we might be supplied thereby with sufficient data to indicate that this would be a fit subject for consideration by the two levels of governments at this time.


Clarence Decatur Howe: the second reading of Bill No. 82, to provide for short-term credit to grain producers in the prairie provinces to meet temporary financial difficulties arising from inability to deliver all their grain.


Mr. D. S. Harkness (Calgary North):: Mr. Speaker, this is the stage of this legislation when we are supposed to discuss the general principle of the bill. There are many, of course, who would say that as far as this

bill is concerned there is no principle. However, such as it is, the principle is contained in the title of the bill, which reads:
An act to provide for short-term credit to grain producers in the prairie provinces to meet temporary financial difficulties arising from inability to deliver all their grain.
In other words, this is an expedient to put a limited amount of cash into the hands of a limited number of farmers who have been unable to secure that cash in the normal way by the sale of their grain. The very wording of the title demonstrates the failure of the government to realize the seriousness of the cash situation of the prairie grain grower. To begin with, the bill says, "to meet temporary financial difficulties." The situation, I think, cannot properly be called temporary.
The minister is capable of taking a very liberal view, I know, of what the meaning of the word "temporary" may be, but I would submit that this shortage of cash on the part of western grain growers has been getting progressively worse over the past three years. This is not something that has come up only this year; it has been with us now for some considerable time. Moreover, the situation is steadily growing worse.
When you look at all the factors concerned, I think you will realize there is very little real prospect of this situation coming to an end in the next few months or in the limited period of one year that this bill is provided to cover. We have a very large surplus of grain, both stored in the elevators and still on the farms. The United States also has a very large carryover of grain. The general world wheat situation is one of surplus supply. Under those circumstances I do not think there is any real possibility of the present shortage of cash in the hands of the wheat farmers being really relieved for a period of at least two or three years in the future.
The Minister of Trade and Commerce and the government stubbornly refuse to admit that this is the situation. The minister at every opportunity talks of the improved sales position and comes out with optimistic statements, thereby attempting to spread the general idea that soon the farmer will be able to get rid of his grain and his cash difficulties will be at an end. I think that is merely raising false hopes. Instead of engaging in talk of that sort the minister should be addressing himself to some more realistic and definite means of solving the general difficulties brought about by the inability to sell our surplus grain and the resulting serious cash position of western farmers.
Grain
The full title of the bill continues with these words:
... to meet temporary financial difficulties arising from inability to deliver all their grain.
I emphasize the word "all". From reading this one would think that the farmers have been able to deliver a large proportion of their grain, but let us look at the actual situation. As far as last year's crop is concerned, a considerable number of farmers have only been able to deliver 300 bushels of wheat or 500 bushels of barley or 800 bushels of oats, enough in any event to give the farmer around $300 or at the most $350. This amount is quite insufficient to meet even his harvesting expenses, let alone any of his other expenses.
In addition, a one-bushel quota has been provided at a certain number of points in western Canada, and I believe a two-bushel quota was provided at a limited number of points. However, the fact that a quota is established, no matter what it is, does not mean that the farmer has been able to deliver that much grain. An eight-bushel quota was established with respect to last year's crop, but a considerable number of people were not able to deliver the eight bushel quota. They were still delivering on the eight bushel quota after they had harvested their last crop. In effect the situation is that as far as last year's crop is concerned the farmers in some cases have been able to deliver no grain and in other cases only a limited amount. Therefore when the bill refers to inability to deliver all their grain I think it gives a false impression.
When the legislation was discussed at the resolution stage the position of this party was made very clear. The Leader of the Opposition (Mr. Drew), the hon. member for Prince Albert (Mr. Diefenbaker), the hon. member for Dufferin-Simcoe (Mr. Rowe), I and others made very clear what we thought of the legislation. Our view can be summed up in four words. We did not like it. We did not like it at the resolution stage and we do not like it now that it has reached the second reading stage. We believe the measure is totally inadequate to meet the situation existing in western Canada brought about by a lack of cash, and that a much better method to deal with the situation is available in the form of cash advances on farm-stored grain.
The three general grounds on which this particular proposal has been attacked in the house were argued very extensively at the resolution stage by many members on this side, and I do not propose to repeat all the arguments put forward then in order to show that this was a completely inadequate and

Grain
poor piece of legislation. I will merely summarize them. The first general ground of complaint with the legislation is that the maximum amount that can be lent, $1,500, is insufficient so far as a large number of farmers are concerned. We have also been told that the average amount of the loans actually made so far is in the neighbourhood of $800.
I think it is quite clear that $800, or $1,500 in the case of a larger farm, is totally inadequate to meet the farmer's harvesting expenses, pay his taxes, provide him with food, fuel and clothing to carry him through the winter, and take care of the various other expenses he has to meet.
For that reason alone the legislation is unsatisfactory. It does not do the job which it says it is going to do. It does not provide enough funds for the majority of the people who may want to take advantage of it.
The second general ground of complaint on this bill is that the interest rate of 5 per cent is not justified. The loans are government guaranteed, and as everyone knows the rate of interest on government bonds, for example, is 3 per cent. The rate of interest on other loans guaranteed by the government is 3 per cent or 3| per cent. Under these circumstances the farmers cannot understand why a rate of 5 per cent is justified. One might say that the risk to the bank is negligible.
Apart altogether from the interest rate, which is unsatisfactory, the farmer in western Canada does not believe he should pay interest on this money at all. He looks upon the payment of interest, as has been pointed out, as a payment of interest on his last years' wages. He looks upon it as very inequitable that he should be called upon to pay this toll on what he has already earned.
The third general complaint in regard to this bill is that many farmers cannot get loans under it. The very men who perhaps need the cash worst are the ones to whom the bank is unwilling to make advances. In addition to that, as has been pointed out also, a very large number of farmers do not deal with banks. In some cases they live 40 or 50 miles away from banks. The banker does not know them, and therefore is not prepared to make loans. One might sum up all of these objections to this legislation by saying it just does not meet the situation and is not what the farmers have requested.
On the other hand, we should consider a system of cash advances, which is what the farmers desire and what the organizations who have spoken for the farmers have requested. We find that all the arguments
[Mr. Harkness.l
which can be put forward against the proposed legislation do not apply to a system of cash advances. The argument put forward by the minister and other members of his party against cash advances is that such a system would make the wheat board into a lending institution, and that the wheat board has not the staff to handle cash advances. It is said it would be impossible for the board to look after a system of that sort.
I feel that both these arguments were completely shattered by the discussion we had during the resolution stage of this bill. I believe it is quite apparent to anyone that a cash advance is not a loan. There is a distinct difference, for example, between going to a farmer and putting down $10 on a cow which he is to deliver a month later, and going out and lending him $10. The farmer understands that. The livestock business used to be conducted on that basis. You went out and bought stock, and put so much down on it. Essentially that is what is being asked for so far as the system of cash advances is concerned. It is really a payment on account, which is a different thing from a loan as the minister tried to represent it. The argument, therefore, that making these payments on account to farmers for grain stored in their granaries would put the wheat board in the same class as a lending institution, or convert, it into a banking institution, just does not hold up.
The other argument, from the mechanical point of view, that the wheat board is not set up to handle a scheme of this sort, that it has not the staff, is equally without any strength. Ever since its inception the wheat board has been making advances to farmers. The advances were in the form of initial payments when the farmers delivered grain to the elevators.
There is no essential difference between making a payment of that sort and making a payment on grain while it is still stored in the farmer's bin. There may be a little more risk, but I am not arguing that particular point. Even so, I would maintain that the amount of risk is negligible. The risk in that case is that when this payment is entered in the farmer's permit book, he is then in a position where he cannot deliver any more grain unless this is taken account of, and his opportunities for selling grain except to the wheat board are extremely limited. In most cases they are nil. His only other customers are neighbours who may buy grain for feed. Most farmers already have more grain than they can feed, so he has practically no market. In some cases there is a little exchange of grain going on with implement dealers and other appliance dealers.

However, in effect the farmer has only the one customer and that is the wheat board.
I think there is no question but that as the wheat board, an agency of the government, is the farmer's only customer, the government has the responsibility for making cash advances to the farmer so he can pay his normal expenses. We in this party believe that a system of cash advances would be a much better method of handling the situation than this legislation which has been presented to us and which we believe to be completely inadequate for the purpose.
Therefore I move, seconded by the hon. member for Brandon-Souris (Mr. Dinsdale):
That Bill No. 82 be not now read the second time, but that it be resolved that in the opinion of this house consideration should be given to the Introduction of legislation which will provide for cash payments on farm-stored grain.
Before I sit down there is one other matter I should like to mention and that is the attitude which the minister took during the previous debate and which I think is open to serious question. He made what was nothing less than a threat to the members of this house. He said, in effect, that if we did not stop discussing this piece of legislation, which had been under discussion only a short time, he would withdraw it until the end of the session. The implication was that he would leave the farmers in a position where they could not get loans of any sort, and the responsibility would be ours.
I am fairly certain the minister will not try to carry out that threat because every farmer in this country would know that the responsibility was the minister's. This minister, and the government which supports him, would be responsible if the farmers could not get more loans. The members of the opposition would not be responsible merely because they had made proper criticism of the legislation the minister proposed, and were going on the theory that it might be possible to get the government to reconsider this legislation and bring in something better.
I would say to the minister through you, Mr. Speaker, that threats of that sort serve the exactly opposite purpose to that which the minister intended. That sort of disregard for parliament is the very sort of thing which makes all of us determined not to obey what amounts tQ a piece of dictation, a threat, or whatever you would like to call it.


Willis Merwyn (Merv) Johnson: Mr. Speaker, it is rather unusual to see our friends in the official opposition make an about-face which is so obvious, because it was at the resolution stage of this legislation that they said there were enough good
Grain
points in the bill to prevent them from voting against it. However, they have reversed their position because they perhaps recognize the arguments which we in this group have put forth in favour of cash advances on farm-stored grain.


Douglas Scott Harkness: Mr. Speaker, on a question of privilege, I think the hon. member has totally misinterpreted my motion and what I said. There is no about-face involved in this amendment whatsoever. It is merely a substitution of something better for what has been submitted to us.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: Order. May I draw to the attention of hon. members the fact that they sometimes feel free to rise on questions of privilege which, in my opinion, are more in the nature of refutation of argument. I would hope that hon. members would recognize the difference between true questions of privilege and matters which are merely refutation of argument, which should be done in another way.


Willis Merwyn (Merv) Johnson: Mr. Speaker, as I interpret the amendment moved by the hon. member it is to the effect that the bill be not now read a second time. To me it indicates a position that the members of the official opposition did not take at the resolution stage.


Edmund Davie Fulton: We did not have the bill then. How could we?


Willis Merwyn (Merv) Johnson: The hon. member could have voted against the resolution, as we did. We voted against it, as my leader pointed out, so we would not in any way indicate our support for this half measure which might prevent the introduction of legislation which would do some good, and which is really wanted. We wanted legislation in the line of a continuation of orderly marketing through cash advances on farm-stored grain, as was advocated by this group in the amendment to the address in reply to the speech from the throne.
The title of the bill before the house is an indication of the deceit in the bill. It is an act to provide short-term credit to grain producers in the prairie provinces to meet temporary financial difficulties arising from inability to deliver all their grain. It is an act to provide short-term credit to grain producers and, Mr. Speaker, it has failed miserably in this regard because, as the Minister of Trade and Commerce pointed out, only around 8,000 farmers in the three prairie provinces have seen fit to, or were able to, obtain a loan under the provisions of this legislation out of the 200,000 farmers or thereabouts who are in western Canada.

Grain
It has also failed, Mr. Speaker, because the average loan taken out is around $800, which is a little over half of $1,500, which the legislation was heralded as providing to western farmers. It is deceitful in this regard because it does not provide for nor live up to the expectations of western farmers. I have a question on the order paper requesting a breakdown on the number and size of the loans, but evidently the minister does not want the question to be answered until this stage of the debate has passed, because on page 980 of Hansard the Minister of Trade and Commerce said:
I will give the hon. member the information now if he wants it.
It is now nearly one week later, and the question is still unanswered. That can only be interpreted as an effort on the part of the government to cover up some of the bad features of this legislation, to cover up the dismal failure which it has been.
The legislation was bound to fail, Mr. Speaker. There are 1,200 shipping points in Saskatchewan, but at the same time there are only 159 points served by 257 branch banks. As the Minister of Trade and Commerce well knows, the distances in the western prairies are great and the legislation is just not adaptable to those circumstances. It is very difficult for the farmer to go 50 or 60 miles to get a loan from a branch bank he has never visited before and where he is unknown. It has been pointed out in previous speeches that unless the banker is in a position to have complete confidence in the borrower, he is not going to make the loan.
The legislation was bound to fail because of the red tape which was attached to its application. The first form brought out dealing with applications for loans, the form that the farmer would fill out after he had travelled 50 miles to visit a branch bank, required him to put down everything except the money in the kiddy's piggy bank. It asked for a net worth statement on behalf of the bank; liens that were against the grain; the amount of grain that he would have a chance to market in his own right; the amount of grain the landlord would be entitled to. It made him list any chattel liens against the grain. That is an indication of the attitude of the government in bringing down legislation that has so much red tape attached to it that we could not expect the farmer to fill out the form to get the loan and return and get his $1,500.
We must give a great deal of credit to the members of the Saskatchewan wheat pool and the officials of that organization who, realizing that their battle for cash advances

on farm-stored grain was perhaps useless in the face of government inactivity, met with the officials of the Department of Finance and had this form amended to take some of the sting out of it and make it a little easier for farmers to get loans. But still on the form there is a certificate by the responsible banker indicating his confidence in the reliability of the farmer. In other words if there is any risk involved the bank manager will not make the loan.
I say this legislation was bound to fail, as the hon. member for Calgary North pointed out, because of the 5 per cent interest rate involved. The Minister of Trade and Commerce added it all up and came up with a figure of around $20. I do not think that is the point. The principle of the legislation is what bothers the farmers in western Canada. They do not forget the depression they went through. They do not forget how often a little bit of debt can mushroom and pyramid and eventually break them. Therefore they are very reluctant indeed to take on further debt based on their own earning capacity.
We must also take into consideration the relationship of the farmers to the small businessmen and merchants in town to indicate again why this legislation was bound to fail. If I, as an individual farmer, owe $500 to the implement dealer in my town, I would be in no rush to pay it by means of this loan if I wanted to be a good businessman. If I did not have the money I would not go and borrow money at 5 per cent interest to pay a debt which was in effect costing me nothing. The businessman is going to sell me machines in the future. Therefore I am not going to incur a debt of 5 per cent to pay off a debt which through his good graces is not costing me anything. It is not that the businessman would not like to charge some interest but he realizes the people he is going to have to deal with in the future, through thick and thin, are these same farmers.
The grocer is in the same position, and the oil dealer. We can see the unfairness of this legislation and the hardship it works on these small merchants, the implement dealers and the independent grocers, in carrying the debts of the farmers. There is no alternative; the farmers are forced to borrow money on their own earnings at 5 per cent if they are to pay them off.
The alternative, of course, to this whole proposal, as was pointed out by my leader, is cash advances for farm-stored grain, a system whereby the farmer would be entitled as a right to some return for the product he has produced in the year and which he now cannot sell.

I think the various aspects of the operation of a cash advance on farm-stored grain have been fairly well spelled out, but they have fallen on many ignorant ears. The Minister of Trade and Commerce indicates his objection to cash advances on farm-stored grain, as reported at page 128 of Hansard:
You must be careful about lending on grain where only limited security can be had. The grain on the farm would be the only security the board would have.
In effect the minister has said that you cannot trust the western farmer. He goes on to point out that as circumstances present themselves, farmers might feed their grain to their hogs or sell it to a neighbour. I wonder what has caused such a reverse in the minister's attitude toward the western farmer, because in 1951 when discussing a similar piece of legislation that was before us he outlined that the interest rate could be 5 per cent and he said, as reported at page 2034 of Hansard:
The basis for my opinion that the government's liability under its guarantee is negligible rests fundamentally upon my belief in the integrity and good faith of western grain growers.
That is rather an about-face in five years. In one case the minister says you can charge a low interest rate. I am assuming that the minister at that time thought 5 per cent was a low interest rate. He said you could do this because of the integrity of western farmers; but he now says you cannot make cash advances on farm-stored grain because the farmers will spirit it away in the night and the losses will be excessive.
Tbe second phase of the bill, Mr. Speaker, as it states, is to meet temporary financial difficulties. This is just another case of more deceit. Certainly these conditions have not just popped up overnight. They did not just develop on November 15, 1955. The agricultural share of the national income has been declining continuously for the last five years. According to the Canadian Journal of Agricultural Economics, volume 3, No. 2, we find that in 1954 the farmers of Canada received the lowest share of the national income they have ever received in my lifetime. They received 6-8 per cent of the national income as opposed to the other low period of 6-9 per cent in 1931.
When we consider that agriculture involves approximately 20 per cent of the population of Canada we are indeed being deceitful when we say this is a temporary financial situation. This is the financial position of the farmer as related to other aspects of the agricultural picture. We cannot say it is just the price of wheat, because it is related to these other matters which have been brought up in
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debate. It is related to the fact that there is no floor price on hogs and there is no realistic floor price on eggs. When you have circumstances where farmers in western Canada are receiving 28 cents a dozen for eggs and 25 cents less than the floor price for hogs and a drop in the price of beef, you are able to make a more complete appraisal of this temporary financial difficulty, as it is termed in the bill.
Of course the farmers all over Canada are suffering from the price-cost squeeze, which is perhaps more pointed in the case of western Canadian farmers because as is generally realized, the occupation of the grain grower is more precarious and hazardous than for other mixed forms of agriculture. It is more sensitive to the rises and falls in our economy. In relation to the price-cost squeeze there is a general movement on behalf of the farm organizations to try and correct it.
I do not think the way to bring the level of farm income up is to bring the income of the other organizations down; but my colleague the hon. member for Mackenzie (Mr. Nicholson) certainly indicated one way this squeeze could be curbed. He indicated that there was a refusal on the part of the government to make a deal with the government of Poland whereby we could get cement in return for wheat. In fact it was even more favourable to the government than that; we would have to buy a certain amount of cement from the Polish government, and they in turn would buy a much larger amount of wheat from us. This of course will meet with the general approval of western farmers who have to buy United States cement at $2.65 a bag because they cannot get Canadian cement. They pay 80 cents a bag more for cement because of the failure of this government to carry out some policy which would provide them with cement on the one hand and sell our wheat on the other.
The bill goes on to state that it is designed to provide short-term credit to meet the temporary financial difficulty of the western farmers arising from their inability to deliver all their grain. What an insult to western farmers to indicate that they are in financial difficulties because they cannot deliver all their grain. Far from being able to deliver all their grain as of January 25, we have delivered in grain marketings from the farm slightly over half as much as the average in the preceding ten year period. This is an indication to me that we have not been able to deliver even a fraction of all our grain. We have delivered 75 million bushels less than last year at this time.
I think in fairness the government could do very well to expunge that whole title from

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the bill and put one in that would be more suitable to the desire and wishes of western farmers. Not only is it because of our inability to market all our grain or even a small portion of it that we are in financial difficulties; it is because of the gross inequality in the opportunities to deliver. The whole situation of box car allocation and distribution has been a most vexing one in western Canada.
I received a letter from the secretary of the wheat pool committee at Mendham, in that same area the Minister of Trade and Commerce referred to in answer to my question on the orders of the day. I shall read it, because it certainly gives an appreciation of the circumstances that affect farmers in that area. The letter is addressed to me:
Dear Sir:
A very serious situation is facing the farmers and business people of this district.
Mr. Gardiner made a statement that more money has been paid out to farmers since August 1 than over the same period last year. This is not so in our district and neighbouring points.
Since August 1 the average income of farmers here has been approximately $350. Thanks to the business firms which have been able to carry the burden till now. But there is a climax to all.
Since August 1 we are short 70 box cars compared to the same period last year, besides the fact that a number of the 90 cars received this year was used to fill the 8 bushel quota of the previous year. The situation was serious then. How serious is it now?
In comparison to the grain that has been moved from the prairies since August 1 where does the proportion of the grain of the Mendham district come in?
We farmers hereby request that immediate action be taken so we get more box cars.
Yours very truly,
Bernard Zubot,
Secretary of
Mendham pool committee.


