1957-03-07

[Stage Direction]
Mr. W. J. Henderson (Kingston) presented the fifth, sixth and seventh reports of the standing committee on miscellaneous private bills, and moved that the fifth report be concurred in.
Motion agreed to.
Fourth report of standing committee on banking and commerce.-Mr. Hunter.
Second report of standing committee on marine and fisheries.-Mr Ashbourne.


Hon. W. E. Harris (Minister of Finance) moved:: That items numbered 172 to 184 inclusive, relating to the Department of Justice; items numbered 396 to 405 inclusive, relating to the Royal Canadian Mounted Police; and items numbered 435 to 453 inclusive, 456 to 464 inclusive, 467 to 496 inclusive and 532 to 535 inclusive, relating to the Department of Transport, as listed in the main estimates 1957-1958, be withdrawn from the committee of supply, and referred to the special committee on estimates, saving always the powers of the committee of supply in relation to the voting of public moneys.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to.


[Stage Direction]
On the order:
The Minister of Transport-The following proposed motion:-
That a sessional committee on railways and shipping owned, operated and controlled by the government, be appointed to consider the accounts and estimates and bills relating thereto of the Canadian National Railways, the Canadian National (West Indies) Steamships, and Trans-Canada Air Lines, saving always the powers of the committee of supply in relation to the voting of public moneys; and that the said committee be empowered to send for persons, papers and records and to report from time to time and that, notwithstanding standing order 67 in relation to the limitation of the number of members, the said committee to
consist of Messrs. Bell, Byrne, Carter, Cavers, Follwell, Fulton, Gauthier (Lake St. John), Gillis, Hahn, Hamilton (Notre Dame de Grace), Hamilton (York West), Hanna, Harrison, James, Johnston (Bow River), Knight, Lavigne, Legare, McCulloch (Pictou), Mitchell (Sudbury), Murphy (Westmorland), Nowlan, Power (Quebec South), Richardson, St. Laurent (Temiscouata), and Weaver.
Mr. Speaker:: Transferred to public orders.



TERRITORIAL LANDS ACT


Hon. Jean Lesage (Minister of Northern Affairs and National Resources) moved: the first reading of Bill No. 209 (from the Senate), to amend the Territorial Lands Act.
Motion agreed to and bill read the first time.



PRAIRIE GRAIN PRODUCERS INTERIM FINANCING


Right Hon. C. D. Howe (Minister of Trade and Commerce) moved: that the house go into committee at the next sitting to consider the following resolution, which has been recommended to the house by His Excellency:
That it is expedient to introduce a measure to amend the Prairie Grain Producers Interim Financing Act, 1956 to enable the governor in council to extend the application of the act to authorize and govern guaranteed loans that may be made by banks in the period September 1, 1957 to June 1, 1958; to provide that the rate of interest charged by the banks on a loan shall not exceed a rate prescribed by the governor in council; and to increase the maximum amount of a loan from fifteen hundred dollars to three thousand dollars.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to.


Hon. James Sinclair (Minister of Fisheries) moved: that the house go into committee at the next sitting to consider the following resolution, which has been recommended to the house by His Excellency:
That it is expedient to introduce a measure to implement the interim convention on conservation of North Pacific fur seals, signed at Washington on the 9th of February. 1957, by Canada, the United States of America, Japan, and the Union

Inquiries of the Ministry of Soviet Socialist Republics, and for carrying out Canada's obligations under the said interim convention.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to.

[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. Howard C. Green (Vancouver-Quadra):: Mr. Speaker, according to news reports on the C.B.'C. this morning, Egypt is celebrating the withdrawal of the Israeli troops from the Gaza strip-


Mr. Pickersgill:: I am rising on a point of order, Mr. Speaker. It seems to me it is not in order for hon. members to make speeches when asking questions.


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh.


Mr. Murphy (Lamblon West):: You are the
last man who should talk.


Mr. Speaker:: As I understand it, the hon. member for Vancouver-Quadra was merely laying the foundation for his question. I do not think he has said enough for us to construe what he has said so far as having been a speech.


Joseph Warner Murphy: Put that in your pipe and smoke it, Indian.


Howard Charles Green: There is also this significant statement to the effect-


Some hon. Members:: Question.


Mr. Speaker:: Order.


Howard Charles Green: that the Egyptian government has asserted that Egypt can order the United Nations emergency force out of the country whenever she wishes to do so. May I ask the Prime Minister whether the Canadian government agrees with the stand taken by the Egyptian government or whether it does not?


Right Hon. L. S. St. Laurent (Prime Minister):: Mr. Speaker, the Canadian government does not agree with that stand taken by the Egyptian government. As I stated yesterday quite clearly-


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear.


Louis Stephen St-Laurent: -the acquiescence of the Egyptian government was obtained for the stationing in Egyptian territory of an emergency force raised by the United Nations to do a certain job. It is our view-and this has been the view we have taken and expressed in New York- that if the Egyptian government wants to say that the job for which the consent was
[Mr. Sinclair.l

given has been completed, that should be communicated to the United Nations for its decision as to whether or not it agrees with the hypothetical assertion that the job has been completed.


Howard Charles Green: Well, in the statement made by the Secretary of State for External Affairs last November, as reported at page 168 of Hansard of November 29, 1956, part of the job of the United Nations emergency force-


Some hon. Members:: Question.


Mr. Casselman:: He has some rights.


Howard Charles Green: -was described as being:
... to observe scrupulously the provisions of the armistice agreement, and to take steps to reopen the Suez canal and to restore and secure freedom of navigation.
Now, does the Canadian government still believe that is one of the functions of the United Nations emergency force?


Louis Stephen St-Laurent: Mr. Speaker, I do not think we should have a debate at this time. That statement was made and is on the record, and has not been withdrawn.


Mr. Stanley Knowles (Winnipeg North Centre):: Mr. Speaker, may I direct a question to the Prime Minister supplementary to his exchanges with the hon. member for Vancouver-Quadra. In view of some of the press interpretations that have been placed on what the Prime Minister said yesterday with regard to the situation in the Suez, will he make it clear to the house and the country as to what he meant when he referred to the possibility of the use of force to overcome resistance? Was he referring to collective action by the United Nations or to action by individual nations on their own?


Louis Stephen St-Laurent: No, Mr. Speaker; I was not referring to collective action by the United Nations. I thought I made it quite clear that the United Nations effort was all directed to preventing the resumption of the use of force in that area. What I was pointing out in answer to the question that had been put was that the only alternative to obtaining the acquiescence of the government of the area where the force was to be placed would be a resumption of the use of force, and I was putting it forward as an indication that the United Nations had no other method but that of trying to prevail upon the governments interested to follow the courses indicated by the views accepted by a majority of the United Nations in the resolutions adopted.


Stanley Howard Knowles: Mr. Speaker, may I ask a supplementary question. Does the Prime Minister think the situation in the Suez has

reached a point where even such a possibility should be suggested by one such as the Prime Minister?


Louis Stephen St-Laurent: Mr. Speaker, I am not suggesting anything. I thought I was pointing out to the house that that was an alternative that could not be considered. Therefore when the words "Is the whole thing subject to the whim of Mr. Nasser?" are used, there is no other way of obtaining the acquiescence of the governments concerned that can be resorted to unless fighting is to flare up again in that region.


Howard Charles Green: Mr. Speaker, I should like to ask a supplementary question. How does the Prime Minister tie in his statement today with the statement he made last November to the effect that once Egypt had given consent for this force to go into the area, then Egypt had no further control, that it was then up to the United Nations?


Louis Stephen St-Laurent: I think I made it quite clear that the position of a great many members of the United Nations, including Canada, is that once the consent was given to the stationing of United Nations forces there, the relationship of the forces is only with the United Nations, and that if the government of Egypt wishes any change made, the course would be for it to signify its wishes to the United Nations for a decision of the United Nations. As far as we know, the commander has been appointed by the United Nations and takes his directions from the United Nations.


Howard Charles Green: But are those decisions not being left to the Secretary General of the United Nations, and not to the military commander at all?


Louis Stephen St-Laurent: These are matters that are being dealt with by the United Nations, and it does not change the way in which they will be dealt with by the United Nations to have the hon. gentleman direct questions to me, and for me to answer those questions.


Howard Charles Green: Has the Secretary General of the United Nations not taken the stand with regard to that question that it can do nothing without the consent of Egypt?


Louis Stephen St-Laurent: The Secretary General of the United Nations has taken the stand that he obtained the consent of Egypt once, and that no further consent was required.
Inquiries of the Ministry


Hon. L. B. Pearson (Secretary of State for External Affairs):: Yesterday the hon. member for Calgary North, in connection with the discussion of the reconnaissance unit which is going forward to the United Nations emergency force, asked this question:
Did Egypt give its consent to sending these new troops . . . ?
Mr. Speaker, the request for these troops was made by the secretary general to the government of Canada after consultation by him with the commanding general of the United Nations emergency force. No consultation with the government of Egypt by the secretary general or any agent of the secretary general was required or took place, as there was no question of Egypt's consent being necessary.


Mr. John Pallell (Peel):: Mr. Speaker, I should like to direct a question to the Secretary of State for External Affairs arising out of the answer he gave that permission was not required for the extra Canadian troops sent to the United Nations emergency force. Can the minister tell the house how long the force would be able to remain in Egypt if Egypt directed that the force be withdrawn forthwith?


Lester Bowles Pearson: No, Mr. Speaker, I could not answer that question, nor do I think anyone could.


John Cameron Pallett: A supplementary question, Mr. Speaker. Can the minister tell the house of any provisions in the United Nations charter or otherwise whereby the force could legally remain on the territory of a sovereign state if that state requested the force to withdraw, under the present system?


Lester Bowles Pearson: I cannot, Mr. Speaker, give a legal opinion, but of course when the United Nations forces are in any country by agreement, the rights of sovereignty of that country have to be accepted and respected.
In the case of Egypt those sovereign rights which have been respected have to be considered within United Nations action, within the United Nations assembly resolution which Egypt agreed to for the introduction of that force to do certain tasks.


Mr. W. B. Nesbitt (Oxford):: Mr. Speaker, I have a supplementary question. In the event that Egypt should request the withdrawal of those troops would Israel not be consulted

Inquiries of the Ministry in any way, as to whether they should be withdrawn from the Gaza strip?


Lester Bowles Pearson: Mr. Speaker, the Secretary General of the United Nations has indicated, and a great many delegates have agreed with this view of the case, that if Egypt at any time makes any request for the withdrawal of the United Nations force, the request should first go to the advisory committee of the assembly which has been set up. It would be discussed there between the secretary general and the advisory committee, and the advisory committee could then refer the matter to the full assembly, which would take whatever action it could and which was required.



TERRITORIAL WATERS


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. Harold E. Winch (Vancouver East):: Is the Secretary of State for External Affairs now in a position to answer the question which I directed to him a few days ago, and which the Minister of Fisheries said he would refer to him, regarding the continental shelf? Is the application going forward in the United Nations for international recognition of the 12-mile limit for Canadian control of this continental shelf, and does this application include all resources in that continental shelf?


Lester Bowles Pearson: This question of the legal position of the continental shelf and territorial waters is now, as my hon. friend knows, under discussion at the United Nations assembly and at the international law commission which has been set up by the United Nations.
One of the recommendations of the international law commission, that is the body which has been studying these matters, is that the coastal state should be recognized as exercising over the continental shelf sovereign rights for the purpose of exploring and exploiting its natural resources. This particular recommendation, along with all other recommendations relating to the laws of the sea, including the breadth of territorial waters, will be considered by an international conference which the general assembly has recommended should be convened in March, 1958, a year from now. Canada, of course, will be represented at this conference. In the meantime, preparations are being made by an interdepartmental committee to make recommendations to the government as to what position should be adopted.


Harold Edward Winch: May I ask a supplementary
question? Does the outline given by the

minister include authority over all resources under water and on the continental shelf? As far as the west coast is concerned, do they mean the 12-mile limit from the mainland coast line of British Columbia or from the shores of the Queen Charlotte islands?


Lester Bowles Pearson: These are questions of detail
in so far as Canada's policy is concerned, but both these questions which my hon. friend has mentioned will be discussed at this conference and on both of them Canada will take a position.



STATELESS PERSONS-CANADIAN ATTITUDE TOWARD UNITED NATIONS CONVENTION

[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. Colin Cameron (Nanaimo):: Mr. Speaker, I should like to address a question to the Secretary of State for External Affairs. Can he tell the house if there is any likelihood that Canada will become a signatory shortly to the United Nations convention on the status of stateless persons?


Lester Bowles Pearson: No, Mr. Speaker. That
matter is under consideration. I will look into it and see if I can give any reply shortly.


Harold Edward Winch: Mr. Speaker, may I ask a
supplementary question. How long has it been under consideration?


An hon. Member:: Three weeks.


Harold Edward Winch: I would like to know how
long it has been under consideration?


Lester Bowles Pearson: A comparatively short time,


Mr.   Speaker.Mr. Knowles@: Comparatively?


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh.



INQUIRY AS TO APPOINTMENT OF AMBASSADOR TO VATICAN

[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. Paul E. Gagnon (Chicoutimi):: Mr. Speaker, I should like to direct a question to the Secretary of State for External Affairs. Does the government intend to appoint an ambassador to the Vatican before the next general election?


Lester Bowles Pearson: Not to my knowledge,
Mr. Speaker, although that matter, along with the appointment of other diplomatic representatives to posts where Canadian diplomatic representatives do not now function, is under consideration all the time.



COMMONWEALTH RELATIONS


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. Donald M. Fleming (Eglinlon):: Mr. Speaker, may I ask the Prime Minister if the Canadian government has been asked to extend financial assistance to Ghana, and if so, what decision the Canadian government has taken on the request?


Louis Stephen St-Laurent: Mr. Speaker, when I saw the Gazette this morning I anticipated that there might be such a question, but I was engaged in a council meeting which lasted until 1.30, and it was only when 1 returned from lunch that I obtained some information about what had taken place.
There has been no request for financial assistance, but there was a debate in the House of Commons at Westminster on November 30 concerning the practicability of suggesting the establishment of a commonwealth development corporation that would consider development projects in former colonies that grew into the status of dominions and were no longer in the position where they could receive advice and assistance from the United Kingdom colonial development corporation. There were suggestions made that there might be a commonwealth development corporation comprising all the member nations of the commonwealth. Another suggestion was that there might be a commonwealth bank for the purpose of making funds available for development purposes.
On January 24 there was a debate along similar lines in the House of Lords. No request was made by the United Kingdom government, but the high commissioner communicated to our Department of External Affairs copies of the Hansard of the House of Commons and the House of Lords, and asked for an expression of our views concerning the practicability of the suggestions that had been made by private members to the United Kingdom government in that respect.


Donald Methuen Fleming: Will the Prime Minister deal with the other part of my question, as to whether the Canadian government has taken a position on the matter and indicated it in reply to those inquiries?


Louis Stephen St-Laurent: No, Mr. Speaker. The matter is still under consideration. One of the factors that is being considered is the information that was indicated to us at the same time, namely that the United Kingdom government was rather 82715-124
Inquiries of the Ministry puzzled to know from what source the funds of the bank would be obtained, because most of the commonwealth countries were importers of capital for development purposes.



IMMIGRATION


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. George H. Hees (Broadview):: May I
direct a question to the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration. In view of the fact that 25,000 Hungarians were allowed to come to Canada this year without any restriction being placed upon them, why does the government refuse to allow parents living in Canada to bring children living in Hungary to this country?


