1956-02-20

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE


Right Hon. L. S. St. Laurent (Prime Minister) moved:: That when this house adjourns at six o'clock p.m. on Wednesday, March 28 next, it stands adjourned until Monday, April 9, 1956, at 2.30 o'clock p.m.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to.

[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Hon. George A. Drew (Leader of the Opposition):: Mr. Speaker, I wish to direct a question to the Prime Minister. Has the Prime Minister anything to say about any decision of this government along the same lines as the announcement by President Eisenhower in the United States, who stated that supplies of grain and other food products would be available for those in distress in western Europe?


Louis Stephen St-Laurent: No, Mr. Speaker, not at this time.



STEPS TAKEN TO OBTAIN INFORMATION AS TO SITUATION IN EUROPE

[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. Stanley Knowles (Winnipeg North Centre):: Mr. Speaker, I should like to direct a question to the Prime Minister supplementary to the question asked today by the Leader of the Opposition and also supplementary to the question I asked on Thursday of last week. Is the government taking any steps to secure information regarding the situation in Europe so as to determine whether or not Canada should be providing assistance to the people there?


Louis Stephen St-Laurent: The government is obtaining information from its representatives in the countries that were affected by these unusual weather conditions.



GREAT BRITAIN-REPORTED DECISION NOT TO JOIN INTERNATIONAL WHEAT AGREEMENT

[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. J. G. Diefenbaker (Prince Albert):: Mr. Speaker, I should like to direct a question to the Minister of Trade and Commerce. Is it a fact, as announced a few moments ago on the radio, that the United Kingdom has given notice that it does not intend to join the international wheat agreement nations and, if that is the decision, what are the prospects of that organization being effective?


Right Hon. C. D. Howe (Minister of Trade and Commerce):: Mr. Speaker, we were advised in advance that the United Kingdom did not intend to join the wheat agreement. Of course, that country is not a member of the wheat agreement at the moment. It certainly lessens the effectiveness of the agreement to have the United Kingdom a non-participant. I think I had better reserve further comments until I am more familiar with what was said at Geneva.


John George Diefenbaker: Would the minister allow a supplementary question? There was some reference as well to the fact that the result of this will be a reduction in the price of bread. Does the minister consider that the abstention of the United Kingdom from this agreement will bring about a pronounced reduction in the price of wheat?


Clarence Decatur Howe: The answer, Mr. Speaker, is no.


Mr. H. R. Argue (Assiniboia):: Mr. Speaker, I wonder if the minister would be prepared to say whether Canada would support a restricted international wheat agreement, believing that such an agreement would be beneficial to this country and would get the support of wheat producers.


Clarence Decatur Howe: Mr. Speaker, I do not know what a restricted wheat agreement is.


Hazen Robert Argue: Without Britain.


Clarence Decatur Howe: That would depend on many things. I do not care to comment without more information as to what did happen in Geneva today. I have no information. We have six farm advisers there,

Inquiries of the Ministry together with a strong group representing the Justice. Would the government consider stay-government, and until I hear from them I ing all executions of those convicted of would not care to say what we would or murder and sentenced to be hanged until the would not do.	report on capital punishment has been
received and parliament has had a chance to GRAIN	discuss the same?



REPORTED DECREASE IN EXPORTS DURING DECEMBER

[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. A. M. Nicholson (Mackenzie):: I should like to direct a question to the Minister of Trade and Commerce. Would the minister care to comment on the Canadian Press dispatch from Winnipeg this morning to the effect that wheat exports for December were down about 50 per cent from November and December, 1954?


Clarence Decatur Howe: Wheat exports in December are always down from November. The volume of wheat exports during December depends on the date of closing of navigation on the St. Lawrence.


Alexander Malcolm Nicholson: They are down about 50 per cent from a year ago.


Clarence Decatur Howe: They are not down 50 per cent from a year ago. I presume the reason that wheat exports from the St. Lawrence were down in December has a good deal to do with the fact that wheat exports from the maritime ports during January, February and March are going to set all-time records.



REPORTED COMPLETION OF CONTRACTS WITH RUSSIA

[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Hazen Robert Argue: I should like to ask the Minister of Trade and Commerce a question. Has the Russian trade delegation now completed in Winnipeg a number of contracts for purchases of wheat, as reported in today's Winnipeg Tribune"! If so, what are the sizes of such contracts?


Clarence Decatur Howe: It has been made abundantly clear, and my hon. friend should know it, that sales of wheat are not discussed in this house.


Hazen Robert Argue: They are in the Winnipeg Tribune.



ADMINISTRATION OF JUSTICE


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. Hayden Stanton (Leeds):: I should like to direct a question to the Minister of


Hon. Stuart S. Garson (Minister of Justice):: My hon. friend not having given me notice of his question, I should tell him that the matter he has raised is a matter of government policy which will be announced in due course.



PIPE LINES


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
George Alexander Drew: I wish to direct a question to the Minister of Trade and Commerce. Can the minister inform us when the undertaking given by Trans-Canada Pipe Lines Limited in regard to their method of public financing will be tabled in the house, as requested last Thursday?


Clarence Decatur Howe: I am glad to give that information. It was tabled about ten o'clock this morning.



SHIPPING


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Hon. R. O. Campney (Minister of National Defence):: Mr. Speaker, on Thursday last the hon. member for Nanaimo asked me whether any Royal Canadian Air Force planes were available in connection with the loss of the Department of Public Works vessel Hilunga and whether any of them proceeded to the scene of the wreck. The answer to the first question is yes. As to the second question, I may say that during the period of rescue operations six Royal Canadian Air Force aircraft carried out nine sorties for a total of 41 hours of flying. The crew of the Hilunga was first sighted by a Royal Canadian Air Force Lancaster at ten o'clock a.m. Pacific time on the 17th and a Royal Canadian Air Force Canso picked up the survivors and landed them at Sea Island shortly before four p.m. Pacific time on the same day.



NATIONAL DEFENCE


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Ralph Osborne Campney: On Thursday last the hon. member

for Esquimalt-Saanich addressed the following question to me:
May I ask the minister if there are any Canadian casualties in Korea at the present time?
The answer is no.


Hon. W. E. Harris (Minister of Finance) moved: that the house go into committee of supply:



POWER DEVELOPMENT


George Alexander Drew: Mr. Speaker, I propose to avail myself of the opportunity afforded on the discussion of this motion to bring before the house today the discussion of power development and a policy of joint investment by the federal and provincial governments in power development throughout Canada. In raising this subject I am not limiting the purport of the motion to hydroelectric power or to electricity but include the development of industrial power generally, with particular reference to the development of hydroelectric power, underground gasification of coal for power generation purposes and atomic power.
It seems to me that there is no occasion to devote too much time to emphasizing the immense advantages of the development of our available hydroelectric resources. Every Canadian has seen the remarkable results that follow the harnessing of our great streams in this country. There is reason to believe that it may be possible to harness other power besides that of the flowing rivers. Research is now being carried out into the harnessing of tides and the flow of water between confined rocky shores. New possibilities are presented in that field. Particularly, hdwever, all Canadians have had occasion to be tremendously impressed by the consequences that have followed in every case where great water powers have been harnessed.
I suggest, Mr. Speaker, that in some of the discussions which have taken place publicly in recent months too much emphasis has been placed upon the cost of transmission of electric energy from power sites to the point where the power will be used. I mention that matter for this reason. For example, in relation to the development of certain of our power resources, I have noted that some emphasis has been placed upon the fact that in harnessing those power resources it would cost us a great deal to carry that power to the industrial centres. For instance, I have seen that suggestion made in the case of the greatest power resource we have in Canada, namely
Power Development
Grand falls on the Hamilton river where more than 3 million horsepower are immediately available with the harnessing of those mighty waters. I would suggest that those who think only in terms of carrying power to existing centres of production should examine what has happened out in northern British Columbia. One of the most exciting and challenging developments has taken place at Kitimat, where great water powers have been harnessed in the sub-Arctic, and now one of the largest aluminum plants in the world is producing aluminum as a result of the fact that water power is available at that point. No attempt was made to carry that power long distances by transmission lines. They carried it that relatively short distance, over a mountain it is true but over a comparatively short distance, to the producing site on the seaboard where the processed aluminum could be shipped to the markets of the world. I feel confident that with the harnessing of Grand falls on the Hamilton river, not very far from the great air base of Goose Bay which so many of us know, we will see pulp and paper mills, metal processing and other developments of that kind take place within close proximity to that distant spot.
Nevertheless, even if transmission lines are necessary, the constant improvement of the alloyed metals which carry the power is facilitating more and more every day the transmission of heavy loads of electrical energy to distant points. I mention this because it is not only in the case of the production of electrical energy, but also energy of other kinds, that it would be well if we could keep in our minds the fact that industry goes to power. The largest producer of aluminium at this time is at Shipshaw. In that case bauxite from Jamaica and South America is carried by ship up the St. Lawrence and up the Saguenay to the mill near the tremendous power plant at Shipshaw. The process of production went to the source of power. The same thing happened at Kitimat, as I have mentioned.
In this regard I should like to mention the possible use of some of our vast coal resources in Cape Breton, where no doubt there could be, with the underground gasification of coal, power generation carried out at economic costs. In discussing that, I have seen it stated that there would be very long transmission lines between the place where the power would be produced and Halifax. I should like to emphasize the fact that if power were produced in Cape Breton by the underground gasification of coal in those seams which in some cases are not being worked, it would be possible to instal

Power Development
secondary industries at that point because this power would be produced near the seaboard.
Not only new steel mills but other types of secondary production could be established there from which would be shipped the finished product to the markets of the world. This tremendous possibility of power development presents itself right across Canada. In British Columbia there are enormous power resources waiting to be harnessed. I think that in British Columbia there are perhaps some of the greatest sources of power still waiting to be brought under control and developed for the production of electricity. Our members from British Columbia will be discussing that subject. Our members from the maritime provinces will be discussing this subject from the point of view of development in Nova Scotia, New Brunswick and the other maritime provinces.
In addition also to the production of electricity by means of hydro, and the thermal production of electricity, there is the production of electricity by gasification and by atomic energy. Atomic energy is no longer a dream in the production of electricity. This year electricity will be flowing into the great electricity grid in Britain from an atomic plant, and that is only the beginning of a tremendous program, which, in a few years, will be contributing a large quantity of the needed electricity in Britain to their grid system.
In this country experiments are taking place in co-operation between the agencies of the federal government and the Ontario Hydro-Electric Power Commission for ' the purpose of designing and planning atomic energy electricity plants. This presents immense possibilities for the future and particularly for those provinces which nature has not endowed with great natural water resources. This will be of particular importance to the maritime provinces. In the maritime provinces there are water powers but not the mighty rivers that we have in Quebec, in Ontario, in British Columbia and also in some measure in the northern parts of the prairie provinces as well. In the southern part of the prairie provinces and in the maritime provinces there will undoubtedly be a particular interest in the development of atomic energy.
I feel sure that all hon. members have been interested in the report of the citizens' committee in the United States, which was presented to the government of the United States just a few weeks ago. In that report they pictured the possibility that within 25 years more than half of all the electricity used in the United States may come from
fMr. Drew.]
atomic energy. That is how close we actually are to the possibility of the commercial use of atomic energy for the production of electricity. I recognize, and I am not minimizing the fact, that much still needs to be done to bring the production of electricity from atomic energy down to an economic level of production costs. However, it was pointed out by this extremely competent committee, representative of management, of engineering skill, of organized labour and of other activities associated with ventures of this kind, that there is every reason to believe that we are on the brink, if one might use that word without inviting criticism, of great new opportunities in the use of this energy; that we are in fact in all probability just at the beginning of the atomic age so far as the peaceful use of atomic energy is concerned for industrial and power purposes.
In making the recommendations that I propose to make I am not suggesting that the federal government should get into the active production of power in those areas. I am very conscious of the fact, and have reason to be particularly conscious of the fact, that the development of resources is within the exclusive jurisdiction of the provincial governments. Under no circumstances should it be implied or suggested that the federal government will in any way seek to invade that field of responsibility which is that of the provincial governments.
It is already apparent that many of the provincial governments find it necessary to seek financial support in carrying out some of the ventures which they would like to develop within their own boundaries. Some provinces have such a broad financial basis that they are fully capable of undertaking any activities of this kind except in the case of atomic energy. In the case of atomic energy, however, it would seem likely that it will require the co-operation of the federal government in almost every case because of the special relationship of the federal government to the many aspects of atomic energy research.
I do not want anything I say today to be taken as implying that I am suggesting that this government get any further into business.
I think the time has come for this government to divest itself of many of the activities it has taken on, and which it took on for some particular reason. I think that, except for those cases that are manifestly special activities which should be brought under government development, this government would be well advised to follow the lead

that has already been given by the government of the United States where the picture was similar in very many ways.
I am talking about co-operation and the joint investment in some of these great developments. As I have indicated, I shall leave the discussion of some of the particular projects in British Columbia and in the maritime provinces to the hon. members of our party from those provinces. Because I have spoken of this on a number of earlier occasions, and because my memory of this particular project goes back to my early boyhood, I do want to speak today about the project on the South Saskatchewan river and the reason why every hon. member of this house should be prepared to say now that we want action from this government in regard to the development of the South Saskatchewan river for power and for irrigation.
This subject has been before the house many times but this above all others is the time when encouragement should be given to the people of Saskatchewan and to the people of the prairie provinces by a definite decision on the part of this government that it will without any reservation proceed as *quickly as possible with the construction of the dam on the South Saskatchewan river which will provide both electricity and irrigation.
There need be no uncertainty in the mind of any hon. member as to the practical possibilities of this project. The skilled engineers under the P.F.R.A. have advocated that this be proceeded with. In order to have further and full support for the contention that this should be done the government appointed a royal commission. That royal commission made a finding which leaves no justification for any delay in a decision to proceed with the development. I would point out that, in spite of the immense scale of the development of the St. Lawrence river, the government did not feel impelled to appoint a royal commission to find out whether its engineers had been correct in their recommendations that it should proceed with the St. Lawrence river development. The government was prepared to rely on the advice of its own engineers and it did so with the full support of the hon. members of this house.
One cannot escape the thought that the appointing of a royal commission to deal with the various problems arising in connection with the South Saskatchewan river development was simply a delaying program and that it was not in fact done for the purpose of obtaining additional information. In any event, delay was pleaded as being justified on the ground that this commission had been
Power Development
appointed. That commission was appointed, it has reported, and its report has been available for a long time.
Granted that the figure, of course, is not small; granted that the figure, of course, may be difficult to determine down to the exact dollar some distance in advance. But, whether it be $135 million as originally estimated or $160 million as is now estimated, in any case there seems no uncertainty about the fact that the cost will be more than justified by the direct results and by the indirect results that would flow from this decision alone, even without waiting for the completion of that great project.
Near Outlook, in the province of Saskatchewan, there is visible proof of what can be done by irrigation in that very unfortunate area. Those who have been through that countryside know the desolate picture of abandoned homes, abandoned schools, abandoned churches and abandoned farms. Those who have been through that area know the difficulties under which those farmers have been carrying on for years, who have nevertheless carried on their farming activities. Throughout that whole great dry area of the Palliser triangle, the decision to go forward with the development of electricity and this great irrigation project would bring heart to people who have been discouraged and people who are doubly discouraged at this time with the problems of the failure of wheat marketing imposed on top of the difficulties they have already encountered. This great undertaking would change the whole aspect of that countryside. An area of 500,000 acres now under very limited production or no production at all would be irrigated. Those who have visited the experimental irrigation project near Outlook know that, with irrigation, that is rich, productive soil. In that experimental irrigation area, not only field crops but excellent root crops are being produced. Actually it is a garden area, and around it is grey, desolate, dry land.
It would be worth while to compare what is happening with what has happened not far away in North Dakota. Just across the boundary in North Dakota there was another power possibility. They have gone ahead in North Dakota with the construction of what is known as the Garrison dam. The comparative figures of those two projects are extremely interesting. It is true that the project in North Dakota is somewhat larger. Whereas in Saskatchewan 500,000 acres would be brought under cultivation by this irrigation, the Garrison dam project in North Dakota will irrigate 960,000 acres, just less than twice as much. Instead of 250,000 kilowatts of power produced by the dam on the South

Power Development
Saskatchewan, the Garrison dam project will produce 400,000 kilowatts, substantially less than twice as much. But let us see the comparative costs. The Garrison dam project, which will produce substantially less than twice as much, both in irrigation and in power, as will the South Saskatchewan river development, will cost $400 million, whereas the highest estimate that has been placed on the cost of the South Saskatchewan project is $160 million. All the economics are in favour of the project across the border on our side, in Saskatchewan. The engineers tell us it is practicable. The people of that area need the power and they need the irrigation, and the whole of the prairie provinces need the encouragement which would come from that great development.
Now let me just give you some of the figures of what it is estimated will come to North Dakota as a result of the Garrison dam project, which is considerably less than twice the project in South Saskatchewan. These are the figures of what they expect will come to North Dakota, as a minimum estimate, within the next ten years: 3,600 new farms; 1,700 new businesses; 20,000 new jobs; 93,000 more people, supported by the activities which will result from that development; and $250 million a year in new farm and business income. If the figures were comparable for Saskatchewan, then we would have well in excess of $125 million a year in new return from business and agricultural development that would come directly from that project, as against the initial cost of a maximum of $160 million for the completion of this project.
What is perhaps even more important is that, a result of the irrigation in North Dakota of 960,000 acres, the engineers who have advised on this project, which has now been positively undertaken, believe that this will stabilize the whole agricultural production of 18 million acres of agricultural land throughout the state. It is in that light that I think all of us should examine the possibilities of this great development. It is not only the 500,000 acres that would be directly irrigated; it is not only the elevation of spirit that would come from the sight of these new green acres that would emerge from the development of this project; it is the fact that the new agricultural activity and the secondary industries that would flow from the creation of power would stabilize the whole agricultural picture throughout Saskatchewan in a very large measure, at a time when every hon. member in this house has reason to recall from recent discussions that stabilization in that area is very greatly needed. There can be no reason of any kind to question the fact that we
[Mr. Drew.l
would gain even more substantially in Saskatchewan, in central eastern Alberta and throughout the whole prairie provinces by undertaking this project. What are the reasons for delay? What reasons have been given? The Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Gardiner), who is prolific in statements that need correction afterwards, has given his explanation of why it is not being proceeded with. As reported in the Regina Leader-Post, and as stated already in the house, the Minister of Agriculture said:
We have been doing all right at clearing obstructions out of the way. There were four when we started discussions, and there is now only one left-the question of power development costs-
Let us hope that in this case he was accurate. After his lesson to the Liberal meeting here in Ottawa in January that you should not care too much about whether you believed in what you said as long as you said it with sufficient emphasis in support of the party line, perhaps it would not be inappropriate to wonder whether he believed what he was saying in this case. At any rate, there is his statement, that there was-


Mr. Gardiner:: I am sure my hon. friend
will expect me to correct that one. I did not make any such statement at the Liberal meeting and no one has even reported that I did.


George Alexander Drew: Oh yes, the minister did. He
was giving them advice on how they should act and he recalled how, when he was in the cabinet of Mr. Mackenzie King, he had argued vigorously against a particular project in which he did not believe and when he went into the house he got up and made such a splendid advocacy of that particular project that as he was coming out someone said to him on the way out the door, "What could you have done, Jimmy, if you only believed in it?" This was a lesson in how to carry out party activities by the Minister of Agriculture.


James Garfield Gardiner: It was a lesson which I
am sure the leader of a great party in this country often gives, namely, that no one person can be responsible for the setting up of policies for a great party, and I do not presume to do that for the Liberal party. I put forth my arguments in favour of what I think they ought to do, but when I am weighed down by the arguments of 20 others that it is not the right thing to do I get right into the team and go to work.


George Alexander Drew: I agree.


James Garfield Gardiner: If you do that you should
get along better than you have been doing.