Mr. Speaker:: 
Edmund Davie Fulton: Before making any comment may I ask upon what citation or ruling you based the first part of your remarks, with respect to the relevancy of the amendment to the bill now under consideration?


Mr. Speaker:: Citation 662 reads:
The principle of relevancy in an amendment governs every proposed resolution, which, on the second reading of a bill, must not include in its scope other bills then standing for consideration by the house. Nor may such an amendment deal with the provisions of the bill upon which it is moved, nor anticipate amendments thereto which may be moved in committee, not attach conditions to the second reading of the bill.
I gave as an example the distinction which could be made between housing and rental because I thought the house would remember that that case was before Mr. Speaker Macdonald a few years ago, and that was his decision.


Douglas Scott Harkness: Mr. Speaker, I based my amendment on the authority of Beauchesne's second edition, paragraph 755, to be found at page 217, which reads:
It is also competent to a member who desires to place on record any special reasons for not agreeing to the second reading of a bill, to move as an amendment to the question, a resolution declaratory of some principle adverse to, or differing from, the principles, policy, or provisions of the bill, or expressing opinions as to any circumstances connected with its introduction-
The rest of the paragraph is not applicable. I do not think there is any question but that this amendment is declaratory of some principle adverse to or differing from the principles, policies or provisions of the bill. As you have pointed out yourself, the bill provides for loans and the amendment provides

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that the bill shall be withdrawn and that there shall be substituted legislation to provide for cash payments on farm-stored grain.
As I read this particular section of Beau-chesne I would think it would be quite in order to introduce an amendment of that sort. I find that there are a number of precedents for amendments of this kind. At page 1136 of Hansard of March 27, 1950, will be found an amendment of a similar type. That amendment dealt with Bill No. 16, to amend the agricultural products act, and read as follows:
That Bill No. 16 be not now read a second time but that it be resolved that in the opinion of this house consideration should be given to the introducing of a permanent agricultural products export act which would provide for the setting up of an export board, to fill present contracts, negotiate future contracts, and develop new markets abroad for surplus agricultural products.
Representations were made in connection with the amendment and it was allowed. On the same day another amendment of the same type was introduced, to be found at page 1157. This was in connection with Bill No. 17 to amend the Agricultural Prices Support Act. The amendment provided that floor prices should be established at such levels as to guarantee to producers a price-cost relationship.
Then on Wednesday, March 29, an amendment was moved which was really on all fours with this one. That will be found at page 1368 of Hansard for that date. The house was dealing with Bill No. 54 to amend the Fisheries Prices Support Act and the amendment moved read as follows:
That Bill No. 54 be not now read a second time, but that it be resolved that in the opinion of this house consideration should be given to the introducing of legislation to amend the Fisheries Prices Support Act so as to provide that floor prices should be established at such levels as to guarantee to those engaged in the fishing industry a price-cost relationship not less favourable than that prevailing in the period 1944-48.
In view of section 755 of Beauchesne and these precedents I did not consider that there would be any question of this amendment not being in order.


Stanley Howard Knowles: May I just ask one question?


Mr. Speaker:: In quoting these precedents is the hon. member in a position to tell me whether in respect of any one of those cases there was a caveat issued by the Speaker, or some remarks made in relation thereto?


Douglas Scott Harkness: In connection with the first one representations were made and the Speaker finally allowed the amendment.


Mr. Speaker:: And stated that it should not be regarded as a precedent.


Edmund Davie Fulton: Anything can be regarded as a precedent or not.


Mr. Speaker:: That is just it. There are many times when a Speaker finds himself in the position of considering an amendment which is a borderline case. He lets it go at that, and what happens is precisely what is happening today.


Stanley Howard Knowles: Might I ask just one question? When points of order are raised in the midst of an hon. member's speech it is often considered that the hon. member is at least partly responsible and the time taken up is charged against him. May I point out that this matter has been raised in the midst of the speech being made by the hon. member for Kindersley (Mr. Johnson). It was not his fault, and I hope the time taken up will not be charged against his 40 minutes.


Mr. Speaker:: No. The only reason I interrupted the hon. member in order to deal with this amendment was that I wanted to protect his rights if toward the end of his speech he wanted to move a subamendment.


Edmund Davie Fulton: On a point of order, as I understand it, it is suggested that the amendment might be out of order on one or both of two grounds; first, that it is not relevant to the bill now before us; and second, that it deals with a matter upon which the opinion of the house has already been taken. May I deal with those two points in that order?
I submit that my colleague the hon. member for Calgary North has effectively dealt with the question of the propriety of the amendment standing on its own, that is apart from the question of whether it repeats the amendment previously offered. But I would like to suggest, in addition to what he has said, that citation 662, which Your Honour was kind enough to refer me to in answer to my question, does not seem to be applicable under the circumstances. It reads:
The principle of relevancy in an amendment governs every proposed resolution, which, on the second reading of a bill, must not include in its scope other bills then standing for consideration by the house.
I hardly see how this amendment could be said to include in its scope any other bill standing for consideration. The citation goes on:
Nor may such an amendment deal with the provisions of the bill upon which it is moved-
Still it does not deal with the detailed provisions of the bill upon which it is moved. It suggests an alternative principle, an entirely different alternative, or rather an alternative not related to the detailed provisions of the bill. It asserts a contrary principle, and I make that statement without any

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hesitation. It asserts a contrary principle without the adoption of which the hon. member moving the amendment could not agree to the bill. Then the citation continues:
-nor anticipate amendments thereto which may be moved in committee, nor attach conditions to the second reading of the bill.
I submit it is quite obvious that it does neither of those. Your Honour referred to the question of relevancy, and we may as well deal with all the points that have been raised. I wonder if the hon. member may have had in mind citation 657, which is the same as the citation already read by the hon. member for Calgary North from Beauchesne's second edition. This is exactly what is being done here. The hon. member is placing on record a special reason for not agreeing to the second reading of the bill, and is therefore moving a resolution declaratory of some principle adverse to, or differing from, the principles, policy, or provisions of the bill. He is thus advancing a different proposition, but it is still relevant because both the amendment and the bill itself deal with the same general subject. Your Honour, I think, distinguished them on the basis that the amendment deals with cash advances whereas you said the bill deals with short-term credit. I think you are placing an entirely too restrictive interpretation on the bill. May I read the short title?
This act may be cited as the Prairie Grain Producers Interim Financing Act, 1956.
It says "interim financing". The bill deals with the subject of placing cash in the hands of prairie farmers because of an emergency situation that has arisen.


Mr. Speaker:: Through lending. How do you propose to make the cash advances?


Edmund Davie Fulton: You are asking me to deal with the detailed provisions of the bill, which we are not allowed to do.


Mr. Speaker:: No, I am not asking that of the hon. member.


Edmund Davie Fulton: You certainly are.


Mr. Speaker:: The hon. member said I placed too strict an interpretation-


Edmund Davie Fulton: On the general principle.


Mr. Speaker:: -on the general principle; and, since he was dealing with this, I just asked him for the purpose of clarifying my own stand how he defines it himself.


Edmund Davie Fulton: I would suggest that the general principle or purpose of the bill is to place cash in the hands of prairie farmers which they require because of an emergency. The method by which that is to be done is dealt with under the detailed provisions of the

bill, and the bill proposes in its detailed provisions to do it by guaranteeing loans through banks, but the purpose or principle is to place cash in the hands of prairie farmers.
My hon. friend from Calgary North says we propose to the house that the same purpose and principle be achieved, that is, that cash be placed in the hands of prairie farmers, but by another detailed method, namely by requiring the wheat board to make cash advances. So the principle of the two proposals is identical, and that, I submit to you, is proven conclusively by reference to the short title, "Prairie Grain Producers Interim Financing Act". The purpose is to enable the interim financing of prairie producers. One proposes in detail to do it through guaranteed bank loans; the other proposes to do it through cash advances by the wheat board. The amendment is most certainly relevant to the principle of the bill. It seeks to advance the same purpose as the bill seeks to achieve, only by a different and much more acceptable method.
I should have thought that Your Honour- and I make the suggestion with deference- probably attaches more weight to the proposition that this amendment has been anticipated by the amendment moved earlier by the C.C.F. party. I should like, then, to deal with that proposition. Here I think I should be able to convince you that the two amendments are different. The amendment moved by the C.C.F., which is to be found on page 53 of Hansard, proposed to add to the amendment moved by my leader on that occasion the following words:
-including their failure to provide cash advances on farm-stored grain, equal to not less than 75 per cent of the initial price, to alleviate the serious financial crisis now confronting western farmers and the entire economy of the prairie provinces.
The purpose and principle of that amendment was to condemn the government for not having done something. That was the sole object of that amendment. It was a motion of censure upon the government for their failure to do something, whereas the amendment now before us proposes, by way of a positive amendment, that the government, instead of proceeding by way of guaranteed loans, should proceed by way of cash advances. So I submit to you that to move censure of the government for its failure to do something is not the same as advancing in a substantive motion that another principle be substituted for the principle of the bill now before us.
I agree that it would be the same thing if we moved, say on a motion to go into supply, an amendment to censure the government for not having made cash advances. Then we

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would be clearly repeating the previous motion, a motion censuring the government for failure to do something. But when the amendment before us moves that a bill be not now read a second time but that instead the house resolve that cash advances should be made, that is to my mind something quite different from a motion of non-confidence in the government condemning it for its failure, and a detailed failure; that is, a failure to provide cash advances equal to not less than 75 per cent of the initial price.


Mr. Speaker:: May I interrupt the hon. member, just to ask him this. If the two motions-the one that was moved by way of a subamendment to the address in reply, and this one to the second reading of the bill-are in fact two motions on which the judgment of the house is required, would they then be regarded as the same if it were not for the fact that the hon. member contends that there is distinction between a motion of censure and a motion that is an amendment to the second reading of the bill?


Edmund Davie Fulton: I think I have stated it as clearly as I can. To censure the government on one occasion, before any legislation has been introduced, for their failure to do a certain thing which is then positively stated, that is, make cash advances equivalent to 75 per cent, is a different thing from saying on this occasion that the bill should not be read a second time now but that in the opinion of this house consideration should be given to the introduction of legislation which will provide for cash payments on farm-stored grain. I do not think I could be making any argument at all if such an amendment had been moved as a vote of censure or nonconfidence on a supply motion, but when a positive alternative is put forward by way of amendment to the motion for second reading of a bill I submit that the one motion has not been anticipated by the other and that there is sufficient difference, if you like, to make this another borderline case upon which you should perhaps reserve your final decision.


Mr. Speaker:: Before the hon. member concludes his argument, may I say that I am very much interested in all he has said. Of course he realizes there is the general principle that no two questions substantially the same should be offered to the judgment of the house in the same session. That is the principle, and I would point out to him that by ancient usage the formalities attached to the presentation of an amendment to the motion respecting the address in reply to the speech from the throne involve an addition
to the motion, and that an amendment to the second reading of a bill is made by way of deleting all the words after "that" and inserting other words. These are the formalities as to the method of presenting a motion, but I would submit to the hon. member that they do not alter the principle that two motions substantially the same shall not be offered to the judgment of the house in the same session. He has already agreed that these two are substantially the same.


Mr. Harris:: Mr. Speaker, I rarely intervene in these discussions because I think you set things before us fairly clearly, but for the record I do want to dissent from the suggestion made by the hon. member for Kamloops that if the opposition on the address, on the six supply motions or on the budget cast their reflections on the government in a negative form, they are not then held accountable to the rule of anticipation. That in effect is what he has just said; and if what he has said should happen to become the practice of the house we would have these motions made from the beginning until the end of the session, and none of them precluding similar motions provided they are cast in the positive sense thereafter. 1 do not think even the hon. member for Kamloops seriously recommends that course.
On that point let me say this. In the wording of the subamendment moved by the C.C.F. party it is true that the word "legislation" was not used with respect to cash advances, and it is in the amendment before us; but any amendment or subamendment that may be moved on the address is, in a negative sense, based on the absence of legislation by the government, and the use of the word in itself is not necessary to indicate that what the opposition does mean is that we ought to do something by legislation.


Mr. Speaker:: Have all representations been made? I am very grateful for the manner in which this point has been dealt with. I shall be pleased to look into the various cases the hon. member for Calgary North has suggested to me. They are all recent cases, and I had one of them right before me. I have just returned it to the Clerk. It was the one that had to do with the marketing board case, and I read the remarks of the Speaker of that day. As I say, I could be very lenient in respect of all these amendments and say, "Well, it is a borderline case; let this not be taken as a precedent and we will carry on from there." However, one of these days a member will stand up and say there were four or five amendments which were all borderline cases, and ask me why I did not consider his as a borderline case.

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I am basing my remarks today on principles, and I am prepared to state them to the house. The hon. member for Kamloops has doubted the point I made with respect to relevancy. There is no question about relevancy-Perhaps some of these days the house may consider doing for the Speaker of the House of Commons what has been done for the Speaker of the commons of Australia, give him a table which could be removed on ceremonial occasions and replaced during debates during which the Speaker has to refer to many books-I have before me May, fifteenth edition, and at page 508 there is the following:
The principle of relevancy in an amendment governs every such motion.
This is the chapter dealing with the second reading of bills and amendments thereto, and in saying that May refers to page 400 of the same volume where I find the following:
The fundamental rule that debate must be relevant to a question necessarily involves the rule that every amendment must be relevant to the question on which the amendment is proposed.
This is why, in order to illustrate my point of view, I indicated to the house the distinction between housing and rental. I remember that when a bill regarding housing was presented in the house either the hon. member for Rosetown-Biggar or the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre proposed an amendment regarding the control of rentals. It may be that the Speaker of the time did not quite make that point. Perhaps he did not rest his judgment exclusively on that point, but having looked at them I think that this is the best point.
The amendment would switch the discussion from credit to cash advances. Therefore what would we have? We would have a debate which would be a repetition of that which took place on the amendment to the address in reply moved by the hon. member for Rosetown-Biggar in January.
There is no question as to the second principle, that no two questions substantially the same shall be offered to the house for its judgment in the same session. I would point out to the hon. member for Kamloops that the only difference between an amendment to the second reading of a bill and an amendment to the address in reply which he calls a vote of censure is in the method of presentation, which has been fixed by ancient usage, and which provides that an amendment to the address in reply to the speech from the throne has to be made by way of addition whereas in this case an amendment has to be made differently. Is there something else the hon. member wishes to say before I put the final point?


Edmund Davie Fulton: I was just going to say that there are frequent occasions when the difference between two subjects may be very little but still important, such as between men and women.


Mr. Speaker:: I am sorry, I did not quite get the last part of what the hon. member said. Would he be good enough to repeat it, please? It seems to be very important.


Edmund Davie Fulton: Because it is Valentine's day and I have a sense of gallantry I said "such as between men and women." It is very important.


Mr. Speaker:: Much to my regret, for the reasons I have given and the authorities I have cited, I must rule the amendment out of order.


Willis Merwyn (Merv) Johnson: Mr. Speaker, I should like to thank you for resolving this point before I had completed my remarks because while I did not have an amendment to move to the amendment moved by the hon. member for Calgary North, I have an amendment that I am going to move which is in a slightly different vein.
The last time I was on my feet I was discussing the amendment of the hon. member for Calgary North. Since it has now been ruled out of order I presume I could have another 40 minutes, but I can assure the house I am not going to take that long.
I was interested to note the tactics used by the official opposition in introducing this amendment. Their tactics were appreciated, because they indicated they are prepared to follow our leadership in fighting the battle for the western farmer to achieve cash advances on farm-stored grain, and that they will oppose this legislation which is inadequate.
One of the main reasons, Mr. Speaker, for the financial plight of the western farmer is the inefficiency of the transport controller. I have a copy of a resolution from the municipality of Miry Creek, which is south of the Saskatchewan river and in a similar area to the Burstall subdivision referred to in my question this morning. This is a copy of a letter which was sent to the Canadian wheat board and it says:
At the regular meeting of the council of this municipality on the 3rd instant, a resolution was passed to acquaint your board with the unequal distribution of box cars for grain hauling. This discrimination or unequal distribution of box cars having a serious financial effect on those farmers who must utilize the services of the Canadian Pacific Railway.
It has been pointed out that on the north side of the South Saskatchewan river, which is serviced by the Canadian National Railway, there appears to be no shortage of box cars. In fact, the fanners there have filled their 3-bushel quota and we are advised that there is sufficient space available for another 1 bushel quota.

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Generally speaking, the farmers on the empress line of the Canadian Pacific Railway have been able to haul only the original unit of 300 bushels. At present, there is no further room available for additional delivery of wheat should a quota open.
That is signed by G. L. Brace, secretary treasurer of the rural municipality of Miry Creek. It gives us some indication of the failure of the individual charged with the responsibility of seeing that the marketing points in western Canada have an equal opportunity to market grain. [DOT] On November 21 and November 22 when I visited that area I became aware of the inequalities. As I crossed the South Saskatchewan river it became obvious that there was a shortage of space on the Canadian Pacific Railway line. At that time I wired the transport controller from both Sceptre and Richmound, but received no reply. Representations were again made when I came to Ottawa; I tried to communicate with the transport controller but found he was not available. I am asking now, just who is responsible for fulfilling the duties of the transport controller when he is out of town? I presume it is his $50 per week secretary.
One other manifestation of this problem of car allocation is the discrimination against farmers who wish to deliver to the elevator of their choice. In Saskatchewan pool district No. 4 we find that to date, compared with the same period last year, there is an increase in the percentage of wheat shipped from 14 stations by an average of 3-7 per cent, but there is a decrease in the percentage at 19 stations of an average of 5-2 per cent. This is perhaps just another aspect of the problem introduced by the hon. member for Kootenay East (Mr. Byrne) at page 1009 of Hansard, when he stated:
X grant that one hon. member said yesterday that one of his constituents wrote and told him he had been unable to deliver any grain since the fall of 1954. At the same time he went on to say it was because he could not deliver to the elevator of his choice. Well if the constituent is so independent as to insist on the elevator of his choice, then he cannot be as badly in need of cash as the hon. member would seek to establish.
That is the attitude of government members on the agriculture committee, because they do not appreciate the democratic principle of allowing farmers to deliver to the elevator of their choice. They take the attitude that if it is all right with the United Grain Growers and the line elevator companies, it is all right for the farmers to make them deliver to any elevator in which there is room.
At the same time the hon. member for Kootenay indicated that he was asking this house to agree to a recommendation by Mr. Justice Sloan to take away the statutory
Crowsnest rates. Well, Mr. Speaker, if that indicates the thinking of the government backbenchers, the farmers in western Canada certainly should be made aware of it so they can govern themselves accordingly.
We are opposing this legislation for fear it will prevent the introduction of the legislation that is needed. We object to the method of introduction by television programs. Evidently our friends in the Conservative party, who have objected to smaller things, take no objection to the fact that this program went on the air. We found that recently when a certain program did not go on the air, they joined us in protesting. We protest the failure of the government to accept the democratic representations of the farmers, and the failure of the government to follow the advice of farm organizations.
The threats and the intimidation levelled at the members of this party in particular by the Minister of Trade and Commerce are an indication of how right we are in opposing this measure. The minister has tried to deceive us in the same way one might try to deceive a small child into thinking that a bitter pill will be sweeter if followed by a bit of honey. The minister has told us we are not to be allowed to discuss the legislation relating to the payment of storage charges until we have swallowed this bitter pill. I think we are going to continue to discuss this until, as the hon. member for Winnipeg North (Mr. Stewart) pointed out, we can get some indication the government is prepared to take the action desired by the farmers.
There are various other arguments I could use to support my contention that this proposed legislation, as indicated by the title of the bill, is nothing but a farce. It is deceitful all the way through. I am hoping that by debating the issue we might be able to open some of the wilfully blind eyes of the members of the government. I therefore move, seconded by the hon. member for Winnipeg North:
That Bill No. 82 be not now read a second time but that the subject matter thereof be referred to the standing committee on agriculture and colonization.