John Whitney Pickersgill: Mr. Speaker, as you and every other hon. member would expect, the allegations on which the question is based are incorrect; therefore the question makes no sense.


George Harris Hees: Mr. Speaker, on a question of personal privilege, may I say I have in my hand a letter signed by the minister himself which states exactly what I have asked him to explain. I would like an explanation right away, please.


John Whitney Pickersgill: The explanation the hon. gentleman desires is that people who are in Hungary are treated in the same way as people in any other country behind the iron curtain and are subject to exactly the same immigration regulations, regulations which have been made public time and again, and which the hon. gentleman, who is one of my most frequent correspondents, ought now to understand.


George Harris Hees: A supplementary question. Would the minister give me his reason for refusing, over a period of three years, to consider the application of these people who are living in Canada to bring their child to this country?


John Whitney Pickersgill: I have never made any such refusal.


George Harris Hees: He has, Mr. Speaker, in this letter I have.



HUNGARY


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. J. Wilfrid Dufresne (Quebec West):: Mr. Speaker, I should like to direct a question to the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration. Has the minister investigated the report that a former editor of the official Hungarian communist newspaper, Free People, landed

Inquiries of the Ministry at Uplands airport with his wife in a group of Hungarian refugees last Friday? If so, could the minister give the house a report on the investigation that has been made?


John Whitney Pickersgill: Mr. Speaker, an investigation into this matter is being carried on at the present time. It is not yet completed; therefore I could not make a report at the moment.


J.-Wilfrid Dufresne: In view of the fact that an investigation is now going on, can the minister tell the house if this couple is being kept apart from the other refugees so as to prevent contamination?


John Whitney Pickersgill: Mr. Speaker, to the best of my knowledge this couple is not being kept apart.


J.-Wilfrid Dufresne: May I ask the minister this question. Is this couple being kept in a special place-


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh.


J.-Wilfrid Dufresne: I only wish you could do as well in French. That is the only thing I wish. Can the minister say to the house that this couple is being kept in a special place where they have no communication with other Hungarian refugees who have landed in Canada recently?
(Translation):


John Whitney Pickersgill: That couple is not in the
closet, Mr. Speaker.
(Text):


J.-Wilfrid Dufresne: Mr. Speaker, would the
minister speak English and give me the right answer?


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh.


John Whitney Pickersgill: Mr. Speaker, quite frankly I do not know where they are.


J.-Wilfrid Dufresne: Could the minister find out where this couple is during the investigation his department is making at the present time?


John Whitney Pickersgill: No doubt, sir.



C. G. HANNA  CLARIFICATION OF ANSWER GIVEN ON MARCH 6

[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
John Whitney Pickersgill: Mr. Speaker, I feel I should explain to the house that part of the answer I gave yesterday to the hon. member for Nanaimo was incomplete and, I regret to say, inaccurate.
It had slipped my mind that in the revision of the immigration regulations made during the course of last year it had been provided that immigrants from the United Kingdom,


Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, Ireland and France would require passports. The only country from which immigrants do not require passports under the present regulations is the United States.
This change in the regulations in fact made no practical difference, because it has always been the custom for immigrants from all these other countries to secure passports, so the change was purely technical. However, I thought I owed it to the house to make this correction at the first opportunity.
I am sure you will agree, Mr. Speaker, that this incident illustrates the wisdom of the rule of the house that notice should be given of questions.


Colin Cameron: I point out to the minister that he has not yet answered the questions I asked him yesterday.


Joseph Warner Murphy: What else can you expect?


Colin Cameron: I asked him
whether any persons had been admitted into Canada in the last six months who were not in possession of passports or travel documents?


John Whitney Pickersgill: Well, sir, I do not know what the hon. gentleman means by "travel documents" but there obviously have been a great number of immigrants from the United States who have been admitted without passports.



REPORTED DUMPING OF UNITED STATES FRUIT AND VEGETABLES

[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. O. L. Jones (Okanagan Boundary):: wish to address a question to the Minister of Finance. In view of the submission made earlier this year by the Canadian Horticultural Council seeking protection against the dumping of fruit and vegetable products from the United States, can the minister inform the house if the government intends to act to protect Canadian primary producers along the lines suggested in that brief?


Walter Edward Harris: The Minister of Finance does not indicate to the house the intention of the government. Occasionally he declares it, but he does not indicate the intention in advance.


Mr. H. W. Herridge (Kootenay West):: supplementary question out of curiosity, Mr. Speaker. Does the Minister of Agriculture consider that 72 cents a box to British Columbia apple producers for apples that cost $2.15 a box to produce is a satisfactory return?


Right Hon. J. G. Gardiner (Minister of Agriculture):: I have never had anything to do with selling apples by the box from the province of British Columbia, and I am quite sure the people in charge of that are much more competent to deal with it than I am.


Owen Lewis Jones: Is the minister aware of a statement in today's press, datelined Washington, that the United States produce growers today protested against the Canadian government's action-


Mr. Speaker:: Order. It seems to me that too many hon. members read statements. It is not in order to read a statement contained either in a newspaper or in a telegram. If the hon. gentleman wishes to place a question before the minister he may do so, but he may not read a statement.


Owen Lewis Jones: According to this, the government has actually taken steps to change the tariff in connection with potatoes, and I want to know if this is correct.


Arza Clair Casselman: No answer.


Walter Edward Harris: Since the question possibly was addressed to me, although I thought it was addressed to my colleague the Minister of Agriculture, perhaps my hon. friend would explain to me privately what kind of action is reported to have been taken. I am not aware of the newspaper reports, but I will be glad to discuss the matter with him. [Later:]


Walter Edward Harris: The hon. member for Okanagan Boundary has now sent me the clipping, which relates to a hearing before the United States tariff board of certain persons in opposition to the request we have made for the renegotiation of the tariff having to do with potatoes.



PROTECTION OF QUALITY OF FLOUR SHIPPED UNDER CANADIAN BRAND NAMES

[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. G. H. Castleden (Yorklon):: I should like to direct a question to the Minister of Trade and Commerce. What steps have been taken to protect the Canadian standards of flour being exported under Canadian brand names from United States millers?


Clarence Decatur Howe: I find a few contradictions in the question, but if my hon. friend will write it out and send it to me I shall try to answer it another time.


Clarence Decatur Howe: I now have
written advice of the question asked by the 82715-124i
Inquiries of the Ministry hon. member for Yorkton, and I might point out that flour shipped in accordance with his question is American flour, no matter what particular name is on the bag, and that Canada has no interest in or control over the standards of American flour exported directly from that country.



PIPE LINES


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. E. D. Fulion (Kamloops):: Mr. Speaker, I should like to ask a question of the Minister of Trade and Commerce or the Minister of Transport. Perhaps if they feel it requires notice they might take this as notice. Will the rates at which gas will be carried or sold by Trans-Canada Pipe Lines be subject to approval by the board of transport commissioners? If so, at what stage of construction or operation will such jurisdiction of the board commence to be exercised?


Hon. George C. Marler (Minister of Transport):: Mr. Speaker, I will take the hon. gentleman's question as notice.



WATER RESOURCES


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Joseph Warner Murphy: should like to direct a question to the Secretary of State for External Affairs. It concerns the diversion of water through the Chicago drainage scheme, which has been under discussion for some time. Is the diversion of some 8,000 odd cubic feet per second through that drainage scheme continuing? The last decision of the supreme court of the United States gave them until the end of February. If the diversion is continuing through the Chicago drainage scheme, is Canada doing anything about it?


Lester Bowles Pearson: I will try to get an answer to that question for tomorrow. I do not have the details of it in my mind at the moment.



AWARDS AND DECORATIONS


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. G. C. Nowlan (Digby-Annapolis-Kings):: May I direct a question to the Prime Minister. Are newspaper stories correct that a certain number of Canada medals have been struck and have been issued to former cabinet ministers and others? If so, how many and to whom?

Inquiries of the Ministry
Right Hon. L. S. St. Laurent (Prime
Minister): I think I shall have to take the question as notice. The only newspaper report I saw was to the effect that at one time six medals were struck. I shall have to inquire whether or not that is correct. I do not know that it is. I shall have also to inquire whether or not any others have been struck, but it is not to my knowledge that any cabinet minister has one.



FISHERIES


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. H. J. Robichaud (Gloucester):: Can the
Minister of Fisheries advise the house if there is any foundation for the statement made in New Brunswick to the effect that the federal Department of Fisheries has built and is operating marine slipways or haul-ups in the province of British Columbia for the use of its own patrol boats as well as vessels owned by commercial fishermen? If so, on what basis are these haul-ups being operated?


James Sinclair: The Department of Fisheries does not own or operate any marine slipway or haul-up, nor does it subsidize the construction of private haul-ups or slipways. In British Columbia there are many such facilities, but they are all owned either by individual fishermen or fishing companies or boat repair companies. When our patrol boats need overhaul we do use these private facilities.



NATIONAL DEFENCE


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. G. S. White (Hasiings-Fronlenac):: should like to direct a question to the Minister of National Defence with reference to the statement he made yesterday concerning the additional forces and equipment for the United Nations emergency force, and with reference to Canadian troops now in Egypt. Does Canada pay the entire cost of transport, pay and allowances and all other costs while these troops are serving with the United Nations emergency force? If Canada does pay the entire cost, will the United Nations repay to Canada all or any part of such cost?


Hon. R. O. Campney (Minister of National Defence):: I am afraid I cannot give the hon. member very much detail, but I can say that part of the costs are paid by Canada and some of them we expect will be recouped from the United Nations; some are paid by
IMr. Nowlan.l
the United Nations itself. I would have to get more detail before I could answer more fully.


Mr. Gordon Churchill (Winnipeg South Centre):: May I ask the Minister of National Defence what type of reconnaissance vehicle is being sent to this emergency force, and what armament is carried on this vehicle?


Ralph Osborne Campney: The scout cars we sent with the reconnaissance unit are known as Ferrets.


Gordon Minto Churchill: What armament?



HOUSING


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. J. C. Van Horne (Restigouche-Madawaska):: I should like to direct a question
to the Minister of Finance. In view of the United States government's decision to lower the down payments on F.H.A. homes to 4 per cent of the first $10,000, would the minister please inform the house if action along this line is being taken or being considered by the Canadian government?


Walter Edward Harris: Well, Mr. Speaker, it is good to know that somebody in the hon. gentleman's party speaks in favour of anything done south of the border.


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh.


Mr. Harkness:: Answer the question. What about political speeches being out of order?



TRANSPORT


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. W. M. Johnson (Kindersley):: I should like to direct a question to the Minister of Transport. Has consideration been given to the establishment of a public weather office in Regina to enable the weather bureau to make more accurate forecasts in the Eston-Kindersley-Kerrobert areas of Saskatchewan?


George Carlyle Marler: The hon. gentleman was good
enough to send me notice of his question, and I have made inquiries. I understand that the present forecast districts in Canada have been established to provide the best nationwide coverage within the limits of available technical personnel and funds. The situation is kept under continuous review and the position of Saskatchewan has been studied on several occasions, but any major change involving the establishment of new forecast districts cannot be contemplated until the

present very serious shortage o f meteorologists and meteorological officers has been overcome.



PRINCE EDWARD ISLAND FERRY


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. N. A. Matheson (Queens):: I should like to direct a question to the Minister of Transport. Are the officers of the minister's department giving active consideration to meeting the requests made through a certain organization in my province, namely the federation of agriculture, with a view to lowering the deck of the Prince Edward Island car ferry so it will be able to transport more automobiles?


George Carlyle Marler: I would reply to the hon. gentleman that the question is under consideration, though I would advise him there are many difficulties in the way of satisfying the request to which he has just referred.



INCOME TAX


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Miss Margaret  Aiiken@York-Humber: Would the Minister of National Revenue say if the $22 payment to be made to a number of Alberta citizens, as announced by the Alberta government, will be regarded as taxable income by the federal government?


Hon. J. J. McCann (Minister of National Revenue):: Yes, I think it constitutes revenue in the taxpayers' hands.


Mr. F. G. J. Hahn (New Westminster):: should like to direct a question to the Minister of National Revenue supplementary to the one asked a few moments ago. Will the minister indicate whether the $28 rebate which the British Columbia government is giving to the taxpayers of that province is subject to income tax also?


James Joseph McCann: Offhand it is rather hard to determine in what category such gifts as those of British Columbia and Alberta would be. I would think the present law does not provide for the tax position of that type of gift, but one thing is sure. It is either income or a gift, and it would be subject either to income tax or gift tax.


Mr. John B. Hamilfon (York West):: Mr. Speaker, I should like to direct a question to the Minister of National Revenue supplementary to the question asked by the hon.
Inquiries of the Ministry member for York-Humber. Would the minister give consideration to placing an interpretation on the payments referred to as being dividends, so the taxpayer can get the 20 per cent rebate?


James Joseph McCann: Mr. Speaker, I should be glad to give consideration to the hon. gentleman's question. I am just looking at the Income Tax Act, which I have before me. Under the general rules it says that the income of a taxpayer for the taxation year for the purpose of this part is his income for the year from all sources, inside or outside of Canada, and without restricting the generality of the foregoing, and so on.


Harold Edward Winch: have a supplementary question perhaps on the same issue. I should like to ask the Minister of National Revenue whether he will explain to the house, if an overcharge in taxation is considered and the government makes a rebate of taxes, what legal right he has to say that it is revenue or a gift under the Income Tax Act?


James Joseph McCann: Mr. Speaker,-


Mr. Speaker:: Order. If the Minister of National Revenue wishes to reply he may do so. I have already allowed him to reply on various occasions regarding this question. We have now reached the stage where the minister in order to reply has to give a legal opinion, and questions which require a legal solution are not in order at this time. Citation 295 of Beauchesne's third edition reads:
A question oral or written must not:
. . . (m) ask solution ot a legal proposition, such as interpretation of a Statute, a minister's own powers, et cetera-
-and, of course, there are many other references.


Harold Edward Winch: Mr. Speaker, I apologize to you and to the minister if I used the word "legal" but I submit that this is a question which is in order now because the house is sitting, taxation bills are in the process of going out, and all legislation regarding the payment of this grant-let us call it that-of $28 goes into effect in this taxation year. Therefore it goes into effect in this income tax year. That is why, sir, I asked the minister-and I am sorry that I used the word "legal"-on what basis he says that what is a rebate is now called a gift under the Income Tax Act.


Mr. Speaker:: I do not see that in what the hon. gentleman has said the citation I have quoted is in any way put aside. It seems to me that what he is asking for is a legal opinion. As I said earlier, if the

Inquiries of the Ministry minister wishes to continue answering questions of this kind I am not going to prohibit him from doing so, but it is not in order to ask these questions and it should not be in order for the minister to answer them.


Harold Edward Winch: May I say, sir, that the minister has answered a number of questions of this nature before but so far not to the point.


Mr. Speaker:: In other words if the Speaker because he is a very lenient man, and sometimes very unfortunately, allows one, two or three questions to be asked which are out of order, he should therefore be precluded from stopping any other questions asked at a later time which may be out of order. That is a reasoning with which I cannot agree.


Douglas Scott Harkness: Twenty-five years of Social Credit progress, from $25 a month to $22 a year.


Mr. Speaker:: Order. If the hon. member for Calgary North wishes the floor he will have to rise.