George Alexander Drew: I am quite prepared to let the record of what has been said here today

stand for itself in that regard. I would point out that, as the Minister of Agriculture has correctly pointed out, I have emphasized on many occasions that a minister of the crown has no right to speak on behalf of himself alone, and therefore I trust he was not speaking on behalf of himself alone when he said:
We have been doing all right at clearing obstructions out of the way. There were four when we started discussions, and there is now only one left-the question of power development costs.
They know the cost of power development, Mr. Speaker.


James Garfield Gardiner: Since the Leader of the Opposition is reading the record he might read the remainder of the record in Hansard, the letter itself which was drafted by the government and sent to the government of Saskatchewan. That covers all the points in question.


George Alexander Drew: I will follow with what I said immediately after my quotation the last time. I said:	"Mr. Chairman, some of us will
remember that Scotch song, 'Last night there were four Marys, tonight there are but three.' " In this case he only had one Mary still left and that was power production costs. This government has had the power production costs for a long time. They have the report of their own engineers. If they do not believe in their own engineers then they should do something about it. I am satisfied they have every reason to believe in the accuracy, skill and reliability of their own engineers who reported on this project, who said it should be proceeded with and who have given the power production costs. If that statement is a statement which accurately interprets the position of the government, then this project should have been proceeded with long ago. It should have been announced as a definite project of the government in the speech from the throne this year.
The farmers of western Canada need all the encouragement they can get at this time, particularly the farmers of central Saskatchewan whose problems are the greatest of all in this particular area that would be most closely associated with the development to which I have referred. If any evidence were needed of the fact that the government has been in power far too long, it is the way in which they continue to disregard the assurances given that this project would be proceeded with when they had the appropriate facts. If there is one thing needed to demonstrate beyond all question that this government has been in power too long and is unresponsive to the demands of those who feel that something should be done, it is that they would go ahead so quickly with projects elsewhere in the country and leave
Power Development
untouched a project which they have been dealing with for so long and in regard to which there have been so many generous assurances by the Minister of Agriculture.
If this development were proceeded with there would be challenging and inspiring new developments at Outlook and at other parts of the province of Saskatchewan. Everyone who has had anything to do with the production of electrical energy knows that if there is a firm core of substantial electric production from a hydroelectric source this is fed out into the transmission lines and makes it possible to maintain peak loads at distant points by auxiliary supply from diesel and thermo production in a way that would give an economic level of electricity cost throughout the whole area.
If the project is proceeded with, first of all there will be a use of part of the electricity for the pumping equipment of the irrigation project. There will be power employed by secondary industries that will start up in the area, and there will be further power available to flow out into the transmission lines throughout the province and make it possible at economic levels to carry low cost electricity to many distant points in the province of Saskatchewan.
Very recently a most imaginative plan was put forward in Regina with respect to the planned development of Outlook itself in relation to this project. It is the kind of thing that indicates what imagination, spirit and confidence could do in that area. This plan, put forward after examination by competent engineers and businessmen, recommended that there should be a planned program of development at Outlook, that secondary production should be encouraged to locate there, and that in addition to the new agricultural development that would come in that area a community should be planned of 10,000 or 11,000 people which would be an example to the whole of Saskatchewan and to other parts of the prairie provinces of what can be done by the use of resources of that kind.
One of the reasons why this example would be so important is that if our dreams of the use of atomic energy for the production of electric power come to the fulfilment which now can be reasonably expected, it will not be long, in terms of history, before atomic energy plants in the drier areas of the western provinces and in other parts of Canada could be used as the centre of planned development of both primary and secondary activities. If emphasis needed to be placed upon the fact that this government has been in power far too long, it came last week in a statement by the hon. member for

Power Development
Kindersley (Mr. Johnson) when he said as reported at page 1296 of Hansard:
The people of western Canada are becoming fed up with the attitude of the government in denying them the South Saskatchewan dam and other things which would improve conditions in western Canada, so much so that they are considering marching on Ottawa. I must say that some of ;hem are thinking in terms of secession.


Mr. Habel:: Mr.	Douglas	censored	that
suggestion.


George Alexander Drew: I did not hear the interjection of the hon. member.


Joseph-Alphonse-Anaclet Habel: Mr.	Douglas	censored	that
suggestion. He said it was a foolish thing to say.


George Alexander Drew: I am referring to what was said in this house. No matter how foolish it may have been to say, the fact that the word "secession" even crept into this house indicates the exasperation which is resulting from the attitude of this government.


Mr. Coldwell:: I have heard some people say the same thing. I do not think it is right and proper to suggest it.


George Alexander Drew: Mr. Speaker, I am not suggesting that the ugly word "secession" in any way interprets the general attitude.


John George Diefenbaker: Was there not something said about it in Newfoundland?


George Alexander Drew: I am pointing out that in addition to the premier of Newfoundland, voices in the west have even talked about secession.


Mr. Sluder:: Socialist voices.


George Alexander Drew: I had not heard that the premier of Newfoundland was a socialist up until now.


Irvin William Studer: Socialist voices out west.


Mr. Pickersgill:: The premier of Newfoundland never suggested secession.


George Alexander Drew: Oh, yes. The visiting hon. member for Twillingate (Mr. Pickersgill) cannot speak for the people of Newfoundland. Mr. Speaker, the fact that this thought-no matter how unjustified it may be as interpreting any substantial sentiment- would even be uttered in this house, indicates that the time has come to recognize the situation that exists. I think perhaps I might make some comment about the use of that word. I have no doubt that the hon. member who used it was being perfectly sincere in his statement that he even heard the use of the word "secession". The hon. member for Rosetown-Biggar (Mr. Coldwell) just a few minutes ago rose to say that he has heard this same statement being made. I believe that this raises another point. Whether or not secession is in fact being talked about

by any number of people, there can be no doubt about the burning distrust of this government expressed by many people in recent weeks and months in western Canada. There can be no doubt about the exasperation and there can be no doubt about the belief in western Canada-and particularly in the area that would be served by this great project-that this government is doing little to carry out its implied obligation and its stated obligation to proceed with this development on the South Saskatchewan river.
To my friends of the C.C.F. party and of the Social Credit party I should like to put one thought forward when it is said that exasperation in any part of Canada is reaching the point which they describe. Let us examine what the situation actually is. The only reason that this government is in power with its large and docile majority is the division of the votes of those people who are opposed to this government.


Stuart Sinclair Garson: They should all join the Tory party.


George Alexander Drew: Yes. As the Minister of Justice (Mr. Garson) has just said,-and it was the wisest thing by far that he has said in this house-they should join the Tory party. In fact, that is one of the few statements he has made with which I can heartily agree. I suggest that those of the C.C.F. party and the Social Credit party-


Irvin William Studer: Socialist Tories.


George Alexander Drew: Mr. Speaker, listen to the interjections from the slow socialists. Listen to the interjections from the state socialists across from us. Listen to the interjections from those who have taken more and more control of the business of this country into their hands and have established more socialism than the socialist party in this house even advocates. If you want socialism, examine some of the projects that have been undertaken under the emergency of war and are still held by this government at this time detrimentally to the interests of the people of Canada.


James Garfield Gardiner: I wonder if it ever occurred to the leader of the Conservative party that he may be the chief reason why people do not join it.


George Alexander Drew: Mr. Speaker, the statement of the Minister of Agriculture and the silly giggle of the Minister of Justice both illustrate the measure of the contribution that is made in debate in this house by many of the ministers at a time that important subjects are under discussion here.


James Garfield Gardiner: At a time when you are dealing very freely in personalities.


George Alexander Drew: Mr. Speaker, this reminds me of what happened when I rose the other day to welcome home the Minister of Fisheries (Mr. Sinclair). Before I had finished my first sentence I had "no" from the Minister of Finance (Mr. Harris). I have been directing or trying to direct my remarks to the C.C.F. party and the Social Credit party.


James Garfield Gardiner: You addressed many of them to me.


Mr. Speaker:: Order.


George Alexander Drew: One of the convenient things about the position of Leader of the Opposition is that I can be patient and wait until the ebullient enthusiasm of the Minister of Agriculture has settled itself and he can remain quiet for a while. It is one of the advantages of having time in which to make sure that what you say can be heard.


An hon. Member:: How long?


George Alexander Drew: When the Minister of Agriculture interjects "how long", may I say that it will be just as long as necessary to say exactly what I started out to say.


James Garfield Gardiner: I did not say that. You are getting confused.


George Alexander Drew: This is one time, Mr. Speaker, when they cannot drop the guillotine. This is one time when, under our rules, I have the opportunity to say what I started out to say; and I am going to take all the time that is needed in spite of all the barracking that is being done by hon. members opposite at a time when we are discussing a project which they have promised for a good many years but with which they have failed to go ahead. I was directing my remarks not to the Minister of Agriculture on this occasion but to the C.C.F. party and the Social Credit party.


Mr. Gauthier (Portneuf):: Again?


Mr. Mclvor:: Address them to the Speaker.


George Alexander Drew: Mr. Speaker, I am going to interrupt my remarks again in view of the noise that is being made on the opposite side of the house and the unintelligible interjections which make it almost impossible for anybody to hear what is being said. The interjections at least suggest that for once hon. members opposite are paying attention to what is being said instead of reading the comic strips in the paper as they usually do.
I do want to say, Mr. Speaker, that I think when hon. members are prepared to seriously talk about the word "secession", as if it should be considered as a serious subject
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of discussion, they might well consider why this government is in power. I would point out that the genius of the people of the United States, under a constitution which could be as unworkable as the French constitution, has been in the fact that throughout all these years they have adhered to the two-party system.


Mr. Blackmore:: It almost ruined them.


George Alexander Drew: In spite of my regard for the hon. member who made that interjection, there are a lot of people throughout the world today who are not of the opinion that any substantial measure of ruin has come to the people of the United States.


John Horne Blackmore: Those who are well
informed know it.


An hon. Member:: They have no Liberal party.


George Alexander Drew: As has been pointed out, they have no Liberal party in the United States, and they are extremely fortunate in that respect.


An hon. Member:: They have no Tory party either.


George Alexander Drew: If some of the hon. members who are making it so difficult for me and other members to hear what is being said would just keep quiet for a moment they would hear the suggestion I would make. If they want to find out about the Liberal party they might examine the Encyclopaedia Bri-tannica and they would find there that this responsible publication says there has never been any definition of the policies of the Liberal party. It is entirely a party of expediency which is prepared to grab whatever it can and hang on to it by whatever device comes to hand.
In so far as the continued period in office of this government is concerned, it has demonstrated very effectively that it has been in power too long for the benefit of Canada and above all for the benefit of the independence of mind of the members who sit behind the government. I have found in the course of debate here that the extraordinary thing has been the number of times the parties to the left and the Conservative party have found themselves, in good conscience, voting similarly on similar issues. The fact is that I have been able to detect very little of the historic doctrine of socialism in many of the arguments that have been made by some of my hon. friends to the left. The real state socialists are opposite; the people who really deny competition and are denying competition are sitting in the government benches.

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Mr. Gauthier (Porineuf):: The Tory member for Rosetown-Biggar.


George Alexander Drew: We even had censorship of the C.B.C. demonstrated very clearly here only last week. We know that no inconvenient competition is allowed in that case. We know that no inconvenient competition is allowed any of the chosen instruments in the air or on the ground. We know that this' government has adopted attributes of socialism which most of my friends to the left have not, in my hearing, advocated on any occasion in recent years. On one occasion the Prime Minister (Mr. St. Laurent) described the C.C.F. as Liberals in a hurry. Quite obviously, he knew they were going the same way but they have it in their power to go the whole way and the C.C.F. party has not-probably that has been fortunate for everybody. This government has in many respects outdone what the C.C.F. would have done because the C.C.F. has voted against some of the restraints that this government has imposed.
Then, when we come to the Social Credit party, if they have a discernible political philosophy, then they are more fortunate than anyone else.


John Whitney Pickersgill: Than the official opposition.


George Alexander Drew: Oh, no; I would not have denied anyone that silly remark because it gave the Minister of Justice (Mr. Garson) another chance to giggle. After all, he is better giggling than in saying some of the things he sometimes does. It really would be illuminating to many of the people of Canada if there could be a record taken of the discussions of this house.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear.


George Alexander Drew: We hear the giggle again. Unfortunately, the giggling cannot be reproduced in Hansard nor can some of the silly interjections that are being made. In addition, what cannot be reproduced is the constant flow of noise from the other side which takes the place of reasoned argument.


An hon. Member:: You can hear a pin drop.


George Alexander Drew: You certainly can hear a pin drop so far as any Liberal speakers on the other side are concerned, and in the discussion of wheat which has been taking place we are still waiting to hear some of those Liberal members from Saskatchewan, Alberta and Manitoba tell this house what they think [DOT]of the problem of surplus wheat and the marketing of that wheat.


Some hon. Members:: Order.


Mr. Speaker:: Order. If the Leader of the Opposition could continue, as I believe he was doing at the beginning of his remarks, to state his grievance and one which he will probably embody in the form of an amendment later on, perhaps it would be better. At this moment I should like to emphasize that although I believe the Leader of the Opposition did not intend any implication, he did say that during the debates in this house there is a constant flow of noise. I am directing orderly debate according to standing order No. 12. I do not want to take issue with him, but I really do not see any justification for that statement so far as the Speaker of the house is concerned.


George Alexander Drew: I do not intend, Mr. Speaker, to let the record be corrected in any way. There has been a constant flow of noise this afternoon which has been going on practically all the time since I started to speak.


Mr. Speaker:: Order. The Leader of the Opposition may interpret interruptions in any manner he wishes and and that is his privilege. Referring to paragraph 3 of standing order 12 it says:
When a member is speaking, no member shall pass between him and the chair, nor interrupt him, except to raise a point of order.
He should not be interrupted. Then, there is the other standing order which has to do with the right of reply and which gives a member an opportunity to explain a material part of his speech which may have been misquoted or misunderstood. We all know that when hon. members are referred to in debate they often do not wait until the end of a speech, as the rules provide, but frequently make the corrections by standing up on some fraudulent question of privilege, or with the consent of the member who has the floor, to put the record straight, so to speak. But there are some interruptions which are generally permitted in this house because it is the spirit of debate. There are interruptions, provided that they are not disorderly, that are allowed. As I say, there are some interruptions that are allowed, and the limit to which they can go is that they are not disorderly. There are also some interruptions that are provoked; there are some that are even asked for, and I do not think that we can deduce from that that the house is disorderly.


George Alexander Drew: Mr. Speaker, there have been disorderly interruptions, and I have been referring to those. I would not want the people who read Hansard, and who like to know what goes on in the house, not to have some idea of what is taking place here. I have been trying to assist by interpreting

what has been going on here in a way that would be much more effective if there were a record. If there had been a record this afternoon I think it would be very illuminating to many people throughout the country to know just how much some of the noises that have been made opposite had any bearing on the discussions that were taking place here.
Now, Mr. Speaker, I was directing my remarks, during those different occasions when it has been necessary to interrupt them, to my friends to the left. Without in any way suggesting any lack of devotion to their cause I suggest that if they believe- and the spokesmen of both parties to the left have often said the ugly word "secession" is being repeated-that even a small minority are making that statement,-and it is not mine-then I simply leave it to them to give careful consideration to how important it is that this government, which represents a substantial minority of the voters of Canada, should be left in power by the division of votes. That is something which in their minds they could consider, but there can be no doubt about the simple arithmetic of the situation with which we are confronted.
I have dealt with a problem which is of great concern to western Canada; but I suggest that before anyone even intimates that there is any thought in the minds of a handful of people of talking about secession they consider why this situation exists. If you talk about secession you suggest that there is a lack of sympathy for western Canada in eastern Canada, or in the extreme part of western Canada. Mr. Speaker, there has been no evidence of any lack of sympathy with the prairie provinces here in this house. The Conservative party-and I have no hesitation in saying the C.C.F. party and the Social Credit party-have joined for several years in demanding action in regard to this vitally important project in western Canada. If there are those who have reached the point of exasperation, such as that suggested by the terms that have been used, then let them realize that it is not a division of sentiment in Canada on a geographical basis; it is a division on a political basis. It is the government which has failed to show any balance of understanding; it is this government which has failed to meet its obligation to the wheat farmers of western Canada; it is this government which has failed to carry out its undertaking to those in the Outlook area and in the Palliser triangle; it is this government which has failed to co-operate with the governments of the prairie provinces at a time when it has been willing to co-operate with
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the governments of provinces which are in a much more fortunate financial position. It is no wonder that some people in western Canada look askance at the readiness of this government-the readiness that we have all supported-to proceed with the St. Lawrence project, and then express such concern about the expenditures that would be involved in the completion of the South Saskatchewan river development, a small proportion of the amount involved in the St. Lawrence development.
We have all supported the St. Lawrence development. I had occasion to support it before I came to this house. We all believe in that development, but those of us on this side believe that the people of Saskatchewan, and the people of western Canada, have just as much right to have co-operation from this government in the development of resources of that kind as has the province of Ontario or any other province in Canada. That is the proposition that is before us. The government has agreed in principle. The minister who, on this occasion, has been careful to point out that he does not presume to speak on behalf of himself, said that there were four problems, and that some time ago it was reduced to the question of power production costs. The government knows the facts. They have had the report by the engineers under P.F.R.A., skilled, experienced and competent engineers in whom we have confidence. They have had the report of the royal commission set up to conduct an independent inquiry. They have said that was the only thing that remained. Let them get ahead with this, and in doing so not only carry out a great project that will be an example to the whole of western Canada, but let them show that we are all behind the improvement of conditions in that particular part of Canada.
But once again may I point out that no one in western Canada, in their exasperation with the government, should suggest that this is on a geographical basis. Examine the record of the Conservative party, the C.C.F. party and the Social Credit party in this respect. They have been consistent. Support for this development has come just as vigorously from those in the east as from those in the west. May I say to their credit that the members of the Conservative party from the maritime provinces, where they also are seeking cooperation of this kind, have indicated their wholehearted approval of that great development in western Canada.

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So that this may be brought before the house in a manner which permits hon. members to indicate their opinion, I move, seconded by the hon. member for Vancouver-Quadra (Mr. Green):
That all the words after "That'' to the end of the question be deleted and the following substituted therefor:
"in the opinion of this house consideration should be given to a joint investment program for the development of power resources in any province where the government of such province requests the co-operation of the Canadian government in carrying out such development".


Mr. Speaker:: I am going to consider this amendment, but I wish to point out at this moment it strikes me that if this should carry it would indicate that this house would agree with the suggestion contained therein that there should be a joint investment program for the development of power resources in any province where the government of such province requests the co-operation of the Canadian government in carrying out such development. Should no province request such co-operation from the Canadian government, where would we stand with respect to an amendment that we would have had carried?


George Alexander Drew: The question is already
answered, Mr. Speaker, because two provinces at least have already requested it, the province of Saskatchewan and the province of New Brunswick. So far as the fact that this would indicate a willingness to proceed with the program is concerned, I would point out that the word "consideration" is used, and that is the word which is used in every recommendation which involves the possible expenditure of money.


Mr. Speaker:: I was not for one moment dealing with the question of the expenditure of money. I was just dealing with the principle that whatever we pass upon in this house should have practical results. The hon. member for Rosetown-Biggar.


Major James William Coldwell: Mr. Speaker, I rise to support this amendment if you declare it to be in order. Because I am going to discuss the amendment now before us may I respectfully point out that in my opinion it should be in order.
You have made only one point. You have not raised the problem of the expenditure of money because, as the Leader of the Opposition (Mr. Drew) has said, it merely asks for the consideration of these projects. As to the limiting clause where the government of such province requests the co-operation of the Canadian government in carrying out such developments, we have passed permissive legislation in this house and subsequently

provincial governments have been able to come under that legislation at their own request. That, I think, is particularly true of some of our social legislation and it may be true again and if that is true of our social legislation I can see no reason why we should not consider the same kind of arrangement in any other piece of legislation.
I want to say something about the amendment and to comment particularly on some of the remarks of the Leader of the Opposition. When my friend the hon. member for Kindersley said he had heard the word "secession" mentioned I did not think it was going to be played upon to the extent it was played upon this afternoon. I want to assure hon. members of this house that I have heard the word, too, but in very restricted circles. I may say that I have heard that word ever since I have been in western Canada. I heard it shortly after I got there in the days when there was considerable dissatisfaction with some features of the autonomy act, which established Alberta and Saskatchewan, and I heard it after the first world war when the old progressive movement was established and organized in western Canada. I also heard it in the dirty thirties as we sometimes call that period in the west when relief under both governments was so inadequate that many of the people in some parts of Canada were reduced to what I considered to be virtually a starvation existence. And now I suppose we hear it again when the circumstances in some parts of the prairie provinces are almost intolerable; you hear the same suggestion.
But I want to assure the Leader of the Opposition that when my hon. friend used it he meant only to imply that he had heard it and when I rise to support the truth of that submission I want you to understand, Mr. Speaker, that I have only heard it and there is no organized effort to that end.