Mr. W. A. Tucker (Rosthern):: I do not
intend to detain the house very long, but I would point out that if the amendment were carried it would defeat the principle of the bill. Unless the government saw fit to introduce a further bill, then of course this measure of relief to our farmers, whether it is deemed adequate or inadequate, would be denied. I would point out to members of the house that if they vote for the amendment moved by the hon. member for Kindersley

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it will kill this bill just as effectively as if second reading were actually defeated.
There is just one further point I wish to bring forward in regard to a question about which there seems to have been some confusion. I notice an attempt has been made in the Manitoba legislature to clear up the matter. As has been pointed out, the marketing conference in Saskatoon asked for cash advances on farm-stored grain. I suggested to the house when I last spoke that when they asked for that they deliberately did not ask that it should be made through the wheat board; they did not specify in what way those advances should be made. They contemplated that those advances were in the nature of loans because they specified the way in which they should be repaid, and they dealt with the question of the interest they should bear. I suggested that an advance made to somebody which is repayable with interest is a loan.
The suggestion made in the amendment that was just ruled out of order, which apparently represents the position of the Progressive Conservatives at this time, does not refer to cash advances at all. It refers to cash payments. The Progressive Conservative party have changed their position in the matter altogether.


Some hon. Members:: No.


Walter Adam Tucker: As proof of that I should like to read what their leader in Manitoba had to say on the matter. I am reading from the Winnipeg Free Press of February 11:
Opposition leader Duff Roblin moved the original resolution. It asked the legislature to "affirm its belief in the just claim and need for cash payments without interest" at once for grain stored on farms.
I notice the proposed Conservative amendment today referred to cash payments, not cash advances. Mr. Roblin made it very plain that this was their position when he spoke in the legislature. Here is what he said. He emphasized that he was not asking for cash advances but cash payments. I ask you, Mr. Speaker, to note that the Progressive Conservative leader in Manitoba stated definitely that he was not asking for cash advances; he was asking for cash payments. These should be a partial payment for wheat stored on the farm.
It is quite obvious, Mr. Speaker, there has been a change in position on the part of the Conservative party in the matter. Let there be no doubt about it, because their own leader in Manitoba said he was not asking for cash advances; he was asking for cash payments.

When I endeavoured to state in the house what the marketing conference did in Saskatoon, my friends across the way, particularly the C.C.F., had a lot to say about it. They claimed that I was suggesting something that was not right and that I would not be able to sell it. Later on the hon. member for Saskatoon (Mr. Knight) rose in his place and said I had misrepresented what had been done at that conference.


Mr. Ellis:: Hear, hear.


Walter Adam Tucker: I understand the C.C.F. say "hear, hear" to that. I am going to read something that I think will carry conviction to every hon. member in this house except those who absolutely refuse to accept facts no matter how plainly proved. I hold in my hand a document entitled "The submission to the government of Canada respecting the urgent need for cash advances on farm-stored grain in western Canada." It is dated October 11, 1955, and was presented by: The Alberta department of agriculture; Manitoba department of agriculture; Saskatchewan department of agriculture; Saskatchewan wheat pool; Manitoba farmers' union; United Grain Growers; Saskatchewan federation of agriculture; Manitoba federation of agriculture and co-operation; Alberta federation of agriculture; Saskatchewan farmers' union; interprovincial farm union council; Alberta farmers' union.
I shall read from this submission, Mr. Speaker. Here is what it had to say in dealing with the marketing conference in Saskatoon. Pursuant to the resolution passed at that marketing conference, a committee representing that conference met the government to make this submission and here is what they presented. I am reading from page 5 of the submission:
While the long-term agricultural problems also received consideration the immediate problem of cash shortage held the spotlight at the conference and resulted in the following resolution being passed:
"Be it resolved that the organizations participating in this conference urge the government of Canada to make immediate provision for advances to farmers on grain in store on the farm and further that these advances should be up to one-half the value of the normal delivery expected and should be repayable on the basis of one-half of the value of each delivery made by the farmer."
The submission goes on to say:
While the principle of cash advances on farm-stored grain was unanimously endorsed by the organizations present at the conference various proposals were offered on the mechanics of making these advances. Proposals offered included a financing arrangement through the Canadian wheat board; financing through the banks; financing through a separate agency to be established for this purpose; and a proposal was made that the rural municipalities be used as a means of making the cash advances.

Opinions varied on the rate of interest to be charged the farmers, ranging from interest-free loans to a rate of 3 per cent. But all were agreed that existing commercial interest rates were excessive.
This delegation as assembled at Ottawa, on October 10, 1S55, endorses the principle of advances on farm-stored grain and believes that it must be made a practical reality. We would strongly urge that these advances be made immediately and that the interest rate, if any, be kept at a minimum.


Alfred Claude Ellis: If any.


Walter Adam Tucker: Yes, but unanimously endorses advances which may bear some interest. I suggest that hon. members consider this. They submitted exactly the same resolution that was passed at the marketing conference. They unanimously endorsed the idea that cash advances should be made, but they did not say what the mechanics should be to make those advances.


Alfred Claude Ellis: They did not ask for bank loans.


Walter Adam Tucker: They did not exclude bank loans.


Alfred Claude Ellis: They did not ask for them.


Walter Adam Tucker: I suggest to the hon. member it may be his idea of carrying on debate to interject, interrupt and try to break down the trend of thought. I can understand very well why hon. members opposite have, deliberately or otherwise, misrepresented what happened at that farm marketing conference, and why they should not want the record put straight, but I also suggest that this house is not going to be dominated and dictated to by a few C.C.F'ers who are determined to misrepresent this matter.
I told this house, and it was objected to over and over again by the C.C.F. opposite that this marketing conference had unanimously endorsed the idea of cash advances, but it left open the whole question of the mechanics by which those advances should be made. Hon. members will recall how that suggestion was jeered at by members of the C.C.F. opposition. I have now brought this submission, signed on behalf of the government of Saskatchewan, endorsing every word I said.
I ask hon. members opposite to bear in mind their attitude in this matter, how they were anxious to misrepresent the position of the government and of western Liberal members, and how they tried to prevent me from putting this before the house. Yet they, as a minority in this house, are treated by Mr. Speaker and the Liberal majority in this house in a way that I wish the legislature of Saskatchewan could just see and compare with the way in which the Liberal opposition is treated in the legislature where the C.C.F. have a majority.
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I ask you to bear in mind, Mr. Speaker, when I was attempting to put this to the house the sort of opposition I got from the C.C.F. opposite. They interrupted deliberately and tried to prevent me from putting it before the house. The point I was putting before the house is this, Mr. Speaker.


Mr. Argue:: Nobody is objecting to what you are doing; table it.


Alfred Claude Ellis: Put it in Hansard.


Walter Adam Tucker: Yes, but it is no thanks to you. If the majority in this house acted the way you did it would be impossible for anyone to put in anything you disagreed with.


Stanley Howard Knowles: Are you addressing the
Speaker?


Walter Adam Tucker: I am not addressing the
Speaker because I am being interrupted. The hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre is a great exponent of proper rules of procedure. I wonder if he agrees that the attitude that has been taken by his colleagues is proper. Every time anyone attemps to make a statement with which they disagree they interrupt, ask questitons, jeer and try in every way to stop it. If the whole Liberal party in this house were to take toward them the same attitude they take when somebody is dealing with something with which they disagree, I wonder if they would not object more strongly, and properly so. I wish to make this point again-


An hon. Member:: Which Mr. Tucker is
speaking?


An hon. Member:: Is it the eastern or western Mr. Tucker?


Walter Adam Tucker: The point I was making, Mr. Speaker, is this, and I shall repeat it again and it cannot be denied; that the marketing conference in Saskatoon had asked that advances to farmers be made by the government. It did not say that they should be made through the wheat board but left it to the government to decide how they should be made.
Furthermore, when the question was raised about what was done by the Rosthem executive I said we took the same attitude. We took the attitude that advances should be made, and it was left to the government to decide how they should be made. I said that the government was providing for advances to be made to the farmers through this farm loan bill and that this was consistent with what this marketing conference had asked for. That was jeered at, particularly by the C.C.F. opposition. Now I have the proof, Mr. Speaker. This document here shows this was

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concurred in by the Saskatchewan government. All they did was endorse the principle of cash advances and they did not go any further-


An hon. Member:: That is your interpretation of it.


Walter Adam Tucker: -and ask that they be made through the wheat board or in any other way.


An hon. Member:: Or the bank.


Walter Adam Tucker: Are my hon. friends going to tell this house that if this marketing conference or the representatives of these organizations had wanted advances to be made through the wheat board, they did not know enough to say so in so many words?


Alfred Claude Ellis: Why didn't they mention the banks?


Walter Adam Tucker: They did mention the banks. Apparently my hon. friend did not hear me say that.


An hon. Member:: Why don't you listen?


An hon. Member:: He does not want to.


Walter Adam Tucker: The hon. member is so busy talking that he did not listen. I will read it again:
While the principle of cash advances on farm-stored grain was unanimously endorsed by the organizations present at the Conference, various proposals were offered and the mechanics of making these advances. Proposals offered included a financing arrangement through the Canadian wheat board; financing through the banks; financing through a separate agency to be established for this purpose; and a proposal was made that the rural municipalities be used as a means of making the cash advances.
Does this delegation representing these organizations go on then and say we endorse the principle of this being done through the wheat board? They do not. They just say we endorse the principle of cash advances and ask that they be made at as low an interest rate as possible. Does not the fact that they refer to interest show it is not a payment on grain on the farm? Whoever heard of a person being paid for his wheat on the farm and then having to pay interest on the money he got paid for that wheat? And when these organizations say that the interest rate should be kept as low as possible they are obviously contemplating a loan-


An hon. Member:: If any.


Walter Adam Tucker: -in one way or another. Anyone who understands the English language must know that. Here is the unanimous representation of all these organizations including the Saskatchewan government, and then the opposition say that the government is ignoring the wishes of western agriculture.
	I
In saying that, Mr. Speaker, they are deliberately misrepresenting the record.


Stanley Howard Knowles: Mr. Speaker-


An hon. Member:: Let him go on.


Walter Adam Tucker: They are deliberately misrepresenting the record.


Stanley Howard Knowles: Mr. Speaker-


An hon. Member:: Sit down.


Alfred Claude Ellis: Consider where it comes from.


An hon. Member:: Let him go on.


Stanley Howard Knowles: Mr. Speaker, citation 256 of Beauchesne's third edition states that it is improper to accuse hon. members of misrepresentation. This hon. member has repeatedly said that certain hon. members have deliberately sought to misrepresent the record. I submit that in doing so the hon. member is out of order.


Walter Adam Tucker: If the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre will say that the C.C.P. party are so stupid that they cannot understand these plain words, then I take it that it is being spelled out that I should not have said that they sought to misrepresent the record but that they are so stupid that they cannot understand plain English, because the record shows what the government has done is consistent with what was asked for by the farm organizations and concurred in by the Saskatchewan government.


Stanley Howard Knowles: May I ask the hon. member a question?


An hon. Member:: Sit down.


Stanley Howard Knowles: Is he inferring from the reference he is making to these documents that the Saskatchewan government supported anything more than the recommendation that there be cash advances? Is that not the only part on which there was unanimity?


Walter Adam Tucker: Mr. Speaker, I tried to make it plain what I was saying but the hon. member was apparently so pleased by the uproar of his colleagues around him that he did not hear what I said.


Stanley Howard Knowles: I heard it. The hon. member spoke loudly enough.


Walter Adam Tucker: I will read it again and I
will ask the hon. member to listen this time if he will be so good as to do so. I said that the marketing conference had endorsed the principle that advances should be made to the farmers against grain on the farm-


Stanley Howard Knowles: And on that there was
unanimity.


Walter Adam Tucker: Yes, I said that. I do not
interrupt you every word you say.


Stanley Howard Knowles: Let us get it clear that this is the only point on which there was unanimity.


Walter Adam Tucker: Yes, but if you require an
explanation of every sentence I utter then you are not as brilliant as I thought you were.


Stanley Howard Knowles: The hon. member is trying
to confuse the issue.


Walter Adam Tucker: I will say this again. I
stated to the house that the principle of cash advances on farm-stored grain was unanimously endorsed by this conference-


Stanley Howard Knowles: Hear, hear.


Walter Adam Tucker: -but I said various proposals were made at that conference as to the means of making those advances. I said the suggestion was made that they be made through the wheat board, through the banks, through their own municipalities; but the conference decided not to decide on any one of those means but to leave it to the government to work out the mechanics for making those advances.
I said that the government in deciding to make the advances through the banks was making a decision which was quite consistent with the position of the marketing conference; and that was questioned and jeered at by the C.C.F. opposition. Now I have the definite submission concurred in by the government of Saskatchewan which says that the only thing agreed to at that conference was that advances should be made; that various suggestions were made as to the mechanics of making these advances-and they mention them again-and they did not decide which they wanted done but just asked that the government provide advances and go on to say that they should be made at as low an interest rate as possible.


Alfred Claude Ellis: The government is not making advances.


Walter Adam Tucker: I do not expect to convince
the hon. members because they think they have stored up enough misunderstanding and have presented the idea that the government ignores the wishes of the representatives of western agriculture, and they are thinking how much good this is going to do them politically.


An hon. Member:: Oh, dear.


Walter Adam Tucker: They hate to have the record set straight and now I tell them-


Alfred Claude Ellis: You are the last person to do
that.
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An hon. Member:: Hear, hear.


Walter Adam Tucker: I think I have done so to
the satisfaction of the house and also to the satisfaction of you people.


Stanley Howard Knowles: The hon. member tried to apply the unanimity to more than he was entitled to apply it.


An hon. Member:: When is the government going to make advances?


Walter Adam Tucker: The hon. member asks when we are going to make advances. My answer would be this: The government has followed the wishes of the representatives of western agriculture and has brought in a bill to provide for those advances, but the opposition holds it up and makes the announcement that they are going to stop the bill going through if they can. Then they ask why do we not put the bill through. These advances are what was asked for by the representatives of western agriculture and that cannot be denied.


Mr. McCullough (Moose Mountain):: Mr. Speaker-


Clarence Decatur Howe: Mr. Speaker, are we having a debate on second reading or-


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Applewhaite):: did not hear the point of order raised by the minister.


Clarence Decatur Howe: On second reading I do not think that this speech should be allowed to degenerate into a debate.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Applewhaite):: have some sympathy with the point raised by the right hon. minister who is sponsoring the bill, but I think we should realize that the debate on this matter has gone quite far afield. Apparently it has been a question of the discussion, not only of the circumstances which placed the farmers in their present position but of the circumstances leading up to the introduction of this particular type of bill. While I do not think it would be fair for me to refuse to allow one member to reply to statements of a strongly provocative nature when made from the other side, I think perhaps the time has come when we might get back to the basic question now before the house which is whether or not Bill No. 82 shall pass its second reading or whether alternatively it shall not pass its second reading and that the subject matter thereof be referred to a standing committee.
I do not think that I can in fairness rule out of order much of the argument made by the hon. member for Rosthern (Mr. Tucker) because I think if I did so most of the preceding speeches and those at the resolution stage would be equally out of order. Perhaps

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hon. members Would give consideration to coming back to the matter we are discussing, which is whether or not this bill shall be approved in principle or shall not be approved at the moment but the subject matter referred to a standing committee of this house.


Walter Adam Tucker: All I wish to say in conclusion is that I want to make it plain that to begin with all the marketing conference asked for was cash advances. What the Conservative opposition and the C.C.F. are asking for today are cash payments. They are asking for something altogether different. The government is following out what was asked for by the representatives of the farm organizations while the opposition is asking for something different.


Stanley Howard Knowles: They asked for bread and you are giving them a stone.


Mr. J. A. Smith (Battle River-Camrose):: Mr. Speaker, I listened with great interest to the debate this afternoon, particularly that part of the debate prior to your ruling. Taking your ruling into consideration I shall attempt to stay within the terms of the bill. In doing so I should like to make it clear that this group supported the resolution, not because we thought that short-term loans which it provided were one bit better or as good as cash advances but because we saw there an opportunity to get some cash into the hands of the farmers of the west right away.
I do know that our organizations in the west want cash advances, they do not want bank loans. It happens that the farmers of the west are not in the privileged position of being able to get what they are entitled to and therefore we will likely have to be content with some type of bank loan. Why do the farmers need cash? I think that has been amply explained to this house already There is an extreme shortage of money in the west at the present time. I hope that that fact has been impressed upon the minds of hon. members of this house to the extent that they realize it is true. It is not only the farmers who are short of cash, it is the businessmen as well. They will continue to be short just as long as the present government system of financing the marketing of wheat continues to be what it is.
It is said that this bill provides short-term credit to grain producers in the prairie provinces, but I submit that it does not do that. It provides short-term credit to some grain producers, but it does not provide credit for that group of young farmers who are becoming established on farms. I know of several who have approached bank managers for loans but who were refused on the
[The Acting Speaker (Mr. Applewhaite) .1
basis that they did not have sufficient security other than 5,000 bushels of wheat on their farms. I can produce evidence of this.
It is for these reasons that we do not feel that the government's proposal is going as far as it should.
It has been suggested that an interest rate of 5 per cent will be charged on the loans issued by the banks and in our opinion this rate is far too high. It was pointed out this afternoon that it is possible for parties other than farmers to borrow from banks with some type of guaranteed security at less than 5 per cent. We cannot see why the farmers should be charged 5 per cent and when the bill reaches committee stage we will undoubtedly attack that portion of it.
It seems to us that this is a costly way of supplying cash advances. The last speaker tried to convince us that this was a type of cash advance to the farmer, but I could not follow his argument. However, he is entitled to his own opinion.
We propose to endorse the amendment and we would like to get into committee in order to be able to study the features of the bill, We would like to see that done soon so that some form of cash advance to the farmer can be made as soon as possible. I cannot see why so much time should be wasted in getting this bill to the committee stage where we will be able to sit down and discuss intimately its features.