Douglas Scott Harkness: Mr. Speaker, may I ask a supplementary question on that point?


Mr. Speaker:: Not at this moment, because I have already given the floor to the hon. member for Nanaimo.


Douglas Scott Harkness: Mr. Speaker, I should like to direct a supplementary question to the Minister of National Revenue. With regard to the matter of a dividend, concerning which he has been asked several questions, is he aware of and has he taken into consideration the fact that this is an example of 25 years of Social Credit progress, from $25 a month in 1935 to $22 a year at the present time?


James Joseph McCann: Mr. Speaker-


Mr. Speaker:: Order. I think we should all be grateful for the information that has been given to us.



QUEBEC-ALLEGED DAMAGE BY FEDERAL INVESTIGATORS

[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. W. M. Hamilion (Noire Dame de Grace):: Has the Minister of National Revenue communicated with the premier of Quebec regarding his charges of about three weeks ago that investigators of the federal income tax department were damaging property in the course of their activities?


James Joseph McCann: No, Mr. Speaker, I have had no communication with the premier of Quebec,


but I doubt very much if the assertion he made is correct. I would, therefore, contradict it.



HEALTH INSURANCE


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Stanley Howard Knowles: Mr. Speaker, may I direct a question to the Prime Minister. In view of the extent to which his colleague the Minister of National Health and Welfare has been able to secure agreements with respect to hospital insurance, will the government now consider modifying its insistence that six provinces have their plans in actual operation before federal money is contributed to any province whatsoever?


Louis Stephen St-Laurent: Mr. Speaker, the federal government has not reconsidered the proposal in that regard, and I know of no immediate suggestion that we should do so.


Stanley Howard Knowles: May I direct a supplementary question to the Prime Minister. Is he not aware that at least two provincial premiers have suggested that the payments to the provinces should not be held up until all six have their plans in actual operation?


Louis Stephen St-Laurent: There have been suggestions, Mr. Speaker, for very many large payments out of the public treasury. I thought the hon. gentleman wanted to know whether there was any immediate intention of giving reconsideration to the terms of the proposal which was made public a year ago, and I answered in the negative.


Stanley Howard Knowles: Mr. Speaker, may I ask
the Prime Minister whether he is aware of the fact that he made an answer like that to me a week ago last Tuesday, and that one change has already been made? The original proposal was that nothing would be introduced in parliament until six provinces had agreed. Three days after that answer the proposal was introduced.



AGRICULTURE


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
James Garfield Gardiner: Mr. Speaker, on February 28
and March 5 the hon. member for Colchester-Hants (Mr. Purdy) asked about the possibility of extending the provisions of the maritime marshland rehabilitation program

to certain other lands in the maritime provinces. I have had the question examined, and find that the Maritime Marshland Rehabilitation Act restricts the program to the construction of dikes, aboiteaux and other protective works which have for their purpose the protection of the marshland from the sea. Therefore, as the law now stands, it is not possible to extend the benefits of the program to other lands.
As the hon. member knows, a committee of the Senate is now examining land use and various related questions. Until the studies by the committee have progressed somewhat further than' they have at present it is not considered advisable to make amendments to existing land use and rehabilitation legislation.



AIR TRANSPORT


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
John (Jack) Henry Horner: Mr. Speaker, I should like to direct a question to the Minister of Transport. In view of the fact that a duty-free airport has been established in Shannon and another is about to be established at Amsterdam, could the minister inform the house if the Canadian government is giving consideration to the establishment of a duty-free airport for international travellers at Dorval?


George Carlyle Marler: The answer, Mr. Speaker, is no.



FINANCE


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Stanley Howard Knowles: Mr. Speaker, may I ask the Minister of National Revenue if he has ascertained the reply to my question of yesterday as to whether Reader's Digest failed to take out the licence required under the regulations with respect to the tax on advertising in nonCanadian periodicals, and as to whether or not Reader's Digest failed to pay the $5,000 deposit?


James Joseph McCann: Mr. Speaker, although it is not possible to divulge the private affairs of any taxpayer, I feel that I can perhaps answer the hon. member's question in a general way by saying that so far only one publisher of a special edition of a non-Canadian periodical has challenged the validity of the act. The matter has been referred to the Department of Justice for their opinion.
Inquiries of the Ministry


Stanley Howard Knowles: Mr. Speaker, may I ask a supplementary question of the Minister of Finance. In view of his statement yesterday that Reader's Digest had not been assessed with respect to this matter can he say whether any other non-Canadian periodicals have been assessed with respect to this new tax?


Walter Edward Harris: Well, the Minister of National Revenue has answered that question, Mr. Speaker.



CIVIL DEFENCE


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Harold Edward Winch: Mr. Speaker, I should like to direct a question to the Minister of National Health and Welfare. Has the attention of the minister been drawn to the question I asked three days ago, which I was told would be referred to him, as to whether he was giving favourable consideration to the recommendation of the mayors' and reeves' conference at Arn-prior that the federal government accept the major financial responsibility for civil defence?


Hon. Paul Marlin (Minister of National Health and Welfare):: Well, Mr. Speaker, I think if my hon. friend will look at what the mayors requested he will find that what the mayors recognized officially for the first time was that civil defence was not only the responsibility of the two senior levels of government but as well that of municipal governments and the mayors recognized that at the present time the major share of the cost of civil defence was being borne by the central government.



SHIPPING


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
William McLean Hamilton: Mr. Speaker, I wish to direct a question to the Minister of Transport. Can the minister inform the house if discussions are presently taking place in Washington regarding the dimensions of ships that will be allowed to use the St. Lawrence seaway?


George Carlyle Marler: Mr. Speaker, I believe that is one of the subjects that are under discussion at this time.


William McLean Hamilton: As a
supplementary question, Mr. Speaker, may I ask if it would not have been preferable to decide such matters before the seaway was half built?

Inquiries of the Ministry


George Carlyle Marler: Mr. Speaker, I fully realize the attempted humour of the hon. gentleman opposite, but perhaps he will realize-


William McLean Hamilton: I do
not consider the expenditure of $300 million humorous.


George Carlyle Marler: I do not think it is very humorous myself, but I recognize the hon. member's attempt at humour. All I would like to say, Mr. Speaker, is that the size of the locks in the St. Lawrence seaway was dictated by the size of the locks in the Welland canal; and as the decision to build the Welland canal was taken, I think, in 1913, I do not believe the question of the size of the locks in the St. Lawrence seaway could reasonably be a matter of discussion at this time.
So far as the size of the vessels to use the seaway is concerned, it obviously depends on the practicability of using wider vessels than are now being used in the great lakes. I am told that one of the questions to be discussed is as to whether the width should be 70, 72 or 75 feet. That question is under consideration by both authorities at this time.


Howard Charles Green: What about the tonnage? Could the minister tell us the figures for the tonnage? What possible tonnage are they considering?


George Carlyle Marler: I am not aware, Mr. Speaker, that the question of tonnage is under consideration.



PRIVILEGES AND ELECTIONS


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Herbert Wilfred Herridge: Mr. Speaker, I should like to direct a question to the Secretary of State which I conceived a few moments ago. In view of the wide discrepancy in population, say between Scarborough with a population of 171,000 and the 11,000 population of the in-the-pocket borough of the Magdalen islands, is the minister going to give consideration to the recommendations of the committee on privileges and elections with respect to redistribution?


Hon. Roch Pinard (Secretary of State):: have already given an answer to a similar question and the conditions to which the hon. member made allusion existed at the time the answer was given.



EXPORT AND IMPORT PERMITS ACT


Clarence Decatur Howe: the third reading of Bill No. 206, to amend the Export and Import Permits Act.
Motion agreed to and bill read the third time and passed.

The house in committee of supply, Mr. Robinson (Simcoe East) is the chair.



POST OFFICE DEPARTMENT

[Stage Direction]
333. Departmental administration, including an amount of $250,000 to defray the expenses of the 1957 congress of the universal postal union to be held in Ottawa, $2,091,516.
The Chairman:: Shall the vote carry?


Some hon. Members:: Carried.


Mr. Montgomery:: Mr. Chairman, I was waiting to see whether the minister intended to continue his remarks.


Mr. Lapointe:: I am sorry, Mr. Chairman, but I did not hear what the hon. member said.


Gage Workman Montgomery: I was wondering whether the minister intended to continue the review he was giving last night. If not, I should like to make some remarks.


Hugues Lapointe: I intended to continue, Mr. Chairman, but I am not one to stop my own estimates from passing. However, I might continue with the remarks I started making yesterday. When the discussion terminated yesterday at six o'clock, I had been analysing some of the comments on the postage stamps issued by the department, and I gave what I intended to be an adequate answer to some of the questions asked by the hon. member for Kootenay West. To those comments I should like to add the fact that the advance orders for the outdoor recreation issue have been increasingly heavy. It would seem that public acceptance of these stamps has been highly favourable, both in Canada and in the United States, where it is hoped they will serve a useful purpose in promoting tourist travel to this country.
Some hon. members-I think it was the hon. member for Lambton West and the hon. member for Lambton-Kent-suggested that a postage stamp design be issued to commemorate the one hundredth anniversary of the discovery of petroleum in Canada. I wish to tell them that proposals have been received for the issuing of such a stamp and that the matter is now under consideration by the department and the government.

The hon. member for Saint John made comment with regard to the type and quality of stamps issued by the department. During the discussion in committee last year and again yesterday I explained briefly what was the policy which had been followed. It is quite true that from 1950 on there was a departure from the procedure previously used for the manufacture of stamps and it may account, to some extent, for the different type of picture that now appears on the stamps.
Up to that time the stamps were made from composite photographs, and the engraver would make a copy of the composite photograph. From 1950 on it was thought that stamps should be used to encourage art in this country and that we should ask leading Canadian artists who would be interested in providing designs for stamps to do so. That has been the procedure followed since 1950. Hence the engraver preparing the plate to manufacture a stamp actually copies an artistic design-that is, an artist's conception of what the stamp is to depict-rather than what was a composite photograph which possibly would be more precise in many instances.
There is nothing to prevent us from going back to the other method. I think possibly a mixture of the two methods would be very good. That is my own opinion, although I am not a philatelist. I believe that in the issue of postage stamps there is a field in which the talents of our Canadian artists can be used.


Mr. Bell:: In that connection may I just ask whether the department is considering a type of artistic design other than this abstract art for our stamps of the future?


Hugues Lapointe: Of course we ask artists to make the design. I suppose one opinion as to the value of one particular artist's work as compared with that of another is a fairly personal thing. I can assure the hon. member that the men whom we have asked to provide some of these designs-for instance, they are men like the late Emanuel Hahn of Toronto, A. L. Pollock of Toronto, Lawrence Hyde of Ottawa, A. A. Beament of Montreal and a few others-all leading Canadian artists. Furthermore, after the design has been conceived by the artist and has been submitted to us, we in turn submit that design to experts from the national gallery in order to have their assurance that artistically it is correct. When the design depicts a particular subject-for instance, I am thinking of our animal designs- we submit the design to an expert zoologist to make sure that from the technical side the design is correct.


John (Jack) Henry Horner: Has the minister ever considered letting these designs be made by way
Supply-Post Office
of competition among artists in order to procure the best out of several?


Hugues Lapointe: Yes; that was done originally. I am told that when we started this policy of asking Canadian artists to provide designs, competitions were arranged, but it was found that this procedure did not attract the best artists. In other words it was found that the really leading artists were fairly busy in their own fields, and that they might be interested in providing designs for the post office if they were commissioned to do so but that they would not participate in a competition. I am speaking only from memory. I believe about the only leading Canadian artist who competed was Mr. Hahn, to whom I have already referred.
But in this kind of competition we would get every type of sketch from that of the Grade VI school child to some amateur artist, and the work involved did not justify continuing the procedure. From then on the department proceeded to commission artists directly to furnish individual designs.


Mr. Fraser (Peterborough):: Before the
minister sits down I would like to ask a question. Has any consideration been given to bringing out the denomination of the stamps which appears, in many cases, to be very faint? One cannot go by colour any longer because you seem to have every colour in the rainbow now. I have had complaints from a great number of people, especially from people who are partially blind and from elderly people.


Hugues Lapointe: That is correct, Mr. Chairman. We have received complaints about some of the stamps which have been issued in past years, and we have asked that in future designs the denominations of the stamps should appear more clearly.


Gordon Knapman Fraser: Would it be
possible to try to keep the different denominations in one colour as much as possible, or, perhaps, in one or two colours.


Hugues Lapointe: I am told that as much as possible we shall endeavour to do that also.


Harold Edward Winch: May I ask the minister why
it is that up till now, as far as Vancouver is concerned, the postal officials who worked overtime during Christmas still have not got their overtime cheques? May I ask why it has taken so long? I got a letter only today about this; it is on my desk now. There was a notice posted saying that the post office was "broke" or words to that effect, and still they have not got their Christmas overtime cheques. It is now March. How long have these people to wait until they get the money they earned last December?

Supply-Post Office


Hugues Lapointe: I am told it is being paid
right now. What did happen is this: Overtime is not paid by the department, under overtime regulations, until the 1st of February. That is there is a regulation which provides that Christmas overtime shall be paid in cash only in the month following J anuary, and only to the extent that this overtime has not been liquidated by leave. What has happened in actual practice is that 95 per cent of the overtime is paid in cash. That has been true for the last four or five years, at any rate, and I think it was the same before-not more than 5 per cent of this overtime was liquidated in leave during the month of January. But only after the termination of January can we get ready to pay that overtime. Naturally this is done through the central pay office, and the regular salary cheques have to be processed before action is taken, so there is some delay during the month of February before the overtime pay reaches the employees.
I am told that what did happen in this particular case was that when they got toward the end of issuing the cheques for overtime they found that the amount allotted for overtime had been expended. Then we had to go through the procedure of transferring funds, which requires an approval of treasury board; it means you have to go through the process of making a submission to the treasury board, and have that approved before authority is given to us to issue these cheques. That is what happened in Vancouver.


Harold Edward Winch: I appreciate the apology the
minister has made, but I am referring not to carriers but to clerks.


Hugues Lapointe: It is the same thing.


Harold Edward Winch: As a matter of fact there
was a notice posted on the boards of the Vancouver post offices to the effect that they could not pay in money. I have a copy here, and I will quote it. It says: "We have exhausted our funds and therefore the cheques will not be issued."
I have a number of notices on the subject. I accept the apology of the minister on behalf of the post office employees, but it is now March. I got a letter this morning by airmail from Vancouver, and these men have still not received their cheques for last December.


Hugues Lapointe: I cannot add anything to what I have said. I am informed that this overtime is in the process of being paid. I wish to tell the hon. member, however, that the explanation I gave applies to all employees he mentioned. I have no doubt, if the hon. member has received a letter of
complaint saying that the cheque has not been handed over yet, that it must be true; the letter must have come through with a very short delay because, as the hon. member knows, the mail service between Vancouver and Ottawa is rapid.


Harold Edward Winch: I would like to know if you will pay interest on your delayed cheques in the same way as the government charges us interest on anything we owe the government.


Hugues Lapointe: That is an intelligent
question.


Mr. McCullough (Moose Mountain):: Would the Postmaster General care to answer now the various questions I asked him on this item, or would he prefer to wait?