George Alexander Drew: I do not wish to interrupt, Mr. Speaker, but I made it clear-


Major James William Coldwell: Oh, you did.


George Alexander Drew: -that it was not extensive and I was in no way putting it forward when I said that even the use of it implied a situation-


Major James William Coldwell: Yes, I understood that, but I wanted to emphasize the fact because I can assure my hon. friends that any secessionist movement in any part of Canada, including Newfoundland, would receive my very wholehearted opposition if it were proposed or attempted.
Well, my hon. friend the Leader of the Opposition suggested we might all join the Conservative party and I notice that the

Minister of Justice applauds the remark. Well, I rather think that the Minister of Justice could find a place in a very conservative, with a small "c", party more readily than almost any other hon, member of this house and I recommend that thought to him. But you know, the odd thing is this. We have the Leader of the Conservative party in this house suggesting to us as hon. members of the C.C.F. party that we join the Conservative party. Sometimes the atmosphere in this house and elsewhere is sort of like Alice in Wonderland because only last week the lone Conservative member of the legislature of Saskatchewan received the nomination of the Liberal convention in the constituency for which he stood.


George Alexander Drew: He did the last time, too.


Major James William Coldwell: Well, that makes it all the more embarrassing, -


Walter Edward Harris: That is the only reason he ever gets elected.


Major James William Coldwell: -that they should nominate a Conservative twice running, and furthermore it shows the bankruptcy of the Liberal party in the province of Saskatchewan; but when I heard the hon. gentleman make that suggestion my mind immediately thought of my own province of Saskatchewan.
Then, of course, there was the discussion of socialism. Well, if the Liberals in this house are content to accept the title of state socialists I have no objection because I can assure you that we have never been state socialists. We have always been democratic socialists and we believe that we have carried out the great liberal with a small "1" tradition that gave rise to the great socialist movements in northwestern Europe and today in many parts of the democratic world. And so I am not unhappy about the Liberals assuming the role of state socialists, although I must confess that I should like to see them go a little further in the direction of the social control and development of many of our great resources.
As a matter of fact, this resolution before us this afternoon would not have been introduced in any parliament by a Conservative, I would imagine, some 20 or 30 years ago because a joint investment program in the development of power resources in any province clearly indicates, I think, that the hon. gentleman quite properly, and I am not saying this unkindly, contemplates the development of these resources and the building of these power plants under some form of public control. Of course the hon. gentleman spoke primarily of a province where one of
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the great experiments in social ownership of an economic project was undertaken so successfully-


George Alexander Drew: By a Conservative.


Major James William Coldwell: -and was done by a Conservative. I refer to the Hydro-Electric Power Commission of Ontario of which the people of Ontario are quite properly very proud. This is an example which has since been followed in many parts of Canada, and I think it will be followed still more in the days to come in other great projects besides that of hydroelectric power.
I would hope that it might be followed, not because I have any ideological preference for it, in the transportation of gas from the western prairies to serve the people of eastern Canada. I am not going to discuss that this afternoon, Mr. Speaker, because we shall have ample time to express our views regarding the pipe line project when the matter properly comes before the house. However, I did want to rise and support the hon. gentleman in what he has said about the necessity for the conservation of water and the development of power from that water in all parts of Canada. May I say that I want to see that done under a public authority and I want to see it done for the benefit of Canada. I do not want to see some of the great resources, the great water resources of British Columbia for example, being developed by United States companies to promote United States industry in the United States. I want to see the great power resources of British Columbia utilized primarily for the benefit of British Columbians and for the benefit of the people of Canada.
Like the Leader of the Opposition, I have seen the wonderful project at Kitimat. I was there last November and I say to hon. members of parliament, all of whom have nation-wide railway passes, that we owe it to our constituents and to the people of Canada to see as much of this country as is possible in order that we may understand its resources and see its development.
I know that one of the assets I had when I came to this house was the fact that I had been an officer of a teachers' organization for some ten years. During those ten years our conventions were held in many parts of Canada and I had usually driven by car to attend those conventions which were held from one end of Canada to the other. In doing so I got to know something of the resources and something of the projects in this country. As I say, I was able to visit power plants like that at lie Maligne in Quebec and to understand some of the problems of the

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projects that were undertaken elsewhere. I can assure hon. members of this house that any member of parliament, with a pass, should during his first term make up his mind that he is going to see this wonderful country in which we live-that sounds like a platitude, as it is said so often, but I really mean it sincerely-and to understand the great possibilities that are here, the great possibilities that I am convinced our grandchildren, those of us who have grandchildren, will see brought to fruition for the building up of this great country and for the benefit of the people who live therein.
The same thing applies to the maritimes. Last year I saw something my hon. friend from Cape Breton South (Mr. Gillis) has advocated for the whole time he has been here. In fact, I think that causeway joining Cape Breton to the mainland of Nova Scotia might have been christened the Gillis causeway. What a wonderful project that was! It may be that other projects along the coast of Nova Scotia will be undertaken sooner or later to the benefit not only of Nova Scotia but of all parts of Canada.
I quite agree with the Leader of the Opposition that, whilst some of these resources seem a long way from our centres of population, like the Grand falls he mentioned on the Hamilton river, today, with new methods of transmission, that power can be economically transmitted. I remember when we were discussing the Shipshaw project in this house, a project which I always thought was a remarkable engineering project though I had some criticisms of the manner in which it was financed at the time-but let that pass. I said at that time it was one of the most remarkable pieces of engineering not only in North America but in the world, and Canadian engineers were to be congratulated on having had the imagination to build that great dam and power plant. At that time it was said that when the war was ended the vast power that was being generated could not be transmitted far enough to keep that plant going as an economical unit. Well, it was transmitted and is being transmitted because from time to time, when the necessity has arisen, the inventive genius of man has been able to overcome difficulties of that description.
I come back now to my own province. I happen, of course, to be the member of parliament for the district in which Outlook is situated and the area of Saskatchewan that would benefit most from the building of that South Saskatchewan river dam. Of course, I think the Leader of the Opposition went a little far this afternoon when he described the area around where the dam
site would be, just below Outlook, as desolate and unproductive. As a matter of fact, I drove over it in the last week in July, and I had never seen anywhere a finer stand of wheat than I saw in that area. As the Leader of the Opposition said, the soil is productive if we can only get the water and, as there were copious rains last summer, there was a wonderful crop promising in that area. I use the word "promising" because over the centre of that whole area around Strongfield and right through to Davidson there was a devastating hail storm in the first week in August, and there was 100 per cent damage in that area to one of the finest stands of wheat I saw in Saskatchewan last summer. That soil is productive only when there is a rainfall. I was the member, not exactly for that area- because the boundaries of my constituency have been enlarged on the side of the river to which I have just referred-during the drought period, and I remember what the countryside looked like then. It looked like a desert, as a result of wind erosion. It was unproductive because it lacked water. I remember driving over a farm either in 1937 or the summer of 1938-it was probably 1937-with a gentleman who is now minister of highways in the province of Saskatchewan. We passed over an area of land that had been so wind-eroded that my friend said to me, "here is a piece of land that I believe will never produce another crop." I have seen some excellent crops on that very piece of land since, as I have driven by it, because we have had rain.
The government and some people in Canada may be lulled because we have had good crops in the Palliser triangle for several years past. We have had a period of unusually heavy rainfall over an unusual number of years. I do not think there is any doubt about that. But the day will come when we shall have, as we have had before, years of unusual drought when very little will grow. I use the words "very little" because I think our people in that area lacked much during the years of drought and depression and that there are newer and more efficient methods of production which may to some extent minimize a condition of that sort. But such conditions will occur again, and when they do, in spite of P.F.A.A. payments and all the rest of it-that is, the contributions made by the farmers into that fund-, if water is not available for irrigation, then it will cost this country again a tremendous amount of money to make up the deficiencies in the P.F.A.A. or-as I think is more likely -to give more relief than P.F.A.A. can give to the rural people in that area.

With regard to that dam, my understanding of the situation is that the Minister of Agriculture has gone to the province of Saskatchewan on several occasions, and each time the provincial government has either come close or has accepted the proposals he has made. At no time, however, did the Minister of Agriculture have cabinet approval for the plans he placed before that government. Bit by bit, the Saskatchewan government increased the amounts of money it was prepared to put into that plan, until, if my memory serves me correctly-and I am speaking from memory-the last time they agreed they would be prepared to accept a plan in the neighbourhood of $70 million and that they would undertake the electrical end of this project-a very important end, but not nearly as important as the other end, the irrigation side of it.
After the Leader of the Opposition had begun his address this afternoon, I sent up to my office for Hansard of February 21, 1938. I had been in the house two years at that time and I had spoken on the Saskatchewan river on the estimates of the department. Then on February 21, 1938, I moved the following resolution:
That, in the opinion of this house, the government should place before parliament at an early date plans, or proposals, for a comprehensive and authoritative survey of water conservation, irrigation possibilities and other feasible projects for the permanent rehabilitation of the drought stricken area of western Canada and its people.
That is not so far removed from the sort of proposal that the Leader of the Opposition (Mr. Drew) has put before us this afternoon. When I moved that resolution, Mr. Speaker, I had preceded it with a good deal of investigation. I had made up my mind from what I had learned that the South Saskatchewan river project was a feasible project. I had been to two of our universities and had met outstanding university people who had made some study of such projects. They had convinced me that the proposal was feasible, sound and economic.
I had also gone to the library of parliament and there read the Palliser report and the Hind report, to which very few people ever refer, on the conditions that those two early explorers had found in western Canada in the mid-fifties. I quoted voluminously from them. I am not going to quote from these reports this afternoon. I merely refer to them and say to hon. members who are really interested in this subject: Go to the library, take a look at these reports and see what the condition was in that country in the 1850's or in the 1880's. I am referring particularly to the 1850's, and it is evident that 100 years ago there were many years of drought. Think
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of what may happen again within a measurable period of time, particularly in view of our demands upon the soil for chemicals and moisture for the production of grain. We may find ourselves faced with a condition of this sort sooner than we think.
I remember that I recounted how a friend of mine had been standing on the banks of the South Saskatchewan that very summer and had noted the vast quantities of water flowing through the parched lands. Although the same is not equally true, it is true to some extent of the North Saskatchewan river. I went on to say, as found at page 638 of Hansard of February 21, 1938:
X have gone carefully over the contour maps of the dried-out area, and as a layman I would say that wide-scale irrigation seems to present no insuperable difficulties, either physical or financial, on the northern side of the Missouri-Coteau divide.
At that time, Mr. Speaker, not only did I believe that irrigation was desirable and feasible but that electrical projects were feasible too. I should like to quote from page 639 where I had this to say:
The valleys of both the Saskatchewan rivers lie between great banks and there are several places where dams could be conveniently located and power generated if desired.
I went on to refer by inference to the old Pearce proposals of the early part of this century and said:
If it were necessary to divert some water from the North to the South Saskatchewan river, and to supplement the latter, irrigating the intervening county as it flowed, I believe that could be done.
So, Mr. Speaker, this matter has been before us for years and had been before the house years before I came here. I placed it before the house on February 21, 1938, just 18 years ago tomorrow. I went on to say:
I have been told by engineers that dams placed at intervals on the South Saskatchewan, south of Saskatoon, to the point at which the Red Deer joins the South Saskatchewan in Alberta, would Impound sufficient water to give moisture to the whole of central and southeastern Saskatchewan. I do not know. But that is something we should, as a parliament, find out. The little sloughs and large lakes now dry could be filled, and the table level of subsoil moisture raised again to its old level, while in many years an inch or two of water on the parched land at the right time would ensure a bountiful return for the labour expended.
Whether or not southeastern Saskatchewan could be irrigated, I do not know, but when I examined these contour maps in the hands of a competent hydraulic engineer, to whom I was recommended by some of the people at McGill University, he indicated that it could be done. But undoubtedly between 400,000 and 500,000 acres in my constituency could be irrigated. Undoubtedly the demonstration carried on by the Minister of Agriculture and his department at Outlook demonstrated very

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clearly the productivity of the soil. As I have indicated, however, you do not need such a demonstration because if there is plenty of rainfall in that area the soil has been shown to be productive, although what the Department of Agriculture has done is to show that crops could be diversified.
The town of Outlook, situated as it is in a strategic position to take advantage of these irrigation and power projects, could be expanded. I should like to say this further word. We were talking a few minutes ago of transmitting power from some of the great power plants at the coal mines or rivers to the centres of population. I think there is a more important thought, the thought of building up places like Outlook and the many other "Outlooks", if I may call them such, across Canada so that we may diversify our production, so that we may move it away from these great centres of population where there is overcrowding and where, in the event of war, I do not see how the civil defence organization could operate effectively. I do not see how the civil defence organization could, for example, evacuate the city of Montreal, the city of Toronto, even the city of Ottawa or the other major cities across Canada. I am not thinking that we are going to have a nuclear war but in the interests of health, in the interests of building communities with a community spirit where individuals in the community may know one another, the more of these relatively smaller cities we can establish the better it will be for our country in the final analysis.
I am very glad to rise this afternoon and support the amendment. If I were moving an amendment to it I think I might emphasize the South Saskatchewan river project. However, the Leader of the Opposition emphasized that sufficiently in his address. I do not know whether my colleagues will be content, because I have not had a chance to talk to them, but I am going to content myself with supporting the amendment moved and recommending to the government not only the project in which I am particularly interested because I represent the people who inhabit that area but also that a very thorough survey be undertaken with the provincial governments so that there may be a joint development of some of these great projects in the maritimes, in western Canada and in other parts of this great country.
One only has to travel in the northern part of Canada to realize what tremendous resources there are available. I have been told by people who know something about what is going on in our own northland and what has been going on in Siberia and the Arctic regions of Russia that we are 20 or

30 years behind the Soviet union in developing our northern resources and that we should be paying much more attention to the great resources we have in that north country.
Bear in mind the fact that it would not require any joint agreement with any province. These northern resources are in the northwest territories of Canada under the control of this parliament. If the government is unwilling to enter into arrangements with the provinces to develop some of these resources, then let the. government do more to develop that great north land. Perchance, now that the iron curtain is being lifted a little bit-and I hope it will be lifted some more-we might be able to get some data on how to deal, for example, with permafrost and some of the other problems that exist in the north country, as the result of the experiments that have been carried out in Siberia and in the northern reaches of Russia.
I want to join the Leader of the Opposition in recommending to the government the consideration of this report. May I say, Mr. Speaker, that is the only way in which I wish to join him.


Mr. F. G. J. Hahn (New Westminster):: Mr. Speaker, we are indeed pleased to have the privilege of going along with this motion. In speaking to it I may say that our group is wholeheartedly in support thereof. I was greatly interested in some of the remarks which the leader of the official opposition had to make, more particularly the statement to the effect that if the party of which I am a member have a political philosophy they had more fortune than anyone else.
I may assure him that we have a political philosophy. The fact is that it has proven to be so good that we have never had to look back. We are one of the few political parties that are not looking back. We are the only political group that has increased the number of governments we have in this country at this time.
He also brought in the word "secession". To my knowledge I do not believe any member of this group during the course of the past few days, when we were discussing the question of wheat, brought that word into the debate. Reference undoubtedly was made to what the hon. member for Kindersley (Mr. Johnson) had to say. I would agree with the hon. member for Rosetown-Biggar (Mr. Cold-well) who indicated that over a period of years the word has been quite frequently used in the west.
Hon. members are probably aware of the fact that I spent much of my early life in Saskatchewan and Alberta and only in recent years became a citizen of British Columbia.

During that time it was not an uncommon thing to hear the word "secession" in the dried out sections in the southwestern corner of the province of Saskatchewan in around Hatton, Maple Creek, Piapot and that area with which I am so familiar, and then carrying on into the city of Medicine Hat. However, I do not believe anyone was really and truly in earnest. It was just an emotional feeling that they were not being looked after with the proper attention. I would say that they used it more for the purpose of directing the attention of the government to that particular problem than with the intention of putting it into effect.
I am satisfied that the people of the far west-and certainly this is so in my own province-would be much opposed to the thought of secession at this time or at any other time. We joined to make the Dominion of Canada a stronger and better place in which to live as a group, not a place in which we might get what we alone desire. However, we expect our fair share, and that is where the rub comes in.
Frequently I have heard constituents of mine and others as well-and I have possibly made a similar observation-say that the governmental friends, the Liberals as a whole, are a fine bunch of fellows taken as individuals but that they hatch some of the worst legislation this country has seen. I did not use the word "worst"; I used a stronger term. In the far west and particularly in British Columbia it seems to us at this time that the legislation is not meant to call for unity in Canada but rather for more of what the leader of the official opposition had to say in respect thereto, namely that it is localized too much in the provinces of Ontario and Quebec and that fact causes a great deal of dissension.
In the course of his discussion the hon. member for Rosetown-Biggar drew attention to the fact that in Saskatchewan there was apparently a Conservative who received both the Liberal nomination and the Conservative nomination, and who is going to run under that banner in this coming election. I should like to remind hon. members and all Canadians as a whole that this is not an uncommon thing in the far west, more particularly in British Columbia. We had there an alliance between the C.C.F. and the Liberals in a good number of cases. In Alberta in the last provincial election they not only had a Liberal-C.C.F. member but they had a C.C.F.-Liberal-Conservative, whatever that is. They did not have just one; they had several of them. They were endorsed by each political party.
It reached this point. If the system of proportional representation proved nothing else,
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it definitely proved that there was a coalition between the C.C.F. and the Liberal party. In one of the provincial ridings within the Jasper-Edson area I am told that in the vote, of the 1,100 second choices that went from the C.C.F. member, 900 went to the Liberal candidate and 200 to the Social Credit candidate, even though the Social Credit candidate had a majority of over 200 on the first count. I am satisfied that would indicate to the hon. member from Vancouver South (Mr. Philpott), who likes to jeer at others, that he has run as a C.C.F'er, as an independent, as a Liberal.
I do not know whether the Conservatives would have him or not but we certainly did not and we do not intend to. But that should indicate to the people that there is apparently very little to choose between these people who would run under these numerous badges and call themselves particular groups; who can run as socialists or Conservatives and still be Liberals, as was indicated by the hon. member for Rosetown-Biggar.


An hon. Member:: Why not speak to the resolution?