Mr. W. G. Dinsdale (Brandon-Souris):: Mr. Speaker, originally I had intended to speak in support of the amendment moved by the hon. member for Calgary North (Mr. Hark-ness), but as that amendment has been ruled out of order I must confine my remarks to the general principle of the bill and also make reference to the amendment introduced by the hon. member for Kindersley (Mr. Johnson). I am sorry that the hon. member for Kindersley does not see eye to eye with the official opposition in connection with this matter. I had hoped that there might be a certain degree of unanimity among western members on this matter of providing, as the Dill describes it, temporary financial assistance to the grain producers of western Canada. Actually as I interpret the situation and as I review in my own mind the discussion that has taken place on this subject, I see that there is no widely divergent viewpoint at all so far as the opposition viewpoint is concerned. I am very sorry that the hon. member for Kindersley (Mr. Johnson) has tried to suggest that there is a divergency of viewpoint. This is one of the basic problems of the prairie grain farmer at the present time, and it requires united action on the part of all of us from western Canada.

I listened with a great deal of interest to the contribution a few moments ago by the hon. member for Rosthern (Mr. Tucker). He tried to intimate that the official opposition is divided, provincially and federally, on its attitude towards this important issue.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Applewhaite):: Order. I apologize to the hon. gentleman for interrupting him but I am going to take this opportunity to say something which perhaps should have been said in this house before. When a member has the floor, hon. members who sit in his close neighbourhood sometimes carry on their own conversations. While they do not realize it, with the aid of the loudspeaker system we have at the present time, at a distance from the member who is speaking we get all voices at practically equal level. It is almost hard, at this distance from the person who has the floor, to hear what he is saying.


Mr. Wylie:: I rise on a point of privilege. I have sat here for a number of years and, when one of our members gets up to speak, I have always noticed that on my immediate right there is a good deal of noise, but when one of their hon. members gets up to speak, one of their members will tell me to keep quiet if I am talking. I think this is a very good point. The hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre (Mr. Knowles) is perhaps one of the members of this house who knows most about parliamentary procedure, but I quite truthfully say there is not a member in the house who breaks the rules more often than the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Applewhaite):: rose in order to assist the smooth running of this debate, and I do not propose to allow at this time a debate on an entirely different subject. I have some sympathy with the general viewpoint expressed by the hon. member for Medicine Hat. I point out to him that he is entitled at any time to appeal to the chair to maintain quietness and order in the house when he is speaking. This I have endeavoured to do for the hon. member for Brandon-Souris, whose time for this afternoon is limited, and the time taken by interruptions will not be deducted from his time.


William Duncan McKay Wylie: That is what I was endeavouring to do.


Walter Gilbert Dinsdale: Thank you, Mr. Speaker, for those remarks. I would also like to thank the hon. member for Medicine Hat for his observation, because I do find that members immediately to my left are sometimes a little on the noisy side.
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An hon. Member:: We like you, Walter.


An hon. Member:: That is unfair.


Walter Gilbert Dinsdale: That is true. I was going to say that politicians generally from Saskatchewan seem to be somewhat on the noisy side and not quite so subdued, shall I say, as their neighbours from Manitoba and obviously, judging from the remarks of my hon. friend from Medicine Hat, their neighbours from Alberta.
However, I was referring to another politician from Saskatchewan on the opposite side of the house, the hon. member for Rosthern, who indicated that there was some difference of opinion between the provincial Conservative group and the federal Conservative group on this matter of providing cash assistance to farmers at the present time. He quoted from a newspaper account to the effect that the leader of the opposition in the Manitoba legislature called for cash payments rather than cash advances. Well, that is a newspaper report, and obviously the attempt to drive a wedge between two political groups is the technique of splitting hairs. I do not know whether I am allowed to do so, but I have the verbatim report of the speech by the leader of the opposition in the Manitoba legislature, and the wording in that speech quite specifically refers to cash advances to farmers with grain in storage on the farms. I would suggest that this verbatim report is much more accurate than any newspaper report of what he said could actually be.
Furthermore, on that score, not only is the opposition in the Manitoba legislature in favour of the cash advances scheme, but also the throne speech delivered in the legislature came out very strongly on behalf of the principle of cash advances in preference to the method proposed in the bill now before us as it has been enunciated by several members, an act to provide for short-term credit to grain producers in the prairie provinces to meet temporary financial difficulties arising from inability to deliver all their grain."
I would submit that in principle this measure falls short of meeting the situation on two fundamental points. First of all, as I understand the situation in the west, and as it seems the majority of other members understand the situation, this is not what the prairie grain farmers have been requesting. They have invariably requested the cash advances principle. Not only have they as individual farmers maintained this unswerving viewpoint, but also their organizations and the provincial legislatures-so far as I know, the provincial governments-have also asked for the same principle. So, in view of those

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circumstances, it is past understanding why this bill is before us at the present time. It is going directly in the face of the requests of the prairie grain farmers.
The other point I wish to emphasize is that it does not take care of the problem existing in the west at the present time. It does not do what it says it is going to do, that is, provide for short-term credit to grain producers in the prairie provinces to meet temporary financial difficulties arising from inability to deliver all their grain. The phrase I should like to emphasize is "temporary financial difficulties". I feel that the use of that phrase is indicative of the fact that the government has failed completely to understand the nature of the economic problem that exists in our grain growing economy at the present time. I would suggest that not only does this measure not deal adequately with the immediate shortage of cash on the prairie farms but also it fails to take into consideration the fact that this is a long-term problem that arises from fundamental changes in the Canadian economy and also in the world economy itself.
On this point I should like to submit, Mr. Speaker, that in recent years Canada has been producing more and more grain. The suggestion is put forward that this is merely a temporary situation and that at any time the situation will reverse itself in the event of a drought or unfavourable conditions. That of course begs the question because at the moment the situation is-it has been so for the past decade or more-that the prairie region is producing more and more grain, more and more wheat on approximately the same acreage. At the same time, unfortunately, Canada's over-all proportionate share of the export market has been declining. For years we had 30 per cent of the total export market for wheat. We have hardly been holding that percentage notwithstanding the fact that the total world demand for wheat has been growing during recent years.
The bill before us refers to a temporary financial difficulty. I suggest that the financial difficulty is not a temporary one but is a problem that will continue for some years into the future until such time as the government moves to deal adequately with the changed circumstances in which Canada finds itself in relation to world markets. The wheat grower is dependent upon the export market to dispose of his crop, and the difficulty becomes more acute when he is in a position where he produces an abnormal amount of grain. Unfortunately the world market situation, instead of improving in the post-world war II climate, has been growing increasingly difficult.
[Mr. Dinsdale.l
Economic nationalism has been a factor of increasing prominence. We find that today our Canadian wheat trade operates within a jungle of import restrictions, milling prescriptions, tariffs, subsidies and the like which is the result of the growth of national policies in both import and export countries. If we are going to deal adequately with this so-called temporary financial difficulty, Canada must be placed in a position where she is competitive with other countries who are also participating in the export market for grain. Since the war we have attempted to deal with the problem by various international agreements, the international wheat agreement and also such United Nations organs as the food and agriculture organization. That approach to the problem is all to the good and should be encouraged.
It is becoming increasingly obvious, however, that, with the world situation now confronting us, we are not going to find any easy solutions to the problem of international trade. When the government suggests that the wheat board is not in a position to provide more adequately for the financial crisis of prairie wheat farmers, I think it is admitting that it is not willing to stand behind the wheat board. At the present time all other exporting countries, without exception, stand substantially behind the wheat producers in their particular countries. In Canada, however, the answer the government has given to the suggestion of the opposition that the present scheme of government-backed loans is inadequate and will not deal with the problem and that instead cash advances should be provided is to the effect that the wheat board is not in a position to provide such relief to the prairie farmers. That is suggesting that the government of Canada is not wining to stand behind the wheat board and give it the necessary support in order to deal adequately with the critical cash shortage of Canadian wheat growers at the moment.
I made the point before and I repeat that Canadian wheat growers are the only growers who are not assisted by their government in reaching a truly competitive situation in the world market. The wheat board, as it has been repeatedly pointed out, has no other moneys except those which it obtains from the sale of the farmers' wheat. Up until this year the farmer has been paying substantial amounts for storage charges, which has reduced his final payment. The government is moving to alleviate that to a certain extent through payment for excess grain in storage, but other than that the farmer has borne the total cost of handling his grain from his own money as realized from the

sale of grain by the Canadian wheat board ever since the board was established.
In carrying out this policy I say that the Canadian government is the only government that has placed the grain producer in this position. I do not have time to go into the details of the matter but it is obvious that there is a wheat war going on in the world. If we merely examine the attitude of our neighbour to the south we see that her position regarding wheat production has changed completely in the past few years. At one time she hardly produced enough for her own domestic consumption. I believe that prewar domestic consumption in that country was approximately 600 million bushels while production amounted to 700 million bushels so that her contribution to the world market was merely nominal. But now she has completely reversed that position and instead of producing 700 million bushels of grain she is producing up to 1 billion bushels and has occupied the position that Canada formerly occupied in the export market. I believe the emphasis on a temporary cash shortage and temporary financial difficulties falls far short of a realization of the actual situation. I believe it is five o'clock, Mr. Speaker.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Applewhaite):: It
being five o'clock, the house will proceed to the consideration of private and public bills.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Applewhaite):: The
business reserved for this hour having been disposed of, the house will revert to consideration of the business interrupted at five o'clock.


[Stage Direction]
The house resumed consideration of the motion of Mr. Howe (Port Arthur) for the second reading of Bill No. 82, to provide for short-term credit to grain producers in the prairie provinces to meet temporary financial difficulties arising from inability to deliver all their grain.
Walter Gilbert Dinsdale: At five o'clock I was making the point that in the light of the steps taken to deal with the situation at the moment it is obvious the government does not fully appreciate the problem prevailing in our grain growing economy. I mentioned, as an example, the relative change in the position of Canada and the United States in the markets of the world. We must always remember that, in order to have a healthy
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grain growing economy, Canada must constantly keep in mind that we are dependent upon the export market and must occupy a substantial percentage of that market. Unfortunately in recent years we have not even held our proportionate position, even though general world markets have been expanding since world war II.
I could continue to point out how other countries are attempting to deal with this problem because it is a problem that is not peculiar to Canada. Other major wheat growing countries have faced the same difficulty. Australia, for example, is deliberately curtailing the production of wheat and encouraging the farmers to move towards a diversified agricultural activity; that is a deliberate government policy. In this country government policy has not shown the same awareness of the difficulty and up to the present time, except for a few of the provincial governments, the federal administration has been encouraging maximum production of wheat and concentration on this one-product prairie farm economy. I feel that this points to the need for more substantial measures on the part of the federal government than the bill we have before us or any other legislation that has been introduced so far to deal with the situation.
I know the government reply to any suggestion of that kind is that the Canadian government is not in a position to offer any more encouragement or any more assistance to the prairie wheat producer because the wheat trade occupies such a large segment of the total Canadian economy that it would be completely impossible for the Canadian treasury to deal with this problem as have other countries throughout the world. This is true. But again, it comes back to the fact that nothing has been done by the Ottawa authorities to try to arrive at a more balanced position in our prairie economy. In fact, I would suggest that government policies, instead of alleviating the problems of agriculture as a result of a one product, unstable economy, have only aggravated the difficulty down through the years.
There is one more point I should like to mention in connection with this matter and that is that the price of grain on the domestic market has occupied an unfavourable position in relation to the cost of other consumer goods. If we were to examine the statistics for the past 18 years we would find that the prairie wheat grower has been subsidizing the consumer in Canada so far as the sale of his wheat is concerned. The price to the Canadian consumer has never corresponded, up until the last two years, to the price of wheat on the world market. For years it was pegged

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at $1.25 to the Canadian miller when the price in the world market was soaring upwards to $2.83. It seems to me that the time has come when something has to be done by this government to bring the domestic price of wheat more closely into relationship with the general price level of other consumer goods.
In the past two years this problem has been brought to our attention with increasing force because the world wheat price has declined. As a result of the decline in world wheat prices, the prairie farmer finds himself in this cost-price squeeze about which we have heard so much during this session. When there is a surplus of a product, it is obvious that the price of that product is going to decline, and that is the position in which the grain producer finds himself. It is a position that has placed the whole prairie economy in serious jeopardy, because while the price of his product has been decreasing, unfortunately continued inflationary pressures, particularly in the industrial field, have resulted in the increased cost of producing his product.
From time to time hon. members from other parts of Canada complain that too much time is consumed in this house discussing the problem of wheat. I should like to suggest that until the government moves to do something more adequate than we have in this bill, hon. members are going to be forced to hear a lot more than they have heard in the past. There is a real problem in our grain growing economy and nothing that has been forthcoming from the government by way of legislative measures has even begun to deal with the difficulty. It is because of that that I can support, without any reservation, the amendment that has been moved.


Mr. J. H. Harrison (Meadow Lake):: I am
going to make my remarks very brief. I do not think I will require more than about five minutes of the time of the house. There has been a question raised by some members, I think one was the hon. member for Battle River-Camrose (Mr. Smith), as to why our C.C.F. friends were taking such an interest in this particular bill, which is designed to help a portion of the farmers in the west who cannot get credit on their own. I think we have to recognize their interest for what it is. As most people know, we are having a provincial election in Saskatchewan and just in case wheat is moved in large quantities between now and then, they are taking on some insurance on the theory they will have a federal issue to talk about at that time. Certainly in the past the provincial government has not been in the habit of going to the country on their record.
{Mr. Dinsdale.]
I hold in my hand a copy of a reliable journal, Mr. Speaker, printed in North Battle-ford, called the News-Optimist. Under its date line of February 1, I find the interest of the provincial government and the C.C.F. party expressed by the provincial minister of education. He does not profess any particular interest in agricultural matters. I just wonder whether the interest across the way is as genuine as it would appear. The heading of the article reads:
Saskatchewan no longer dependent on agriculture: Lloyd.
In a later issue of the same paper the provincial M.L.A. for The Battlefords announces the coming election, if one can judge by the heading in this paper which reads:-
Eiling Kramer predicts gas in 1956
I would suggest to you, Mr. Speaker, that we have had the first impact of that gas in this house in this particular debate. When this particular bill is discussed in that election I shall certainly be able to uphold what has been done here. This legislation is to take care of those farmers who, as I said, cannot borrow on their own cognizance. There are other measures to take care of other people.
In my remarks at that time I shall deal with provincial issues and discuss such things as the tripling and quadrupling of taxation in the province, and that may be more effective.
Thank you very much.


Mr. O. L. Jones (Okanagan Boundary):: 
Mr. Ambrose Holowach (Edmonton East):: Mr. Speaker, the principal feature involved in this discussion to ratify legislation guaranteeing bank loans made to grain producers
Grain *
in the prairie provinces who face financial difficulties as a consequence of the government's inability to market prairie wheat appears to be twofold. The first is the inadequacy of this measure to answer the farmer's problems. The second is the various submissions that have been made from the opposition side of the house. We believe that in making those submissions we have consistently represented the opinions of the farmers of western Canada. I think the answer is to be found in cash on the line rather than in loans at the bank as a means of alleviating the problem which faces farmers at this time.
I rise to take part briefly in this debate because one does not necessarily have to be a farmer to understand the predicament in which farmers find themselves, and also because I believe the problem has been handled rather lightly by the government. It so happens that I represent an urban riding, but we in that riding know that our wellbeing depends upon the prosperity of the farmer. Furthermore, in my riding there are many retired farmers who still possess their investments in the farms, and their children are managing those farms. As a consequence I believe that they would want me to rise in my place at this time and express their feelings on this matter. I fully agree that this legislation in no way answers the need of farmers for a stable and adequate income. Clearly the answer is to have a policy and a platform which will ensure a stable and adequate income for the farmers. The government has no such policy. Such being the case, this legislation, which mskes lending facilities more readily available to the farmer, does help to improve his condition, but it must be considered as only a supplementary and additional measure. But let me make it perfectly clear that the farmers of western Canada are not satisfied merely with having the opportunity of borrowing money at banks. The farmers of western Canada are afraid of debt. They know from past experience, during the depression years, that there is only one thing worse than having a debt and that is having no markets, no money, and having a debt on top of that.
What is it that the farmer really wants? It seems to me that the farmer wants a solution to perhaps the most paradoxical problem of this age; namely the removal of his poverty in the midst of the plenty that he has made. I think the position of the farmer is very clear. He wants a policy and a platform that would first give encouragement and inducement for him to continue

' Grain
producing without being penalized for it, and secondly he wants a fair return for such an effort.
There are over 250,000 farm units in western Canada who have no way of expressing their feelings with respect to this legislation unless we in the opposition set them forth and indicate to the house the feeling of injustice that must overtake them when they see that we are asked to consider these bank loans in place of the legislation they asked for.
There is another point to which I should like to draw the attention of the minister and that is the high interest charges that are being made. With the government guaranteeing to chartered banks the loans they make to farmers, it seems to me that the element of risk or loss is completely removed from such bank loans. My point is that the farmers should not have to suffer the consequences of a situation for which they are not responsible; loss of markets, increased cost of production resulting from a jungle of taxation and the inability of the government to provide policies making saleable the farm production of wheat. It surely is not unreasonable to expect that banks, which are protected against loss, should also make a small concession and accept slightly less profit thereby helping to shoulder the burden which faces an important segment of our population. I hope the government will consider the advisability of so advising the banks.
I think we should get one thing straight and that is that the farmers of western Canada are not asking for charity or handouts. What they are asking for are measures that will make it possible for them to exchange their production for purchasing power. I think that is the only answer they are willing to accept. I think it is a reasonable request both in theory and in practice. In the United States of America the commodity credit corporation which was set up there does make prepayments and cash advances on wheat that is properly stored on farms. Furthermore, I believe that the entire debate thus far raises a theme that has not been mentioned, namely what should be done about the tremendous stockpiles of our surplus wheat?
Clearly the answer is not in cutting down production but in making consumption here and abroad more available. What is this government for if not to devise policies that will make this possible? As long as there are hungry people in the world, and indeed as long as there are people in this country who do not have enough to eat, we in this group
[Mr. Holowach.l
will certainly oppose any measure or suggestion that we plant trees or grass on those pieces of land which should quite rightly be producing crops.
The government is insisting that it receive gold or dollars for its surpluses in the matter of export. That is perfectly all right; let them proceed with an aggressive policy to acquire such payments for exports, but since they cannot receive gold or dollars for our surplus wheat, what is all this nonsense about our not accepting foreign currencies and not engaging in barter? Quite frankly I am glad that the farmers are demanding cash payments for their wheat.
They are asking in effect for income in return for having created real wealth, wheat. They are asking for purchasing power to equate their production power. I only hope that in asking for this they clearly understand that what they are asking for is the implementation of the monetary policies of social credit. I believe sincerely, that governments will have to implement these social credit policies sooner or later; there is no other way. My hope is that in making such demands the farmers understand that in reality they are asking for the implementation of fiscal policies and usage of the national credit of our country in order for them to obtain cash and not bank credit as is presently being advanced by this legislation.