Hugues Lapointe: I have a few other comments I wish to make, and I wonder if the hon. member would mind if I answered specific questions on the other items later, as there were many questions asked? I would prefer to do that.
Referring, now, to the general discussion, Mr. Chairman, I would like to deal with the remarks made by the hon. member for Notre Dame de Grace regarding the postal union congress which I stated is to open in Ottawa on August 14, 1957, that is, this summer. I may be wrong, but it would appear from the remarks of the hon. member that possibly he has not a complete appreciation of the magnitude of this undertaking nor of the extended period of the congress. I have stated that some 96 countries will be represented by delegates, and that the period of the congress will extend from the 14th of August to, certainly, the end of September or the early part of October. When the arrangements were being prepared the indications were that the number of delegates attending would be approximately 350, but the latest information would indicate that this number may be increased.
The hon. member seemed to have the impression that the amount to be provided by this estimate for this universal congress was to furnish lavish entertainment to the delegates. This is, of course, not the case. Included in the facilities for which the estimate provides, Mr. Chairman, is the payment for the installation of a simultaneous translation system into four languages which is to be installed here in parliament.
I might point out here that while Canada provides for this service and the cost is included in these estimates the greater part of the amount involved is to be recovered from the universal postal union's international bureau at Berne. Similarly, while Canada

is assisting in the provision of the necessary staff requirements for the operation of the congress, the international bureau at Berne will reimburse Canada for the amount involved in the salaries paid to Canadian employees whose services are used by the international bureau's secretariat during the operation of the congress.
I must point out here that those employees of the Post Office Department who may be working at the congress and who are already classified employees will simply be assigned to that work and will not be receiving any additional pay. Therefore their salaries will not be reimbursed by the international bureau. But the salaries of the clerical help, messengers, other staff and so on that will be required for the operation of the congress, which salaries will be paid from these estimates, are to be reimbursed by the international bureau after the congress has terminated.
I might point out that sessions of the congress are held somewhat along the lines of United Nations meetings, with which most hon. members are familiar. The work is distributed to a certain number of committees, as a matter of fact to nine committees in this case. There is a tremendous amount of printing similar to what takes place in the case of United Nations committee meetings. There is a report of the discussions in committee and in the general meetings in the same way as at the United Nations. It is not quite as elaborate a report as we have in Hansard in that it is not verbatim but it calls for the hiring of rapporteurs and the clerical staff necessary to produce this documentation for the next day of the meeting. Therefore the work involved is considerable but, as I have pointed out, the cost of a large part of it is eventually reimbursed by the international bureau.
With regard to the matter of hospitality, I can assure hon. members that it will be far from lavish, certainly compared with the hospitality which I am told has been extended to delegates to previous congresses held in other countries. In the main it will consist of a short visit to Montreal and Quebec and another to Toronto and Niagara Falls for the purpose of letting the delegates see some of the representative parts of Canada without going too far afield and at the same time getting them away from Ottawa so that the congress officials can catch up with the revising of proposals and preparation of the agreements for signature at the end of the meeting. If I go into some length on this matter it is in order to leave no doubt in the mind of anyone that this is indeed a hard working group engaged in a very essential task of far-reaching importance.
82715-125J
Supply-Post Office


Gordon Knapman Fraser: May I ask if
the minister is going to take them to Peterborough to see the viewing cameras in the post office there?


Hugues Lapointe: I have no doubt that with the publicity the hon. member has given to this installation they already know about it and how efficiently it works.


Gordon Knapman Fraser: Is it working efficiently?


Hugues Lapointe: The hon. member for Winnipeg North raised a question about the establishment of a postal station in the municipality of East Kildonan, but I notice the hon. member is out of the house at the present time so perhaps I will leave this point until later in the afternoon when he returns.
There was a matter raised by the hon. member for Esquimalt-Saanich which I think I can discuss briefly at this time. It concerned the responsibility of the Post Office Department in connection with the provision of postal services to the armed services. He referred particularly to the camp at Shilo and to the new camp at Gagetown. He said that he had received complaints that the postal service in these camps was slower than it was in the adjoining municipalities. Here I must explain that with regard to the delivery of mail to military camps or air force stations, any military establishment, either of two systems exists.
If it is a closed camp, that is, a camp where only military personnel live and train and no civilians are admitted to the camp or live within its boundaries, then the mail to that air force station or military camp goes to the nearest civilian post office and is delivered by that post office to personnel of the postal corps who in turn bring it to the camp and have the responsibility for the sortation and distribution of mail within the camp. In the other camps where there is civilian personnel, where there are wives and dependents of service personnel or civilian employees, we do operate a post office within the boundary of the camp and the mail is taken to it in the regular fashion from the nearest civilian post office. In the case of the camp post office, if I may describe it as such, all service mail is delivered in bulk by that postmaster to the service personnel, to the postal corps people, and they again are responsible for the sortation and the distribution of that service mail, and our own post office serves the civilian people. Therefore if there are delays in the delivery of mail to service personnel within these service establishments, I must say that I do not believe the responsibility can rest on the employees of the Post Office Department.

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Mr. Brooks:: In the case of Gagetown, is there an army post office in the new town of Oromocto?


Hugues Lapointe: What is proposed there-I understand Oromocto is to be set up as a town under provincial statute-is that there will be a federal building in which will be a civilian post office. The civilian post office will serve the wives and dependents and civilian employees of the camp. The service mail will be delivered in bulk from that civilian post office to the postal corps people who in turn will make the sortation and distribution amongst service personnel.


Alfred Johnson Brooks: That will be separate and apart from the post office?


Hugues Lapointe: It will come from the same post office but all service mail will be delivered in bulk to the postal corps people.


Alfred Johnson Brooks: I just wanted to ask this question. There is a village of Oromocto there now, and then there will be this separate town of Oromocto perhaps a mile away. Will you still retain the post office at the village and have another post office at the new town that is going to be built?


Hugues Lapointe: I understand that is correct, yes. If I may suggest, Mr. Chairman, unless hon. members have other questions to direct to me now, possibly the first item can carry and I would answer the other inquiries I would receive on the specific items. It is immaterial to me.


Mrs. Fairclough:: I do not care whether the minister answers this question now or if he wishes to proceed, but I am not sure it comes under operations. What is the policy of the department, or does it have an overall policy, with regard to employees of the post office department accepting other employment outside of their working hours? If there is a policy, does it stipulate that they shall accept only certain types of employment?


Hugues Lapointe: The employees of the postal department can accept-and in fact quite a few do, I believe-employment outside but they cannot accept it if at any time it interferes with their own work or their working hours. In their free time they can accept such employment, and as I have said quite a number of them do.


Ellen Louks Fairclough: I am sorry I do not have with me a letter which came to me just recently. It is in my office but I can give the gist of it to the Postmaster General. The local postmaster inquired into the activities of a member, and according to this statement the postmaster felt that the man's
IMr. Lapointe.]
health might be affected. I have not the full particulars, but according to the man the money which he made outside of regular post office employment would not indicate enough time would be consumed to affect his health. The letter from the postmaster rather read as though this was a periodic checkup. Do you have periodic checkups on the employees?


Hugues Lapointe: I think I should have
qualified my previous statement by saying that employees are required to ask permission to work outside. Of course, each case is looked into individually and in some cases-I do not know what the case is to which the hon. member refers but I will be glad to look into it-it might be that a man worked on a particular shift and we happen to know he is not in very good health as indicated by his attendance record or sick leave record. It would be pointed out to him by the postmaster that outside employment might impair his health.


Alfred Johnson Brooks: I did not hear all the minister's answers to questions, but the other day I mentioned the regulation fixing four boxes to the mile for rural mail service. I pointed out to the minister that this is working great hardship on people living in rural districts, especially where quite a number of farmers are leaving the district. There are not as many people required on the farms now, and they are combining farms-that sort of thing. I wonder if the department is considering relaxing this regulation and giving mail service to the people of the country districts?


Hugues Lapointe: Well, Mr. Chairman, I do not believe the actual regulations have been changed but certainly their application has been changed. A more flexible approach has been adopted. There are many cases where, under particular circumstances, we have relaxed the rule of four boxes to the mile. Routes have been granted where there were three boxes, particularly when certain adjustments have become necessary because of a change in a route or an extension of service. As I say, the department has relaxed the application of that regulation.


Alfred Johnson Brooks: We have not noticed it particularly.


Hugues Lapointe: I can assure my hon. friend that the point he is raising receives my deep sympathy because I am sure I have twice as many rural routes in my constituency as he has.


Alfred Johnson Brooks: I wonder if these instructions have gone out to all the district inspectors in every part of Canada, to relax these regulations?


Hugues Lapointe: Actually, there have been no instructions sent out to the district inspectors because the procedure that is followed in the establishment of a new route or for an extension, is that the inspector is asked to report on the proposed route and the decision as to whether the route should be established, and the length of the route, is taken here. In actual practice, therefore, the application of the regulation is done at headquarters.


Alfred Johnson Brooks: But the district inspector's recommendation is taken into consideration.


Hugues Lapointe: He reports, makes a sketch of the rural route and indicates where the proposed boxes are to be and what the length of the route is, as well as what his own recommendation would be.


Alfred Johnson Brooks: That is a step in the right direction.


John Borden Hamilton: I wonder if the minister can help me with a new problem that faces, I think, the whole metropolitan area of Toronto. It deals with the designation of individual area names for postal delivery. I have been in touch with the minister about this before, but I have not had the benefit of a complete answer. Apparently, there must be some reason behind the department designating individual area names in connection with the department's distribution methods.
This policy has had some serious repercussions for business men in those areas. First of all, I want to say that no one is objecting to the names that are used because, of course, they represent the areas in which people live and of which they are quite proud. But I believe that most of the people in this rapidly expanding metropolitan area are desirous of having a Toronto district number put at the end of their business address.
The reasons for this, from the businessman's point of view, are fairly important. They have a letterhead and if they use a Toronto business address it indicates to their customers, whoever they are dealing with, that this is the place of their business. If an individual district name is used it might be difficult to find out just where it is in the ordinary course in checking maps, and so forth. In addition, sir, I think our freight tariff classifications do not carry these individual postal district names, and as a result it is most difficult in dealing with freight traffic matters.
I have been informed as well that the banks use these place name designations as a differential in connection with their charges for the exchange fee on their cheques. In other words, within the area proper of Toronto we
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may have one rate apply, and within the total metropolitan area we may have a larger amount apply in so far as the bank is concerned. I understand this is done pretty well, because of the place name designation by the-Post Office Department.
I have been led to believe that this system is, to a great extent, based on a plan for sorting of material probably on its way into Toronto, and relieving to some extent the major postal office in Toronto from some of the sorting work. Is it a greater strain, is it more difficult on the man doing the sorting job before the mail reaches Toronto, to put to one side the Toronto postal designation, Toronto 21, in lieu of, say, a place name-designation such as Scarborough, Rexdale,, or a designation of that sort? It seems to me it would require no greater mental capacity, and surely experienced men could make that distribution in that manner and see that the mail for those districts goes to the subpostal delivery base without having a special place name which brings in all this additional inconvenience to business people.


Hugues Lapointe: Well, the point which has just been raised by the hon. member brings in many more problems than I think he fully appreciates. In fact, some of the criticism which the department and I have received was to the effect that in certain parts of the country we had attempted to do exactly what my hon. friend suggests, and that instead of using old names of localities we were attempting to impose a numerical system based on the central office. This problem is brought about by the expansion of our larger cities, and it becomes a question of distribution and sortation, as the hon. member pointed out. An attempt was made. We simply asked the cooperation of businessmen and of householders generally to use numbers to divide, say, the Toronto metropolitan area, into a certain number of districts, each bearing a number. The postal address would be such and such a street, Toronto 7 or Toronto 8. Well, it has never been possible, except as regards some business people, to get the co-operation of the public. In fact, each time a new area was brought in to the metropolitan district, like Rexdale or Scarborough, for instance, the complaint was, "now, this locality has always been called Rexdale; it has always been called Scarborough, and this is how we know it and we do not want simply to have a number to describe our locality." It is necessary to use either one or the other because, with the expansion of our great centres, there is a limit to the memory of our sorters. They can remember a certain number; they can remember a certain number of streets in a city; but

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it becomes limited after that. When you reach that limit there is a breakdown.
Furthermore, as new areas are attached to a main city there is a duplication in the names of streets. You will have two streets, two avenues bearing the same name, and unless the exact locality is described by either a local name or a zone number you will have some mis-addressed letters. Delivery is delayed and the letter may go to the wrong address. The hon. member referred to Rexdale. I can think of a few other places. The fact that we do ask the addressee to use the name of the locality does not prevent adding the word "Toronto". In other words, a letter addressed to someone at Rexdale, Toronto, would be properly addressed and there is nothing to prevent anyone from doing so.


John Borden Hamilton: Mr. Chairman, I was most interested in getting that explanation because I think there are many people who do not understand that in these cases they can put "Toronto" on their letterhead and expect delivery.
I might suggest one thing to the minister. I was very careful when I made my remarks about not indicating that people were not satisfied with those names, but there is a great deal of difference in names and in this new expansion we are going to have a lot of subdividers' names which have no historical basis in the constituencies that we represent. On the other hand, there are some that are very well known. Certainly, in my own constituency, if you mentioned Islington you would find that it is well-known. It has been there; it is a place with quite a history. The department might take that into consideration and when we start to designate those areas make a differentiation between those which happen to be the result of a subdivision new name and those which have a name which is a carryover.
I think the minister has answered the one thing that was left in my mind in connection with Toronto because I was going to ask him this question. If someone addressed a letter to one of these new areas and did not put the individual designation on it but used the term "Toronto" only, would that letter get to its destination? I think the minister is going to answer yes, which proves to me that an awful lot of this mail is going through the main postal office in any case. I am just wondering whether the new designations are always entirely necessary but at the same time I am very happy to know that I can advise people to use the second designation as well.


Hugues Lapointe: Mr. Chairman, I might add to my previous remarks by saying that in the

choice of these names it has been the practice of the department since we adopted this procedure to consult with the municipal authorities on the choice of the postal name that should be used in our postal distribution system.
As regards his second question, it is quite possible that a letter addressed as he suggested would get to the destination in the normal period of time but the chances are that it would have to be redirected to a directory office and that, although it would eventually be delivered, it would be delivered after a few days' delay.


Frederick George Hahn: Mr. Chairman, I do not wish to delay the committee unduly but I think I did ask the minister a couple of questions on March 1. In the course of his answers in the past few days he has answered at least one of them with respect to the kind of postage stamps for the centennial year.
One of the questions I asked him had to do with the slide in the mountain regions of British Columbia and the delay in getting mail through the Fraser valley to the city. I gave him notice of that question some time ago on the orders of the day. He was going to investigate but we have not received a report as yet.
The other question, which I wish he would elaborate on because it may result in my not having to discuss it any further in the house, has to do with the parcel post carriers in the metropolitan area of New Westminster. If the minister would be in a position to speak about this matter for a few moments I would be pleased.


Hugues Lapointe: Mr. Chairman, with regard to the first question my hon. friend raised concerning the delay brought about by a slide in the Fraser valley some time during the month of February, I did at the time answer the hon. member to the effect that local postal authorities have full authority whenever an emergency arises to take whatever means are available to see that the mail gets through. Usually this is done through the use of a different motor vehicle service or a different route if the usual means of conveyance has been stopped.
In the case of Hope to which he referred the truck service which was to carry the mail was scheduled to leave at 6.45 in the morning. The slide took place and after inquiries were made it was found that the mail would be able to get through the next morning and that would be the best way of continuing the service rather than trying to improvise a service, and that is what took place.