Frederick George Hahn: I am coming to the resolution. I am just answering some of those things that were suggested earlier. It should not worry you because you realize full well that the things I am saying must be true. We did not coalesce with anyone when we had a minority government in British Columbia; it was not our intention to do so and it is not today nor will it be at any time.
The leader of the official opposition suggested that Canada was divided for political purposes. I do not think he has to repeat that for those in the west. The people in the prairie provinces, particularly west of Manitoba, frequently suggest that they have become the milk cow of Canada. We have heard that suggestion time and again in the past few days and in former debates. In the resolution proposed by the Leader of the Opposition there is much in common, with what we have suggested from time to time. His motion reads:
in the opinion of this house consideration should be given to a joint investment program for the development of power resources in any province where the government of such province requests the co-operation of the Canadian government in carrying out such development.
At pages 9 and 10 of the Social Credit manifesto, interestingly enough, we read this with respect to natural resources:
A Social Credit Canadian government would co-operate with the provincial governments in stimulating the opening up of new areas and fields for discovery and development of natural resources, with a view to establishing national policies of self-sufficiency in the essentials of living. Their general policy would be to encourage

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the development ot all those resources which can contribute to the economical production of goods within the country.
You see, while the terms are not identical, certainly the fact remains that we believe in complete co-operation, between federal and provincial authorities. I have tried to stress that from time to time, not only in connection with this matter but in connection with many others. It was my intention to bring to the attention of this house later the fact that there is not sufficient of this particular type of co-operation. Members on the government side seem to get the idea that because of the huge proportion of members on the government side, they can force anything upon those areas which are suffering in a particular fashion. Despite any representations that might be made, these areas are not being given the hearing they have every right to expect.
This just does not happen in one instance. It has happened in many instances. There is not sufficient co-ordination among the various departments, and I shall refer specifically to the Department of Transport and the Department of Public Works. I have mentioned this before. I see the Minister of Public Works (Mr. Winters) looking at me. I have referred to a particular problem which exists in my area, but I shall refer to it in more detail at a later time because it is not relevant to this particular resolution. However, I would once again say most definitely that we are in complete agreement with this particular resolution, and for several reasons.
In British Columbia we have water power which has not been developed and we have a great need for that particular development. A year ago there was an extensive debate on a project known as the Kaiser dam in connection with the Columbia river development. We received a hearing and consideration from the committee, and we have abided by that consideration. But today we find that British Columbia is in great need of the development of some of its potential water power resources. We have industries that are anxious to come into our province. It is not an uncommon thing to hear that the lower mainland is running short of water power. There is a reason for it. We have an agreement with the northwestern states of the United States for the exchange of electrical energy. Our population has grown so rapidly and we have so many more industries in the area that today we have not sufficient water power developed in British Columbia to. look after our own needs.
For that reason we have had a thorough examination made of the water resources of the province. We find that through a diversion scheme on the Columbia river, such as

that referred to by the Minister of Northern Affairs and National Resources (Mr. Lesage), we could add approximately 20 million horsepower to our water power development. This, of course, would cost a tremendous sum. I am rather amused when I hear the leader of the C.C.F. suggest that we should not allow United States capital to come in and help us develop that power. Certainly we need that money. The important thing, so far as the people of British Columbia are concerned, is to see that there is work available. We cannot have work available unless we have water power developed within our province.
It might be said, why cannot the people of Canada finance that development? I am satisfied that you realize as well as I do, as do most of our socialist-minded friends, that you cannot build a huge dam for nothing; that is just wishful thinking. Some of these dams cost anywhere from $300 million to $750 million. It takes a great deal more capital than the Canadian public can afford to invest within the country for its proper development. We lack the capital for proper development.
It seems to me that, for that reason, we are going to have to make certain agreements which, at this time, may not appear to be to the advantage of Canada as a whole if viewed on the strictly Conservative basis of Canada first. I would suggest, therefore, that we must have closer co-operation and a better understanding between the federal government and the provinces, as is suggested in this resolution, for the purpose of developing everything we have in this country to the optimum. We speak of war with Russia or the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. We are not ready for it. No nation is ready for it unless it is working at full speed. Certain of our industries are in a depressed condition, and certain of them have been shut down because they have not sufficient power. We are trying to look after that problem in this section of Canada, I would agree to that.
I would agree to the development of any water power project in New Brunswick or any of the other provinces. Through our premier we have been battling with the Minister of Finance (Mr. Harris) with respect to the development of the have-not areas. They cannot be expected to do anything unless they have the power and the means. Undoubtedly as a result of the development of this project that has been suggested in New Brunswick we will find that New Brunswick will prosper as well as the whole of the maritimes.
But that is not the answer to the problem of British Columbia. We have found it necessary to go out of British Columbia to obtain

capital for these developments. As a result of having to get that assistance from outside the area, we are being told by other citizens, particularly the socialists and those who believe in the Canada first policy, that we must develop Canada as a whole.
It is understandable that if Canadian funds are being utilized in Quebec and Ontario, as apparently they are, then it is going to be necessary for us to get some of that capital from other sources. In order to get that capital we must be prepared to give certain concessions. In British Columbia we have the Kitimat project, which will sustain a population of about 50,000 people. The diversion scheme on the Stikine and Liard rivers would take care of another 250,000 or 300,000, and the Frobisher project would add another 150,000. In other words, as a result of the proper development of these two diversion schemes we would be able to look after approximately another half million people in the northern part of our province.
In recent weeks we have had a proposal made that there should be a dam on the Fraser river, a project which is commonly known as the Moran dam. The Minister of Fisheries (Mr. Sinclair), and quite rightly so, objects to the whole scheme. I would agree with him. Any damming of the Fraser river that will affect our fishing industry in an adverse way should be opposed. We were going to develop the southern end of the Columbia river to begin with, the part crossing the border. We were denied that privilege. As a result the people of British Columbia have been denied the receipt of $2 million annually, which would be their share from that particular project. Foreign capital and Canadian capital have not been prepared to come in since and develop the upper part of the Columbia, by the Mica creek dam, which we were assured should be the first part to be developed. The Canadian government is not doing anything about it either.
I put a question to the Minister of Northern Affairs and National Resources some time ago, and he said that up to that time there had been one request for a licence for a project which is already in operation. That is understandable. The people who have the capital to invest in industry and require power are not interested in investing it where we might suggest. They want to develop the project in a certain region and at a particular place, and they expect the right to do so if they are to invest their money. It is not being invested just for the purpose of doing Canadians a good turn.


Mr. Herridge:: We know that.
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Frederick George Hahn: I would agree with the hon. member who just said "We know that". Certainly I would agree with him that there is not a man in business today who is operating for the good of the people of Canada alone. He is in business to make a profit on his capital investment. And what is more, he is entitled to it. I suggest there is not an hon. member to my immediate right who does not think along the same lines. If he has a farm or anything else he believes that he should have the privilege of making a profit on it.
I heard a lot of squawking in the house the other day over the fact that hogs were being sold at $18 a hundredweight. It was said that the farmers could not make a profit at that price. Let them rise in their places and defend themselves against those particular capitalists. I am satisfied that private industry will give us the answer and will give us dollars and cents, provided that they are ready to accept it on terms that might be more agreeable to both the province of Saskatchewan and themselves.


Mr. McCullough (Moose Mountain):: Tie up
natural resources; give them special privileges.


Frederick George Hahn: Special privileges?


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: Order.


Frederick George Hahn: I am being carried away by my own enthusiasm. The hon. member suggests special privileges. They ask for no special privileges. The oil companies of Alberta did not ask for special privileges that the government of that province was not prepared to discuss with them. I suggest to the hon. member for Moose Mountain that he study how the oil industry of Alberta was developed, and then compare it with what the Saskatchewan oil industry is doing. At an earlier time I lived in southern Saskatchewan not too far from where the hon. member lives. I lived there when community oil wells were being drilled in the little town of Hatton, up around Many Island lakes. That oil well was never finished.


Edward George McCullough: We did
not have a C.C.F. government then.


Frederick George Hahn: A C.C.F. government was elected, but the property was not necessarily exploited. Those concerned did not go ahead and spend millions of dollars on drilling, with the possibility of drilling a dry hole and then having to turn it over to a government, in which most capitalists fear to invest. Today capital has a right to expect a fair return. I am satisfied that most hon. members will agree with me in that; and what is more, Canadians have indicated, in two provinces at least, that they agree with us. They are prepared to

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accept United States investment, British investment, or investment from any other country that we can interest to the extent of coming into this country, provided they come in under our regulations. We are in a position, if we wish to do so, to make laws in respect of any of this capital that might be coming in. I would say that the elected representatives in the provinces and in the federal government should be capable of looking after the interests of Canadians as a whole.
May I return to British Columbia electric power development. We have one major electrical firm in British Columbia known as British Columbia Electric. That company has realized for some time that there is a need for power development in that province. In an effort to have our power developed properly and in their desire to protect industry as well, which is most important, they have set aside the significant sum of $50,000 to discover a means by which salmon spawn can be taken up to the headwaters safely.
Some of our friends have already suggested that capital is not willing to invest money without exploiting the country. Here we have an industry which has been with us in British Columbia for a great many years. Besides the profit motive that the hon. gentleman suggests, this company has the interests of the people of British Columbia at heart, just as any other firm might have, or just as an individual might have; because if the people in our province failed they would have to leave, and if they leave the British Columbia Electric will have to leave, and they are no more interested in doing that than is anybody else. They have indicated their interest by suggesting that this money be made available to the University of British Columbia. The university in turn has asked Dr. Shrum, who is one of the great scientists in that province, to look after this particular project and see whether means can be found to have development in both ways.
I could speak on this subject of the Fraser river project for a long time. I have ten more minutes to go, but at the same time I realize that as many hon. members as possible would like to have the privilege of speaking on this question. I shall therefore give way to the next hon. member.


Mr. Howard C. Green (Vancouver-Quadra):: Mr. Speaker, I am craving the indulgence of the house while I deal with the amendment for a few moments, believing that it focuses attention on a new type of policy which is needed in this country. There have been policies that have been somewhat of the nature proposed by this amendment, but this goes quite a bit further, and I am hoping that the government will see fit to accept the amendment.

We all know that as Canada grows and new developments become possible the need arises to reassess governmental policies. The amendment here, I submit, Your Honour, deals with one field in which there is need for such reassessment. For the purpose of the record I read the pertinent part of the amendment which is that:
.. .consideration should be given to a joint investment program for the development of power resources in any province where the government of such province requests the co-operation of the Canadian government in carrying out such development.
You will notice that the method of participation is not set out. We have not attempted to go that far. I think the method is a matter to be worked out in each case, and it will perhaps differ in each case.
The dominion part in a joint program might be by way of a direct contribution, by way of a guarantee or by actually doing some of the work that is necessary in order that the project can be completed. I think the main thing is to make it possible for the credit of the dominion to be put behind the credit of the provinces where developments of the kind contemplated are to be undertaken. That is not necessary, of course, with the provinces of Ontario and Quebec because I understand they can finance on practically as favourable terms as the nation itself.
The main point we seek to drive home in this amendment is that there should be an acceptance of some responsibility by the federal government. Such a policy is needed particularly in the case of rivers flowing over the border into the United States. I say that because last year the government-and I agreed with the action-took a licensing control over the improvements on international rivers by means of a statute which was described as the International River Improvements Act.
The purpose of that act was really to provide for the licensing of international river improvements to ensure that the water resources of Canada are developed and utilized in the national interest. That control, while necessary, does restrict the provinces considerably, and it puts the federal government under some obligation to co-operate in at least a portion of any improvements of these river systems. Otherwise, were that not the case, the federal government would be in the position of a dog in the manger in so far as the development of these particular rivers is concerned. There has been no actual application made in respect of the Kaiser dam, but we all know that the attitude of the dominion government was that it would not permit the construction of that dam.

Now, it is not good enough for the dominion simply to say to a province, "No, you cannot go ahead with this scheme." I submit that the dominion must be prepared to take steps to help by offering some alternate scheme. The difficulty that arose on the Columbia river system last year was the situation which brought about the enactment of the International River Improvements Act. I should like to review for a moment or two the facts with regard to the Columbia river system.
It is a great power river, third in importance on the North American continent, surpassed only by the Mississippi and the St. Lawrence; and I believe that it is of about the same importance as the St. Lawrence river system. Three-fifths of the power that can be developed on that river system is in the United States. That is, it can be developed by use of the Columbia river where it is flowing within the United States boundaries. One-fifth can be developed wholly within Canada and the remaining one-fifth can only be developed by storage of water in Canada for use in United States power plants below the boundary.
The dominion and the province of British Columbia have been making joint surveys for many years having in mind the proper development of this river system in Canada. The Minister of Northern Affairs and National Resources can correct me if I am wrong, but I think the international joint commission has been investigating conditions on this particular river for ten or eleven years.
At the moment one of the great questions which remains unsettled as between Canada and the United States is whether there will be any payment for what is known as downstream benefits; whether, for example, the United States will pay anything to Canada for the storage of water in Canada which is to be used subsequently on the United States side of the line. That question is unsettled.
To this picture we add the Kaiser deal of a year or 18 months ago. Then the act follows which was passed last year, and since ther; there appears to have been a stalemate develop. I can only plead today as I did last session for co-operation between the two governments, the federal government and the government of the province of British Columbia. This question will never be settled satisfactorily unless there is such co-operation.
I was somewhat disturbed to hear the remarks made this afternoon by the hon. member for New Westminster, because he indicated that he was in favour of United States development of the Columbia river
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system in Canada. That is the stand taken just two weeks ago by the minister of lands and forests in the British Columbia legislature. I refer to Hon. Mr. Sommers. I have in my hand a press dispatch of his speech, and among other remarks he had these words to say; I am quoting from the Vancouver Province of February 7:
He made it clear the government will still deal with the U.S. for development of a big power and storage dam at Mica creek, high in the Columbia river system.
The Mica creek development is the main development on the Columbia river system in Canada. Conditions are such that that development could be proceeded with in the very near future and here is a provincial minister, the minister in charge of this particular type of work in British Columbia, making this statement. The dispatch continues:
Mr. Sommers accused members of the federal government of "an appalling act of irresponsibility", and several times described Liberal leader Arthur Laing as the Liberal party's "chief apologist in B.C."
He said the B.C. government's policy for the Columbia is to have the Mica creek dam "built free of cost to the people of B.C.; that we have the control and generation of all at-site power for the use of B.C., and that we would expect delivery of 20 per cent of the gross power generated (additional) on the American side by this storage, delivered cost-free to the province of B.C."
No better plan has been devised, he said.
He declined to specify whether American public or private money would build the storage dam.
What better deal could there be. he demanded. Besides getting the dam free, B.C. would get all the power generated at the dam and 20 per cent of the power the same water-once it had reached the American side-would generate in American hydro plants.
If that policy is put into effect it means that the Puget Sound utilities council will be doing that development. The Puget Sound utilities council is made up of the Puget Sound Power and Light Company, which is a private company operating in the state of Washington; Seattle City Light, a municipal system; Tacoma City Light, another municipal system; Snohomish county public utility district and Chelan public utility district, both of which are public utility districts. Those five power organizations make rather a queer combination, but they have combined into the Puget Sound utilities council, and it is hoped that they would be in partnership with the United States federal government in many of the projects. Possibly the Mica creek project would be one in which the Puget Sound utilities council would be doing the work, with the backing of United States federal government money or of the credit of the United States government.
That, of course, is directly opposed to the plan for the development of the Columbia river system envisaged by General

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McNaughton. He, of course, is in favour of this Mica creek development at the earliest possible time. He has advocated a series of other dams, which I need not enumerate today. He has dealt with the question of downstream benefits, and also suggested that it might be possible to divert the headwaters of the Kootenay river into the Columbia river system and allow a portion of the Columbia river water into the Fraser river system. I am not taking a position today either for or against these diversions. There is a great deal of controversy in British Columbia as to whether or not General McNaughton is correct in advocating those two diversions, but his whole plan is to have this work done by Canadians for Canadians.
There we have a direct conflict between the two plans. Apparently the dominion government and the British Columbia government are again at loggerheads over the development of this system. Unfortunately, time is an element in this question. Canada cannot afford to sit back and wait for something to develop. The problem is very pressing. Yet there is no indication whatever that the federal government is moving to meet this situation. The Minister of Northern Affairs and National Resources should give this house a statement during this debate as to what the dominion proposes to do with regard to this question.
Clearly, here on the Columbia river system there is a case for a joint investment program by the two governments. If such a program were adopted the result would be to keep control of the system in Canada. There would be a great saving if the federal government put its credit behind any such development. The plans could be proceeded with much more quickly, and that means that the people in British Columbia would have cheaper power at an earlier date, with resulting benefits throughout the whole economy of that part of Canada. There would be new industries.
This development of the Columbia river system would be the greatest development that has ever taken place in British Columbia. There has never been anything there of this magnitude. It would mean an expansion of towns and an increase in population. Once the whole plan becomes actually effective, I believe the result will be an increase of a million people in the province of British Columbia, and there would be so many more people to consume the wheat that is grown on the prairies, which is giving us so much trouble at the present time. For that reason alone my suggestions to the government today should be acceptable, for then they would not hear so much about wheat in

future sessions. It would mean increased strength for the nation as a whole.
I point out that there would be very little risk to the dominion in entering into a joint investment program of this kind. These works, I believe, would be self-liquidating. It is merely a matter of the dominion putting its credit behind the province. Just a few months ago we had a great talk about joint investment programs. When the dominion-provincial conference met in April of last year one of the four subjects set over for consideration in the fall was as follows:
Public investment and natural resources development.
Under that heading this particular scheme certainly should come. The province of British Columbia sent representatives here in October, and the premier of that province had this to say in his brief. I am quoting from page 5, under the heading "Public Investment":
British Columbia submits that the federal government should participate jointly with the provinces in investment in capital projects directed to the expansion of the productive wealth of Canada. Such public investment is a capital expenditure warranted by the return which will accrue both to the nation and to the province.
In giving the details of his plans he did not mention the development of power. But I suggest that he be taken at his word, and that the dominion say, "We are prepared to go into a joint program of this kind for the development of the Columbia river power." I submit that with regard to this particular river-and I point out that next to the St. Lawrence it is the most important one in Canada so far as power is concerned-we are at a fork in the road. One way will lead to great expansion by Canadians for Canadians, and I believe that way would be by a joint investment program. The other way we shall have expansion in Canada by Americans, primarily for Americans-make no mistake about that-with Canadians losing partial control and getting only partial benefits. I do not believe there are very many in this house who wish to see a policy adopted which leads to that second result.
It is obvious that the province of British Columbia cannot do this development itself, particularly under the curb of the dominion licensing control which exists under the International River Improvements Act. It is absolutely necessary that there be a partnership. If a joint program can be worked out, nothing would do more to help the Canadians who live on the Pacific slope. I would like to see more co-operative suggestion coming from the west coast, but I hope the dominion government will make an offer to the province of British Columbia to hold discussions. Why

should the two governments remain at arm's length and snarling at each other across 3,000 miles of Canada? Their representatives should be meeting to discuss this question.
With regard to downstream benefits, the Canadian government should be meeting with the United States government, and I see no reason why the government of British Columbia should not have representatives sitting in on those discussions. In some parts of the country, for the orderly development of power by Canadians we must have a joint investment policy.
As I said in my opening remarks, I place these thoughts before the house today, and particularly before the government, in the hope that the policy outlined in this amendment will be accepted. This amendment is not brought forward simply to make trouble for the government. It is brought forward in the belief that a policy of this kind should be adopted by Canada, and I hope it will be possible for the government to treat the amendment in that way.


Mr. Elmore Philpott (Vancouver South):: Mr. Speaker, I want to make a few remarks on the all-important subject raised this afternoon. Before I begin talking about Columbia river power I should like to comment on what the Leader of the Opposition said, that he wished at times there could be some more accurate way of recording what takes place in the house. I too have thought at times it would be a very good idea to have television broadcasts of what takes place in the house, especially with the general exodus from some parts of the house from Thursday to Tuesday every week. But I am rather surprised to hear the Leader of the Opposition make this particular suggestion, because I can remember that when the chairman of one of our committees had the temerity to introduce a sound recording device to record the proceedings of a certain committee the Leader of the Opposition protested most vigorously.


George Alexander Drew: Mr. Speaker, the incident I was referring to is one that should not be left in such form as it has been presented. That was the case where the chairman of the committee, without any word to the committee, without permission from the committee and without the knowledge of the committee, brought a sound recording device for his own use into the committee room.