Mr. H. P. Mang (Qu'Appelle):: I just wish to make a brief statement at this time because as I have listened to the discussion both on the resolution and on this bill I cannot help but feel there is a great deal of confusion being created on the part of many members by forgetting that this is purely a temporary measure to deal with a certain specific situation. This does not entail, and there should not be, a general discussion of a long term policy for agriculture. This is a measure to deal specifically with an undertaking that has been made by this government whereby some cash can be put into the hands of farmers at a specific time and during a specific period. I do not see how anyone could hold up the passage of this temporary measure with any justification whatsoever. Indeed, all of this discussion has merely postponed the next measure to come before us which will probably be Bill No. 83 which does attempt to and will provide a part of a long term policy.
I do not see the point of a great deal of the discussion which has wandered all over the field of international marketing and international finance and has dealt with all the difficulties with which farmers have been beset ever since the profession of farming existed and which will beset farmers for some

time yet to come. This merely deals with a temporary and specific situation.
I entirely agree with what the hon. member for Rosthern (Mr. Tucker) brought forward this afternoon with respect to the responsibility of the government in dealing with the situation following representations from responsible farm organizations as representatives of the Saskatoon conference. I am aware of what took place at that conference because I was there as an observer and I listened to all the discussion. If we merely try to shove this particular bill before the agricultural committee its passing will be postponed for some months.
If the undertaking is made, surely to goodness we are businessmen enough in this house -if not we should be-to look at Bill No. 82 for what it actually is. It is not a bill to deal with long-term agricultural policies. All of the discussion that is going on is simply holding up our proceedings, and that in the long run will hold up the final payment which will be made subsequent to the passing of Bill No. 83. Do not let anyone say that Bill No. 82 is deliberately placed where it is before Bill No. 83 which deals with storage and interest charged. That was the businesslike way of doing it, that was the natural order of precedence. Let no one be unbusinesslike enough to get up and say that that is not so.
I am getting just a little bit tired of all this finagling around all over the field of general farm policies when this has nothing to do with the question of a general farm policy. I am going to vote for this bill because it deals with a specific problem and makes a specific undertaking.


An hon. Member:: You have to.


Henry Philip Mang: I do not have to if I do not want to.


An hon. Member:: I challenge you.


Henry Philip Mang: We will meet you boys on the election rostrum next spring and some of the statements that have been made in this house are going to look pretty silly when we have a proper discussion and when you start to separate facts from fantasy, facts from fiction. I have no hesitation whatever in supporting this bill and I have no hesitation whatever in discussing this bill and its passing with the people in my constituency. We have a lot of wheat out there. At Grenfell alone we have one million bushels. At Indian Head, the cradle of large wheat shipments in western Canada, we have one million bushels.
I know what the problems are because I have visited practically every elevator in the 67509-75
Grain
constituency. I have visited the municipalities and I have talked with businessmen. I know the situation and I know they will agree that this bill should be passed as of now without going into a great many generalities which simply postpone the date when the final payment will be made.


Edward George McCullough: Mr. Speaker, I am very happy to support the amendment moved by the hon. member for Kindersley (Mr. Johnson) that this bill be referred to the standing committee on agriculture and colonization. I think that there are two very important aspects to the arguments and debate as they have developed in the house. I want to deal first with the fact that I am very happy with the turn of events in the chamber and that some of the private Liberal members from Saskatchewan are being smoked out. I am glad that this afternoon we have heard from the hon. member for Rosthern (Mr. Tucker) who has great difficulty in explaining his position to the house and is using phraseology so that hon. members can understand what he is saying. I am sure that those of us who come from the prairie provinces are happy to see that these private members from Saskatchewan on the Liberal benches are being smoked out.
We have listened to a few remarks from them. I think it took the hon. member for Meadow Lake (Mr. Harrison) less than three minutes to say what he had to say on this very repugnant bill which incidentally the farmers in the west do not want. It took the hon. member for Qu'Appelle (Mr. Mang) an equally short period of time. We have not yet heard from the hon. member for Swift Current-Maple Creek (Mr. Studer) but I presume he will have his two-minute contribution to make.


Mr. Sluder:: It will be worth a lot more-


Edward George McCullough: I do not
want it to come as an interjection. If the hon. member has anything constructive to say, let him get up on his two feet and say it.


Irvin William Studer: You have not said anything yet.


Edward George McCullough: I believe that there is growing up in this country a doctrine which should be called the C. D. Howe doctrine. This doctrine entails subservience to ministerial undertakings. On the introduction of this bill we had the right hon. Minister of Trade and Commerce (Mr. Howe) stating to the public and to the banks that this government would undertake to spend public moneys through the undertaking of a minister, instead of waiting to call parliament together or to have the undertaking for the payment of public money made through the

Grain
proper channels. Instead of doing that the Minister of Trade and Commerce takes it upon himself to make this announcement at a public meeting.
After a very short period of debate in this house the right hon. minister had the audacity to get up and say that he was tired of the debate, that his patience was running out. He made the veiled threat-it was not so very veiled either-to the house that he was prepared to withdraw the legislation if hon. members continued to oppose it.
That was nothing short of a disregard for parliamentary procedure, for the integrity of this house. We should have in Canada supremacy of parliament, and veiled threats or intimidations should not be contained in any statement made by a minister in the house. In addition to that, the other day the right hon. minister stated that in illustrating the position of the western farmer I was more or less saying that the farmer was a man with a tin cup looking for a handout. That could not be further from the truth because the farmer in western Canada, and indeed in any part of the country, is not asking for a handout. The farmer is simply asking for justice, for some sort of equality of treatment.
The western farmers simply want to share in the prosperity that they see existing in this country. I feel that the time has come when we should not hear any more threats from the ministerial benches in this House of Commons. We should treat the subject before us in a parliamentary manner.
At the time the minister was taking such strong exception to the debate in this house he said quite incorrectly that the same speeches had been made more than twice by members from the prairies and then said that he saw a member getting up to speak for the third time. Nothing could be further from the truth because at that time the members of this group and indeed the members in all sections of the house had not spoken more than once on the subject. Whether the minister is happy about this legislation or not, the fact is that some of us are strongly opposed to it. We have given notice that we are going to oppose it in every way we can. It is now suggested that the bill be sent to the standing committee on agriculture and colonization where it can be examined and where perhaps some measure of progress can be made toward making it more acceptable to the western farmer. The hon. member for Assiniboia (Mr. Argue) suggests that it be thrown into the wastepaper basket.
In order to deal with this subject properly I think we must examine the reason for the government wishing to bring in a measure of
(Mr. McCullough (Moose Mountain).]
assistance, if this can be called assistance. I think in order to do that we have to examine the condition of the farmers concerned. We have had on many occasions during the past few months explanations in the press for the condition of the western farmer.
I feel that the western farmer now is in one of the worst financial positions he has ever found himself in. The question is one of income. The farmer in western Canada, on the average, has a great deal of grain on hand and, indeed, he has been progressive in his methods of farming and has produced a great deal of livestock and other farm commodities. But the fact remains that the farmer's income in western Canada has fallen very drastically in the last three years, so seriously that he is now in a cost-price squeeze, so that he must have some assistance if he is going to be able to carry on.
I wish to point out at this moment that there has never been so much confusion, in respect to government policies pertinent to agriculture, as we see at this time. I was most amazed, just prior to coming back to parliament, that the press reported that, in addition to terminal storage at the coast ports and at the main terminal storage points, there were facilities for storing 58 million bushels of wheat and, in addition, in the other country elevators there was an additional storage space of over 44 million bushels. In other words, we were told there was storage available for over 100 million bushels of wheat. Yet up to that point the minister had been going to Washington and proclaiming to the press that it was the United States give-away policy in respect to wheat that was undermining the Canadian wheat sales.
On top of that, to show government mismanagement, while this storage space was available there were over 11,000 box cars absent from the prairies in the United States over and above the number of box cars from the United States in Canada. When it is considered that the western farmer must have the possibility of delivering his grain in many cases when the roads are open, it will be seen that the situation developing is one whereby the farmer in the middle of winter is unable to deliver his grain, regardless of whether or not there is an opening at the elevator. Here we have a lack of planning by the federal government. When we ask for some planning, they say, "You people think only of planning." This is one time when we could have had a little planning and where the transport commissioner must be sharply criticized for his inaction in not seeing to it that there were sufficient box cars to meet the situation prevailing at that time.

Now I should like to deal rather briefly with some of the aspects of farm income because I think it has a bearing on what we are trying to do at the present time. We in the C.C.F. group feel that this measure does not meet the needs of the western farmers. It is not only a short-term credit policy that we need, but I want to maintain that, if we had proper policies in this country to maintain the income of farmers, we would not now have to be dealing with a short-term credit proposal for western farmers such as proposed. While it is recognized that the general income of people throughout Canada has increased, it is still true that agriculture, even on a national basis, has deteriorated in the past three years.


Clarence Decatur Howe: May I ask the
hon. member a question?


Edward George McCullough: Yes.


Clarence Decatur Howe: Have these figures changed since he put them on in the throne speech debate and since he put them on in the debate on the resolution? Is he putting on something different now?


Edward George McCullough: Yes, and I want to say that sometimes it is well to put them on more than once to convince this government. I want to say too that I think I shall not have to correct my figures as the Minister of Agriculture did the other day. It is getting to be the case in this house that we cannot be sure of the figures we are being given by some of the ministers.
I wish to say too, in answer to the minister, that the other day he indicated he would put before this chamber the type of policy carried out under the commercial credit corporation in the United States, and I recall his stating at that time that the commercial credit corporation in the United States does not pay for farm-stored grain in unapproved storage. The fact is that under some policies it does pay for unapproved storage of farm-stored grain. The agent examines the wheat, grades it and determines its approximate quality. The farmer is given three to six months in order to put it in approved storage, and, before it goes into approved storage, the farmer gets 70 per cent to 90 per cent of the parity structure. When it goes into proper storage, he can get the remainder of 90 per cent of parity.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: Order. I have listened to what the hon. member was saying and if I understood him correctly, he indicated he was going to put figures on the record for a second time. I think he used the word "again". An hon. member who makes an admission of this kind is probably admitting 67509-75J
Grain
that he is guilty of repetition and, of course, I could not, in accordance with our rules, allow repetition in a debate.
While I am on my feet, I might also point out that we are dealing with second reading of this bill providing for short-term credit to grain producers. I realize that that opens a great many collateral matters to debate, but I do feel that we should confine our remarks so far as possible to the principle of this bill and that a very general debate on farm problems or on agriculture is not strictly in order. I am not saying that the hon. member has offended but I take this opportunity to point out that this bill is limited in scope and the debate should be similarly limited.


Edward George McCullough: Mr. Speaker, I did not wish to imply that I was repeating figures I had put on previously. Such is not the case. As a matter of fact, these figures I have just gleaned from certain dominion bureau of statistics figures and from other sources. While they may compare favourably with the figures I put on in previous debates, they are not taken from the same source, or at least they are not the same figures.
I should just like to point out that the reason I mentioned the commercial credit corporation in the United States was that their policy is to give cash advances to farmers for farm-stored grain, as against the present policy we are now discussing, which is, of course, to charge the farmer five per cent on his farm-stored grain.


Irvin William Studer: We heard you the first time.


Edward George McCullough: It
would have been very easy for this government to undertake an alternative plan. There seems to be general agreement among farmers and among many authorities that this could have been done without any fuss or confusion whatsoever, that 50 or 75 per cent advances could have been made on farm-stored grain, and it would not have been necessary to charge any interest. This government seems to be very much against giving equality to the farmers. Certainly there is no recognition in this' bill that the farmer should be treated in any fair way. Actually, what this means is that the farmer is penalized simply because he must have a postponement of his income. If the farmer is not able to deliver his grain, as he is not able to do under the present marketing situation, it simply means that the government is forcing him to pay interest on his income. That would be bad enough in any case but it is also true that the short-term farm credit proposal is not meeting the situation as I see it in Canada today. When we in the

Grain
C.C.F. talk about parity we do so because we believe that is the only way the farmer can have equality and justice. I have here the issue of The Country Guide for February, 1956, which contains an article entitled, "One Hundred Per Cent of Parity". I should like to read some brief statements from that artcle. It says-


Clarence Decatur Howe: Who is that?


Edward George McCullough: It is
an editorial. I am not trying to argue against the person who wrote it or anything like that. What I am trying to point out is that here is an article with arguments comparable to most of the arguments put forward against parity prices for farmers and it reveals the inconsistency of those arguments. The editorial reads in part as follows:
Surpluses would be inevitable even with firm controls, because of the rate of increase in production per man that is now possible.
In other words, it is assumed that if we have just and fair prices for the producer that in itself would cause unmanageable surpluses. In this country we do not have anything like parity. As a matter of fact, I could put evidence on the record to indicate that the farmer is producing below the cost of production. Then the editorial goes on to say-


Clarence Decatur Howe: There is nothing in this bill that has to do with parity prices.


Edward George McCullough: Of
course, that is the argument I am trying to make. I say that even though the bill provides for short-term credit to the producers of the country it does not in effect meet the situation that has developed. I am trying to argue that this situation is going to continue. I point out that in 1954 western farmers sold as much wheat and pretty well as much livestock as they did in 1953, but the fact remains that in spite of that fact the average long-term sale of wheat remains constant the farmer is in an impossible financial position. The government is now proposing bank loans on his farm-stored grain. I am trying to point out that there is no policy by which the farmer, can get out of this squeeze or whereby we can have better conditions for the producer unless the government is prepared to at least listen to the argument I am trying to put forward in endeavouring to show the inconsistency of the argument against parity prices for agriculture. The editorial goes on to say:
We also favour the principle of equality between agriculture and other sections of the economy.
I suggest-


Mr. Speaker:: Order. It seems to me that in order to make the discussion relevant the
rMr. McCullough (Moose Mountain).]
hon. member should make his remarks directly on the principle of the bill. If we were to follow his contention that in order to deal with the bill he must review the entire economic situation as far as the farmer is concerned the result would be that one could carry that a little further and say one should discuss the entire economic situation of the country in relation to the farmer. We might even find ourselves looking into the international situation to find out what is the position of our country with reference to world affairs and the position of our farmers in the general world economy. Then we might finally come to the bill. I think the hon. member will agree that if we were to follow that sort of practice we would be far afield in almost every discussion we have.


Edward George McCullough: I am trying and shall try to confine myself to the principle of the bill and related subjects. In my opinion it is tremendously difficult to place the position of the farmers before the house without discussing their economic situation. This is a bill to give some assistance by way of bank loans at 5 per cent interest, and unless we discuss the financial position of the farmer it seems to me it would be very difficult to put his viewpoint and, indeed, the viewpoint of any member in relation to the problem confronting us, before the house.
It is well known that the farmers through their organizations are unanimously against bank loans. They are opposed to the interest aspect of the loans. They feel it is only going to add to their already difficult financial position and I believe it is important to have before us the situation that has existed since 1945 when the farmers' position began to deteriorate. At that time the economy was generally buoyant. It was also buoyant at the time of the Korean war and is now in the face of the continuous threat of war. Therefore I think it is very difficult to discuss this matter intelligently without referring to the financial picture of the farmers of western Canada.
I intend to close by saying I am very happy that it now appears there are at least some members formerly rather indifferent to this measure ready to join with us in expressing complete antagonism to it. When the amendment we have moved is voted upon I hope there will be a solid vote in favour of it from the opposition ranks even if we do not receive the support of some of the Liberal backbenchers.


Some hon. Members:: Question.


Clarence Decatur Howe: Mr. Speaker-


Edward George McCullough: Six
o'clock.
At six o'clock the house took recess.


[Stage Direction]
AFTER RECESS

The house resumed at eight o'clock.
Mr. Gordon Churchill (Winnipeg South Centre):: I rise to take part in this debate, Mr. Speaker, because the subject matter is of interest to everybody in Canada, and of intense interest to all of us who live in western Canada. We have got into a debate which has extended for a longer period of time than was in the mind of the Minister of Trade and Commerce (Mr. Howe). This has come to be quite a usual circumstance. I notice that earlier in the course of this debate he suggested to us that there should not be a prolonged debate on this legislation. At page 605 of Hansard tor January 27, 1956, he intimates that the provisions of the bill have been in effect since November 15.
Then, in some other place, I am not sure of the exact reference, he said the government had undertaken to pass a very simple resolution. That reminded me of a statement he made about a year ago when he used these famous words, "This is a simple bill, containing only two sections." Well, here we are again on a simple resolution; no prolonged debate desired because everything had been settled before we appeared here. The minister seems to think we are prepared to accept that method of doing the nation's business. I think not. I should like to point out to the minister that we might be in a better position on this bill had he made use of the resolution stage as it was intended to be used. The purpose of the resolution stage is to explain the nature of the legislation, to have debate and discussion as to the need for the legislation and hear suggestions from the minister concerning the contents of the bill with full disclosure of the details, giving an opportunity to revise the bill or withdraw it completely.
During the resolution stage of this bill a full debate was carried out. The minister was advised it was an unsatisfactory piece of legislation. He should have either made revisions in the bill before presenting it to us or withdraw it entirely. I should like to direct the attention of the house to what was done by Disraeli in 1867 when he was trying to introduce a contentious measure on reform in England. He did it by way of resolution. The resolution was debated vigorously and there was a great deal of opposition. As W. I. Jennings points out in his book on parliament, page 243, speaking of Disraeli he says:
He withdrew the resolutions and gracefully covered his retreat by acknowledging a disposition on the part of the house to afford the ministerial
Grain
proposals fair and candid consideration, to secure which was the main object of proceeding by resolution.
Well, that is exactly what we have done here.


Clarence Decatur Howe: Did you vote for the resolution?


Gordon Minto Churchill: I think perhaps I did, in the expectation-


Mr. Dickey:: Perhaps you did?


Gordon Minto Churchill: All right, I did, in the expectation-


Clarence Decatur Howe: Go ahead, Disraeli.


Gordon Minto Churchill: -in the expectation the minister would make some revisions in the bill in accordance with the advice tendered in the house. But the minister does not accept advice very readily.


Walter Edward Harris: How do you know whether or not he revised it?


Clarence Decatur Howe: He does not know whether he is for it or against it or whether it is the same bill.


Gordon Minto Churchill: There has been no change in the provisions of the bill.


Stanley Howard Knowles: The minister should watch out that this does not degenerate into a debate.


Gordon Minto Churchill: The minister told us the provisions of the bill have been in effect since November 15, and no change was made between the resolution stage and the introduction of the bill unless it was a minor change that has not been drawn to our attention. The minister shows the same disregard for parliament as in the past. He settled this matter on a television-radio program back in November.


Clarence Decatur Howe: It has been said a good many times that I announced this financing by radio and television. The statement I made was made to the delegates of the Saskatchewan wheat pool. If they chose to have photographers there or radio there, that was their business, but I addressed a delegates meeting of the Saskatchewan wheat pool.


Gordon Minto Churchill: It is too bad it was not
televised and then perhaps the Manitoba farmers might have taken action with their shotguns.


John Horace Dickey: You are pretty proud of those Manitoba shotguns.