The hon. member also asked me questions with reference to parcel post delivery in certain parts of New Westminster and Vancouver. In New Westminster up to this time parcel post delivery had been done by six individual contractors each operating individually on a temporary arrangement. They were not under any formal contract with the department and had in fact only an arrangement with the department confirmed by a letter. All except one entered into the temporary arrangement in 1955 and the sixth entered into a similar temporary arrangement in 1956.


Frederick George Hahn: Before the minister continues perhaps he would answer another question. Several of these contractors had a permanent arrangement up to 1955, had they not?


Hugues Lapointe: None of these gentlemen had been under contract with the Post Office Department before that time. They had worked for another contractor who was doing the work and they were hired as drivers. In 1955, as I mentioned, that contractor gave up his contract and the department made a temporary arrangement with each individual driver to continue servicing the route they were already servicing under terms which were agreed upon between the two parties. None of these men had ever been classified employees of the department and had never received any pay as an employee of the department.


Frederick George Hahn: The only time they were actually under contract with the department itself was from 1955 to the date of termination?


Hugues Lapointe: That is correct and it was on a temporary arrangement which they had agreed could be terminated at any time on the part of either of the two parties to the agreement. What happened there is that after making a postal area of Vancouver we found we had to rearrange the whole system of delivery with regard to letter delivery, parcel post delivery, special letter delivery, C.O.D. delivery and so on. We found that within the area we were operating through 14 individual contractors similar to these. Some of them were working on an hourly basis agreed upon with the department and others were working on a per item basis. With a view to making it a more economical and efficient operation and experimenting on an over-all per item basis we advised the gentlemen to whom my hon. friend referred that their agreement would terminate at a certain time. As I have stated, the idea was to operate throughout the entire Vancouver postal area on a per item basis. Each of these gentlemen was offered an opportunity
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to continue doing that work but as an employee of the new contractor.
I know my hon. friend is particularly interested in the conditions of work which were offered to these people and I think I can now describe the terms of employment to him. I think the hon. member will agree with me that the conditions which were offered are better than the conditions under which they are now working.
The proposed terms of employment stated that the wages would be scheduled on a per item basis within the districts involved but always subject to the guarantee that the prevailing wage scale would be met. At the present time the rate is $1.74 per hour. In other words, that is the minimum which they could earn. Further, they would be provided with workmen's compensation board coverage which they do not have now and also with unemployment insurance coverage which they do not have at the present time. They would also have received within the first year a paid annual vacation of one week-that is in 1957-and two weeks from then on. They would also be paid for statutory holidays according to the terms of the union and would have had contributory group life insurance. They would no longer have to bother about ownership and insurance coverage for their vehicles and would be provided with the uniforms and equipment necessary to do the work.


Frederick George Hahn: Mr. Chairman, I thank the minister for this lucid explanation. I will leave that topic now and ask him if he would have his departmental officials examine into the problem of the four cent letter rate with respect to the district of South Westminster which I raised earlier in the discussion. I think on further consideration they might find it desirable to include this in the metropolitan area?


Hugues Lapointe: That survey is being made just now.


Gage Workman Montgomery: Mr. Chairman, I find that, if you wait long enough, most of the information in which you are interested comes out. However, I wish to make a few remarks at this time. I was very much interested yesterday when the Postmaster General began his remarks and said that he was sympathetic to the rural areas. I am chiefly interested in the rural mail delivery. I have not any great problem. There are several things about which I could speak but I believe that the officials in my district are endeavouring to improve the rural mail delivery as a matter of policy. However, I should like to supplement some of the remarks that have been made.

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I think that some attention should be given to the matter of trying to work out a policy in order to give the country people more nearly daily mail than they are getting at the present time. I know there are not too many three deliveries a week in my constituency. There are a few. Those people keep after everyone. They feel that if cities are going to get two deliveries a day-and they read about it-they should get at least one delivery a day. They are living in the country, they are isolated to some extent and their daily newspaper and their reading material are quite important to them.
There is another thing I should like to mention. I believe that the department are doing this to some extent now in their surveys. I believe more and more routes could be amalgamated and worked out in the country so that with good roads, ploughed roads in the winter and all that, you could fairly well arrive shortly at the place where country people might get daily mail and you could cut out this system of two deliveries and three deliveries a week. I think it is something that should be seriously considered before too much attention is given to better deliveries in the city.
My experience has been-and I appreciate it greatly-that the department are not now so sticky about these three boxes and four boxes per mile. I find that they are ready to consider the area. I appreciate that fact.
There is one other thing that I should like to say. I was in the area that was affected by the railroad strike and I want to compliment the officials who made the arrangements in my area. There is an area of some 175 miles in which the mail was all delivered by train. It all had to be rearranged. The postmaster and his staff in my own home town in my opinion deserve a great deal of credit for the way in which the mail was handled. It was a sort of centre to which the mail came from both ends. It all had to be re-sorted and then sent out. I do not know whether or not that staff would get any extra consideration in the way of pay. In any event, they deserve a word of commendation. As far as I know, the change went into effect very smoothly. While our mails were held up for an hour or two, everybody seemed to feel that it was still a job well done.
I should like to bring another matter to the attention of the department. Maybe the minister can tell me something about it. The mail has gone back in the regular channels of carriage-that is through the trains- through which it went formerly, I understand. But for the last four or five weeks we have not been getting the service through from

central Canada down home that we were getting formerly, as far as deliveries are concerned. I will give you some personal experience. Mail that was mailed some time on Monday to my town did not arrive until Tiiursday or Friday; mail that was mailed on Tuesday would arrive sooner. There has been a good deal of hold up. There may be a reason for it. It is not owing to poor addressing. It is not owing to the local post office mail being held up. It is not owing to a great deal of mail. We cannot quite understand it. Whether part of the mail goes by air to Fredericton and is then transferred and part of it goes by train and is transferred, I do not know. Maybe there is an explanation. Maybe the matter will straighten itself out. It just seems to be something that, after the strike was over, has not been going as regularly and as well as it was going before. As a matter of fact, it has not been going as well as when the strike was on. I just bring this matter to the attention of the minister. It is not too serious but it is something that is rather peculiar. It may be that there is an ungreased cog in the machinery some place and that the matter will straighten itself out.
In the last report available I notice, with respect to insurance, the amount that it has cost the department for indemnity payments and so on. I should like to ask the minister for an explanation. I do not just quite understand it. It is found at page 23 of the report. I notice there that for registered and domestic mail, the amount of indemnity paid was $1,865 from departmental funds and I notice the same thing throughout. Does that mean there are losses in respect of registered mail that must be made good by the department? Does it refer to lost letters and is it covered by insurance? Why is something paid from the departmental funds? Then it says "Indemnity Recovered". Would that be from insurance companies or what? I should like to have from the minister a word of explanation.
I think that nearly everything else that I had in mind has been fairly well covered and I am not going to take up any more time.


Hugues Lapointe: I wish to thank my hon.
friend for his remarks, particularly with regard to extensions of rural mail service. I must say that I am quite in agreement with him. Generally speaking, I think that policy has been followed during the course of the last year and that we have many more areas where there is six times a week delivery of rural mail than existed before. Of course he must understand that there are still areas where the road conditions are very bad and where those in the distance between each pair of boxes, or in other words the number of patrons in the distance covered, is very

small indeed. But inasmuch as rearrangement can be made, our policy is to do it and to try to extend rural mail service to as many people in the country as possible.
With regard to his complaint that he is experiencing some delay in the receipt of his mail coming from central Canada, I think he said that the service was poor; I take it that he meant it was poor as compared with the situation that existed during the strike.


Gage Workman Montgomery: And previously.


Hugues Lapointe: Of course, during the period of the strike we replaced most of those services which were provided by the railroad by truck services, by motor vehicle services. One of the advantages of motor vehicle services over the trains is that we can schedule its departure in order to meet our deadline after sortation whereas in the case of the trains we have to make use of the trains according to the schedules set by the company. In many cases it could be that because of the use of the truck service mail would get between one point and another and be delivered in quicker time, because it might arrive there in time for the sortation to take place and go out on the first delivery. I think that might be the explanation in this case. However, we are making a survey at the present time as a result of our experience of all these rules.


Gage Workman Montgomery: With regard to rural delivery, may I tell the minister that in some parts of the country where there used to be two or three farms along a route, today one man often owns that land, and there will only be one mail box in a distance of a mile and a half where you used to have two or three. That is the case in my constituency, and I think it is not an isolated situation. But it must be remembered that the one farmer concerned is doing more business. He is farming that land, and I think that must be taken into consideration with regard to the rural route arrangements.


Hugues Lapointe: I quite agree. I will give the hon. member a further explanation when we get on to operations.


Mr. Small:: Mr. Chairman, when I last spoke on the subject of these estimates I said I intended to make some further observations. I had thought to make some remarks about stamps, but this subject seems to have been thoroughly covered by the hon. member for Saint John-Albert. The comments I had in mind were along the lines of those made by the hon. member for Kootenay West about the symbolic way in which these stamps are designed and presented each year. Of course, I do not think the department is producing the stamps with
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the particular idea I have in mind, but they do run in a kind of pattern. The first depicted a goose, and I claimed the government was killing the goose that laid the "golden egg", or the revenue which came from it. I asked if they had it in mind to put out, after that, a stamp depicting a fish, a sucker which might indicate that the general public was-the sucker. But instead of that they had a goat. There was some controversy about the art work of the design, but I suggested the government were using the public as a goat with regard to the increased rates charged.
This year they came up with a retriever, symbolic, perhaps, of the effort to retrieve the situation and restore the twice-a-day mail in the areas which had it before. The minister, in dealing with that subject the other day, said the cabinet was studying the matter, and there was quite a discussion about areas which do not have even one delivery a day. At the time when the twice-a-day delivery in urban areas was withdrawn the decision was, I presume, based on the fact that there was a shortage of manpower, and it was contended, I presume, that an effort should be made to effect some economies in the department to try to make up for diminishing returns, though in the future, when the manpower situation improved, and revenue improved, a return would be made to the twice-a-day delivery in the urban areas. Now we find that the situation is being reviewed. It seems to me a kind of situation where one service is being pitted against the other, the rural against the urban, and that is a situation that should not be.
If the government, or the department, in withdrawing the twice daily delivery from the urban areas, had expanded one-a-day service in the rural areas and given them an improved delivery the position would, I think, have been quite satisfactory. But this it did not do. The department chose to withdraw one delivery from the urban areas without in any way improving rural deliveries, and now it looks as though the urban areas are asking for the return of what they had before, and that this must now be done at the expense of the rural areas. I want to emphasize that in my opinion, in the light of the rates that are being imposed, there should be an improved delivery to the rural areas, particularly to those areas which are receiving only one delivery every two or three days, and the department should not make this competitive between urban and rural communities. The government should do something more substantial about this than it has done so far, instead of saying it is studying, on an economic basis, the possibility of returning to a two-a-day service.

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Revenue figures show that there has been an increase. I should like to refer now to what the hon. member for York-Scarborough said last week. I thought at the time, and I mentioned to the Postmaster General then that this was a liberal heresy for a member of the Liberal party to express, that post office salaries were not liberal enough-not enough for the employees to live on. The minister replied by saying that this matter was under the control of the civil service commission which had the task of studying the wages paid as compared with those paid by other industries. I would like to ask the minister if this question is at present before the civil service commission in any way at all. Is the commission studying the matter of an increase in wages to postal employees?
In the course of my remarks I tied up this question of the low salaries paid to postal employees with the pensions received by members of the staff who are drawing pensions. If those earning salaries are not getting enough to live on, then surely all pensioners are entitled to receive more than the pension they are getting. But the question now is, is anything being done about the men in the postal service?
I will leave this matter now, but I would point out once again that in my view the department should do something about improving service in the rural sections before introducing improvements in the urban sections, instead of playing one against the other, and it seems now that they are taking advantage of increased revenue without doing anything further.
Now at page 3 of the Postmaster General's report we find the following paragraph under "Purchasing and Stores":
During the year several changes were made in the scheduling of purchases to permit production by manufacturers during the months when there is a seasonal lull in employment. Advanced planning permits a greater volume of manufactured goods to be manufactured during the winter months. This is in accordance with a cabinet directive on winter employment.
Surely there is something wrong with the department's thinking if it has to wait on a directive of the cabinet telling them to place their orders at a time when industry is slack. Surely they did not need a directive from the cabinet about it; I am quite sure the department is more efficient than that. It puts the cabinet in a very sorry light, for this should have been a common practice over the years, and not have come to light at the present time, and the light just dawned on the cabinet to augment winter employment.
There was one thing that stood out in the Woods-Gordon report in regard to what they call time studies. The report gave considerable examples of how improvements and

economies could be brought about in the department-worth-while savings, particularly in the sorting operation. It was pointed out how in certain metropolitan areas such as Toronto and Montreal, which are handling mail based on a rate of $1 per hour to employees, there could be a saving made of approximately, it stated, .085 cents. And with one million letters going through a department in a day it was estimated that would amount to something like $850 of saving each day which, over the year, would amount to a saving in one area alone of $250,000.
But they did admit that there would have to be new equipment installed to effect savings of this kind and also that recruits would have to be enlisted and trained in order to effect these changes and improvements in the department. When the minister replies he will probably give us the number of schools for recruits that have been established in order that these time studies may be made and whether it has been done generally throughout the country or just in certain areas. He might tell us what equipment has been procured to effect these savings because in the Woods-Gordon report it was indicated that very substantial savings would be made amounting to some $250,000 in Toronto and Montreal and in other large areas in proportion, and that would mean something. But it is not evident from the estimates or in the report of the department and I think it should be gone into.
Some two or three years ago, when the department was under the late Mr. Cote, the matter of new equipment was brought up, and the possibilities in the future of making savings were pointed out. I refer to the sorting equipment. One particular type of equipment was mentioned which was in the development stage and it was mentioned that it was going to cost somewhere in the neighbourhood of $1 million or more. The development of the equipment had proceeded so far and we did not find out whether it had been put in operation. When pieces of equipment are in the progress stage and you are developing them and trying to make improvements, the only way you can effect this is to put them into operation. You find the difficulties, the gimmicks and the "bugs" as they are called and they are removed. It is three years now since we were told about that equipment, and at that time the minister held out great promise for the future of that kind of equipment and the savings that it was going to effect. I should like the Postmaster General to elaborate on that a little more and tell us what has become of that equipment and whether it has turned out to be a dud or is going to be of any future benefit to the department.

The minister replied to the hon. member for Peterborough regarding what is called the television operation or the viewing galleries, as I call them. Last year I referred to them as peeping Toms. I do not know whether they have effected any savings or have paid for the cost of establishing them. But I thought that some difficulties would be met in trying to put them into operation. In fact, if the pictures taken were not very good the department would probably have to call for a retake and would have to establish a board to decide if the operation was effective and the pictures good enough. They might get to the stage where these peeping Toms would probably be called all-seeing eyes. The Postmaster General would probably form an organization or association within the department and they would give him a button with the all-seeing eye on it. His subordinate officers would have spy glasses insignia as they would be of lesser rank in the organization. They would be using their spy glasses to watch what was going on in the postal department, and eventually the thing would become a joke throughout the country and the all-seeing eye or viewing operation in the postal department would be abolished, which I think will eventually happen.
But the truth of the matter is that these viewing stations have been in operation for a good many years, although not on such a large scale as at Peterborough and other centres. Can the Postmaster General outline to us what savings have been made through the establishment of these viewing galleries or television machines for taking pictures and tell us what beneficial effect it had upon the postal department to warrant the department spending that kind of money?