Elmore Philpott: There is one other thing on which I should like to comment, what seems to me the unwisdom of any hon. member in any quarter of the house ever introducing the word "secession". We all have our political differences, and in my opinion it is not in the national interest for any hon. member
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in any quarter of the house so much as to suggest that this great nation of Canada is not one union, permanent and indissoluble.
I want to speak for a minute or two today on the question of power which has been discussed in various quarters of the house. Before I do so I should like to make one remark on the much discussed question of the South Saskatchewan dam. I sometimes think we hear too much about the South Saskatchewan dam, just as I sometimes think that we hear too much about wheat in the house compared with their general importance to the whole economy of the country. But I suggest that hon. members opposite, who so often criticize the speech of the Minister of Agriculture at the banquet, certainly cannot have read very carefully what the minister said at that banquet, because he dealt most specifically with the South Saskatchewan dam and particularly with the point that it is just a question of when.
I want to talk particularly today about the matter raised by the hon. member for New Westminster and the hon. member for Vancouver-Quadra. May I say at the outset that I am completely in support of the main point made by the hon. member for Vancouver-Quadra and completely opposed to the suggestion thrown out again by the hon. member for New Westminster of the Social Credit party, in which he suggested that the power resources of the upper Columbia river should be developed for the benefit of the people of the United States rather than for the benefit of Canadians.


Mr. Johnston (Bow River):: Don't be so silly.


Elmore Philpott: I think if there is anything, Mr. Speaker-


Charles Edward Johnston: You should not make a statement like that when you know it is not the truth.


Elmore Philpott: I do not wonder that my hon. friends are very much concerned, because I think the whole country will be very much concerned when they find what is suggested in some quarters of the house.


Charles Edward Johnston: Just stick to the truth.


Elmore Philpott: Just as one year ago there was a suggestion to give away one small portion of the water resources of the upper Columbia river under what was known as the Kaiser dam deal, it now appears that the whole cat is out of the bag and the suggestion is to give away the whole vast resources of the upper Columbia under some larger Kaiser dqm deal.


John Horne Blackmore: That is not so.

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Elmore Philpott: I think the fairest presentation of the whole power situation in the upper Columbia region was made by United States Senator Richard L. Neuberger of Oregon, who was sent to the upper Columbia to make a special report for the chairman of the United States senate committee on interior and insular affairs. When Senator Neuberger came to Canada to see exactly what was going on in this part of the country, exactly what was what and who was who, he came to certain conclusions. I may say that among others he visited the hon. member for Vancouver-Quadra. I know he spent a good deal of time with the hon. member for Kootenay West, and I know he attended public meetings. He came to certain conclusions, and I now read his own words as found on page 12 of the report made by Senator Neuberger to the committee:
1.	Insistence on maximum development.-The value of the vast hydroelectric power potential lying dormant in the river canyons of British Columbia is well understood north of the border. The people of the province and their representatives have seen the progress which 20 years of Columbia river development in the United States have brought to the Pacific northwest. They visualize an industrial empire for western Canada, built on the full utilization of the water power latent in their portion of the Columbia river basin.
2.	Canadian resources for Canada.-Canadians generally would prefer this full utilization to benefit the industrial development of their own Pacific northwest and are averse to the direct or indirect "export" of their water power potential to the more developed power market of the United States. Their convictions in this respect reflect both national pride and a confident long-range view of the future of western Canada.
3.	Recognition of public responsibility.-Both in public meetings and in private conversations the view was repeatedly expressed that only the national governments of Canada and the United States can work out a settled program for mutually beneficial upstream development and downstream benefits in the Columbia river basin; and that the dominion and the provincial government in British Columbia, acting in continuing co-operation with the United States government, can best undertake developments of the magnitude of those possible on the upper Columbia river.
He goes on to say:
I spoke at length with members of parliament representing the people of British Columbia at Ottawa, who belong to the Conservative party and to the C.C.F. and with many private individuals belonging to these, to the Liberal, or to the Social Credit parties.
Then he goes on to say that there is a strong desire for Canadian-United States agreement and puts it in this way in his report:
4.	Desire for Canadian-United States agreement.- There is sincere concern over the threat to the traditionally close relations between the United States and Canada posed by the disagreement over Columbia and Kootenay river storage and by the
[Mr. Blackmore.J
possibility of partial diversion of these rivers in Canada from their natural course through the United States.
Then he makes this important point.


Charles Edward Johnston: Mr. Speaker-


Elmore Philpott: He says-


Charles Edward Johnston: On a point of order-


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Applewhaite):: Order. The hon. member for Bow River has a point of order.


Charles Edward Johnston: Is there not some rule of the house that prohibits a member from getting up and reading from a document by the hour like this without making his own speech? Surely he should make his own speech and not read something out of some magazine or something else.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Applewhaite):: The
hon. member is perfectly right in saying there is a rule of the house against reading from magazine articles, etc., by the hour. At the same time I know of no rule that forbids a member reading short extracts, particularly if they are from a report whether issued in this country or some other. I find myself unable to come to the conclusion that the hon. member for Vancouver South is reading to any greater extent than has been permitted many other members in various quarters of the house.


Elmore Philpott: I will only be reading for another 15 seconds. I have no doubt whatever why it is so distasteful to the Social Credit members of the house. Senator Neuberger went on to say:
Canadians generally have confidence that their position in these negotiations is being represented to the full limits of their national interests under the leadership of Gen. A. G. L. McNaughton, who is respected as Canada's most illustrious soldier.
I therefore submit that the work of the international joint commission is being well carried on for Canada under the distinguished leadership of General A. G. L. McNaughton, and that the interests of Canada are in very good hands. I submit that the first step in this whole power development on the upper Columbia river is to get the report of the international joint commission. When we get that report we will all know where we stand. As long as this government is in power there is no danger whatever that the natural resources of Canada will be sacrificed in the interests of the big business corporations in the United States.


Herbert Wilfred Herridge: Mr. Speaker, I rise with the greatest of pleasure to support this Progressive Conservative

amendment moved by the leader of the Progressive Conservative party. I am going to read it so that it heads what I have to say. It reads as follows:
in the opinion of this house consideration should be given to a joint investment program for the development of power resources in any province where the government of such province requests the co-operation of the Canadian government in carrying out such development.
I am delighted that in that amendment the Progressive Conservative party indicated their support for an identical policy which has been proposed in this house by members of this group for many years.


Mr. Lennard:: It is what we have in Ontario. We have had it for years.


Herbert Wilfred Herridge: That is a provincial matter. We are talking about this house. We support this resolution wholeheartedly because it is in line with our basic philosophy and economic principles, because it provides for using our natural resources and the credit of the nation to provide developments for the advantage of Canadians.
Like the hon. member for Vancouver South, I was most surprised to hear the hon. member for New Westminster stress the vital need for bringing in United States capital to undertake these developments. I cannot understand that attitude. The way this thing is done, Mr. Speaker, once United States capital gets control of the natural resources, its capital is raised on the security provided by our Canadian natural resources. We in this group agree *-as, I am glad to see, do a good many other members in the house, including hon. members opposite-that we can raise that capital in Canada based on the same natural resources. I was greatly surprised to hear that suggestion, particularly coming from a member of a group which stresses, I think generally, the use of the national credit for the development of the natural resources and to provide the good things of life.


Charles Edward Johnston: You will hear more about it. He stressed it only when you could not get it from the federal government.


Herbert Wilfred Herridge: As usual, Mr. Speaker, they are starting to wriggle.


Charles Edward Johnston: Not a chance.


Herbert Wilfred Herridge: A reading of the hon. member's remarks will clearly indicate that he considered it was necessary to get United States capital, that we in Canada were not capable of undertaking those developments by using our own national credit.


Charles Edward Johnston: Let me ask the
hon. member a question, Mr. Speaker. I wonder whether he would tell us whether
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the province of Saskatchewan is getting United States capital to develop their oil.


Herbert Wilfred Herridge: I am not talking about other provinces.


Charles Edward Johnston: Oh, that is
different.


Herbert Wilfred Herridge: I am talking about the situation that was raised with respect to the development of water resources in British Columbia. Like the hon. member for Van-couver-Quadra, as a British Columbia member and as one who resides in the district and represents a large area in the district, I am particularly interested in the development of the Columbia basin. I have been interested in that matter for a good many years, even prior to the reference of 1944. Since that time I suppose 95 per cent of the investigation of the Columbia river basin has been carried on at the expense of the federal government, and rightly so.
At this point I must pay a tribute to the good work of the officials of the Department of Northern Affairs and National Resources, the Department of Mines and Technical Surveys and the Department of Public Works who have been doing that work throughout the basin since 1945. I am sure it will not be many months until we shall have some idea of the result and some conclusions drawn from that long-term investigation.
Last session the discussion on the international rivers bill in the house, and also in the committee hearing the evidence given by witnesses, created a great deal of interest and a much wider understanding of this question so far as the Columbia river is concerned. Since that time, as mentioned by the hon. member for Vancouver South, we had a visit by Senator Richard L. Neuberger of Oregon. He is a member of the interior and insular affairs committee of the United States Senate. I know Senator Neuberger quite well and was pleased to make certain arrangements for him. I arranged for him to meet certain organizations and to address certain meetings. I made travel arrangements and provided him with the opportunity of examining the situation, and of meeting organizations and people in the district in order to secure material for writing what I think is an excellent report to his committee in the United States Senate.
I am not saying that I agree with all his conclusions, but at least from the Canadian point of view it was written very fairly indeed. He had an opportunity to address a number of public bodies such as city councils, boards of trade, chambers of commerce, committees and other small meetings, and he obtained a fairly good idea of the thinking of the people in the district. He was

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greatly impressed by the concern of Canadians he met in the area and in British Columbia generally about the development of this basin, that it should be developed to the advantage of Canadians and that Canadian rights and interests should be protected.
In any event, he was greatly interested in the widespread interest in the question and to what an extent a large section of the public was quite generally informed on it. In addition, in his report he mentioned one significant thing. He said that, although generally speaking all parties he met were suggesting the necessity for the development as the result of the investment of public funds, nowhere did he hear the word "socialism" referred to. He was quite taken with the fact that all parties he met supported these proposals and no one suggested that this was a form of socialism. His visit, I think, was fruitful from the American and the Canadian point of view. His visit was largely the result of United States concern over proposals being made in Canada for the diversion of the Columbia river into the Fraser river.
I want to draw the particular attention of the house to a series of articles written by Mr. Grant Dexter in the Winnipeg Free Press of November 12, 14 and 15. I suggest that anybody who is interested in this question should read those articles, because Mr. Grant Dexter has clearly grasped the core of this whole situation. I think the articles are well worth reading by anyone who is interested in understanding the position of the Canadian section of the international joint commission and the position of this government with respect to this proposed development.
Mr. Dexter is one of an increasing number who recognize the splendid efforts that General McNaughton is making to see, so far as he and the commission are concerned, that these developments do take place to the full advantage of the Canadian people.
Now, I agree with the hon. member for Vancouver South. I do not think we can come to definite conclusions. We must have all the facts before us before we can start to draw conclusions. I am sure that those members of the house who are interested in this subject are awaiting with interest the report on the investigation that is being made into the possibility of the diversion of the Columbia into the Fraser. When we have that report on the investigation from the commission, we will be in a position to analyse the situation and know to a greater extent what we are talking about.
This development is of some importance to the Kootenay country generally. It is of particular importance because, as the member

for Vancouver-Quadra said, there is a possibility for the development of this power in relation to the great natural resources that exist in the area. I think everyone in this house will recall that members on the government side speaking on this subject last year, and General McNaughton in the committee, laid particular stress upon the fact that every recognition was given to the rights of the province in regard to the development of natural resources and that these developments come directly within provincial jurisdiction. Therefore, after we get the report there is no question about it but that one would expect the provincial governments, like the rest, to study them and make certain proposals.
The hon. member for Vancouver-Quadra dealt with certain proposals made recently by the minister of lands and forests in the legislature of British Columbia. I have a transscript of that speech, and I shall just read from it briefly. The minister says:
Our policy in respect to the Mica development is:
X. That we expect to have the storage dam built free of cost to the people of British Columbia.
2.	That we would have the control and generation of all at-site power for the use of British Columbia.
3.	That we would expect delivery of 20 per cent of the gross power generated on the American side by this storage, delivered cost free to the province of British Columbia.
I presume that is the policy of the government of British Columbia with respect to the development at Mica creek at this time. I believe that would clearly indicate they are looking forward to United States capital building this dam.
I am concerned directly because of my interest in this question, but the particular reason I have for supporting this resolution, in addition to its general importance, is the fact that it points to a joint public investment program for the development of our power resources. As the hon. member for Vancouver-Quadra I thought very well said, one method means United States capital and with it a measure of United States control and profits. The other way means using our national credit, based on Canadian natural resources, to develop Canadian natural resources to the advantage of Canadians generally. I believe, Mr. Speaker that if this could be done then a spirit of co-operation would exist among all governments.


Mr. A. J. Brooks (Royal):: This is a very interesting resolution that we have before us, Mr. Speaker. We have heard of the great interest and benefit it would be to western Canada in the development of the South Saskatchewan and Columbia rivers, as

well as other rivers in the west. I do not suppose there is any part of Canada which would rejoice more if the government would adopt this motion than the maritime provinces. I myself am very pleased indeed that the matter has been brought before the house, and I sincerely hope it will receive the en-dorsation of this parliament.
The idea is not new at all. The hon. member who just took his seat stated he thought his party had introduced it first in this house. I do not know about that, nor do I think it makes very much difference. But I know that the idea has been prevalent in my own province for quite a number of years. The present premier of New Brunswick, at a recent meeting of the provincial premiers with the federal government, brought the matter to the attention of that conference.
I should like to read, Mr. Speaker, from a speech that was made by the premier of New Brunswick in the provincial house at Fredericton last year. He said:
The federal government proposed for consideration two subjects:-*
This was at the dominion-provincial conference.
-taxation and unemployment. Right here is Where the New Brunswick delegation differed. We went to Ottawa primarily to stress the opposite of unemployment, namely employment. The first item on our agenda was, and I quote-
Premier Flemming is quoting from his own agenda.
"Our first proposal is that an important place on the agenda should be accorded to the principle of the federal financial assistance to the provinces for the broad purpose of resource development.
He went on to say that he was thinking of Beechwood and other hydro developments in the province of New Brunswick.
As I say, the idea is not new so far as this house is concerned. I recall that quite a few years ago there was the development of the Tennessee Valley Authority in the United States. This great development was brought about' by the federal government for the benefit of the southern states, which were not receiving the attention they should. There was not the industry in that part of the country, and it was felt that what was necessary was some great hydro development.
After the development of the Tennessee valley power, industry did flow to that section of the country. This was true not only of the Tennessee valley project but it was true also of the great northwestern section of the United States. The same idea has been advanced by the commonwealth countries in the Colombo plan. We speak about the necessity for the development of hydroelectric
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power in India, and we claim also that it is our privilege to assist in that development in Egypt and Ceylon.
Here I should like to state that in my opinion, if such a development is good for different sections of the United States, if it is proper that we as Canadian members of the commonwealth should assist in this development in countries like India, China-perhaps I should not mention China-India, Ceylon and Egypt, then surely it is right that we should do everything possible to develop every section of our own country.
I do not think that in the whole of Canada there is greater need for hydro development than there is in the maritime provinces today. This subject has been discussed in this house on numerous occasions. I myself have pointed out the great dearth of electric power in my own province of New Brunswick. I understand that the average amount of electric power in Ontario and Quebec is one horsepower per capita. In New Brunswick we have a population of about 500,000 people. Our hydro electric development amounts to 136,000 horsepower. Anyone can see the great difference between hydro development in New Brunswick-and the same applies to Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island-and in the central provinces, and even in the province of British Columbia. We did not feel this lack of development so much until recent years.
In the last two or three years we have discovered great mineral wealth in our province. We hope to develop the minerals of our own province; we hope that smelters will be built in the northern part of New Brunswick so that minerals produced there will not be shipped away to be smelted in other parts of the world, as is being done at the present time. That is the hope of every citizen of New Brunswick, and it has been expressed at different times. Today there is the prospect of further development of our pulp and paper industry.
I might say in that connection, Mr. Speaker, for years the province of New Brunswick has been shipping out of the province anywhere from 500,000 to nearly 1 million cords of pulp-wood. We want to process and develop that in New Brunswick. The only way it can be done and will be done is to produce cheap electric power in the province. Today there is talk of a mill being built on the south shore of the province, on the bay of Fundy. Those who are interested in this mill are making serious inquiries as to the amount of power that is available for the production of paper, and also as to the cost of this power.

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I could mention many other reasons why we are anxious to have power developed. I have spoken of them before in the house. Defence production is an example. We have not received in New Brunswick at any time our fair share of defence production. We believe that we would have received it if we had the necessary hydro development in the province.
I might ask the question, have we the prospective water power in New Brunswick? Anyone who has listened to hon. members from the maritime provinces debate this question during the last 10 or 15 years will realize that we have. I myself and other maritime members, particularly the opposition members, the former member for Cumberland, Mr. Black; the hon. member for Cape Breton (Mr. Gillis) and other opposition members, have mentioned the Chignecto canal and the power that could be developed from the utilization of tidal waters. We have spoken of the Petitcodiac river and the Passa-maquoddy.
I mentioned the Passamaquoddy a few weeks ago. The United States, particularly the state of Maine, is greatly interested in the development of Passamaquoddy. They have asked the Dominion of Canada to join with them in an investigation into the feasibility of developing power at Passamaquoddy. As yet the Dominion of Canada has not indicated whether or not it is willing to assist in this investigation.
I am satisfied, Mr. Speaker, that Passamaquoddy will be developed by the United States if it is feasible, and I am satisfied that it will be of great benefit to the state of Maine, which lies side by side with the province of New Brunswick.
The development of power from the tides is not something altogether new. I remember reading a few years ago that in France they develop power from the tides. On the Severn river in England there is a power plant which gets its power from the rise and fall of the tide. That is also true of China. There is no place in the world that has such high tides and tremendous power potential and such tremendous rush of water as has the bay of Fundy in New Brunswick. These are just some of the possible developments that could take place in our province, some of which have been mentioned many times, I fear to very unsympathetic ears as far as the federal government is concerned.
I come now, Mr. Speaker, to a development which is under way at the present time, namely the Saint John river development. The development which is under way at the

present time, namely Beechwood, is only a part of the great possibilities for development of the Saint John river. This matter came up in the house a short time ago, and I was very disappointed to hear the Minister of Northern Affairs and National Resources- I should like to get his attention for a moment -say that it would not be the policy of the government to assist in the development of Beechwood. I should like to quote from his remarks at that time. This question was asked by the hon. member for Gloucester (Mr. Robichaud), as reported at page 558 of Hansard:
Mr. Speaker, may I direct a question to the Minister of Northern Affairs and National Resources. Has the government given consideration to the possibility of co-operating in the over-all power development of the Saint John river system in New Brunswick?
I may say the over-all power system means the development of Beechwood, the same as it does in other parts of the Saint John.


Mr. Robichaud:: It means storage.


Alfred Johnson Brooks: It means storage, yes.


Hédard-J. Robichaud: First.


Alfred Johnson Brooks: No, not at all. Does the hon. member mean to say that in order to develop Beechwood they have to develop storage in Maine and in Quebec?


Hédard-J. Robichaud: Absolutely.


Alfred Johnson Brooks: I would like to place the hon. member's opinion against the opinion of the very best engineers in the United States and Canada who have investigated this. I shall call attention to that in a few minutes, Mr. Speaker.
This has been the attitude of hon. members opposite. It is also the attitude of the opposition in the province of New Brunswick. We need the development of Beechwood in the very worst way, but because they think it will bring some credit to Mr. Flemming, the premier of New Brunswick, they are trying to discredit it in every way they possibly can. I would ask those hon. members to be very careful and read over the report of the international committee on the development of the Saint John river and the development of Beechwood. I was discussing the attitude the Minister of Northern Affairs and National Resources took concerning the development of Beechwood.
He said, as reported at page 558 of Hansard of January 26:
All the way along there has been a constant exchange of views among provincial and federal technical and financial officials.