Gordon Minto Churchill: I did not catch that last interruption, but at any rate the minister has

Grain
come here again asking parliament to be a rubber stamp for something he has done beforehand. There is a great deal of objection here, and I hope elsewhere, to treating parliament in that fashion.
Earlier today the hon. member for Rosthern (Mr. Tucker) dealt with the meaning of the term "cash advances", and he attempted to show-he did it very badly-some change had been made in our position and that we were now talking about cash payments instead ofi cash advances. We had a great play on words with regard to what you mean by an advance. I gather that one of the leading papers in western Canada got mixed up in this too, by inadvertence. I was sorry to hear the Minister of Justice (Mr. Garson) apparently had also become confused with regard to the word "advances". He is usually quite well informed on the meaning of words.
In order to show that there has been no change in our position from quite early, let me draw to your attention the fact that on October 26, before this house assembled and when the crisis in the wheat situation was evident, the Leader of the Opposition spoke on the matter and is reported in the Ottawa Citizen of that date as follows:
He urged an immediate cash purchase plan by the wheat board of farm-stored western grain on a quota basis, making an initial payment thereon as if the wheat had been delivered to the elevators.
Later in this house the Leader of the Opposition used practically those very words and made it quite clear to everybody who was really interested in the matter that a payment was what was intended by the use of the word "advance", and it was clear to everyone except those who apparently did not wish to understand. He used such words as these, as reported at page 41 of Hansard:
Provision should be made for immediate cash advances in the ordinary way on the quota book by the wheat board for farm-stored grain on a quota basis, making an initial payment thereon as if the wheat had been delivered to the elevator.
And then, to make it doubly clear, he drew the attention of the house to that once again on Friday, January 27. There has been no change in the position of this party with regard to cash advances being intended to be a payment on grain, and being intended to be paid for by the delivery of that grain when it could be called forward. At the same time the Leader of the Opposition very properly urged in October, or thereabouts, that a special session be called. He urged earlier that a special session should be called to deal with the problem.

The foreword to the bill that has been placed before us reads:
An act to provide for short-term credit to grain producers in the prairie provinces to meet temporary financial difficulties arising from inability to deliver all their grain.
I looked at this with some amazement, particularly the last phrase:	"inability to
deliver all their grain". The grain producers are apparently unable to deliver all their grain. They are ready, willing and able to do it. The fault lies elsewhere. The latter phrase of the bill should read: "arising from the failure of the policy of the government in respect of promoting the sale of wheat and in its failure to provide elevator space and box cars for delivery." It is not the fault of the grain producers; it is not their inablity to deliver their produce to the elevator.
The factors that have made this bill unsatisfactory are perfectly clear. They deserve full consideration. In order to indicate the unsatisfactory nature of this particular legislation hon. members who have spoken have dealt with all aspects of agriculture in relation to the wheat-growing problem and the marketing of wheat, and there is some sense to that type of approach, because unless you see this particular problem in relation to the whole it might not be easy to understand the opposition to this measure. This is an emergency measure. It apparently is filling a need only for a small number of grain producers. It is clear from what is expected or asked for by those who are spending their lives in the production of grain on the western plains. The situation has been drawn to our attention, but there is no harm in having a look at it again.
The situation of western agriculture in relation to agriculture as a whole is much worse from the standpoint of over-all loss of farm income in that part of the country than anywhere else in Canada, and we recognize that agriculture throughout Canada is in a difficult situation. The figures in the returns to the farm people of Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Alberta amount to a decrease of $404 million for 1954, and the situation is certainly not improving. When you are dealing With figures of that magnitude, surely it is an emergency that deserves consideration from Canada as a whole. That is a serious loss of income to western Canada, and indirectly to other parts of Canada.
The population of western Canada is rapidly approaching the 3 million mark. We are closely linked with all the provinces through agriculture. It was agriculture that brought about the development of the west and although in recent years we are having

the good fortune to discover oil and to develop mining industries and to develop and use our forest products, nevertheless agriculture has been and still is basic to the welfare of western Canada, and affects a very large proportion of Canada's population. Then we all know that the income resulting from the sale of our wheat has certainly been very beneficial to those engaged in industry in other parts of Canada. Of course it has affected the whole transportation system of our country, which in western Canada was certainly developed on the basis of the export of wheat, and it has certainly affected the Atlantic and Pacific ports that handle our grain, and generally it has been of great importance to the whole economy of Canada.
Now, when you consider the decrease in the income of western Canada, because of the inability of the government to market our wheat and to pay farmers for what they have produced, you can see that the effect is widespread, and that Bill No. 82 does not deal with the problem except in a very minor way. It will not put into the hands of the farmers of western Canada the cash they need at the present time to pay their general expenses and to make preparations and provisions for the new crop year of 1956, which is fairly close at hand.
We have been informed that the loans are still limited in principal and in quantity, and that means of course that the shortage of cash still exists. It is incumbent upon all of us to speak out on this measure not simply because we may come from western Canada but because of our interest in the development of agriculture as a whole in this country. If western agriculture suffers very severely, as it is suffering at the present time, the effect is bound to be felt elsewhere. It may be a delayed effect, but it is a type of creeping paralysis which will gradually affect other parts of the country.
The proposal has been made that this bill, instead of being proceeded with forthwith, be referred to the agriculture committee for study. There is sense to that suggestion, because here in the house the minister has brushed aside some of the suggestions that have been made; whereas in committee they might be more carefully considered, and the whole implication of this bill and its effect on western agriculture given the closest attention.
The committee might well relate the wheat problem to our export markets and look ahead a bit in regard to our future policy in respect of wheat. It was just by chance that the short crop of 1954 staved off this problem for a year. That short crop aided the government in avoiding the issue with regard to the problem of disposing of our
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wheat. Well, it caught up to them in 1955 because the crop was good and now with the carry-over that faces us for 1956 the problem is going to be with us throughout the fall of 1956 and 1957. This bill may be extended, of course, to cover 1957 but as it is ineffective right now it will be ineffective in 1957 as well.
Throughout this debate and despite meetings of farm organizations and representations by letter and by telegram to the members of the government, absolutely no regard seems to have been paid to the opinion of the western farmer. Perhaps I should not put it that broadly but certainly not sufficient regard has been paid to that opinion. It has been brushed aside. That strikes me as peculiar because there are no sounder people than those engaged in agriculture in the western provinces. As all farmers are, they are sensible people who look at their problems pretty calmly and deliberately and they discuss and debate before they put forward their proposals. I have had an association with western farmers for over 50 years and I rank them as among the most sensible portion of our population.


Mr. MacDougall:: You are older than you look!


Gordon Minto Churchill: They are constantly engaged in a study of the problems that affect them and they do it in a most sensible fashion. They hold meetings in the rural school house or the local community hall. They have farm organizations, farm papers and they listen to the program "Farm Forum" which has been running very effectively for several years. They meet and discuss matters and pass resolutions and then get in touch with members of parliament or with the government.
Year after year we meet farm delegations in Ottawa who present their cases very sensibly. They are not radicals trying to change everything overnight; they reason calmly and coolly and present logical arguments. And yet, in the face of their suggestions over the last several months, the minister has refused to consider the problem as the farmer of western Canada sees it. He would lead us to believe that the farmers are wrong and that we on this side of the house are wrong and that he alone is right. I think that is not the case.
I think the proposal for cash advances on farm-stored grain, or if you prefer, cash payment on farm-stored grain, has been a very sensible approach to this problem. The farmer without cash is being carried along by his friend the village or town storekeeper. It is an intolerable situation, really, for a man who has produced a very valuable product,

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Canada's wheat, which has for so many years been ranked as the most important wheat in the World. The man who produces wealth of that nature and adds to the gross national product is now told to wait for the government to dispose of his grain, to go and borrow money from a bank and pay 5 per cent interest on it and just hope for the best. I do not wonder at all that the farmers have been indignant about this method of dealing with their problem because it has struck close to home. They are the ones who know exactly what they need in order to manage from month to month and in order to pay their harvesting costs during the fall and to pay the normal costs of the winter and to get ready for spring. They naturally need cash and they have the security in this first-class wheat, which in this last crop year was of a higher quality than in some other years. On that basis surely the farmer has been right in asking for a method different from the one put forward by the minister.
Earlier in this debate I was disappointed to hear the minister suggest that perhaps the security was not good enough and that the farmers might dispose of their grain in some other way and would not be able to meet their obligations. That is not the western farmer as I have known him. The western farmer is prepared to meet his obligations on all occasions. The percentage of farmers who would not meet their responsibilities would not be any greater than in any other group; it would perhaps be one-half of one per cent. No, the farmer can be trusted and in this instance he should have been trusted and his advice should have been taken.
Why has there been this neglect of western Canada? What has happened to the government of this country that it can brush aside the expression of opinion from that great section of our country, the three prairie provinces with their large, active and thriving population, that section of Canada that has produced a great deal of wealth for this nation?
The representation of western Canada in the House of Commons, as we know, is divided. It shows the interest and activity and political alertness of western Canadians. It reveals that they do not simply follow along behind the government of the day. They are familiar with protesting when things are not going right. They have protested in the past, and very effectively, but at this time with all that experience behind us surely we can see that the voice of the western farmer, expressed through his normal farm organizations, should be heard and listened to attentively by this government and the proposals

of the western farmer for cash advances, or for cash payments, which is the same thing, on farm-stored grain should have been accepted by this government long ere this. This bill should have been withdrawn between resolution stage and its presentation to this house, and it could now be withdrawn by the minister and altered to meet the circumstances of this particular period.
I think the government is neglecting western Canada and that this minister who caused us so much trouble last year is adopting the same attitude again this year. He wants to force this through parliament no matter how many sound organizations may be against putting it forward at this time. And that is the type of treatment of parliament against which we protest.
I urge the minister now-it is not too late- to withdraw the bill and bring in something really worth while.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear.


Gordon Minto Churchill: The minister could withdraw this bill and amend it in such a way that it would contain both methods if necessary. It is not beyond the capabilities of his staff to work out something which would accomplish both things. If there are some people who want a loan on farm-stored grain at 5 per cent and who can see no other way of managing that could be provided for if necessary, and if there are others who think it is far better to have a cash payment made on farm-stored grain with good security such as they have to offer, why not provide for that, too. Why give us this, which is not even half a loaf.


Douglas Scott Harkness: It is an abortion.


Gordon Minto Churchill: It is about one-sixth of a loaf made out of the lowest grade of wheat that could possibly be produced. I urge the minister for once in his life before he leaves us, -I shall regret to see him go-to accept advice from the House of Commons.
Right Hon. C. D. Howe (Minister of Trade
and Commerce): Mr. Speaker, I intend to speak very briefly, as I am not going to join in the filibuster on this bill. However, I should like to say a few words on the amendment now before us. The hon. member for Winnipeg South Centre (Mr. Churchill) has given us some splendid advice on parliamentary procedure. He says to withdraw the bill and then introduce a new bill at the same session dealing with the same subject. Unfortunately the rules do not permit that. We cannot introduce a bill dealing with the same subject as one which has already been introduced at the same session. Surely my hon. friend knows that.


An hon. Member:: What about unanimous
consent?


Clarence Decatur Howe: He also knows that there can be no unanimous consent. He knows also that this amendment which has been introduced would kill the bill. The amendment is that the bill be not read a second time. At that stage it would go off the order paper and you could do anything you liked with it. You could refer it to a committee or anything else, but you could not introduce it again at this session.
This has been discussed in the house many times and rulings have been given. I thought everyone was quite aware of the fact that the procedure I have indicated is the correct parliamentary practice. I am not surprised that hon. members of the Conservative opposition last week voted favourably on the resolution while this week they are prepared to vote to kill the bill. That is not the quickest turn-around I have ever seen. I remember when the hon. member for Greenwood (Mr. Macdonnell) voted "aye" on the second reading of a bill and "nay" on the third reading of the same bill in the same evening. I am sure he remembers that.
We all know that the Conservative party has no policy. They join in any hullabaloo that comes along. Last week they voted against the C.C.F. while this week they have joined them. Next week it may be the Social Credit group that will be the victims, but I hope not for their sakes.
There is another feature to this amendment. The amendment provides that this bill be not read a second time. This is a government measure and if the bill is not read a second time the government is defeated. I can assure hon. members that should that happen the house would be dissolved immediately and we would have an election.


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh.


Clarence Decatur Howe: If you want an election now, you know how to vote on this measure.


Mr. Rowe:: You would never come back under those circumstances.


Clarence Decatur Howe: I like to hear
these people opposite talk about the prairies. They know where the prairies are on the map but they do not know much about them otherwise.


Mr. Fleming:: This is another "toe the line" speech you are making.


Clarence Decatur Howe: Anyway that
would be the result.


An hon. Member:: Whom do you think you are threatening?
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Clarence Decatur Howe: This is not only a motion to kill the bill, it is a motion of want of confidence in the government; but we do not worry too much about that. That is the kind of debate we are carrying on this evening. If you want to vote against the bill, why, vote against the bill. I do not know why you have to again listen to the speeches we have just heard. We have already heard the same men making the same speeches. Perhaps they prepared their speeches before they came down and they were the only speeches they had. I do not mind listening to them but unfortunately I have other things to do. I really begrudge the time. Her Majesty pays me for doing something useful and I do not think I am earning my pay when I have to sit here in the house and listen to the kind of blather we have been having on this particular bill.
The history of the bill is simply this. There was a great meeting at Saskatoon and from that meeting came a document. That document was brought to Ottawa by a large delegation, including the leaders of all the farm organizations on the prairies. They presented the document to the cabinet, and impressed upon us the need of speed. They said that the small farmer needed cash immediately.
The document suggested three ways of getting cash to him. One was through the banks, another was to set up a special organization for the purpose of handling direct government grants, and the third was advances through the wheat board. The document even mentioned the rate of interest that should be charged. It urged that there be no interest, but said that if there was to be interest it be not more than 3J per cent. That was the document given to us.
The main problem was speed; the money must be put into the hands of the farmers without delay. We examined the situation as a government and we found that the quickest way to get it out was to use the lending organizations already in existence. We made a special arrangement with the banks and on the undertaking by the Minister of Finance (Mr. Harris) that this legislation would be introduced at the opening of this session, the banks proceeded to make loans.
That is the history of this legislation. We did exactly what we were asked to do. The men who made the request were the leaders of the farm organizations. Whether it solves all the problems of the farmers I do not know, but it certainly solves the problem we were asked to solve on that particular date.
With those few remarks I will continue to sit here and watch the Tories reverse themselves as usual. Last week they voted for

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the resolution and this week they will vote to kill the bill. That will be very amusing. This being an evening I cannot do much else, so go ahead.


Douglas Scott Harkness: Could I ask the right hon. minister a question?


Some hon. Members:: No.


Clarence Decatur Howe: Do you know a question?


Douglas Scott Harkness: In view of the fact that he threatened the house only last week or the week before that he would put this thing to the end of the order paper and it would never come up and therefore the western farmer would suffer if we attempted to talk about this bill-


Clarence Decatur Howe: If the hon. member had not put a twist in it that might have been a reasonable question. When he says that it would go to the foot of the government paper and therefore it would never come up, that of course is along the lines of the bunkum he has been distributing in this house during this particular debate. I said that I was not going to allow a filibuster to disturb the orderly proceedings of the house. If there must be a filibuster, we would put it over to the end of the session when we would have plenty of time. That was the offer I made and it was not accepted.


Douglas Scott Harkness: May I ask that the minister answer the question instead of just talking.


Mr. G. H. Castleden (Yorkton):: Mr. Speaker, I am sure that the house is pleased to have a statement from the minister, particularly his statement that he felt that the legislation which they introduced last fall was a solution to the immediate problem. The minister refers to the discussion today as being a filibuster. That is not the first time that he has referred to a debate as being a filibuster. If he wants to have a filibuster, we will show him what a filibuster is, and that will completely block the legislation.
What we are doing here is expressing emphatically our opposition to the policy of this government to deal with what is a very critical situation, the cash shortage on the prairie provinces. The minister's statement that this is a solution to that problem shows how completely he misunderstands the problem and how uninformed he is as to the real situation.
It is the same kind of thing we have had in this house before during this session. We have heard talk about the great prosperity which Canada is enjoying from east to west, but then it was said that there are a few

people who are not enjoying this great prosperity to the full. One portion of Canada which is not enjoying fully this prosperity is the three prairie provinces.
That area of Canada is suffering an economic recession, because the farmers are unable to deliver their grain because of the policies of this government and its failure to sell wheat. Then when wheat was sold it has failed to fill the space in the elevators which was made available. They tell us that the box cars are away, that the transport controller is not available. The result is that the farmers are unable to get any cash from the delivery of grain, which is the basis of the economy in the west.
I shall use the figures placed on the record, and left on the record by the Minister of Agriculture last Friday afternoon. According to those figures of net farm income in the prairie provinces, whereas the net farm income in the maritimes dropped by about 19 per cent from 1952 to 1954, in the province of Quebec about three per cent, and in Ontario about 15 per cent, in Manitoba the drop was 54 per cent in net cash income, in Alberta it was 50 per cent, and in the province of Saskatchewan, where most of this objection is coming from, it was 77 per cent.
If the minister realized what that situation means to those people, he would not bring in this kind of legislation which forces the people who are put in this position by the policies of the government, to go to the banks and borrow money if they are able. There are certain very stringent regulations, and the bank managers have apparently been instructed to be very careful about their loaning, and the deductions which must be taken off any loan for which they may qualify in the way of taxation arrears, lien notes and other indebtedness, including any cash that they may have obtained from a small delivery of grain which they may have had. It is all very well for the minister, in talking about this debate, to refer to what he hears from this side of the house as "blather".


An hon. Member:: It is a good Irish word.