Wallace Bickford (Wally) Nesbitt: Mr. Chairman, before I make any remarks there is one question I should like to ask the minister. Are there any cities, towns or large villages in Canada with less than 2,500 delivery points which are receiving letter carrier delivery?


Hugues Lapointe: Yes, Mr. Chairman, there are some, and I have no doubt it will please the hon. member to know that there are to be some more during the present year.


Wallace Bickford (Wally) Nesbitt: I am very glad to hear the minister say that, and I rather hope that certain towns in my constituency, namely, the town of Ingersoll, about which the minister and I have had some correspondence, and also the town of Tillsonburg, may be among those included. I understand that a survey of the town of Ingersoll was made very recently and that there are about 2,169 potential points of delivery. I am very glad to hear what the minister has said for the
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reason that since there apparently is to be such a substantial surplus in the Post Office Department this year amounting to $30 million, I believe the figure was-


Hugues Lapointe: I think I made a correction on that point yesterday. I pointed out that the ultimate surplus would be nearer $6 million when the fiscal year was over. That does not give me as much leeway to extend this type of service which my hon. friend desires.


Wallace Bickford (Wally) Nesbitt: I am still glad to hear that, while the amount of the surplus is not going to be what we thought it would be, there will still be a surplus of about $6 million. We have heard a number of members recommend that two deliveries a day be extended to urban centres. If there is to be a surplus, albeit $6,000,000, it seems to me there would be much better service to the people of Canada generally if letter carrier delivery was extended in the form of once a day delivery in some of the larger towns that have between 2,000 and 2,500 points of call. In a lot of these large towns with populations between 5,000 and 6,000 there are a great many elderly, retired people who may have come from the farm or elsewhere and have settled in these towns. It is quite a chore for them to have to walk down to the post office every day and get their mail, particularly on the very cold days of winter and the very hot days of summer.
Rather than extend twice a day delivery service to large urban and metropolitan centres, it would seem to me that if the minister has a surplus letter carrier delivery might well be extended to some of these large towns that are on the border line. The minister has told us that 2,500 points of delivery is the rule of thumb but, as he has indicated this afternoon, in some cases there are less than that number. In some cases towns with fewer delivery points have letter carrier delivery and he has indicated that there may be some more. Again I say I am glad to hear it and I hope that the two towns in my constituency which I have mentioned will be included.
I think they should be included for this very cogent reason. On these estimates last year the minister was asked a question on this subject and he told us that the rule of thumb was that there had to be an income of $50,000 a year and about 8,000 persons. Both Ingersoll and Tillsonburg have revenues very close to $50,000 a year. As a matter of fact, according to the last figures I have, the town of Tillsonburg, although somewhat smaller than Ingersoll, had a revenue in excess of $50,000 a year. I gather from what the minister has said that the rule of thumb

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is somewhat elastic. It does not seem fair to me that towns in some parts of the country should have letter carrier delivery when they are on the border line and others should not. I think this surplus might well be used for the purpose of including all towns which are very close to having between 2,000 and 2,500 delivery points. I do not see why it should be considered in any way fair that a town in one part of the country should get it and not a town in another part.


Mr. Stanton:: I have a few brief comments to make this afternoon. I listened with a great deal of interest to the remarks of the hon. member for Victoria-Carleton concerning the number of citizens on any particular road. Not many years ago there would be anywhere from three to six persons to the mile on any given road, whereas at the present time there may be only one or two. I believe that these people are as deserving of mail delivery as they were formerly when there were five or six people to the mile.
One could make comparisons along this line with the people living on municipal roads and receiving municipal services. For instance the municipalities try to accommodate all these' people within the municipality, regardless of whether there are six or eight people to the mile, with road accommodation. Even if there is only one person to the mile, he is as deserving of road accommodation as anyone else. I believe the department should accommodate as many citizens as possible with rural mail delivery. Generally speaking, the rural roads are plowed in the winter, and if there are only two or three people to the mile they deserve the accommodation of rural mail delivery.
I have in mind one particular instance in my own constituency. At the time this rural route was inaugurated a farm at the end of the route was not occupied so the route stopped about three-quarters of a mile from this unoccupied farm. Since then the farm has been occupied and this man has been trying to get rural mail delivery but he has not been able to do so. I believe that particular citizen is entitled to rural mail delivery because if he had been living there at the time the route was inaugurated it would have been extended to his home. Why should he not receive that accommodation now? I hope to take this matter up with the Postmaster General or his assistant some time within the next week or two because that is one specific instance of an error caused by the fact the property was not occupied at the time the route was inaugurated. I say again that I believe the department should give every consideration to these citizens, just as

the municipalities give consideration to their citizens in providing them with service.
I have a few more comments to make, Mr. Chairman, with reference to salaries. I believe the salaries paid to rural mail carriers should be more uniform. There is a great variation between the salaries of mail carriers at the present time. I know that in my district there are mail carriers with fewer mail boxes on their routes who receive as large a salary or larger than some others with more extended routes. In fact, I have one specific case in mind. There are several fundamentals in connection with this case, so I will not embarrass the department by bringing it before the committee. This is another matter that I hope to take up with the minister or his assistant in the near future. I feel that there should be some schedule worked out whereby the salaries of the different mail carriers will be more uniform. I know of one particular case in which the rural mail carrier has not had an increase in his salary for many years, while other mail carriers working out of the same office have received one or two increases in their salaries. I feel that the one is no more deserving of it than the other. I say again, Mr. Chairman, I hope the department will work out some schedule whereby there will be more uniformity in the salaries of rural mail carriers.


Harold Edward Winch: About an hour or an hour and a half ago I informed the minister that I had received a communication from the postal employees relative to the fact they had not received their Christmas cheques. I have now had occasion to look back at the letter and I find I was also requested, in the same communication from the postal employees of Vancouver, to ask the minister an additional question. I am told that these employees are being exhorted by the income tax department to get their income tax returns in early. They inform me that not one of them has yet received their T-4 form from the government as to the deductions for income tax. They want to know just why it is that they are exhorted by one department to file their income tax returns early, and yet not one of them has received the necessary T-4 forms so that they can fill out their income tax form. The minister has told me the employees are receiving their Christmas cheques for overtime, but what about the forms?


Hugues Lapointe: May I say with regard to the cheques to which my hon. friend referred that I have explained the cause of the delay. I am now informed that the cheques were sent out early this week and they should have arrived in Vancouver at the latest by yesterday.

With regard to the T-4 forms, again it is the same situation which I described previously. These forms have to be prepared by the central pay office and it is not until the figures are sent in by the district that the details are received to enable the T-4 form to be prepared. Furthermore, it is my understanding that these forms are sent to the local postmaster whose responsibility it is to add certain information such as marital status of the employee, his address and the amount of personal exemption to which he is entitled. This is done at the local office, so that it may take considerable time to add this information to the T-4 form.
I am further informed that this situation exists probably to a greater extent in the post office department than any other department because we do pay more overtime than other departments, and most of it is accumulated during one period of the year because of the increased volume of business at Christmas.
It is that much more complicated. I am told that the T-4 forms, which are those to which my hon. friend referred, for annual salary employees were made up by the central pay office on March 1. Therefore they are there and should be distributed by now.


Harold Edward Winch: May I ask my third, and I think my last question on this item? It is an important one and has been raised for many years. As far as my information is concerned, the situation is unchanged. The post office is perhaps one of the greatest exploiters of labour of any government department. I refer now to the policy which, according to my latest information, is still unchanged of employing year after year after year what is called temporary help. The department calls them temporary help but they work year after year. I have records of some of them going back to nine years. They are still classified as temporary help and they are paid a great deal less than if the department employed a proper and a full staff under proper salaries.
According to my information, there are still a great many employees in the Vancouver post office and in the districts who do work during the day and are employed at night. I understand that the number runs into approximately 300 overall. They are still classified as temporary help. The department must have their help. If my information from the minister's staff is correct, the department is exploiting labour by gypping labour through employing people under the name of temporary help no matter how long they are employed for. To my knowledge this matter has been raised for quite a number
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of years under these estimates. I have raised it myself every session under these estimates and I have yet to find any change.
I know the minister has two portfolios and is awfully busy. Can he say whether this matter is really under investigation now and that as speedily as possible these people will be employed on a permanent basis and not as temporary help? Under the present system the department is paying between 50 per cent and 60 per cent of the required wage instead of 100 per cent.


Hugues Lapointe: This practice, Mr. Chairman, as the hon. member mentioned, has existed in the post office for many years, but I think the description which the hon. member gave was not exactly according to the facts. There is no question of exploiting or gypping the employees of the department. In all post offices -and I am told it exists elsewhere-there are peak periods when, for sortation purposes, you do need a certain number of increased personnel and just for a few hours.


Harold Edward Winch: Would the minister be prepared now to file answers and possibly give the names of all employees employed in the last 10 years in the Vancouver post office district, the hours, the days, the weeks, the months employed, and then tell me whether they are temporary employees?


Hugues Lapointe: I do not think it has anything to do with what I am saying, and I can assure the hon. member that it would be rather difficult. If my hon. friend thinks it will serve a useful purpose I will get all the staff of the headquarters working to prepare such a list.
My point is that in every post office, particularly in those large post offices in the cities of Vancouver, Montreal and Toronto, there are peak hours when an increased number of people is necessary, and once that peak is over there is no more need for those people. They are needed over and above the normal establishment for a few hours every day. The practice in postal establishments has always been to take on people at a set rate for those hours. I can assure my hon. friend that, judging by the demands I have received from all over to get jobs, these temporary employees do not seem to consider that they are being gypped or exploited.


William McLean Hamilton: Will the Postmaster General tell us definitely whether he is going to bring down supplementary estimates later this year with respect to the year 1956-57?


Hugues Lapointe: My hon. friend knows that my colleague, the Minister of Finance, is the one who brings down estimates and tables the supplementary estimates, as he does the main estimates. I am afraid he will have to

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direct his question to the Minister of Finance. I am not sure, Mr. Chairman, whether I would be in order to say whether I had asked for supplementary estimates or not. It is a matter completely outside of my jurisdiction as Postmaster General.


William McLean Hamilton: Mr. Chairman, I will admit immediately the phraseology of the question was rather unfortunate. Does the Postmaster General anticipate any requirement for funds in excess of those for 1956 of which we have already been advised?


Hugues Lapointe: Yes, Mr. Chairman.


John Borden Hamilton: what amount?


Hugues Lapointe: No, I am afraid I cannot tell him that. That would be telling him what the supplementary estimates are and I am afraid I cannot do that.


William McLean Hamilton: It is
an interesting thing, Mr. Chairman,-


Hugues Lapointe: Mr. Chairman, I wish to point out-and I am not trying to withhold information from my hon. friend-I think you will agree that it would not be in order for me as Postmaster General to tell the hon. member or the committee whether my colleague the Minister of Finance will be bringing down supplementary estimates for the year 1956-57 and to what amount. I am sure it would be out of order on my part to do so and that is the only reason why I am not giving the information he desires.


William McLean Hamilton: Mr. Chairman, I certainly do not want the Postmaster General to tell me what the Minister of Finance is going to do. We have had remarkably little success on this side of the house in finding that out but I do think that when we are discussing the estimates of his department for the coming year, and when he has presented certain figures to this house in those estimates, we are entitled to know, in order to pursue our discussions of the coming year a little further, as much as possible about the current year. The figures which we have before us at the present time lead one to believe that the department has a surplus of some $8,200,000 odd. The Postmaster General knows that the information which he gave the house on Friday was not quite as adequate as it should have been, although I sympathize with him because the conclusions which the press drew from it were ones which could easily be drawn. Since the information which he presented to the house enabled press gallery people to draw

wrong conclusions, he came back yesterday and explained and said, "My surplus is really going to be $6 million".
In the estimates before us we have $8,200,000. We have the Canadian press estimating it at $30 million. I am trying to get what the additional requirements are in respect of this year of which the committee has not yet been advised, which the Postmaster General knows about and which the Minister of Finance is going to tell us about. Certainly the Postmaster General is in a position to inform the committee as to what recommendation he is going to make to treasury board.


The Deputy Chairman:: Order. Before that question is answered may I say that I am of the opinion it would be incorrect for any minister to state definitely before a recommendation has been received from His Excellency what that recommendation will be. The estimates, as I understand it-in fact, as I know-are submitted to the house with a royal recommendation, and the estimates before the house at the present time have been so submitted. Supplementary estimates, which come at a later date, of course, are not before the house for discussion until they have been submitted, and will not be discussed, as I understand it, unless they are submitted with that recommendation.
I am not suggesting for a minute that no hon. member might ask of the Postmaster General, "Do you think this is all you are going to need under this heading?" or "I would urge you to include so much more in your supplementary estimates under that heading"; but even if the answer were to be known to the minister I am of the opinion that no hon. member would have the right to ask and no minister would have the right to undertake to tell the house what the royal recommendation is going to be until such time as it is here, for the obvious reason that if His Excellency did not recommend the amount recommended by the Postmaster General the house would find itself in a rather anomalous position.


William McLean Hamilton: Is
there anything else the Postmaster General would like to say in connection with that point so the house might be able to assess the current position of this department?
I see your point, Mr. Chairman, and I have no argument with it whatsoever. The Postmaster General did come in yesterday and say there was going to be an item of $750,000 covering the increase in contracts for rural mail carriers and an increase in rates paid to the railway companies for the transportation of mail estimated at between $850,000 and $875,000. Later on he mentioned that the

item of freight rates would appear in the supplementary estimates to be tabled by the Minister of Finance; so that, really, a good deal of the information has been put on the record and I wanted to tidy the matter up and see whether this was all, only a portion, or just what the situation was going to be. If we deduct the two items given here from the $8,200,000 we do not come down to a $6 million surplus and that is of some importance in deciding the future course of the department.


Hugues Lapointe: I said a little above.


William McLean Hamilton: Could the minister tell us something more?


Hugues Lapointe: I said it would be about $6 million. That is exactly what I said. I said I could do nothing more than estimate what would be the surplus at this time since the fiscal year had not terminated.


William McLean Hamilton: I shall not pursue the matter but we do come up against this problem. It is a rather unsatisfactory situation. Within 15 days of the end of a department's year and at a point where the house is discussing the estimates of that department for the next year the minister is unable to say what his department requires for its expenditures for the current year.


Hugues Lapointe: I must say, Mr. Chairman, I find it rather amazing to hear an hon. member on the opposite side of the house complain that the estimates were brought forward and discussed too early in the session.


Jean Lesage: Is it a new policy of the Conservative party that we should wait until the end of the session?


Mr. Dickey:: It is your last chance to discuss the estimates anyway.


William McLean Hamilton: In no shape or form, Mr. Chairman, am I complaining about the estimates coming down early. I think it is an excellent idea. I am trying to point out that we have gone eleven and a half months through the 1956-57 operations of this department and we are now in the process of discussing its operations for the next year and there is still an air of uncertainty extending to a sum amounting to over $2 million with regard to the department's requirements for the current year. I think perhaps if they were to study their operations a little more carefully in some respects they would be able to provide us with more satisfactory answers.
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Hugues Lapointe: May I point out again, Mr. Chairman, it is not a question of uncertainty but one of propriety.