This is correct; there has been an exchange of views. He continued:
These discussions appeared to indicate that the development to the end of the Beeehwood phase could be carried out by the province of New Brunswick without jeopardizing its credit.
This is the point I wish to make, Mr. Speaker. It is not a matter of jeopardizing the credit of the province of New Brunswick; we did not expect the development of Beech-wood to jeopardize our credit. What the province of New Brunswick was asking for was assistance so we could get cheaper power. That is what jeopardizes the introduction of industry in our province. We did not in any way feel nor do we feel today that the development of power is jeopardizing our credit. The minister went on to say:
It appears, however, that future developments in the province are likely to require additional power on a substantial scale. This larger future development has been represented to the federal government as likely to be beyond the capacity of the province of New Brunswick to finance on its own.
Beeehwood is a part of the whole development of the Saint John river. There is no reason in the world why the federal government, if it is going to give assistance in the development of the Saint John river, could not give assistance to the whole scheme and not pick out parts of it and say we are doing this because it might jeopardize the finances of the province.
This attitude is jeopardizing our prospects of getting industry in that province. It is jeopardizing our prospects of being able to build a smelter in the northern part of our province, for instance. It is jeopardizing our prospects of developing our great pulp and paper industry there. I would ask the Minister of Northern Affairs and National Resources to reconsider this matter, and I am sure he will have the very grateful thanks of the people of my province if he does so.
There would be some difficulties and it would take some time to develop the whole of the Saint John river; there is no question about that. Some hon. members will recall that our good friend the former member for Temiscouata had his people so stirred up around lake Temiscouata that it would take considerable time, I am sure, to get the rights that we require in Quebec, for instance, in the development of other phases of the Saint John river. We have to get agreements with Maine. This will all take a long time, but we in New Brunswick cannot wait for all these things to be settled. We can produce power at Beeehwood now; we have the power plant almost constructed there, and that is where we need immediate assistance 67509-874
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from the federal government. This is not something far off in the future.
I might say, Mr. Speaker, that the whole scheme of developing the Saint John river has already been investigated by the engineers of the international joint commission, and they have already made a report. I would like to quote from the report they made, and it brings us to the question of the selection of Beeehwood. I am quoting from a book entitled "The Background of the Beeehwood Hydro Electric Power Development" dated March 25, and in this they quote-


An hon. Member:: By whom was it prepared?


Alfred Johnson Brooks: It was prepared by the hydro engineers of New Brunswick, but in it they quote from the report of the international joint commission. I quote from page 18 of this report:
The Beeehwood site was selected for inclusion in all initial plans of development by the engineering work group and the engineering board.
I might explain that the engineering work group and the engineering board were appointed by the international joint commission. They represented the opinions of the best hydro engineers in the United States and the best hydro engineers we could find in New Brunswick. It continues:
Economic studies indicated that the project is more attractive than other power projects which were investigated. This site has the advantage of being below the mouth of the Aroostook and Tobique rivers, the largest tributaries of the Saint John river. Also the site will benefit from the storage which has been developed above it-
In this connection I might say that my hon. friends are saying we just get the natural flow of the Saint John river, but that is not true. As these engineers indicate, besides the natural flow of the Saint John river we also have benefit from the storage which has been developed above it; and as the report says:
-this amounts to about 400,000 acre feet.


Hédard-J. Robichaud: Was the hon. member there last summer?


Alfred Johnson Brooks: What do you mean by "there"?


An hon. Member:: Beeehwood.


Alfred Johnson Brooks: I know what the hon. member is coming to. There was a dry season not only in New Brunswick but all over Canada, and there was not a hydro development scheme anywhere in Canada that was not suffering from lack of water last year. That is not a valid argument, to my way of thinking. The report continues:
Present storages above Beeehwood are 105,000 acre feet on Temiscouata lake and owned by Gatineau Power Company; 82,000 acre feet on the

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Aroostook river at Squa Pan, owned by Maine Public Service Company; 17,000 acre feet on Green river, owned by the city of Edmundston; and 187,000 acre feet on the Tobique river, developed by the New Brunswick Power Commission.
Mr. Speaker, that storage of 400,000 acre feet is not the natural flow of the Saint John river. That is what these engineers say the Beeehwood power would receive the benefit of.


Some hon. Members:: Six o'clock.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Applewhaite):: think it is a convenient time for the hon. member to adjourn for the recess.
At six o'clock the house took recess.


[Stage Direction]
AFTER RECESS

The house resumed at eight o'clock.
Alfred Johnson Brooks: Mr. Speaker, at six o'clock I was discussing the development of Beech-wood on the Saint John river and the general development of the Saint John river for hydroelectric purposes. I was stating at that time that the Beeehwood development had been approved by the international joint commission, as well as outstanding engineers employed by the international joint commission from the United States and Canada, and also the engineering works group, which consisted of outstanding citizens from both the United States and Canada. This is a quotation from the report of the international joint commission:
The New Brunswick Electric Power Commission will be faced with a shortage of power in 1956 unless early steps are taken to deal with the situation.
As we all know, early steps were taken in the form of the development of Beeehwood by the present government of New Brunswick. It is also stated in this report:
If the economy of the province is to grow with the general growth of Canada as a whole, New Brunswick must be assured of future supplies of power at costs which are attractive to industry.
That really is the crux of the whole matter. The reason we have not been able to develop in New Brunswick is that we have lacked power. We shall develop in the future only if we have power at such a cost that it is attractive to industry. That is why appeals have gone out from the province of New Brunswick to the federal government for assistance in this matter. The engineering board of the international joint commission also stated that it-
-sees no objection to the construction of a plant at the Beeehwood site, as it would be a major part of any ultimate plan of development.
IMr. Brooks.]
These statements do away with the argument we have heard that Beeehwood should not have been developed until there was general development of the whole Saint John river area. At the opening of my remarks I dealt with the statement of the Minister of Northern Affairs and National Resources. I am sorry he is not in the house.


An hon. Member:: Yes, he has been here since eight o'clock.


Alfred Johnson Brooks: I beg your pardon. I should have said that he is not in his seat. The report of the Power Corporation of Canada Limited estimated:
. . . that power would be available at Beeehwood and before transmission for 5-4 mills per k.w.h. if interest costs were 5 per cent and that energy cost would be reduced to 31 mills per k.w.h. if capital was available at 21 per cent interest.
There is the very point that the people of New Brunswick, through the government of New Brunswick, are trying to make to the parliament of Canada. It is not that the finances of the province are going to be jeopardized, as the minister stated here some time ago, but the point is that we cannot encourage industry that is in the province and we cannot attract outside industry unless we can obtain our money at a cheaper rate of interest. We are not begging anything from the federal government. We are simply asking it to back our bonds so that with the credit of the dominion government behind us we may be able to borrow money at a cheaper rate of interest, which means all the difference between cheap and dear power in the province of New Brunswick. I want to impress that on the government, and particularly on the Minister of Northern Affairs and National Resources.
As I said before, the development at Beeehwood was approved by those people I mentioned. It was also approved by the Power Corporation of Canada Limited, by H. G. Acres Company Limited, and by the Shawinigan Engineering Company Limited. Those are three outstanding firms of consulting engineers in Canada. I want to say to my hon. friends from New Brunswick who belong to the Liberal party that not one of these firms I have mentioned, nor any creditable hydroelectric engineer in the Dominion of Canada or in the United States, has said that before Beeehwood is developed there must be development and storage in Maine and the province of Quebec. If any of those members speak later I would be pleased if they would give the names of any outstanding engineers who have ever made that statement.
At the outset of my remarks I spoke about the need. I know it is not necessary to develop that point here in this house. It has

been mentioned too often, and every hon. member is well aware of the situation in the maritime provinces as far as the requirements for hydroelectric development are concerned. Those provinces are starving for cheap hydroelectric power.
As for the advantages, I have also mentioned them. Power at a reasonable price would serve as a stimulus to all the province's industries at the present time. It would increase the industrialization of that province. It would help to develop our mineral deposits. It would help to develop further our pulp-wood industry. Another thing of very great importance to us in New Brunswick and the maritimes is that it would give employment to our young people and keep them at home. As I say, this is a very important matter as far as we are concerned. The tax revenues would be increased, as far as New Brunswick and the other maritime provinces are concerned.
There are other benefits. With the discovery of over 100 million tons of valuable ore in New Brunswick, it would give the province the greatest opportunity for economic expansion in its history. These mineral deposits can be developed in such a way as to be of maximum benefit to the people of New Brunswick only if there is a large surplus of relatively cheap electric power available. At the present time there is no surplus available, and the price of our power is too high. It is several times the Canadian average.
The chief reason for the high cost is the high rate of interest paid by the provincial government in borrowing money. A large surplus of relatively cheap power can be made available, which would develop the hydroelectric power potential of the province, with financial assistance by the federal government. There is no question at all about that.
Perhaps I might mention some precedents for consideration by the federal government as far as our problem is concerned. I think I could make a case in regard to the St. Lawrence seaway. We get very little, if any, benefit from the development of the St. Lawrence seaway. We in the maritime provinces will have to pay our full proportionate share of that development.


An hon. Member:: Nonsense.


Alfred Johnson Brooks: No nonsense about it. We hear so much about the trans-Canada pipe line. What benefit will the maritime provinces receive from that? Let no one say it is nonsense to say that we will receive no benefft. As a Canadian from the maritime provinces, may I say that we do not oppose these developments in other parts of Canada.
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We are glad to see the development of Canada, but we feel that we are entitled to some compensation when our money is paid out for the benefit of other parts of Canada and we receive absolutely no benefit.
Take the crown corporation that is being formed for the commercial development of atomic energy. It might very well have been established in the maritime provinces. We thought it was coming to the province of Nova Scotia. New Brunswick would not have objected to that, but instead it is being established here in the province of Ontario where there is a surplus of practically everything that goes to develop a country.
As I say, these are arguments that we could use, but *we do not intend to do so. We hope that out of pure justice to our own province and the other maritime provinces the government will give these matters due consideration.
Finally I wish to say that we are most sincere about this matter. I hope that all members from New Brunswick and the maritime provinces generally will add their voices to those who have already spoken. We are all interested because power is the key which will bring prosperity to that section of the dominion.
In the United States attention is being paid to what may be called depressed areas. We are not calling the maritimes a depressed area, but we might say that they are a neglected area. In the southern states of the United States and even in the New England states their atomic energy commission is locating many of their atomic reactors for commercial purposes. They are doing so in the New England states to bolster the economy of that part of their country. Why should these things not be done in Canada? We do not want a concentration of industry and people in the central provinces while on the extremities people are without industries and employment. It is not a healthy situation, and it is one which I believe can be corrected if the government will give serious consideration to the matter.
The proposal contained in the amendment is a very advanced step which would do a lot to improve the situation as far as that part of Canada is concerned. I do not think I need say any more, but I do hope the government will give every consideration to the amendment now before us. If they do I am sure they will be doing something which will be of great benefit to the part of the country from which I come.


Mr. Clarence Gillis (Cape Breton South):: Mr. Speaker, the amendment moved by the

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they are using for pulp purposes. The situation has reached the point where Nova Scotians are obliged to negotiate with a United States company in order to buy back some of their own pulpwood.
Of course, if a mill is to be established in this country, the location of that mill is not decided in Canada because the pulp and paper industry is largely in United States hands today to the extent, as I said before, that the uncut reserves are leased to them over a long period of time. That is true not only of pulp and paper but it is true also of automobiles, aluminium, nickel and the gold mines. We are losing our hold on our basic resources. It is true of iron ore and of steel to some considerable extent.
So when we are talking about developing our own resources we have to take a look at the leases we have granted to capital from the other side of the border. We do not have the say any more. In my opinion we have done a bad job of collective bargaining in farming out our natural resources. People talk about secession and going over to the United States. They do not have to go to the United States, because the United States has come over to them and in many ways they are calling the shots.
I know there were negotiations by the provincial government for some considerable time in connection with the pulp and paper development around Canso. It was hoped that a mill was going in there, but when the decision was made it was put somewhere else and that mill is going somewhere in Halifax county, although the best site was around the strait of Canso.
There is an organization functioning in the maritimes today that I consider one of the best developments since confederation, and that is the Atlantic economic council. Within the last few days I received one of their reports. They are studying this whole question. The governments of the maritime provinces have formed this economic council and staffed it with very able personnel. They are now studying the possibilities of developing the resources of Newfoundland, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island, and how these provinces can best complement the economy of the other provinces. They have a committee on each of these resources, and on the question of power the committee make it quite clear in their report that they agree with what I am saying now so far as Nova Scotia is concerned. They are gathering a lot of data on this particular question of power. The committee say the power is there, and it is just a matter of getting some industries into the province to apply it.
[Mr. Gillls.l
There are things the government could do without this resolution, but they have not done them. For example, this government knows, and the provincial government knows, that the coal industry has lost about 3,000 people in the last couple of years. You would imagine that the government would be thinking there has to be something in that particular area to take up the slack. I appeal to the Minister of Public Works (Mr. Winters).
For example, there is a fish plant at Morien which keeps a whole community of 3,000 or 4,000 people. It is the only industry in the area. If the breakwater which is there were expanded, and it would not cost a lot of money to put it in good shape, much greater room would be provided for boats. The basin comes right in from the sea and the storms are quite heavy. Larger boats and more boats could be used for fishing in that area, and the fish plant could be expanded greatly. I looked in the estimates but there is nothing for that purpose. You would not have to have any extra authority, because that is the prerogative of the Department of Public Works. The industry could be expanded because there is a market for those products.
Second, the town of Glace Bay is a town which has been hit by the closing of these mines. It has a population of 28,000 and there is a huge investment in churches, schools, and that sort of thing. There is a harbour there that is not in too bad shape. It is one of the best swordfishing grounds and during the season boats come in there from Lunenburg and all over Nova Scotia and Newfoundland. The harbour is small but it could be widened and deepened. It could be built up to accommodate twice the number of vessels that fish out of there now. This is the biggest swordfishing industry in North America and the catch goes to the United States, where it is a very expensive dish. This town has lost thousands of its population because of the closing of the mines.
The Minister of Public Works could very easily have said, well, there are two fish plants there that employ 600 to 700 people. The harbour does not accommodate very big boats, but if it were widened and dredged you could expand these fish plants so they would take up some of the slack from the waning coal industry. What is needed in most industrial communities is a source of auxiliary income.
In these homes around the steel plants and coal mines you will find two or three young women who cannot find employment in the community. Most such young women are employed in these fish plants and thus bring extra income into the home to supplement what the father is getting, perhaps from

unemployment insurance. There may be one man working in a home and supporting a family of eight or nine, many of them grown young women. The expansion of the breakwater at Morien and the widening and deepening of the Glace Bay harbour would do exactly the things I am saying. You do not have to have any extra authority to put something in the estimates of the Department of Public Works to cover those two items. I have talked about this for two years, but there still is not anything in the estimates.
As I said before, the Atlantic economic council is doing a good job. In time I believe we are going to be told through these organizations that we cannot continue to look to our Ontario and Quebec markets for the products of the maritime provinces. We will be told we have a market within the maritimes and we can trade within the maritimes. If that development takes places, then this part of the country is going to lose the lucrative market down there, but the maritime provinces are going to benefit 100 per cent. That is the purpose behind the formation of the Atlantic economic council and the industrial development boards. There are three of them, one in Glace Bay, one in Sydney and one in Antigonish county.
I realize that in time the basic industry of coal is going to peter out, especially when the gas line goes into Quebec and the Canadian National Railways completes the dieselization program. Something will have to take its place. I believe that pulp and paper at Canso is a natural. I believe that the expansion of steel production at the Sydney plant is the next step. I believe that in addition to turning out raw steel at that plant there should be a considerable amount of the steel fabricated in that area.
You know, just recently the capacity for raw steel at Stelco was pretty well taken up. They were shipping the raw material down to Sydney, and I suppose you were paying a freight subsidy on it. Dosco was turning out ingots and shipping them back up to Stelco again to be fabricated, and I suppose you were paying another subsidy on dragging them back to Hamilton.
I believe that Dosco is now considering the expansion of the steel plant at Sydney. It is a bit late; it should have been done a long time ago. Over the past 16 years many of us in the house have been urging that, because they have their own iron ore deposits at Wabana, Newfoundland. They do not have to depend on anything else. They have huge deposits there and all kinds of modern equipment for taking it from under the ground. It is only 90 miles from Newfoundland to the
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Sydney plant. They have their own coal mines next door to them. All the raw material necessary to turn out steel is right there. If there is any place in Canada where the manufacture of steel and steel fabrication should be going on at the cheapest possible rate it should be right in the Sydney area.
The United States steel people come all the way down to Quebec and drag their iron ore up from there to the head of the lakes. Dosco have their own ships, their own coal mines, their own gypsum deposits, their own limestone deposits; everything that goes into the manufacture of steel is right there at their back door, and they own it all. Why more raw steel is not made and more fabrication turned out there is a mystery to me. Perhaps there is a little too much United States capital in the steel industry today. I know four of the board of directors of Dosco are pretty big United States money men. They may have some influence in preventing the development of steel in that area, because perhaps it would interfere with their markets.
I trust the federal government will give some consideration to the setting up of this kind of a fund. It does not seem to me that there is any other way we are going to be able to work the resources-what is left of them- in this country. I cannot see any Canadian investors rushing in to develop areas like the iron ore deposits at Ungava and Labrador. They do not seem very anxious to get into textiles. That field is pretty well controlled in the United States. We do not seem to have people in this country who have enough confidence in the country to invest their money. The people of the United States are gamblers. They are doing it over there, and they are getting quite a control over our natural resources.
I think the discussion is timely. I am in hopes that when the Gordon commission reports we shall not treat it as we have treated other reports of commissions. The Sirois report was brought down in 1940. There were volumes and volumes of it. I do not think any hon. member could ever read it all. I picked out the parts that pertained to the maritime provinces. The Sirois report was a new constitution for Canada. It had everything that was necessary to the rehabilitation of the country, the development of its resources, an educational system, and so forth. But it went to the archives, as have the reports of commission after commission.
I hope when the Gordon commission reports -I trust the report will not be too lengthy, and that we shall all be able to read it-every hon. member will take it and have a square look at it and say to himself: "I represent

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Canada and Canadians. Every last recommendation in this report we are going to see implemented. I do not come from British Columbia or Ontario; I come from Canada". I hope that is the attitude we shall take; we are all Canadians and we want a balanced economy; we want the same educational advantages. If we have resources to be developed, Canada will pitch in and help develop them, and see that it is not made the responsibility of any particular province which may not be able to do it. We should all be glad to help one another. I hope that is the kind of approach we take to the Gordon report when we get it. I believe it is going to be a good one. The personnel of the commission are able men and will do and say the things that are right for this country when they report.
I was very pleased that the Leader of the Opposition brought on this discussion. Of course it is a socialist measure. I heard the leader of the C.C.F. party in 1942, 1943 and 1944 ask for the setting up of a development fund along the same lines and for the same purpose. But of course the Leader of the Opposition has been here a long while now. This is a bigger forum than the one he came from. He has heard all of those debates, and a lot of them have rubbed off on him. He himself is becoming a little socialistic, and I hope he will continue the attitude that he has taken this afternoon.
He put his discussion on a broad national base. You know, for some time I was afraid that he was supporting the kind of thing that is going on in this country, namely following the same pattern that has been carried on in the United States, developing the centre of the country and leaving the east and the west as the hewers of wood and the drawers of water. That is pretty well the development that we are getting in Canada. That is the kind of thing that Hitler was aiming at in Europe. He aimed to make Germany the super state with the supermen. He was going to use the rest of Europe as the hewers of wood and the drawers of water, the suppliers of raw material and brawn. The Germans were going to preside over them as the great super race, and they were going to keep the rest of the continent in slavery.
Well, if you look at the United States you will find that the centre is rich. They have everything they require. But if you go to the south you will find they still have the thatched roof and the tarpaper shacks. If you go into the New England states, if you drive through there, you will find that they are no better off than they are in the maritime provinces, and maybe not as well off,

because there has not been very much industrial development taking place in that part of the country. Let us not follow the backward pattern that was set in other countries a long time ago when perhaps it was all right, when you had to concentrate population.
Today we are in a different position. Today it should be the aim in Canada to put every section of this country on exactly the same basis for every purpose. It is a bad development both socially and economically to build up the centre as we have in Ontario and not so much in Quebec, where problems are being created. There are sections of Ontario today that are screaming for relief from school and housing problems. People are being dumped in there both through immigration and migration from other provinces. That has happened to such an extent that they are not able to handle them and provide the necessary services, hospitalization, schools and so forth. The premier of Ontario said that himself on several occasions.
I do not think any country will ever be great until everybody in it shares equally in the wealth of the country. I hope we have made a start by this amendment of the Leader of the Opposition. I know that the government, the Minister of National Health and Welfare (Mr. Martin), the Minister of Finance (Mr. Harris) and others on that side of the house are social-minded. I know they have been thinking about this all the time. They have just been waiting to find out where the Conservative party stood. Now they know. They have the green light and I am reasonably sure they are going to take full advantage of it. I shall be watching the reaction of the Leader of the Opposition.
I hope that the suggestion made by the hon. member for Royal that the atomic energy development plant be sent down to the mari-times will be acted upon. It should have gone to New Brunswick or Nova Scotia. If there ever was a place where the experiments should have been carried out, it is down there. I hope the Leader of the Opposition will prevail upon the government of Ontario to make a donation of that power plant. I am sure the federal government would be willing to throw in their share if the province of Ontario said we are going to do for the maritime provinces exactly what Canada has done for India; we are going to lift the power plant out of Ontario and ship it down to one of the maritime provinces, because since the power plant was lifted from Ontario and shipped over to

India bit by bit-it was done under the Colombo plan-I understand it has done a pretty good job over there.
I hope the Leader of the Opposition will have a talk with Mr. Frost and see if he would consider making a gesture of that kind toward the rehabilitation of the maritimes.