George Hugh Castleden: Yes, it is a good Irish word.
I suggest to him that what some hon. members say, such as the hon. member for Rosthern this afternoon, might be called blather by us. He was sent here by the people of Rosthern to represent them. He can make his charges that we are deliberately misrepresenting the case and make such statements as that, but surely the evidence is before the house, the evidence of those people who know the situation, when the wheat pools and farm organizations, the

people involved from the three western provinces, come down here and place the facts before the government.
The Minister of Trade and Commerce has the bureau of statistics under his department and he knows the cash situation is serious. We are looking for a solution and we are trying to persuade this government there is something wrong. If we are repeating ourselves, it is only in an attempt to persuade the members opposite and the people of Canada that there is a serious situation and that this legislation does not solve it. That is why we are emphatic in our opposition.
We are opposed to this measure because we think it is wrong in principle. These people are forced into the serious economic condition they are in on the western prairies today by government policy. Apparently their crime is that they have produced too much and have had a good crop. Surely, when they have produced the crop-and they have difficulty in some years in doing so- they should be entitled to deliver it. They are asking the government to allow them to deliver it. Surely the government is responsible for their condition and should undertake the responsibility for easing the situation, by allowing them to have the same cash advance-in fact, it is only half of the cash advance-which the same farmers would have if the government had provided the means whereby they could have delivered the grain. That grain, instead of being in store in the elevators, will still be on the farm. It will still be entered in the farm's permit book and it will be held against any future deliveries. That the farmer should be burdened with another loan, with another note against his personal property and all his production and a note to the bank or to the mortgage company, is wrong. That is why the opposition is very emphatic. I know we are a minority group in this house, but the only way we have of letting the government know that the people out there are opposed to this legislation is by constantly repeating it and letting the government know that this is an injustice. It is our duty to oppose it and we intend to continue doing so.
I have always admired the way the hon. member for Rosthern tackles an impossible problem. We have had another great demonstration of that from him again this afternoon. He tried to persuade this house that because the Minister of Agriculture, from the province of Saskatchewan, was at a conference in Saskatoon where efforts were made to get the government to meet the situation adequately, he supported the conference decision to ask for advances and, because he supported that, therefore he
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supported bank loans. That is an utterly ridiculous stand for any person to take. The people just do not accept it. I maintain that every one of the members who came down here to interview the cabinet and told them that they wanted cash advances for grain on the farm through the wheat board, was certainly very disgusted when they found that all they got was an arrangement through the banks, whereby a very small percentage of the people who would need it were going to be allowed to borrow money and have a lien on their backs and pay interest-another toll to the banks.
What is this government doing about it? They are being very beneficent in their attitude. They say, "We are just going to guarantee that the banks will not lose any money. The banks will have to collect the loan when the grain is delivered. The banks will get the interest. We will see that the banks do not lose anything." I do not suppose this will cost the government anything. The last time they had similar legislation on the books, in 1952, their losses were almost negligible.
Because it fails completely to do the job that is needed desperately, we oppose it.
We also feel that perhaps Canada can afford to do something for these people. The government has to accept the responsibility for their condition and cannot get out of it. If the rest of Canada is enjoying tremendous prosperity, then I say that to condemn the prairie producers to this kind of condition, at a time like this when the remedy is so easy, is to discriminate against the people in that part of the country. That is the reason for the opposition, not only from members on this side of the house but from the people of that part of the country, in the representations that come to this government from the daily press and from the boards of trade and certainly, emphatically, in the representations from the farmers. I believe that the cabinet is going to receive another delegation from the interprovincial farm union, probably this week. I would suggest to them that again they look to the representations that come from that interprovincial farm union with regard to this legislation and see whether or not the legislation which is being brought into this house at this time is any kind of solution to the problem. The unanimous decisions of the mass protest meetings held across the country show that there is a great deal of dissatisfaction, and it is emphatic.
This Bill No. 82, now before us for second reading, is being discussed in principle. I have outlined the principles under which it operates. It is merely a bank loan. It is a system under which the farmer has to go to

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the banks, and many farmers find it very difficult to get to the banks in our part of the country. I believe there are approximately 1,200 delivery points where the farmers haul their grain to the elevators, but there are less than 200 places, or one-sixth the number of delivery points, where there are any banks or lending institutions of the type that are allowed to lend money under this legislation. There are credit unions which the farmers use but the credit unions are told that their organization apparently is not suitable to carry on this kind of lending. They are not going to be included among those who can make loans which the government will guarantee.
It is wrong in principle to ask people, who find themselves placed in an uneconomic position by the actions of the government, to burden themselves with a further load of debt, but it seems very difficult to put that basic principle across in the house. We have repeated it and we have still to find anyone on the government side of the house who will say that the principle is sound and right. I will vote for the amendment and I want to compliment the hon. member for Winnipeg South Centre (Mr. Churchill) on his attitude with respect to the bill. It is further evidence that people from the prairie provinces are disturbed about it. They recognize that it is wrong. They recognize that to support it is to support something which is wrong in principle and they refuse to do that.
Among the things that have disturbed western people as far as this measure is concerned is the fact that in the past they have had their hopes raised by statements made by ministers in the house. I can remember sitting here on several occasions last year, when the Minister of Trade and Commerce (Mr. Howe) told us that the farmers would be able to deliver all the grain they had in store prior to the 1955 crop and that before the 1955 crop moved their bins would be empty. He raised their hopes but their hopes proved to be groundless. Some farmers have been allowed to deliver their eight bushel quota but many have not been able to do even that.
The minister referred to this measure as being a solution for all the problems of the farmer. It is very far from a solution so far as they are concerned. As a matter of fact, we have stressed for years that there is something basically wrong with an economic system under which the farmer has to operate with rising costs and decreasing returns. Even with the payments that have been made on the farmers' grain their income has been kept at a low level and agriculture is facing a very serious economic situation not only in western Canada but throughout the whole

country. The extra burden placed on the western farmer by this legislation is really a slap in his face. He sees that, not only is he facing bankruptcy with a continuation of the policies now in effect, but also that even with the delivery of his grain he is faced with the problem of decreased income from his farm and constantly increasing costs of operation.
The protests from the farmers are spontaneous. For the Minister of Trade and Commerce to try to mislead the house by saying that the demand for cash advances through the wheat board comes from the businessmen and from people wishing to destroy the wheat board is completely and utterly unfounded. The rank and file of the farmers have expressed their opposition through the only means they have, and that is where the opposition comes from. The dissatisfaction of the farmers with conditions is completely justified. The farmer rejects the offer of a further loan as being a rebuke to the western grain grower. He rejects the offer of the government to guarantee loans as an insult to his intelligence. He is trying to make the government appreciate that there is a real problem here that requires solution. We are opposed to the measure because it is impractical. We are opposed to it because it is completely ineffective in solving the problem, and the red tape involved in trying to get a loan is such that it will discourage the farmer in almost every instance.
Among the prairie people there is a sort of ingrown distrust of loans, notes, mortgages and the like. They have bitter memories of the results of going into debt when cash income is reduced and they are unable to cope with the situation. Thousands of farmers lost everything they had in the thirties when they were affected by the same situation, and it was a lesson they have never forgotten. They are opposed to mortgages and they dislike going into debt with the banks. They have had experience before with loans and they do not want any more. They also know that when in the past provincial governments attempted to save the farmer from foreclosure and the loss of everything he owned by passing legislation to protect the farmer and his wife and family on the home quarter, the Supreme Court of Canada declared such legislation was ultra vires of the provinces.
They find that in every case the money interests are protected and the protection of the farmer, his wife, his family and home is secondary. Apparently justice is always given first to the banker, to the sacred rights of money, capital and interest. The preference is always given to the money lender and the wife, the family and the home come second.

Court conflicts which have always ended in protecting the sacred rights of capital have made the people of the west very much opposed to any idea of loans and debt. I have known cases where the bread earner of the family lost his life through an accident and the wife and children were forcibly evicted on the road allowance in order to satisfy the rights of capital and the interest that had to be paid. Surely it is time that humanity came first and the rights of capital second.
The producer also knows that borrowing money does not solve any problem for him. It is no solution. It merely adds to his burden. Apparently the government is grimly determined not to consider the proposal for cash advances made by our party and the people from the prairies. There are almost 4,000 elevator agents in Saskatchewan as compared with less than 200 bank managers and if cash advances were made through the wheat board for grain properly stored on the farm the elevator agent, who has the producer's permit book, knows him personally and deals with him every year, could easily go to the farm, inspect the grain and see that is it properly stored and graded. If the government should require it, he could put a seal on it.
Let the farmer sign a document that he will not sell it except through his permit book, enter the advance in the permit book, and I can assure the government that they will be perfectly safe. Surely that is a fair and equitable method and a practical means of solving the problem. The bank loan legislation is absolutely useless in meeting the situation. We reject it and the people reject it. The determination of the government to force it through is going to be met by equal determination on the part of those of us who represent these people and are sent here to speak for them.


Irvin William Studer: You only represent the
socialists.


George Hugh Castleden: I have listened to your blather for a long time.


Irvin William Studer: You represent no one else, just the socialists.


George Hugh Castleden: I am very pleased to hear you use the word "socialist".


Irvin William Studer: You represent the socialists and no other person.


George Hugh Castleden: It is very nice for you to talk that way. We are very pleased to hear you say so. You had better go out and take a look at what is going on in your own area.


Irvin William Studer: Are you not a socialist?


George Hugh Castleden: We will be pleased to talk after this is over.
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Mt. Sluder: Are you not a socialist'


George Hugh Castleden: I am very proud of the record of the government of Saskatchewan. Comparing what it has done with what your government did, we will be standing a very long time after you have gone.


Irvin William Studer: You represent only the socialists.


George Hugh Castleden: I will be glad to hear you stand up and give your little talk after.


Mr. Depuly Speaker:: Order.


George Hugh Castleden: The only trouble with the hon. member is that sometimes his mind stops running and he lets his mouth go on talking.


Irvin William Studer: You are a socialist ventriloquist.


George Hugh Castleden: When the vote comes, stand up and be counted and we will be glad to hear you.


Irvin William Studer: You are a socialist-


George Hugh Castleden: Is this a point of order?


Mr. Depuly Speaker:: Order. I would ask hon. members not to interrupt the hon. member who has the floor without his consent.


George Hugh Castleden: I hope the hon. member for Swift Current-Maple Creek will bow to your decision.
To sum up the situation, may I say that our opposition to this is based on opposition to the principle, which is wrong and unjust. It is completely useless as a substitute for something fair, practical and equitable which we have proposed that will do the job. We are just as determined to oppose it all the way through the house as the Minister of Trade and Commerce apparently is determined to ram it through whether or not the people like it.


Mr. A. W. A. While (Waterloo Soulh):: I had
not intended to speak on this bill, but after listening to opposition members, particularly the C.C.F. group, continually criticizing the government over this legislation which is intended to help the western wheat farmer, I felt compelled to say a few words.


George Hugh Castleden: Without any notes.


Mr. Gauthier (Porlneuf):: Never mind; you had notes.


Mr. Bennell:: You just read yours.


Mr. While (Walerloo Soulh):: I should like to make it clear at the start that I do not believe the speakers from the opposition benches truly represent the thinking of the majority of wheat farmers in western Canada. The government proposes by this legislation

Grain
to guarantee bank loans to wheat producers in western Canada on farm-stored grain at 5 per cent interest with a ceiling of $1,500 on the loan. A little later we will also be discussing another bill which proposes that the government pay interest and storage charges on wheat held by the wheat board over the normal carry-over level. It is estimated this will cost the government $30 million.
While at the moment we are discussing the bill in connection with bank loans, yet I feel that both bills must be taken into consideration in order to fully appreciate the assistance being provided by the government to meet the emergency situation faced by western wheat producers. The position taken by the C.C.F. group and other opposition members is that the guaranteeing of bank loans up to $1,500 is not sufficient. As an alternative they suggest the wheat board should make cash advances on farm-stored grain. Some even say that these cash advances should be made without any interest being charged. I am afraid I cannot agree with hon. members opposite.
In the first place, the wheat board was established as a marketing agency and not a lending institution. The wheat board has neither the money nor the administration facilities to carry on such an extensive lending program. Even though the wheat board could borrow the necessary money at a lower interest rate than the farmers could get pn the same loan from the bank, the administrative costs would be far greater. The difference in the interest rates would not make up the cost of administration. Neither can I subscribe to any suggestion that the rest of Canada should pay the interest charges on these loans on farm-stored grain.
When a manufacturer over-produces in order to provide employment for his workers nobody underwrites the interest charges on his bank loans or provides him with interest-free capital. When an industrial worker is out of work and unable to meet his monthly payments on his home in which he has invested his life savings, he has to borrow money wherever he can at whatever interest rate is necessary in order to meet his obligations and save his equity and his home.
What is the present situation so far as the western wheat producer is concerned? During the past four years, with favourable climatic conditions, there have been bumper crops of wheat. The wheat board has exported more wheat in each of those years than they did in any of the post-war crop years from 1947 to 1951. This is also true for the crop year 1954-55. In spite of this there is still a considerable amount of wheat in storage on farms and in elevators. But according to the

dominion bureau of statistics daily bulletin dated February 7 of this year, there is very little change in the visible supplies of wheat as compared with January 25 a year ago. The bureau's figures indicate that the visible supplies of Canadian wheat as of that date total 359,778,000 bushels as against 357,151,000 the year previous.
The position of the western wheat producer has not worsened, therefore, to any great extent in the past year. I appreciate the fact that he needs some help at the moment, and I intend to support this bill, which will enable wheat farmers who need financial assistance to get bank loans. I also intend to support the other bill when it comes before the house. This bill would allow the government to pay interest and storage charges on wheat held by the wheat board over and above the normal carry-over level. I intend to support these bills because I recognize it is impossible for Canada to maintain its present high level of prosperity unless all sections of the economy share in that prosperity or are assisted in some way.
The riding of Waterloo South, which I have the honour to represent in this house, has within its boundaries a number of communities which are highly industrialized, including the adjoining municipalities of Galt and Preston which very shortly it is expected will make the second twin cities of Waterloo county. Those industrial communities are surrounded by fertile and rich farmlands which support a substantial dairy industry. Indeed, some of the finest dairy herds in Canada are to be found in Waterloo county. The dairy farmers in my riding appreciate the fact that the government saw fit to retain-


Edward George McCullough: Mr. Speaker-


Some hon. Members:: Sit down.


Edward George McCullough: On a
point of order, Mr. Speaker-


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Applewhaite):: The
hon. member for Moose Mountain is rising on a point of order.


Edward George McCullough: My
point of order is simply this. Before the dinner recess the Speaker raised a point of order because I was not confining my remarks strictly to the matter under discussion. I notice that the hon. member is transgressing the rule of the house that speeches must be strictly relevant to the matter under discussion.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Applewhaite):: So
far as I am concerned-and I have heard every word of the speech of the hon. member who has the floor-he has not strayed

nearly as far from the subject matter under discussion as have a great many other speakers on all sides of the house. I assume-and I cannot tell whether this assumption is right for a minute or two-that his reference to the industrial communities in his own riding was going to be tied up with the subject matter of this bill as have been references to ports of export and overseas markets, and so forth. The hon. member will continue.


Arthur Walter Adams White: As I was saying, Mr. Speaker, the dairy farmers in my riding appreciate the fact that the government saw fit to retain the 58 cent floor price on butter, but I can assure you, Mr. Speaker, that they do not appreciate the attitude of the socialist government in Saskatchewan which refused to buy any butter for the provincial institutions of that agricultural province when the federal government offered it to them at a reduction of 21 cents a pound because-and the reason they refused-


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Applewhaite):: Order. I think I was right in the first place when I indicated that up to that point the hon. member had not got too far afield; but I am sure I can have no hesitation in indicating that in my opinion the attitude of any provincial government in the handling of butter can hardly be tied in with bank loans to farmers on farm-stored grain. I will admit that there may be a distant connection but I suggest to the hon. member it is a little too far distant for this debate.


Arthur Walter Adams White: I was going on to say that is why I and others of this house are not greatly impressed by the arguments of the C.C.F. members in this house who belong to the same socialist party that refused to buy any butter at the reduced rate because it was going to cost that government a mere $20,000 a year.
Look at the irony of the situation, when the G.C.F. members in this house representing the province of Saskatchewan, which produces more wheat than the other two prairie provinces together, are not satisfied when this government is willing to spend $30 million to help the western wheat farmers and guarantee bank loans to them as well.
The leader of the C.C.F. group criticized the Minister of Trade and Commerce (Mr. Howe) for trying to get the resolution passed and the bill before the house after three days of debate which, in my opinion, offered ample opportunity for members to present their views to this house. I did not think that the leader of the C.C.F. group was being very consistent when he took this stand because I can well remember that when the former
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minister of finance advised the house that he was instructing the tariff board to hold a public hearing on the textile industry in Canada the leader of the C.C.F. group, on a nation-wide broadcast, without even waiting for the tariff board hearing to take place, without waiting for any legislation to be brought to this house, without waiting to hear any debate by hon. members, committed his party to oppose any attempt by the government to increase the preferential tariff on English textiles coming into this country.
I should like to point out to hon. members that in order to sell increased quantities of wheat which has been produced in western Canada we have been forced to accept ever-increasing quantities of manufactured goods from low-wage countries, which is seriously crippling our own domestic industries and putting many of our industrial workers out of work. Machine tools from Germany and the United Kingdom, woollens and worsteds from the United Kingdom, textiles from Japan and rubber footwear from Hong Kong, have been accepted in order to maintain our sales of wheat to those countries.
It is useless for hon. members opposite, as the hon. member for Assiniboia (Mr. Argue) did a while ago, to state, "Get rid of our wheat and put the money in the hands of our western farmers and we shall cure the unemployment situation in the east." The western farmer is no different from anyone else. If he can buy imported goods cheaper than he can buy Canadian-made goods he is going to buy them.
The more I listen to the C.C.F. representatives from western Canada the more I am convinced that they are not concerned with the welfare of the western wheat farmers as much as they are with political expediency.
If hon. members.in this house from other parts of Canada were to adopt the same narrow and shortsighted policy adopted by the C.C.F. government in Saskatchewan in regard to butter none of us would support this legislation, but fortunately we are more broad-minded than that. In conclusion, I would urge the representatives from western Canada to remember that wheat is not the only economic problem in this great country, and to be a little more sympathetic to and have a little more understanding of the problems of other parts of Canada.


Mr. Macdonnell:: On a question of privilege, Mr. Speaker; in the rather free-wheeling and rambling speech that the Minister of Trade and Commerce made a little while ago, rather to my surprise I heard him tell the house that on a certain occasion I had voted one way on the second reading and another way on the

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third reading of a bill. I like to consider myself responsible for my actions. I believe it is an entire fiction of the minister's imagination. I believe that this is an entire figment of the minister's imagination and I would like him either to withdraw it or to give me the reference.


Clarence Decatur Howe: The reference goes back a good many years. I will be pleased to bring it along and give it to my hon. friend. I remember the debate well but I do not remember what year it was in.


James MacKerras Macdonnell: Oh well, I will clear it up. Is the minister thinking about a certain occasion on which through inadvertence I voted in a way I did not intend to vote?


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear.


James MacKerras Macdonnell: I will tel] him about that and I will tell him where to find it. If you will look at April 1, 1947, you will find it. I am not ashamed of that.


An hon. Member:: April Fool's day.


James MacKerras Macdonnell: That is right. The former member for Fraser Valley said "new Conservative policy, vote both ways", but it has nothing to do with what the minister said tonight and I would ask him to withdraw it as I would prefer not to have anyone think that I voted on second reading in one way and in a different way on third reading. The minister must admit I have been very generous in telling him what was the true version of what he garbled.


Clarence Decatur Howe: Well, Mr. Speaker, I had planned to look at Hansard and see if the hon. member's intentions were registered there when the vote was registered. However, if the hon. member feels sensitive about it, and since it traverses a period a long time ago when he and I were young, I will gladly withdraw it.


William Earl Rowe: Mr. Speaker, I have listened with keen interest to the hon. member for Waterloo South (Mr. White), who has just concluded a speech very close to the issue before the house. I could not help but think as a farmer in Ontario not far from his district that there is a close relationship between the sale of agricultural products and the substantial and stable development of industrial enterprises. As I listened to him I also could not help but think of another occasion when I listened to the hon. member for Waterloo North (Mr. Schneider). I could hear those gentlemen echoing the high protection policy surrounded by so many free traders. They sounded like infants crying in the night, crying for the light, with nothing but a cry to express their weakness. How could these

gentlemen parade as free traders at election time and as high protectionists in this house?


An hon. Member:: They got applause, too.


William Earl Rowe: There is not much applause for them from these dusty old free traders who have been in power so long. It is close to the issue because if we had a sound fiscal policy in Canada we would sell more agricultural products. As the hon. member knows so well, it is true; but he did not say that when a conservative protection candidate was running against him. If they were to go back home and sing the songs they sing here they would never return.
I also listened to the Minister of Trade and Commerce tonight as I have listened to him on many occasions in parliament, but never before have I seen a greater spectacle of contempt for parliament and smug satisfaction than when I listened to the lectures of the hon. gentleman as he endeavoured to tell us what we should say and when we should say it. The government has been in power so long, Mr. Speaker, that everything that is opposed to this government seems to them to be a filibuster. Surely it is not the Mardi Gras party which has made them feel like that. They have been growing towards this during the last 20 years. That is why the farmers of Canada are disturbed today, not only our western farmers, about whom we heard so much, but all farmers.
I have listened to the hon. gentleman talk about western farmers at great length. I have listened to the Minister of Justice (Mr. Garson) so much that I have stopped listening to him since the Minnedosa meeting, and now he is listening to them. We are tired, sick and sore of listening. The government has left the farmer as a forgotten man in Canada not only in the west but in the east.
One of the big troubles in relation to western farmers, as I have observed the situation here for the last 30 years, is that the government fails to see the forest for the trees. No one has changed and turned more political somersaults than the Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Gardiner) in those years. Every time they have a farmers' meeting, a conference of the federation of agriculture, a meeting of the union of farmers of western Canada, the dairymen's association of Ontario or a meeting of the hog producers, he changes policy.
The question arises, who is leading whom? Why, Mr. Speaker, the hon. gentleman tries to tell us from time to time what the western farmers think. On the other hand, you would think, judging from the smug complacency of the Minister of Finance (Mr. Harris) and the Minister of Trade and Commerce, that they

were leading somebody. The Minister of Finance is just like the late leader, the Right Hon. Mackenzie King-


Walter Edward Harris: Thank you.