William McLean Hamilton: It is
plainly a question of good business administration, Mr. Chairman, to either come down with these facts as the information becomes available or not.
I presume the minister is aware that in respect to his payment of staff and informing them for income tax purposes what they are making he is consistently breaking the regulations of the Income Tax Act in sending out the T-4 forms after the date of February 28 and that as a result of this action he is subject to a penalty of a fairly substantial nature. Is the minister aware of that? I think that is a reasonable question to which to expect an answer from the minister.


Hugues Lapointe: These forms, as I explained, come from the central pay office which is the treasury department's concern and not the responsibility of the post office.


William McLean Hamilton: Under those circumstances I can hardly ask the minister whether he is aware that they have broken the regulations. However, I would inform him that owing to the delay in getting this information to the central pay office these regulations have been broken.
Turning to another matter, did the minister tell us previously that some 95 per cent of Christmas overtime was paid in cash and about 5 per cent was taken in leave?


Hugues Lapointe: I think the figure that was provided to me went back over a period of three years and I believe it showed a variation of betwen 5 and 6 per cent. It is expected that when the final figure for this year is checked it will be in the vicinity of 5 per cent.


William McLean Hamilton: Will
the minister please explain to the house why they do not make a practice of paying all Christmas overtime in cash and having the thing cleaned up promptly in January?


Hugues Lapointe: Because the overtime regulation is fixed by the civil service commission and it applies to all departments of government.


William McLean Hamilton: We
are not making very much progress today, Mr. Chairman. The minister has referred to the treasury board, the Minister of Finance and now he refers to the civil service commission. Has the minister ever made any recommendation to the civil service commission to point out the situation and the outcome which I think he will agree is peculiar to his

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[DOT]department? Has he ever made any attempt to have the situation straightened out?


Hugues Lapointe: I hardly think, Mr. Chairman, that recommendations from the Post Office Department to an agency of the government such as the civil service commission are matters that I should reveal. All I can say is that to my knowledge the whole question of overtime was looked into by the civil service commission and I understand that the question is being reviewed by a committee at the present time. I believe that particular attention was drawn to the fact that postal employees are probably those who are subjected to overtime more than the employees of any other department of government.


Mr. Hamillon (Noire Dame de Grace):: Would the Postmaster General be good enough to go back and consider the gross figure of $250,000 for the international postal convention to be held in Ottawa and give us a breakdown of those amounts. I would also ask him, in what fiscal year of the government does he expect to receive the repayment from the postal union?


Hugues Lapointe: The amounts in the estimates, as I have them broken down here, are as follows: Hospitality, $60,000; transportation, $50,000; printing, $60,000.


Francis Alvin George Hamilton: Slowly, please. There was transportation, $50,000. What was next?


Hugues Lapointe: Hospitality, $60,000; transportation $50,000; printing, $60,000; staff, $50,000; simultaneous translation, $30,000.
As regards the reimbursement from the postal union of the amounts due after the congress, it would not be expected to be received before practically a full year after the end of the congress because after the [DOT]accounts are finalized the various member [DOT]countries are assessed. Then the collection is made and it is only when that operation has been terminated by the secretariat that the payment is made back to the host country.


William McLean Hamilton: What is the figure of $50,000 for transportation? Can the Postmaster General give us an explanation of that figure?


Hugues Lapointe: It is to provide for transportation to the various cities which I mentioned, both by train' and by bus service, and to provide certain transportation in taking the personnel around during the operation of the congress.


William McLean Hamilton: As I understand it from the minister's previous remarks,-and I should just like to

confirm this-he is going to move about 350 people from Ottawa to Montreal and Quebec for one trip and he is going to move them for another trip from Ottawa to Toronto and Niagara Falls. According to the explanation which he has just given to us, that is going to cost $50,000. Would he just confirm that?


Hugues Lapointe: I am told that the final arrangements with the railroads have not yet been terminated but that this is based on a rough estimate provided by the railroads for these main trips and also for bus service for shorter trips around the area at the rates which we were able to obtain.


Francis Alvin George Hamilton: I do not carry railway charge sheets and timetables with me but I know in general terms what trips of this nature are likely to cost, as do many other hon. members of the house. We also know that for a sizeable party of this nature special rates are available even below the regular rates. Apart completely from whether or not this is a proper expenditure, I suggest to the minister that it is at least twice as much as he can possibly justify on the basis of the information he has given us today for transportation from Ottawa to Montreal and Quebec and transportation from Ottawa to Toronto and Niagara Falls. Is this only rail and bus transportation?


Hugues Lapointe: The buses would be for
the shorter trips; some shorter trips arranged around Ottawa.


Francis Alvin George Hamilton: Let us leave that matter for a moment. May I ask the minister if he can give us any further breakdown of the $60,000 for hospitality?


Hugues Lapointe: No, Mr. Chairman; I have
not that figure broken down. It is just based on the fact that we will have to provide for room accommodation in the hotels for all these people while they are on the trips. That is the customary thing to do. We have to provide for meals for them and for gratuities, which is the normal procedure followed. Again that is a rough estimate. Until we know exactly the number that we shall have and what the cost of the rooms is likely to be in the various localities, and have all that finalized, it is impossible to give the amount. But I can assure my hon. friend that, according to the information which has been provided, the amount spent by the Canadian government on this congress is away below the amount spent by other host countries in which the congresses have been held previously and that the hospitality which we intend to provide for these delegates will certainly not amount to

anything like the hospitality which has been provided to our own delegates when they attended this congress elsewhere.


William McLean Hamilton: Since the minister makes that statement, can he tell us what was spent in Belgium in 1952 when the congress was held there?


Hugues Lapointe: I have not here the figure for the Brussels congress. I am sure I can get it. But from memory I can tell my hon. friend that as to the 1947 congress which was held in Paris, the information which was provided to us was that it cost the French government $485,000.


William McLean Hamilton: The
minister has a convenient memory. He can remember back to 1947 but he cannot pick up 1952.


Hugues Lapointe: It is not a question of memory. It is a question of the information that has been provided to me. I can assure my hon. friend that I was not there in 1947, and I would not have remembered.


William McLean Hamilton: On
looking over the expenditure of the Canadian delegates to this congress in 1952, may I say that they were quite justifiable expenditures under the heading of travel. They were fairly substantial. They seem to run about $1,500 or between $1,000 and $1,500 for each one of our delegates. I think that is quite proper. We do not want Canadian representatives going to these conventions and not being able to hold their end up with the best of them. But I fail to see how it is that, if this money was being spent by delegates in these other countries,-


Mr. Weir:: Carried.


William McLean Hamilton: I beg
your pardon?


Some hon. Members:: Go ahead.


Hédard-J. Robichaud: You are not saying anything anyway.


William McLean Hamilton: -there was such a tremendous expenditure on behalf of the host country, and that particularly in 1952. My understanding is that while Belgium did a very hospitable and fine job, their expenditures were not of the nature of a quarter of a million dollars in order to do it.


Hugues Lapointe: Ours are not going to be that much. I have pointed out to the hon. member that ours will not be in the nature of a quarter of a million dollars. I pointed out that some of this amount was going to be reimbursed. My hon. friend tries to create the impression that the whole $250,000 is
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going to be spent in lavish hospitality. I am pointing out to him that far from that being the case, the hospitality and the expenditures along that line are going to be very low indeed as compared with what has been done by other host countries in the past. The reason that I cannot tell the hon. member what the Belgian government spent on the 1952 conference is that, I am told, they did not provide us with that information whereas the French government did so after the 1947 congress.


William McLean Hamilton: May
I say that $110,000 worth of transportation and hospitality is a generous amount, Mr. Chairman. While I am delighted to see Canada receiving this conference and holding up its end, I want to say again that I feel that these two items of $60,000 for hospitality and $50,000 for transportation are fanciful, cooked up and unrealistic, and have been simply pulled out of the air without any relationship to fact whatsoever or any study of what is going to be required. Will the Postmaster General tell us, regarding the simultaneous translation system for which he has allowed $30,000, whether it is going to be rented or whether this just represents installation charges?


Hugues Lapointe: We are purchasing part of the equipment and it will probably be taken up afterwards by the armed services who have been asked to provide for the installation. I think I did mention at an earlier date that an interdepartmental committee had for some time been sitting to make arrangements for this congress, and one of the decisions which was reached by that committee was that this equipment could be purchased subject to resale, and that the defence services would be interested in getting part of that equipment. Part of the cost is to be paid for by the international bureau, but the cost for the purchase of the equipment is estimated to be between $25,000 and $30,000; that is for the purchase of all the equipment we are acquiring, and for the installation.


William McLean Hamilton: the installation is being done by the armed services, Mr. Chairman, is the post office paying the armed services for that work?


Hugues Lapointe: Yes, Mr. Chairman.


William McLean Hamilton: Since the minister made his observation on this matter last week indicating that a simultaneous translation service would be used, I went to the trouble of contacting someone who is in that business and asked him what it would cost to build and instal a simultaneous translation system with four channels to handle the need of 350 people so

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that each one of them would have an opportunity to listen to any one of four languages. I was told: "We cannot supply a definite figure immediately, but we will just give you a maximum figure beyond which you could not conceive this thing costing any more." And their figure was $15,000 including installation, which is just one half of what the minister asks.
Mr. Chairman, I would like to ask the minister about the printing in this connection. Is that reimbursable to the Canadian government?


Hugues Lapointe: No, that part is not. We will provide the printing through the services of the Queen's Printer-the printing bureau. That part of the work is not reimbursed by the international bureau.


William McLean Hamilton: So
the printing is not reimbursable, the $60,000 worth of hospitality is not reimbursable, and the $50,000 for transportation is not reimbursable. That would leave $50,000 for staff and $30,000 for simultaneous translation, which is expected to come back. Is that the position?


Hugues Lapointe: I am afraid I did not get the end of the hon. member's question.


William McLean Hamilton: Perhaps I should put it this way: Of this $250,000, which items will come back, specifically, Mr. Chairman?


Hugues Lapointe: I think I mentioned only the simultaneous translation system on which we shall get a reimbursement, and the hire of Canadian clerical staff, as I explained previously. Obviously, the cost of hospitality
and transportation will not be charged to the bureau and, as I have mentioned, neither will the printing.


William McLean Hamilton: know the minister would like to get his first item through, and I would agree with him that there are many questions which might more properly be asked on "Operations" instead of being discussed now. I just mention that so there will be no future misunderstanding, Mr. Chairman-so that the minister and I may understand each other. Is the minister prepared to discuss the operations of the cost ascertainment division and the franking charges against the government under "Operation"?


Hugues Lapointe: Cost ascertainment would normally come under Departmental Administration. The division which provides that service comes under the administration division.


William McLean Hamilton: In
that case I had better take it up now. Can the Postmaster General give us at this point a summary of the findings of the cost ascertainment studies which would have been finished in September, 1956, particularly regarding the costs of various classes of mail and the revenues therefrom?


Hugues Lapointe: The cost ascertainment situation in the fiscal year 1955-1956 was referred to during the last committee on estimates, and I think that is what the hon. member has in mind. I will have to divide this into various classes-first class mail, second class mail and so on. Details are as follows:



COST ASCERTAINMENT-FISCAL YEAR 1955-56

[Stage Direction]
Apportionment of Total Revenue, Disbursements from Revenue and Appropriation Expenditures Over All Classes of Mails and Services Based Upon Cost Ascertainment Tests Made in October, 1955 and March, 1956
-	Volume pieces	Revenue cents per piece	Expenditure cents per piece	Profit cents per piece	Loss cents per pieceFirst class ordinary	
1,680,749,256	5.18	3.10	2.08	-Air mail-	Domestic	
17,348,346	11.40	10.73	.67	-Foreign	
28,937,646	19.81	19.45	.36	-Parcel post	
143,019	113.01	238.44	-	125.43Second class-	Transient	
18,051,134	5.25	11.09	-	5.84Publishers	
537,610,208	1.12	4.32	-	3.20Third class-	Householder	
183,902,320	1.52	1.62	-	.10Addressed circulars	
693,805,254	2.07	1.90	.17	-Fourth class-	Domestic	
77,269,706	23.50	22.61	.89	-Registration	
14,423,075	20.53	44.72	-	24.19Special delivery	
2,297,623	10.29	24.85	-	14.56Insurance- . 	Paid parcel	
305,055	8.96	165.32	-	156.34Money orders- 	Notched	
15,649,921	18.40	20.15	-	1.75Denominative	
33,431,161	11.08	12.73	-	1.65
[Stage Direction]
Merchant Seamen Compensation Act
William McLean Hamilton: I do
want to thank the Postmaster General for putting these figures on the record. I think he will agree with me that they are of wide interest because they represent new information about the financial administration of the Post Office Department. Would he confirm for me the first figure he gave? I believe it was for first class mail.


Hugues Lapointe: First class ordinary.


William McLean Hamilton: The
four and five cent mail. I believe he said that the current profit on this operation is 2.08 cents per piece.


Hugues Lapointe: That is correct.


William McLean Hamilton: wish I could hark back to the exact words of the debate of 1954 when the government proposed an increase in the postal rates of one cent on a letter. We fought against that increase and we fought against it hard on the grounds which we found existed from our study of the department to show that first class mail was already paying more than its share of the post office operation. But the then postmaster general and the cabinet said: "Oh my, no, we must have this increase because we have to service this mail and we have to carry it all up; our costs are rising every day." The arguments they put forward were multitudinous, all designed to show that it was a losing proposition and that this increase in respect to first class mail was justified.
We have now found out the truth, and I am very glad indeed, that the cost ascertainment section of the post office has been in operation and has got these figures for us. I only wish it had been in operation in 1954. We have found out today that every time a Canadian citizen puts a postage stamp on a letter he is paying 2 cents more than the cost of transporting and handling that letter. Every time a Canadian taxpayer posts a letter the government, despite its protestations of increasing costs and so many difficulties, puts its hand into that person's pocket and extracts some of their money over and above what the government needs for the purpose of the proper operation of the post office. May I call it six o'clock?


Walter Edward Harris: Before we do that and you leave the chair, Mr. Chairman, at eight o'clock we shall take the Merchant Seamen Compensation Act and then go on with the estimates of northern affairs.
Progress reported.



MERCHANT SEAMEN COMPENSATION ACT


[Stage Direction]
The house in committee on Bill No. 178, to amend the Merchant Seamen Compensation Act-Mr. Gregg-Mr. Robinson (Simcoe East) in the chair.
At six o'clock the committee took recess.

AFTER RECESS

The committee resumed at eight o'clock.
William Alfred Robinson: When the committee rose at six o'clock we had commenced to consider Bill No. 178, an act to amend the Merchant Seamen Compensation Act. I was about to call clause 1. I think I should draw the attention of the committee to the fact that in line 28 of clause 1 the words "in the opinion of the board" have been inserted by the committee on industrial relations between the words "until" and "the", so that the paragraph now reads:
Compensation is payable to an invalid child without regard to the age of such child, and payments to such child shall continue until, in the opinion of the board, the child ceases to be an invalid.
Clause 1, shall this clause carry?
On clause 1-


Mr. Carter:: Mr. Chairman, when second reading of this bill was being discussed I was called out of the chamber so before clause 1 carries I should like to commend the government for introducing this legislation at this time. This amendment is of considerable interest to my province, and particularly to my own riding, where so many people get their living from the sea. We all know that those who go down to the sea in ships live a very hazardous life. Every year the sea takes its toll and the number of widows and orphans of seamen in my province grows greater year by year. Of course, in a country like Canada, which depends so much on external trade, the merchant navy is the very lifeblood of our economy. It is extremely gratifying to me to see that measures are being taken to make better provision for the dependents of the deceased seamen.
There are one or two questions which I should like to ask the minister which he might answer at the appropriate time. I looked up the definition of "seaman" in the act and I found that it does not include fishermen. There are times when a banking vessel, after fishing for eight months out of the year, does engage in the coastal trade for perhaps one or two months during the slack season.
1988	HOUSE OF COMMONS
Merchant Seamen Compensation Act I am not quite sure whether or not during those months in which the fishing vessel is so engaged the crew could be classified as merchant seamen. The other question that has come to my mind is whether the dependents of those seamen who served in the merchant navy during wartime and who, because of war service, are receiving some pension from the Canadian pensions commission, would qualify for benefits under this act in certain circumstances?