Mr. W. D. Wylie (Medicine Hal):: Mr. Speaker, it is not very often that I speak in this house, but I do feel I can support the amendment that is now introduced. I must say, however, that I have to disagree with the last speaker when he says this is a socialistic measure. I rather disagree with him. I think this is something we had long before we had socialists in this country, and I am sure it will be carried on long after the socialists have gone.
In this connection I might say that I listened to the radio this morning and learned that there is a very good socialist in the Conservative party. I was rather astounded when I heard it, Mr. Speaker, but apparently the hon. member for Broadview (Mr. Hees) was talking to some club in Toronto and he said he thought that all athletes who take part in any Olympic games should be supported by the government-


An hon. Member:: He is a real socialist.


Mr. Hees:: On a question of privilege, Mr. Speaker, may I correct that statement. I said that the hockey team which represents Canada at the Olympic games should be supported by this government to insure that we will have a star team and make sure we win the next time.


William Duncan McKay Wylie: Well, Mr. Speaker, perhaps he was misquoted again, but may I say that I still think private enterprise and our good hockey teams in this country can produce a good enough hockey to beat any Russian team that was ever iced without any assistance from any government.


An hon. Member:: Get Beliveau.


William Duncan McKay Wylie: Yes, you are right; we should get Jean Beliveau and Maurice Richard. I could name them all, Mr. Speaker, because I am a keen hockey fan, but I know that you would call me out of order if I did.
Returning to this amendment, I think it is very timely and deals with something we all must consider; that is the development of our water resources in this country. Coming from a very dry area as I do, without power developments-


An hon. Member:: Dry is the word.


William Duncan McKay Wylie: Someone interjected something, Mr. Speaker, and I did not hear what he said. I wish he would get up and say it now.
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He is still laughing about it. It could not have been very much, and I would not expect it to be very much coming from the hon. member from whom it came.
When we hear power development considered we always connect it with irrigation. Irrigation has done a great deal for the southern part of Alberta and will do more in the future. Lately we have had another project about 30 miles northeast of Medicine Hat that is drawing the attention of the federal authorities as well as the provincial authorities. In the Medicine Hat News of Wednesday, February 15 the mayor of the city of Medicine Hat had this to say-


An hon. Member:: City?


William Duncan McKay Wylie: Yes, it is a city, perhaps bigger than your city. The mayor is reported as saying:
Negotiations will be opened by the city with the federal government for a cost picture on development of the Rapids Narrows dam project. Mayor Veiner said this morning that the city would be interested in obtaining power from this site, in view of future gas prices which will boost costs at the local gas plant. The government would have the water available for irrigation purposes east of the city. The dam site is some 30 miles north of the city on the South Saskatchewan river, and such hydro power, he believes, would be considerably cheaper than that produced in a steam or gas-induction generator.
When we talk about power projects we always have irrigation projects in mind. This is a project I mentioned to the Minister of Agriculture last spring. I am sure the minister remembers the telegram I sent him concerning this same project. At that time I received a letter from the minister to this effect:
April 27, 1955
Dear Mr. Wylie:
I have just read your wire of April 21 this morning. I only returned to the office on Monday.
We have no information whatsoever with regard to a proposed dam north of Medicine Hat. P.F.R.A. officials have had no association with the proposal.
So now we are back at it again, and I hope this time the minister will give this project some consideration because we do need more electrical power in Medicine Hat and the surrounding area.
I might mention to the minister that this project received much attention all over southern Alberta. Even the Hanna Herald had a big article concerning it, as did the Lethbridge Herald and many other papers. I do hope that when the city of Medicine Hat gets in touch with the P.F.R.A. officials this year we will have some action, and if we have action at this time we will also have a huge area north and east of Medicine Hat and extending far into Saskatchewan that could develop into an excellent irrigation project.

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We know what has happened with the South Saskatchewan dam project. Nothing has been done outside of what might be called survey work. I am sure there are many people living in that area who believe it is a project that should be developed, and I certainly do not blame them.
We in the southern part of both provinces, and I am speaking now for Saskatchewan as well as for Alberta, believe that if we can develop our natural resources in the way of irrigation or power it should be done. We know what irrigation has done for southern Alberta. I could talk for 40 minutes on that subject, Mr. Speaker, but I shall not do so at this time. I think there will be another time when I can speak on it and perhaps be more in order, and that is on the minister's estimates.
However, I do suggest to the government that the development of our water resources, no matter whether it is in southern Alberta, southern Saskatchewan or in any other province, is of great importance. It is important not only for the province in which the project is situated but it is important for the whole of Canada. I think that is something we must consider.
Of course irrigation is a "must" in both southern Alberta and southern Saskatchewan. I could go back to the years before irrigation out there and tell you some of the circumstances of those days, but we do not have to go back so far. All we have to do is go back to 1936, 1937 and 1938, when the only crops in that area were obtained where there was irrigation. In the southern part of the province we have had five exceptionally good crops.
At the present time many farmers ask, "What do we want irrigation for?" Many of those farmers have perhaps 150 or 160 acres coming under the ditch at the present time; but I must say that whilst we have had five exceptionally good years-and no one knows it better than the Minister of Trade and
Commerce and the Minister of Agriculture___
we are going to have some more years that will not be so favourable. In the southern part of the province we consider every year to be a dry year. If we have an exceptional amount of rain, as we had last July, we think we are just lucky. I hope that keeps up so that we do not have to use all the water that comes in the ditch, but we must be prepared for it in this respect, that Chinook winds in the southern part of both provinces can ruin a very good crop in four or five days.
I am reminded of a poem which I think is very good. Many people moved out to the prairies. We have heard a good deal about

the Palliser triangle. I often wish that everyone would forget about the Palliser triangle, but I heard it mentioned in the house today by the hon. member for Rosetown-Biggar, and so it brings us back to the Palliser triangle. This poem has been quoted many times, but I am going to quote it again. An old homesteader in the southern part of the province, before any irrigation was put in there, left this on his door:
Seven miles to water,
Fifteen miles to wood.
You can have my desert homestead.
I am leaving it for good.
That is very true. I am sure the Minister of Agriculture knows that area much better than I do. However, he has seen the changes in that area and the way the people moved in there, had a few good crops and then moved out. I have seen the same thing happen in Medicine Hat only a few years ago. Perhaps they are doing that today in southwestern Saskatchewan. When those people move out of southwestern Saskatchewan they come into Alberta, into the Vaux-hall and Haynes area west of Medicine Hat, an area that is being developed under the Minister of Agriculture through the P.F.R.A., which is doing a very good job.
Before I conclude, may I say that I believe the P.F.R.A. should be continued by the government in those very worth-while projects. It means the difference between a good livelihood and a poor one, perhaps the difference between someone thinking that Canada is doing a good job for its citizens and someone dissatisfied and thinking the opposite. I hope the government takes this amendment into consideration. I certainly am very glad to see it brought up at this time, and I am very glad to support it.


Mr. A. J. MacEachen (Inverness-Richmond):: I rise to speak in this debate because it focuses attention on one of the factors involved in our economic development. Several members who have already spoken have stressed the relationship between power development and economic development generally, and it is to that particular phase of the question that I should like to address some of my remarks.
A great industrialist, Cyrus Eaton, made the remark that industry springs where power is, especially where cheap electric power is. It is true that the availability of power at competitive rates is a factor of first rate importance in the location of particular industries; and it is true, of course, that power is of secondary importance in the location of other industries.
It is important, in discussing power in its relation to economic development, to realize

that it is simply one of several decisive factors in industrial location. Any consulting firm would certainly regard location near valuable raw materials, location near important markets and, certainly, location near suitable labour skills as equally important with power in the development of any industry, or in some cases much more important. So in presenting any argument on the importance of power one must conclude that it is a necessary condition, but not a sufficient condition, of industrial location.
In Nova Scotia, and to some extent in several of the other eastern provinces, we have exhausted our hydroelectric possibilities. We have as a result been accustomed to attribute our slower rate of economic development to the lack of hydroelectric possibilities in the maritime provinces. There has been in existence in Nova Scotia and elsewhere in the maritime provinces a very real feeling that the scarcity of power, and especially the lack of power at what are regarded as competitive rates, is one of the chief causes of the slower rate of economic development.
I do not intend to review the problem fully, but I think I should say enough to indicate that all the studies I have seen on the economic development of the maritime provinces indicate that the lack of power at competitive rates is not of crucial importance in the economic development of the eastern provinces. One of the studies I have at hand was conducted by Professor Keirstead of McGill University shortly after the war, when he was asked to investigate the probable economic effects of the war on the maritime provinces of Canada. One of the subjects to which he addressed himself was this particular subject of power and industrial development. He made this comment:
Power costs have often been regarded, particularly in industries like pulp and paper, as of decisive importance in determining location advantage. Our evidence suggests the possibility of exaggerating the importance of power as a location factor.
Later on in his analysis of the pulp and paper industry Professor Keirstead gives some rather convincing evidence. He states that the power costs, for example, of a median establishment in Quebec are some 5 per cent lower than a similar establishment in Nova Scotia, and further that in pulp and paper, to carry out his illustration, power costs are one-fifteenth of the total cost of production, so that the general advantage that a Quebec competitor would enjoy over a Nova Scotian competitor would be something like -33 per cent per ton output. Therefore the conclusion is inescapable that in this particular instance, which may be
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applicable to other industries, power is not and has not been a decisive determinant in industrial location.
To bring the discussion up to present day evidence, I was interested, like the hon. member for Cape Breton South, in reading some of the arguments presented by the Atlantic provinces economic council in a report issued just recently. I share the views the hon. member for Cape Breton South has expressed with respect to this new organization in the Atlantic provinces. One of the first duties undertaken by it was to set up a power committee to examine the power situation in the Atlantic provinces. Because it is of some interest I might mention that the chairman of the power committee is Mr. R. E. Tweeddale, assistant chief engineer of the New Brunswick Power Commission. The committee made what must be regarded as a preliminary study of the power situation in the Atlantic provinces, and this is the result of their preliminary study. They say:
Basically, there is an adequate supply of electric power available In the maritime region to meet present demands. The committee believes that electric power can be made available for any section of the region to meet future demands.
Then the committee looked into the competitive relationship of power costs in the maritime provinces and other areas. It is true that power costs are higher in the Atlantic provinces than in the central provinces, but the committee states that power rates in the Atlantic provinces are not out of line with power rates on the eastern seaboard of the United States, and there it is not argued that power has been a decisive determinant of industrial location. To argue thus is to say that power has not been a decisive determinant of industrial location, but I think it is true that if you combine our lack of competitive advantage in power with some of our other disadvantages, namely our distance from national markets and the high costs of transportation, you may have more illuminating reasons for the relative lack of economic growth in the Atlantic provinces. It may be that if we could develop very cheap power for distribution in the Atlantic provinces it would be a compensating factor that would make up for our evident disadvantages in geography.
In Nova Scotia, of course, we must depend on coal for power generation. Our hydroelectric possibilities are exhausted, and it would be unrealistic to consider the generation of power from any other source. I must say that the Department of Mines and Technical Surveys has been alive to the importance of the coal industry in the generation of power in the maritime provinces. The hon. member for Cape Breton South has referred
1374	HOUSE OF
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to the investigation made by Professor Christie into thermal power generation in the Atlantic provinces. In his report Professor Christie did make a very important suggestion which is worthy of study by the provincial governments of Nova Scotia and New Brunswick.
He suggested a single power authority to administer the private and public power companies in New Brunswick and Nova Scotia. This single power authority would be completely responsible for the generation and distribution of power in these two provinces. He further suggested that this interconnecting system might be linked with the system in northern Maine and that in the part of Quebec on the New Brunswick border.
He claimed very outstanding advantages for this proposal. It would join the hydro and coal electrical generating systems and would permit the development of larger plants with very evident economies in operation. It would follow that there would be a cheaper electrical rate with a very reliable source of distribution. This is one of the interesting proposals that came out of Professor Christie's study, and one that is certainly in line with the need of developing the electrical possibilities in Nova Scotia and New Brunswick and in line with the requirements of the coal industry.
This afternoon the Leader of the Opposition referred to the problem of underground gasification of coal. This is a problem which has been the subject of considerable study by various organizations. I have, for example, the annual report for 1951 of the Nova Scotia research foundation, which contains a rather technical discussion of the experimental difficulties in developing this process for commercial utilization. While experiments have apparently been conducted in various countries, no country has yet succeeded in bringing this development to commercial utilization, and I think the reason is that they have been unable to solve the combustion process so that they get a gas of sufficient heat.
But while the underground gasification of coal cannot at present be a practical possibility, there is another form of gasification of coal that I think has advanced to a more satisfactory stage. I refer to the surface gasification of coal. There have been experiments undertaken at Morgantown, West Virginia, by the department of mines of Washington, and they now have in existence and in commercial use surface plants which do gasify coal. I understand there are several of these plants in operation in that part of the United States.
fMr. MacEachen.]

Its implications for the power industry and also for the coal industry of Nova Scotia are very evident. If we had a unit that could gasify, for example, 7,000 tons of coal a day, and I think that is one of the economical units, we would have a market that would absorb maybe 3 million tons of Nova Scotia coal a year. If we did that, what effect would it have on the annual expenditures we make today in subventions for the movement of coal from Cape Breton? Here is something that we should look into.
You may then ask this question. If you gasify this coal, what do we do to dispose of the gas? This, of course, would require a type of development that would bring this gas to the more populous centres of Canada. If it were economical to send gas up to Quebec, for example, it would be certainly a practical possibility because of the stability it would provide to the Nova Scotia coal industry and because of the more useful way in which to expend this annual amount of money that is now spent on subventions.
This is one of the more promising experiments now going on in the United States. In the next few months or the next few years I am sure we are going to hear a good deal more about this experiment that is now going on at Morgantown, and that may have important implications for the coal industry of the province of Nova Scotia.
This amendment is an interesting one. It focuses attention on one of the elements of industrial development. It leaves unmentioned several of the others. At the present stage the proposal does not appear to be a certain way of assisting in the particular economic disabilities of the Atlantic provinces.


Clarence Gillis: Would the hon. member answer a question? Having regard to the experiment at Morgantown, is it not called low temperature carbonization? In Burlington, Ontario, there is a plant which has been operating along similar lines for many years. Mr. W. A. Caunt operates it. He approached the provincial government. I think the technical term for what is going on at Morgantown is low temperature carbonization, by means of which the gas is extracted from almost any kind of coal. The reason I wanted to correct the term is that "gasification" would be misleading.


George Harris Hees: Mr. Speaker, when the Prime Minister (Mr. St. Laurent) was speaking on the question of development in Edmonton last September he had this to say, and I quote his words:
Canada stands at the threshold of expansion unequalled in our history. We believe that if we can maintain a vigorous and expanding economy.

and if we can create the conditions under which Canadians can avail themselves of the great opportunities this country presents, then none of us need fear for his future or for the future of the nation.
Who is going to quarrel with that statement of the Prime Minister? Certainly not the Conservative party, because we have been trying to convince the government of the common sense and factuality of these economic facts of life, and to persuade them to act on those facts. All we wish is that the Prime Minister and his colleagues would act as confidently as they speak, and that their actions were as bold as their words.
As the Prime Minister has said, this country presents tremendous opportunities. But opportunities do not just come to you. Opportunities must be seized. As he said, we in Canada are on the threshold of an unequalled expansion. But, Mr. Speaker, thresholds must be crossed. They do not just stand there waiting for you. The possibilities which the Prime Minister outlined will become realities only if we have imaginative planning and action by business, industry and, not least of all, the Prime Minister's own government. What, I ask you, is this government doing to promote this country's expansion? What strong and visible foundation is this government placing under Canada's future?
When he was speaking in Edmonton the Prime Minister mentioned the St. Lawrence seaway. In that regard, he suggested that the benefits that would be derived from this project would be felt in all parts of the country. On that subject he had this to say:
This project seems to illustrate a truth that is too often forgotten-that any contribution to the Canadian economy is a contribution to all of Canada and not just to the area immediately concerned.
Mr. Speaker, that is, of course, perfectly true. But why is this government at present engaged only on the St. Lawrence seaway? Why is it not pushing ahead with similar projects of similar magnitude, which would have similar benefits in other parts of the country?
Every Canadian and every part of this country will gain through the construction of power and irrigation works on the South Saskatchewan river. But this government has consistently refused to give any assistance whatsoever to the government of the province of Saskatchewan. Hence this great project, which has been demonstrated to be practical and desirable, remains an unrealized dream.
As the Leader of the Opposition so ably pointed out this afternoon, this project can do tremendous things for the province of Saskatchewan. First of all, it will provide more than half a million acres of irrigated
Power Development
land which today is wheat-growing land but which then will become market-gardening land. This will greatly diversify and improve the agricultural economy of Saskatchewan. In the second place, it will provide enough cheap hydroelectric power to make it possible for industries to locate in Saskatchewan in order to further diversify the economy of that province and make life better for the people who live there. After all of these protestations of its desire to develop the country, is this government interested in helping to make life better for the people in that province? The answer, of course, has been given on many occasions by this government, and it is a flat no.
As the hon. member for Royal so ably stated a few minutes ago in this house, all of Canada will gain by the construction of the Beechwood project to develop hydroelectric power on the Saint John river. This government again has consistently refused to give Premier Flemming the very reasonable assistance which he has asked of this government, namely that they simply give his power bonds federal backing so that he can obtain the money he needs for that project at a far lower rate of interest than can be obtained without it. This would make it possible for the people of New Brunswick to have a lighter tax load than would otherwise be possible.
Mr. Speaker, what Premier Flemming has asked for will not cost this government or the taxpayers of Canada one penny. Yet this government, which professes and gives lip service to a desire to develop this country, refuses to help that province to help itself to develop hydroelectric power which it desperately needs in order to bring industries to that province to help it diversify its economy so that it will be less dependent on its primary products; which it needs to smelt its new-found ores and which it needs to benefit greatly every resident of the province and make life better for them. Is this government interested in that development? The answer, of course, has been given on several occasions by this government, and it is a flat no.
Now, once again every Canadian will benefit if cheap power can be produced from Nova Scotia coal. This government has refused to proceed with research to find out if cheap electric power could be produced-


Mr. Prudham:: That is not right.


George Harris Hees: -by burning Nova Scotia coal below ground, as has been done in Germany and in Russia. The government is not interested in helping Nova Scotia produce cheap electric power from these vast quantities of coal, thereby attracting industry and diversifying that province's economy.