William Earl Rowe: He never led this country. He just followed so closely that .you people thought you were leading. Mr. King just followed public sentiment with political expediency while you people who were the silent ciphers and patient admirers thought he was leading somebody. This situation has been somewhat the same-


Clarence Decatur Howe: Whom are you leading now?


William Earl Rowe: I am certainly not trying to lead you and I am definitely convinced that you never led me. I would hope, Mr. Speaker, that I would never be so feeble in politics that I would be led by the man of the House of Commons who tries to dominate the show and ignore parliament.


Clarence Decatur Howe: The gentleman you refer to at least knows how he is going to vote on this bill and I do not think you do.


An hon. Member:: Gone forever.


William Earl Rowe: I know how I am going to vote on the bill but it would not make a great deal of difference to you because you ignore parliament anyway, let alone a private member.


An hon. Member:: What about the party line?


William Earl Rowe: I am not going to be diverted from my line of thought-


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh.


William Earl Rowe: -no, not even by the loud and empty laughter of the members of the Liberal cabinet who, I am glad, are nevertheless not too tired to laugh.


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh.


William Earl Rowe: Nor am I going to be diverted by the loud laughter of the Minister of Justice (Mr. Garson), who knows that this issue is not popular out in his province.


Mr. Schneider:: What has that got to do
with wheat?


William Earl Rowe: It has just as much to do with wheat as the comments of your sidekick a moment ago and just as much as textiles have to do with it, which a moment ago you were applauding so loudly. The Minister of Trade and Commerce says that this is the kind of palaver we have to listen to.


An hon. Member:: Talk wheat.


An hon. Member:: What about fish?
Grain


William Earl Rowe: They listen to that kind of palaver so far as wheat is concerned and those who laugh the longest and loudest are those who have contributed the least to the wheat situation in this dominion. When we talk about wheat in Canada today we must bear in mind that we have more unsold wheat in Canada than any other country has had in the last 40 years and these great champions who are telling us how to sell wheat have endeavoured to tell us that we are trying to destroy the wheat board. Every hon. member within summons of my voice should ask himself the question: Where were those gentlemen when the wheat board was set up? Where was the right hon. Minister of Agriculture?


An hon. Member:: Manitoba.


William Earl Rowe: As an hon. member pointed out the other day, we know your history. These younger members do not know it so well, but we know that you were the champions of free enterprise, of the Winnipeg grain exchange long ago, and now you are heralding in a loud voice that we are trying to destroy the wheat board. We created it; you have never supported it until the last few years and then you mongrelized it with all sorts of socialistic ideas that have nearly destroyed it. That is what has happened to the wheat board. Anything for political expediency.
This wheat situation today is not a greater problem than it was before. Today we produce only about 5-5 per cent of world production, but in the years when these tired old gentlemen you are talking about-a few years ago you said our party did not do anything to market wheat-we had twice as large a percentage of world production as you have now. We had 40 per cent of the world trade and in three years you cut it down to 18 per cent, and this year you have only 26 per cent. The United States of America exported only one-quarter as much wheat as we did before you came into power; since you came into power they are exporting almost twice as much as we are. We have a smaller proportion of the world production of wheat than we have had at any time since 1925.
These sales champions are trying to tell you now that they have done a great job, that nobody else could do as well. Nobody since confederation has made such a mess of things. Talk about changing policy. The right hon. Minister of Trade and Commerce tells us that the United States of America is spoiling this. If it does not rain too much in the United States of America everything will be all right. You carry out a policy when you think everything will be all right.

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He says that they are selling wheat too cheap. They are giving the constituents of bread to our friends too cheaply. The right hon. Minister of Agriculture is giving butter to those who are not our friends. The one says it is wrong for them to give bread to our friends too cheaply, the other says it is right to give butter to our enemies for 21 cents a pound less than the housewife in Canada pays.
Mr. Cheaper, Mr. Speaker-


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh.


William Earl Rowe: Yes, nothing could be cheaper than the type of policy being carried on by these bread and butter twins that are trying to sell the products of Canada. One is smothered with wheat and the other is strangled with butter. One says that a billion bushels of wheat is not too much, that if it does not rain too much things will be all right and we can sell our wheat. The other twin says that they have only 100 million pounds of butter, that is not too much, the grass may be short next summer.
No wonder the farmers of Canada are dissatisfied. No wonder the young farmers of Canada are coming to members every weekend, as they come to me, wondering what they can do. Yet the right hon. Minister of Agriculture says that in Ontario they should not kick so much. You would think that they were expecting their adherents in the country to be as pliant as the Grit followers here. But they are befogged and bewildered and bitter. They do- not know what way to turn. They ask me, "What shall I do? Shall I put another mortgage on the farm or shall I quit and try to get a job at Malton?" They are saying up and down the sidelines and bylines that neither the Right Hon. Jimmy Gardiner nor the Right Hon. C. D. Howe knows what is going on. The parade has gone by them. They have been at Ottawa so long, they are too tired to listen, they are too smug to look.


James Garfield Gardiner: Let you and me go back to the dance.


William Earl Rowe: They have been so long in power that they are too tired to change.


An hon. Member:: Bill 82.


William Earl Rowe: I do not need any instructions from my hon. friend. Any time you have been in order in the house you have been out of order with your party, so you cannot tell me anything. We see the smug complacency that creeps over any government which has been in power so long. You can speak about great problems that you have with wheat, but surely the world population has increased in the last few years. How well I recall, and
'Mr. Rowe.]
I know he does too because he has a great memory when he likes to use it, my saying to the Minister of Agriculture, "You have been selling wheat over the last three years for from $400 million to $500 million less than the western farmer should get for his wheat". Everyone within sound of my voice who was here at that time will remember that. No one remembers it better than the minister. He said, "We are doing it to stabilize our markets with Great Britain". When I said to him-


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Applewhaite):: Order. It is not too pleasant for us in the chair to feel that we must interrupt hon. members, particularly when the house as a whole is so obviously enjoying the speech of the hon. member. But unfortunately we must try to extend the same courtesy and latitude to one as to another. I think the time has come for me to point out to the hon. member who has the floor that we are dealing with the second reading of a bill to provide shortterm credits to prairie grain producers by way of guaranteed bank loans. I think it is the usual thing for those of us in the chair to allow every hon. member to make general remarks at the commencement of his speech, as was perhaps done excessively not long ago, but I think the house and the hon. member for Dufferin-Simcoe (Mr. Rowe) will agree with me that the time has come when the hon. member should direct his remarks to the bill which is before us.


William Earl Rowe: Mr. Speaker, I certainly shall try to do that. I am glad that you suggested to me that you are going to allow me the same latitude as you allowed the hon. member for Waterloo South (Mr. White). We both will do our best to stick closely to the issue before the house. It is an important issue because it affects the economy of the whole dominion. The necessity for having either loans or cash advances has been brought about by the sales policy of the government. Probably you were not following me, but I was only trying to point out that one of the reasons was that a few years ago when I suggested to the right hon. Minister of Agriculture that we should not sell wheat for $400 million or $500 million less than the world wanted to pay for it, because the farmers might be able to use that money, he said to me, and the Speaker did not call him to order, "Don't you trust your English friends as I do?" I remember saying to him that I trusted them to be better traders than he , was. To use the slang of the streets, how the chickens are coming home to roost! How those British traders must laugh at these bread and butter twins who thought they knew how to sell our products.

We have lost our market in Britain. Talk about stabilizing the market. In those years Britain was supplying only about 23 per cent of her wheat requirements. Today she is supplying about 35 per cent of her wheat requirements. France was just about producing what she required; she exported over 90 million bushels last year. These are the people who told the world that they would sell wheat at X price and the world would have to pay for it. They have changed their tactics. We have lost those markets today. Now we find one of those honourable traders searching behind the iron curtain for markets for agricultural products, while we find the right hon. Minister of Agriculture flirting with the same people to get rid of our wheat. That is a country that produces a great amount of wheat, and China alongside it produces many times as much wheat as we do. The farmers have been told that they never had it so good. The people who have never had it so good are the elevator people of western Canada storing the wheat that this government has failed to sell. They are the people who have had it the best.
The government now proposes to say to these gentlemen, "You cannot sell your wheat anywhere else. Some of your wheat we trade pound for pound for hay in Alberta. We are going to investigate you through the grain commissioners to see how much wheat is being sold in mixed grains to the United States. Now we are going to say that you cannot sell it to anybody else. If you have a farm in Alberta and live in Saskatchewan, you cannot feed it to your steers in Alberta". Look at this cabinet; they cannot eat it. They have the wheat situation in Canada in the most colossal muddle it has been in since confederation. They are condemning everybody else. They try to say that we destroyed the wheat board. We gave it its birth. They would not even accept the child on their doorsteps for the first four years. They owned it only after they had mongrelized it, as I have said. They have put political expediency on every term in the wheat pools and socialized agriculture to the extent that the farmers of Canada do not know where they are going. The dairymen of Canada are dissatisfied. The potato growers in the east are dissatisfied. The fruit and vegetable growers in my district are dissatisfied. The wheat growers of western Canada are dissatisfied. Tonight they say, "After we have made all these plans, you will pay 5 per cent for what any member of the cabinet can borrow at 4J per cent. You will get the money at 5 per cent provided you have good credit".
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In this whole issue, I am not concerned as to whether the Minister of Trade and Commerce withdraws the bill or threatens parliament or says, "We will not give these farmers anything until next July." There are 200,000 producers in western Canada, and in the first two weeks when this was brought in only 3,000 accepted the advances. The great bulk of those farmers out there borrowed in the same way as we farmers in Ontario borrowed. They paid their five per cent or whatever their credit would warrant in the banks. If all those who require it hound around through western Canada and find the branch banks and get acquainted with the bank managers, probably only about 5,000 or 6,000 out of the 200,000 will take advantage of it. So I might say to the Minister of Trade and Commerce that he may accept parliament or he may threaten parliament that he will do this or that if 3,000 or 4,000 more of the farmers of western Canada do not get a loan out of the 200,000. When the Minister of Trade and Commerce says he will close the door, he is all excited about nothing and out of breath for no purpose.
The trouble is that we have not performed as good salesmen. Surely the Minister of Agriculture and the Minister of Trade and Commerce will admit at long last that they have failed as salesmen of our agricultural products. I have great regard for both of them. Their political nimbleness has been astounding to all those who have not understood what was going on. They have gained the admiration, the applause and the desk-thumping of all their silent supporters in the back benches, many of whom are much brighter than they, in the last few years, but the farmers of Canada know very well that these men who have posed as champion salesmen, if it were not for the taxpayers' money, would have gone bankrupt long ago in selling Canada's products. In the last two or three years the Minister of Agriculture has allowed the dairy industry to be invaded by oleomargarine, and the other night he used oleomargarine himself.
It is a spectacle such as I have not seen since I have been in parliament, and I am not surprised that the farmers today are dissatisfied. I am not surprised that the young farmers have lost hope. I am not surprised that the old farmers are worried, because they find their government so complacent, smug and inconsiderate as to say that the farmers of Ontario are kicking too much and have nothing to kick about. The farmers in western Canada-the wheat growers- have something to kick about. I have every sympathy with the wheat growers of western

Grain
Canada, but all I shall say to them is, "Do not tell me your troubles; I am farming too."


An hon. Member:: Raise horses.


William Earl Rowe: If my horses were no better than some of you fellows in the back row, I would go bankrupt at that too. Some of these smug and complacent fellows in the back rows remind me of some of my horses in the spring. Whenever they show any speed, they always make a mistake. I do not want to be too critical. I have been in this house a long time.


Stanley Howard Knowles: I would like to hear you
when you are critical.


William Earl Rowe: Someone said that they would like to hear me when I was critical. I find that the older I grow the more sympathetic I get, and the older this cabinet grows the more sympathy I realize it needs. I have felt long since disposed to extend the hand of sympathy to those who have been in power too long rather than to be critical. But I sometimes wonder whether the farmer is not the forgotten man and that is why we talk so much about him in parliament. The Minister of Trade and Commerce said that if the Conservatives were in power they would sell wheat for less and that the Leader of the Opposition had hurt the markets and that is why we had to bring in this bill and ask the farmers to pay five per cent-because our leader, the hon. George Drew, whose voice is becoming very effective in Canada-


Some hon. Members:: Oh!


William Earl Rowe: The Minister of Trade and Commerce said that it was because he had caused panic throughout the world. He said he could have sold wheat much faster if it had not been for the opposition. When he says we would sell wheat for less, I think back over the years to the wheat we sold for $400 million to $500 million less than we could have had for it and then, after we joined the international wheat agreement-


An hon. Member:: Which your party supported.


William Earl Rowe: They still sold wheat for 60 cents a bushel less than the world prices. After selling wheat for $400 million to $500 million less than they could have got for it, they joined the international wheat agreement anid sold it for 60 cents a bushel less than the world prices. They say the farmers can borrow money, if they have credit and the bank manager likes the colour of their eyes, and they will be charged, five per cent. That is the same interest my father used to pay about 30 years ago. Yes, Mr. Speaker-


Clarence Decatur Howe: His credit was good.


William Earl Rowe: That is very generous. The Minister of Trade and Commerce says that we have changed our position.


An hon. Member:: Did you ever have a position?


William Earl Rowe: Of course, in all fairness to him I know he is not getting old but he is getting weary. Today he fell asleep in the house and in his sleep he even interrupted the hon. member for Rosthern (Mr. Tucker). I cannot imagine anyone on that side of the house, even if they are awake, interrupting the hon. member for Rosthern because he has troubles enough of his own to straighten out his position on this critical problem. I have heard him struggling several times and I am glad that he has been spared to be with us here because he has had different viewpoints. I appreciate the conviction with which he expresses them and I hope he does not get hurt in the process.
But, Mr. Speaker, the Minister of Trade and Commerce tried to impress on us that we were the party that was going to sell for less. The record will show that the party he is trying to condemn on that basis has a pretty clean record with reference to the sale of wheat.


Clarence Decatur Howe: You never got a price for it.


William Earl Rowe: Never got a price for it?


Clarence Decatur Howe: Forty cent wheat.


William Earl Rowe: You say we never got a price for it. You are not even getting a sale for it, let alone a price. At least we sold wheat. At least the farmers' wives could buy bread.


John Horace Dickey: You would do it again on the same basis too.


Walter Edward Harris: At the least.


William Earl Rowe: But this government has taken $500 million from the farmers of western Canada that they might have had under world prices. Then they took 60 cents a bushel less under the international wheat agreement and still they have more unsold wheat than any government since confederation. After your party came into power you turned around and gave the western farmers-


Clarence Decatur Howe: You cannot talk yourself out of that.


William Earl Rowe: Well, if you and your right hon. friend, the Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Gardiner), do not remember may I remind you that in 1938 after you had been in power for a while our portion of the world markets

Grain
dropped from the 36 per cent that our party left on your doorstep to 18-2 per cent and the price of wheat dropped from 90 cents to 80 cents and then to 60 cents. We put a floor in at 87 cents and never lost a dollar so far as the Canadian taxpayer was concerned. Then you reduced the price to 80 cents and you lost $125 million of the Canadian taxpayers' money. Then you took a $65 million booby prize and handed it back to the wheat growers of western Canada. These are the records, Mr. Speaker, that scream before the public today.


John Horace Dickey: You are the one who is
screaming.


William Earl Rowe: These are the records that scream before the eyes of the wheat growers of western Canada and the farmers of eastern Canada. These are the reasons the farmers of western Canada have already lost confidence in the government. These are the reasons they do not believe these statements no matter how you change them on Hansard. The farmers know by the colour of your eyes. They can see it in the whites of your eyes that you are blustering. The farmers of this country are not satisfied. I leave it to the Minister of Agriculture. Go to the livestock breeders who are meeting in Toronto in February. Go to the fat stock people, go to the dairymen, go to the potato people, go to the fruit and vegetable people and you will find out what these people think about your handling of the whole agricultural situation.
What worries them more is how you ignore the problems. The Minister of Trade and ' Commerce says that there is no great problem, that all we need is a few more cars and we can sell wheat so fast that the cars cannot take it away. Why, the boats and the cars are filled with wheat we have sold and yet we find that 65 per cent less wheat was shipped in the first three weeks of January this year than in the same period last year. How do we reconcile these things?


Clarence Decatur Howe: Where do you get
these figures?


William Earl Rowe: No wonder you consider anything derogatory said against the government is blather! You do not like to hear it. No wonder you turn pale and go to sleep in parliament. You just cannot understand what has happened. The Minister of Agriculture tries to tell the farmers that there is no butter in Canada. You might as well sing the old song, "We have no bananas today". You have got more butter than you know what to do with.


James Garfield Gardiner: Do you remember what Mr. Bennett said about the price of wheat the last
year you were in parliament? He said wheat was the lowest price it had been for 400 years.


William Earl Rowe: Yes, Mr. Speaker, and I remember what your government did before Mr. Bennett came into power. You left more unsold wheat on his doorstep than had been left on any other doorstep since confederation, and if you go out of power, as I think you will if you leave the election for another year-


John Horace Dickey: Don't worry.


William Earl Rowe: I am not worrying except I know the kind of mess you left in the thirties. We were the honorary pallbearers then and we will likely be the honorary pallbearers again.


An hon. Member:: Always a pallbearer.


Stuart Sinclair Garson: You specialize in that.


William Earl Rowe: What did you do between 1921 and 1930? You lost everything and your little Grit friends in Manitoba did the same thing. You lost every market in Britain that we had. Never since confederation had we had as good a market in Britain as we had in 1921 when your party came into power. That is the record, Mr. Speaker, and it cannot be denied by any hon. member. In 1921 we were selling more beef, more pork, more wheat products to Britain than we had sold at any time since confederation and by 1930 we had totally lost that market and you were importing Danish bacon to feed to the people of western Canada.


James Garfield Gardiner: Why did you lose out in 1935?


William Earl Rowe: Since that time what have you done? You have turned 67 per cent of your trade to the United States of America. You have bought products in the United States you could have bought in Britain, and have told the western farmers the fairy tale that you can sell even where you will not buy. You could not sell wheat in the United States and yet you bought 70 per cent of all you bought in the United States and you bought less from Britain proportionately than at any time in the last 40 years. You cannot have it both ways, Mr. Speaker. You cannot have your cake and eat it. You cannot play political expediency with the free traders of western Canada and the protectionists of South Waterloo or North Waterloo either. I call it ten o'clock, Mr. Speaker.



BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE

Walter Edward Harris: Mr. Speaker, we shall continue this entertaining debate tomorrow.


[Stage Direction]
At ten o'clock the house adjourned, without question put, pursuant to standing order.
[Stage Direction]
Questions