Power Development
All of Canada will gain if it is found practicable to harness the tides in Passamaquoddy bay to produce cheap hydroelectric power in that manner. There is a potential source of a million horsepower of cheap hydroelectric power waiting to be developed if that project is found practical. This government has consistently refused to put up its share of the money needed for research to find out once and for all if that project is or is not practicable. Once again, by its refusal to do so this government is denying the maritime provinces the potential use of one million horsepower of cheap hydroelectric power.
All of Canada would gain, Mr. Speaker, by harnessing the great hydroelectric power potential of the Columbia river in British Columbia. But has this government given any indication of any desire to co-operate with the government of British Columbia to develop that great hydroelectric power potential? The answer is no.


Mr. Lesage:: How many millions of dollars have we spent on surveys of the Columbia?


George Harris Hees: All of Canada would gain by harnessing the great hydroelectric power potential of White Mud falls and the Kettle rapids on the Nelson river in Manitoba. Is this government interested, after all the lip service it has given to the desire to develop this country, in co-operating with the Manitoba government in producing that power? The answer is once again a dismal and resounding no.
Yet, Mr. Speaker, it is public investment in the type of project I have mentioned that encourages the private investment, both domestic and foreign, which we need to make it possible to have the expansion this country must have. It is on the firm basis of things like seaways and highways, natural gas and electric power, irrigation and reclamation, that people build homes, offices and factories. The government say these things cost money. Of course they cost money, but that money is readily repaid over and over again with interest in the form of higher and more stable tax revenue. These kinds of projects Mr. Speaker, present to any government the only way out of the dilemma that governments today are facing, that is how to cut taxes and at the same time increase social security measures.
The credit, sir, of this country is good. It will not be strained one iota by borrowing the capital necessary for the basic development of this country. If Canadians will lend their government $12 billion, as they did during the last war, to be shot up in smoke, then Canadians will certainly lend their government a billion dollars or so to be invested in self-liquidating projects of the iMr. Hees.]
kind I have mentioned. The people of this country have just as much faith in the future of this country as the Prime Minister professes to have. If he will act with vigour and imagination, he will find that the people of this country will back him up.
What we need, as the Leader of the Opposition outlined this afternoon, is a national development policy, a policy which will assist the provinces that request assistance, in developing power and other projects which can be demonstrated to be both practical and capable of expanding that province's economy. All of the projects I have outlined so far tonight come well within that category.
It is only through such a policy as the Leader of the Opposition outlined this afternoon that this country can develop all the potential sources of cheap power from coast to coast and so attract industry, which goes to power, to the areas which need it most, such as the west and the maritimes. Industries establish themselves in certain localities for two maih reasons. The first is because they believe that their cost of production will be lower than otherwise, and the second is because they believe their cost of distribution will be lower, and that they will be able to make more rapid deliveries of their finished products to their customers.
Power is a very important component of any cost, and the reason a very high proportion of industry in this country has so far concentrated in Ontario and Quebec is simply because there has been an abundance of cheap electric power in both those provinces. If equally cheap power could be developed in important quantities in the maritimes and in the west, then branch plants would be located in those areas because it would be to the advantage of industry to locate there.
The advantages industry will derive are three in number. First, they will have a power cost as cheap as anywhere else in the country. Second, they will make tremendous savings because their cost of distribution will be lower than if they have to pay for the long freight haul from central Canada to the west or the maritimes. Third, the time of delivery of the finished article will be out down considerably, and under today's competitive economic conditions, that is a very important factor.
If the decentralization of industry could be made a reality as a result of the adoption of the policies outlined by the Leader of the Opposition this afternoon; if we could develop cheaper sources of electric power in all parts of this country, then our whole economy would be strengthened. It would be strengthened because the west and the maritimes would be less dependent on their

primary products, and their individual economies would become more stable.
Another thing I believe we must do to strengthen our economy, and increase employment and prosperity right across this country is, as the Leader of the Opposition has urged on many occasions, that this government should give the lead in promoting the processing of far more of our primary products right here in Canada. It is almost unbelievable, but it is a fact, that we seem quite content to ship most of our primary products out of the country in their raw state, to feed the mass producing machines of the United States and other countries. Then we turn around and buy back many of those raw materials in their finished form.
There is no reason at all why a far larger proportion of our raw materials should not be turned into the finished article by Canadian workmen working in Canadian plants. If people from the United States, from Britain, from Germany and others can take Canadian raw materials, turn them into finished products, and find a ready market throughout the world for those products, then there is no reason in the world why Canadians, working with Canadian raw materials in Canadian plants cannot find just as good a market in other parts of the world as do people of other nationalities who use our raw materials today.
What we need is some action, once again, by this lethargic government. We want the government to give a lead to industry in two ways; first of all by sponsoring a greatly expanded industrial research program, and second by revising its taxation policies so that new industries will be induced to start up, and present industries will be induced to expand.
Mr. Speaker, we know-everyone of us knows-that we have right here in Canada everything that is needed for a tremendous industrial expansion. We have enough food to feed several times our present population. We have almost unbelievable supplies of timber and iron ore, which are the basic requirements of any industrial program. We have almost unbelievable resources of every kind of power; we have tremendous resources of practically every metal that is needed in industry, nickel, lead, zinc, copper. Anything you can name we have in tremendous quantities. We have the brains; we have capital, and we can attract capital from the outside. We have proved that. All we need is some leadership from this government to make it possible for this country to have the economic development of which we are capable.
I urge the government to take three steps in that regard. First of all, the Leader of the
Power Development
Opposition urged this afternoon the introduction of a national development policy to assist provincial governments who wish to have assistance in developing power and other natural resources within their own borders; second, to sponsor a greatly expanded industrial research program, to help industry develop new products and develop cheaper methods of production; third, to revise our taxation policies so that new industries will be encouraged to start up and present industries will be encouraged to expand. Instead of sitting back and doing nothing, if this government will take common-sense economic action to help this country to help itself, if they will help develop power, if they will encourage industry to start up and expand, then this country can and will develop into one of the really great industrial nations of the world.


Mr. A. M. Campbell (The Battlefords):: Mr. Speaker, my main purpose in rising tonight is to try to get more of the members on the government side of the house interested in the South Saskatchewan dam, power and irrigation project. I might say that we now have the support of the Conservative party for this project, and I believe the support of all the members on this side of the house. I believe too that we have the support of the Minister of Agriculture, and a good many members on the other side of the house, particularly all of the members from the province of Saskatchewan. It seems to me we need only a little bit more support on the government side of the house to bring this project into being.
With regard to power, in the province of Saskatchewan we have not a single hydroelectric plant. All our power is produced either from coal, from gas or from diesel power. We want cheaper power in Saskatchewan because we want to see more diversification in that province. Diversification has been going on fairly rapidly during the last few years, and it is predicted in Saskatchewan that in the next ten years, provided we can produce enough power, the so-called wheat economy of Saskatchewan will be completely changed.
We need not only power in our province; we need irrigation. Tonight the hon. member for Medicine Hat told us something about an irrigation project in his province. Last summer I had the good fortune to go through a large part of the irrigated sections of that province. I went into the Vauxhall district about which the hon. member spoke. I wish to take the house back some 50 years, or a little over 50 years, because I was in that district in the year 1905. At that time settlers

Power Development
were few and far between. What settlers there were were scattered along the different rivers.
In those days the cattle population was small because of the fact that there was no water available except in the rivers. They could travel a distance of only about 10 miles for feed because that was about all the distance they could go. Most of the time the cattle were walking back and forth to the river to drink. They never did get very fat. At that time it was considered that it took at least a quarter section of land to feed one cow.
That was the siutation in 1905. I might say that hay was almost not to be found at all, The rancher I worked with at that time thought he was lucky if he could cut a load of hay by keeping his mowing machine going all day. He had to haul it 15 or 20 miles. There were no trees. There was one small bush which was called the lone tree that you could see for 20 miles in all directions. There was no growth; there were no farms; there was nothing but a huge expanse of country that was not worth anything to anybody.
I left that country with a wagon train in 1905. We moved up into what they called the long grass country. Last summer eleven of us decided that since it was 50 years since we left that Vauxhall country, we would like to go back and take a look at it. We did. We went on to Provost and straight south from Provost. After we got about 50 miles from Provost we ran out of farming communities. From there on, almost into Medicine Hat, down to Suffield we saw a few deserted homes.
We stopped and looked at one of the homes that had been deserted. It looked like it had been a pretty nice house. In that house was a piano. When the people who had been there left, no doubt they did not have room on their wagons to carry away the piano, and so the piano was left. The following day we got into the Brooks country.
I am telling the story because, as I said when I opened my remarks, I want to get more members on the government side of the house interested in irrigation. The transformation that has taken place in that area is almost unbelievable. For somebody who left there 50 years ago and went back, the change was almost unbelievable. There was no town of Brooks at that time. There was a section house there and a few section men working on the tracks. There was a small post office, and the postmaster had $200 or $300 worth of groceries. It was very seldom that he had a customer outside of the section-men.
Today there is a town of several thousand inhabitants. Surrounding that town for many miles is one of the finest agricultural districts to be found anywhere in Canada. Instead of cattle walking 10 miles to get their feed and 10 miles back to get their water, cattle and sheep by the thousands are standing knee deep in alfalfa. They have to move only a few feet to get a drink of water. All they have to do is grow and get fat, and believe me that is what they are doing. We have a half million acres in the province of Saskatchewan that could be developed in just the same way, provided we could get the assistance of the federal government.
I said a few moments ago that it was considered it took at least a quarter section to feed a cow. Cattlemen in particular are vitally interested in irrigation. I came across an article in the Country Guide which told a story illustrating this point. It is a long story concerning irrigation in Alberta. I have not time to go into it, but I do want to read one little part to show what can be done with irrigation in the production of cattle:
The eyes of cattlemen have been recenly focused on irrigated pasture. Because of this, two areas of 500 acres each, five miles east of Hays, have been fenced, broken and seeded to grass mixtures for use as community pastures. Jim Wickenheiser, for one, is planning to buy a flock of sheep. Others are planning on cattle and sheep too, for pasture marketed through livestock can always be sold, and promises good returns per acre.
There is plenty of evidence that this might offer the best hope for these new areas. For instance, W. W. Foss, P.F.R.A. chief engineer at Lethbridge, returned from a tour of U.S. projects in 1954 and said, "I was amazed to find, even in the fabulously rich irrigated valleys of California, grain and livestock as the major sources of income. In all projects an average of about two-thirds of the acreage is devoted to them."
Bight in Canada, at Kamloops, B.C., the range experimental station has produced up to 800 pounds of beef per acre from irrigated pasture. At the Lethbridge experimental station, up to 6,100 pounds of fluid milk have been produced in a year from an acre, while at Broxburn, Alberta, 80 Aberdeen-Angus cows and their calves thrived on only 20 acres last summer.
That illustrates what can be done in the raising of livestock when we have irrigation. Irrigation is not good for cattle production only; there are many different kinds of crops that can be grown on irrigated land.
I have in my hand a press clipping which contains a little story about two young men who came to Canada from the United States:
Dick Butler and Robert Faris were bom and raised in the potato and corn areas of Idaho. They'd done well for themselves but early this spring decided they wanted to do better. They thought sheep raising in Canada or South America would be a good bet.
IMr. Campbell.]

They came to Canada and Mr. Faris is reported to have said:
"When we saw the Bow Island district this spring while looking for sheep land and we heard that irrigation was in sight for this year, we decided that there was no place on earth with better possibilities."
They went right to work and before long had possibly the largest single acreage of dry beans in the British empire, 600 acres of them.
The entire crop is certified seed and they have already made arrangements with neighbours to supply them with seed for the coming year.
"The average Canadian eats 12 pounds of beans per year, while an American eats 15 pounds with the Mexican being at the top with 55 pounds per person per year," said Mr. Faris.
"According to Alberta government statistics, this province imports practically all beans consumed and is presently short about 35,000 acres," he says.
Looking over his first year's crop which he thought wasn't very good Mr. Faris after conversing with his partner said it would go nearly 1,800 pounds to the acre.
"Even if we get a very low price of seven to eight cents a pound," he claimed, "we stand to clear about $100 an acre and where can you beat that."
That is all I want to say this evening, Mr. Speaker, but I do want to urge the government and hon. members on the other side of the house to take another look at the South Saskatchewan river dam and irrigation project. I know that the Prime Minister has been blamed in the newspapers for being the one who opposed this project, but I understand he has been through that part of the country and has seen something of what can be done there. I am hoping he will use his influence to try and see if something can be done in the near future to give Saskatchewan this project.


Mr. B. R. Leboe (Cariboo):: Mr. Speaker, the amendment we have before us has aroused an interesting discussion, and we hope that in years to come we will have some results from the time spent upon it in the house at this time. It is nearly ten o'clock, Mr. Speaker, and I am just wondering if we could perhaps adjourn the debate.
On motion of Mr. Leboe the debate was adjourned.


Mr. Speaker:: Before we proceed to the adjournment of the house I should like to say a few words just for the purpose of informing hon. members of the way I look at the situation.
Power Development
I should like to refer again to the amendment that has been moved. It refers to a joint investment program for the development of power resources in any province where the government of such province requests the co-operation of the government in carrying out such developments.
Some hon. members have already indicated that this amendment is very wide and at least one hon. member, the hon. member for Cape Breton South, referred to a resolution of his on the order paper, a notice of motion which is notice No. 3, which asks for direct government assistance for the establishment of additional or alternative industries in the areas concerned. No doubt he had also in mind, like I have, the notice of motion in the name of the hon. member for Saint John-Albert, No. 24, and the one in the name of the hon. member for Restigouche-Madawaska, No. 27, both of which deal with the consideration to be given by the government to the advisability of providing assistance to the province of New Brunswick in the development of electric power.
It seems to me that some of these notices of motion when they are called, and if they are called between now and the end of the present session, might have been included in the discussion which is now before this house. I do not want to apply the rule of anticipation, but I think hon. members who may feel that the present amendment could block their own notice of motion at a later stage might do well to take advantage of the present debate so that later when their own notice of motion comes along they may be satisfied that having dealt with the substance in this debate, they will not again press their own notice of motion. '
The amendment is so wide that I do not feel I should use citation 350 of Beauchesne's third edition, which is to the effect that it is out of order to move, as an amendment to another question, a motion standing on the order paper as a notice of motion. Therefore, having said that, I hope hon. members will govern themselves accordingly because we do not want to have overlapping of debate or repetition.


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

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

Mr. Knowles: 1.	How many collective agreements between employers and employees in Canada now include a provision lor a guaranteed wage?
2.	How many employees are covered by such contracts?
3.	How many ol such contracts were negotiated during 1954? How many since January 1, 1955?
4.	What relationship exists between such provisions for a guaranteed annual wage and unemployment insurance? Has it been made clear in the unemployment insurance regulations that any payments received from an employer under a guaranteed annual wage plan by an employee not working at the time are not regarded as earnings within the meaning of the Unemployment Insurance Act?
5.	Is the Department of Labour taking any steps to encourage more employers and employees to include provision for a guaranteed annual wage in their collective agreements? If so, what are such steps?
6.	Are there available any departmental studies on the subject of the guaranteed annual wage?
Answer by: Mr. Gregg:
1.	Since the signing last June in the United States of the first guaranteed wage plan in which payments are to be integrated with unemployment insurance payments, five agreements containing plans of a similar nature, frequently known as supplementary unemployment benefit plans, have been negotiated covering Canadian firms.
The department has, in addition, record of five agreements under which a minimum amount of work or wages is guaranteed during the year without reference to unemployment insurance. Three of these are plans of several years' standing. The other two are more recent plans which guarantee a minimum number of weeks of work during the year.
Thus, total plans including both types, of which the department has knowledge, number ten.
2.	The five agreements containing plans of the supplementary unemployment benefit type integrated with unemployment insurance cover 8,261 employees.
The other five agreements containing a guaranteed annual wage plan by our definition cover 1,578 employees.
In total then, 9,839 employees are covered by the ten agreements.
3.	None of the contracts of which the Department of Labour has knowledge were negotiated during 1954. All of the five plans
providing for supplementary payments to unemployment insurance have been negotiated since January 1, 1955.
Of the other five plans, three were negotiated several years ago and two have been negotiated since January 1, 1955.
4.	Since the provisions of guaranteed annual wage plans differ considerably, each plan must be studied before its relationship to the Unemployment Insurance Act can be determined. No specific regulation refers to guaranteed annual wage plans as such. Therefore the unemployment insurance commission would not be in a position to determine whether or not payments received under any particular plan will or will not be regarded as earnings within the meaning of the act until the provisions of that plan are fully considered in the light of all the provisions of the act and regulations.
5.	The Department of Labour does not attempt to encourage or influence management or labour to seek any particular working condition in collective agreements. It is the policy of the department that working conditions should be negotiated freely and directly by the parties concerned.
6.	The only published study on this subject appeared in the September 1953 issue of the Labour Gazette. In that study five agreements were shown as containing annual work or wage guarantees. Three of these are still in existence and are included in the ten agreements having a guarantee as noted above. The plans in the other two agreements in the 1953 study were subsequently deleted from the agreements. Other studies on this subject will be made in due course as warranted.


ARCHBISHOP BORIS OP RUSSIA
[Stage Direction]
Question No. 138
Mr. Hansell:: 1.	Was Archbishop Boris and his party, during their recent trip in Canada, at any time guests of the federal government or any official thereof?
2.	If so, did the government acquaint itself with the background and activities of Archbishop Boris and/or his party?
3.	Was there anything which could cause any hesitation in granting visas and what was the position and official status in the U.S.S.R. of the members of the party?
4.	Did the government inquire as to whether or not visas had been refused by the United States and France to Archbishop Boris or any member of his party?
5.	If so, with what result?
6.	How long was this party travelling in Canada, at what port did they enter, what was their point of departure, and did any government official or officials accompany the party on their tour?
7.	Did the party or any member thereof travel under diplomatic immunity?
8.	Was the entry of the archbishop and his party recommended to the Department of Citizenship and Immigration or any other department of the government? If so, by whom, and did the recommendation state the purpose of the visit?

Answer by: Mr. Pearson:
1.	No.
2.	Answered by No. 1.
3.	No. All requests for visas are carefully scrutinized. The government was supplied with the usual particulars about the individual members of this group, and after the normal consideration by the appropriate Canadian authorities it was decided that visas could be authorized. The official positions of the members of the party were:
Vik, Boris Ivanovich-
Archbishop, Russian Orthodox church.
Ruzitsky, K. I.-
Archpriest, rector of Moscow ecclesiastical
academy.
Gorbatchev, A. P.-
Inspector of Moscow ecclesiastical academy
(a layman).
4 and 5. The United States permitted the archbishop to visit the United States early in 1955, and again issued him a visa in November, 1955, on the understanding that he would minister only to soviet nationals in the United States. Proceedings were taken to cancel this visa, however, when the Soviet union insisted that he be allowed to enter on a permanent basis to exercise the administrative functions of exarch of the Russian Orthodox church in the United States. Since the archbishop wished to come to Canada for a short
Questions
visit only, the United States reasons for refusing him entry did not apply to Canada. Our embassy in Washington was in touch with the state department on this subject. The government did not inquire as to whether visas had been refused by France to Archbishop Boris or any member of his party.
6.	The party travelled in Canada for two weeks, entering on December 4 at Montreal and leaving on December 18, also from Montreal. No government official accompanied the party on its tour.
7.	No. Members of the party were given ordinary non-immigrant visas.
8.	Yes. The general council of the United Church of Canada recommended the entry of the archbishop and his party. The secretary of the general council stated in a letter to the Secretary of State for External Affairs that the object of the visit would be "to establish friendly relations between various communions of the Christian church, to increase our knowledge of one another's problems and to consider some aspects of the general subject of the church and international affairs with which we are all deeply concerned." The request for visas was passed to the Department of Citizenship and Immigration with an explanation of the purpose of the visit, and that department approved the request subject to the normal requirements for non-immigrant entry.


Tuesday, February 21, 1956