Ellen Louks Fairclough: Does the minister propose to make any remarks before we proceed with the discussion?


Mr. Gregg:: This bill has had the advantage of being considered by the industrial relations committee. As you have stated, Mr. Chairman, for purpose of clarification, at the request of the hon. member for Hamilton West we asked that line 28 be amended as indicated.
In reply to the hon. member who has just spoken, I may say the answer to both questions is in the negative. The fishermen, as I understand, would be just employed as merchant seamen for a very short time. The main occupation would be fishermen. This act has no retroactive features applying to those who served as merchant seamen during the war and are not acting as merchant seamen now.


Ellen Louks Fairclough: First of all, Mr. Chairman, may I say that I am gratified that the minister has seen fit to make the small amendment in the act as he has. I thought, while it may have been understood, nevertheless it was just as well that the act specifically set out that particular qualification. Really, there is not much to be said about this amending bill because it pretty well speaks for itself. It brings the compensation for merchant seamen, generally speaking, up to the average of compensation paid for workmen in other classifications across Canada. We are quite satisfied with the provisions in that regard.
There were one or two things that came out in committee that probably we would like to place on the record in this house. The first one is the protection for non-pilots which was stressed by the hon. member for Saint John-Albert. No doubt, he will say a few words about that. The other point I should like to mention particularly is the provision of rehabilitation services which are not specifically covered in the act and which are pretty much left, I would think, to the discretion of the board to arrange under the auspices of the rehabilitation service of the department. I trust that the officials who administer the act will see that in no case is an injured workman deprived of the necessary rehabilitation services. In my

opinion this is a matter that might very easily be overlooked once his medical and hospital expenses had been covered. I am sure that by stressing the point it will just draw it to the attention of those who are in charge of the administration of this act, and they will make sure that no one is deprived of this service. Possibly the big difficulty to be faced here is the fact that there are so few people who are actually served by this act that we may overlook the rather obvious services which might be made available to them. I think it is wise, for that reason, to mention these particular points.
In general, we are in accord with the provisions of the bill, Mr. Chairman.


Mr. Gillis:: Mr. Chairman, I join with others in saying nothing about the bill. There is very little left to be said. It is an indication of considerable progress since 1946.
In the matter of rates the bill is better than the legislation of some of the provinces, and that is also true with respect to the dependents of deceased people who may have come under the act.
With regard to rehabilitation, very few of the provinces which have compensation acts are doing anything about rehabilitation. A person is placed on compensation. He is paid a certain rate while he is totally disabled from continuing his employment. After his period of treatment is over he is carried on compensation for a time and then he is taken before his doctor who decides that the person is 50 per cent better, and the compensation is cut 50 per cent. The doctor recommends light work in heavy industry where there is no light work. Therefore, during the period of rehabilitation the individual is eking out an existence on half compensation. Whether this act will work or not remains to be seen. Of course, you will not have the type of people to handle under this act that you would have in heavy industry.
I would like the minister to explain one thing. In most of the compensation acts across the country there is a provision having to do with occupational diseases, diseases that are peculiar to certain industries. I am wondering whether in this act any consideration has been given to that angle. Are there diseases peculiar to those engaged in the merchant service or in the occupation of seamen generally? Personally, I am quite satisfied with the act. I think we have made a lot of progress in a short time compared with the length of time it took us in most of the provinces to convince the government and the employers that we needed legislation of this kind.

The only thing I would like the minister to clear up is the matter of occupational diseases. Has the administration run into anything of that nature? I imagine that a person serving on salt water for a long period of time would be prone or susceptible to bronchial diseases. The minister might comment on that when he makes his remarks.


Thomas Miller Bell: Mr. Chairman, on second reading and in committee we discussed the fact that there were still some seamen who did not come under the provisions of this act. I refer specifically to those in our pilotage service who are non-pilots. It was agreed that the intention of the act would be to include all seamen who did not come under compensation of a provincial or other governmental nature. Therefore, we should make certain that all seamen are looked after. We were given the assurance of the minister and the department at the time that these nonpilots would receive every consideration, and if it was ascertained that they would not benefit from any other civil damages or from the other benefits that might accrue through a legal court action the department would consider the plight of their dependents. I was quite satisfied with the treatment we gave to this subject but merely for the record here in committee I would like the minister simply to reiterate the statement he made that the department will seriously consider these nonpilots who were affected by the recent action in Saint John and that their dependents will be looked after in some way, as is the intention of this act.


Milton Fowler Gregg: Mr. Chairman, may I refer to the point made on rehabilitation by both the hon. member for Cape Breton South and the hon. member for Hamilton West. While we have no direct facilities under this legislation to carry out rehabilitation services for those who are injured, nevertheless the very fact that the deputy minister of labour is the chairman of this board and has also under his responsibility the federal end of the vocational and technical training plan in conjunction with the provinces will make it very difficult for a case that may be subject to rehabilitation to be overlooked. I can assure both hon. members that that will be watched carefully.
Now, as to the other point raised by the hon. member for Cape Breton South, I think he should be the last person to say that the deep blue sea causes occupational diseases. I think it strengthens people rather than weakens them; but I think I will cover his point when I say that occupational hazards are certainly taken care of. He will recall
Supply-Northern Affairs that we started to name some of those hazards in the committee. They consisted of such things as getting tangled up in the hawser and slipping on a slippery deck. One unique case was that of a man who had lost his boat. He had climbed a tree to see where it was and fell out of the tree. These were certainly occupational hazards and the board decided that he was acting in the performance of his duty in trying to get back.
I am quite sure I am right in saying that those who are employed at this work-and I am sure the hon. member for Saint John-Albert will confirm this-are subject to no more occupational diseases than members of parliament, for instance.
With respect to the other point made by the hon. member for Saint John-Albert, I will affirm here what I said at the committee stage. In conjunction with the Department of Transport and the Department of Justice we shall do our utmost to see that those pilots' assistants who unfortunately lost their lives in the accident in Saint John harbour and those who may suffer similar accidents will be favourably considered. If it is possible to do it we shall bring their dependents under this legislation.


[Stage Direction]
Section agreed to.
Sections 2 to 6, inclusive, agreed to.
Title agreed to.
Bill reported, read the third time and passed.
[Stage Direction]
The house in committee of supply, Mr. Robinson (Simcoe East) in the chair.

[Stage Direction]
297. Departmental administration, $637,817.
Douglas Scott Harkness: Mr. Chairman, I was somewhat surprised when I was having dinner to be informed that these estimates were coming on immediately after eight o'clock as I understood from what was said yesterday that the estimates of the Post Office Department were to be discussed first and these to follow. But it would appear that probably the government is studying to become experts on what might be called rear-guard action. Apparently they have withdrawn the Post Office Department, following the pattern established a couple of days ago when the minister of this department withdrew the museum bill.


Jean Lesage: I did not withdraw the bill. Mr. Chairman, on a question of privilege-


Douglas Scott Harkness: Well, Mr. Chairman,-


Jean Lesage: On a question of privilege, Mr. Chairman, I did not withdraw the museum

Supply-Northern Affairs bill. I made the motion that the bill be reprinted and it was unanimously adopted.


Douglas Scott Harkness: Mr. Chairman, I do not want to quibble over this matter. The bill was withdrawn, we shall say, tor reprinting.


John Horace Dickey: You must have changed if you do not want to quibble.


Gordon Minto Churchill: Why not withdraw the estimates and have them looked at again?


Jean Lesage: You would be the first to complain if we did.


Douglas Scott Harkness: I was just going to observe, Mr. Chairman, that I trust the government will not continue this pattern and withdraw the estimates we now have before us prior to our having a chance to discuss them fully.


John Horace Dickey: You will have an opportunity to withdraw from parliament very shortly.


John Borden Hamilton: Be quiet.


Douglas Scott Harkness: The estimates were introduced on February 22 by the minister and at that time he spoke very briefly, I think for about five minutes. What he had to say was only a listing of the projects and the amounts that these were expected to cost. No doubt he will elaborate on a considerable number of the projects as we proceed with our discussion of the estimates.
However, on the basis of what the minister said at that time I might point out I am glad to note that three-quarters of the increase in the estimates of the department for this year is slated for northern development. For several years past I have been urging on the minister and the government that a great deal more should be done as far as the development of our northland is concerned. I have been pleased to see that during the past two years the government has apparently become aware of the fact there is a very large field of development to be pursued in the north and has been appropriating larger sums each year for that development.
I think it is wise that the government has seen fit to appropriate $2J million this year for a road up to Yellowknife. I should like to have the minister tell us when he offers a reply what portion of that road is going to be built this year and how far the present contemplated appropriation of $2J million will take that road. In other words, I should like to know what proportion of the total length of the road it is intended that this expenditure will cover.
I was also glad to have the minister mention the provision for the first time of an appropriation to assist the provinces in the prevention of forest fires and for forest fire

protection generally. I understand that an amount of $500,000 is to be expended in this field. This is something for which the federal government should have been taking some responsibility a long time before this. The federal government did of course do something along this line in the forest conservation scheme on the eastern slope of the Rockies. To a large extent this was a forest fire prevention and control scheme but to my knowledge they have done nothing else along that line and I am extremely glad to learn that they are now entering this field.
The minister also mentioned that a special effort is to be made this year by the travel bureau to increase travel to the maritime provinces. I think this policy will be welcomed by everyone. The general activities of the travel bureau have been relatively successful although they have been limited in what they could do by the amount of money appropriated to them. I think it is a good thing that they are featuring in their advertisements and publicity one particular part of Canada each year with a view to increasing tourist trade. I would think this policy will prove more effective than general advertisements designed to attract tourists to Canada. The highlighting of a specific area in Canada each year is a worthwhile innovation and I trust it will be successful in attracting a greatly increased number of tourists to the Atlantic provinces during the coming year.
Before I proceed with the remarks I intended to make I would like to pay tribute to the officers of this department and particularly the officials of the northern affairs branch who are dedicated men doing an extremely worth-while job. By singling out the officers in the northern affairs branch I do not mean to cast any reflection on the officials of any other branch-and there are many branches in this department-because almost without exception the officials with whom I have come in contact have commanded my respect and admiration.
I should like to open my general remarks on these estimates, Mr. Chairman, by quoting from a speech which was made by Professor Creighton in Ottawa on February 16, as reported in the Ottawa Journal of February 18. The report reads in part:
Professor Creighton reviewed Macdonald's achievement

That is of course a reference to Sir John A. Macdonald.
-in bringing about confederation on the assumption that Canada was economically viable in its own right and could be organized as a separate and competitive economy in North America.
Canada today had a second chance to prove Laurier's claim that the twentieth century belonged to her. The northwest gave the nation a boom

in the first half of the century and now the northwest offered new riches in metals, fuels and sources of energy and power. How they would be developed and used would, in all probability, depend the entire future history of Canada.
Those remarks are profoundly true in my opinion. The first great rapid surge of population and development in this country came as a result of the opening up of the west following the construction of the Canadian Pacific Railway. As Professor Creighton points out, we now have at our feet a second great phase of development in the north. The development of the resources of the north of course includes the northern parts of the provinces as well as the Yukon and Northwest Territories. As far as the provinces are concerned, individually they have the primary responsibility for the development of those areas although the dominion government also has a responsibility to assist them to put into effect policies which will enable the development of the northern regions of the provinces to proceed satisfactorily.
With regard to the Yukon and Northwest Territories the sole responsibility rests with the central government and particularly the Department of Northern Affairs and National Resources.
There are, I think, two main keys to making this development possible and to making the resources of those northern areas available to the people of Canada. The first of these is, of course, transportation.
The department has finally recognized that this is the case. For some considerable time- up until last summer, as a matter of fact- everything that was said by members who came from the north and by others of us who were interested in that northern development and had it at heart was fairly well pooh-poohed by the department and the government or at least nothing was done about it. But as I say, the department has now recognized the fact that transportation into these northern areas is absolutely vital and necessary if their development is to take place.
I placed on the record last year-and I should like to do so again-a few excerpts from a brief presented to the Gordon commission by Mr. Robertson, the deputy minister of this department, with regard to the Northwest Territories. At page 19 of that brief we find these words:
The most difficult and urgent problem to be faced in the economic development of the Northwest Territories is transportation.
As I say, this fact has finally been realized by the department. Following that there are various other quotations which emphasize and re-emphasize the necessity for the provision of better transportation into these
Supply-Northern Affairs areas if the resources of the areas are to be economically and profitably developed. What I wonder, however, is whether the government as a whole has yet recognized what the facts are in this connection and whether it is prepared to go ahead in an energetic way to provide the means of transportation which are essential for the development of that area.
In this same brief at page 24 we find these words:
[DOT]	[DOT]	. three methods by which transportation
facilities into the Northwest Territories might be improved. The first is the construction of a railroad to Great Slave lake.
I have failed to find in the estimates anything to indicate that the government is taking any steps to initiate a railway to Great Slave lake. Perhaps the minister may be able to tell us at a later time that something is being done in this regard. I certainly trust so. But as I say, a perusal of the estimates did not indicate that the government is giving any consideration, this year at least, to the provision of that railway which the department itself in its brief has indicated is essential. Then the quotation continues:
The second is the construction of roads into promising resource development areas when and as indications suggest that these areas, given highway transportation, would be economic to develop.
The road which I mentioned earlier and which the minister stated was going to have $2J million spent on it this year to Yellowknife is of course a road of that type. I am only sorry that there are not other roads, particularly roads extending into the area beyond Yellowknife, which are provided for in any of this year's estimates.


Jean Lesage: There was some provision last year.


Douglas Scott Harkness: What was provided for last year was an extremely limited program which extended a very few miles from Yellowknife and quite failed, I think, to meet the necessities of the situation which exist there. The quotation continues:
The third is the adoption of a policy of supplying the newly constructed defence stations in the Northwest Territories by commercial air services and the establishment of a network of scheduled commercial air lines in the Arctic.
In spite of the fact that this apparently is the general idea of the department, in actual practice the reverse seems to be the case. Air lines which wish to establish scheduled air services into the north have been discouraged and in effect have been prevented from establishing those scheduled air routes into that northern country.
I would point out that in addition to removing that road block to independent

Supply-Northern Affairs private air lines establishing routes into the north, there is a necessity for considerably more to be done in the provision of air landing strips. As far as the far north, the extreme Arctic, is concerned, a great many air landing strips have been provided through the Construction of the D.E.W. line stations. In the areas farther south, however, where a considerable amount of scrub exists in places, considerable forested areas and so on, much less has been done. Those are the areas to quite an extent where the greatest resource development may be expected to take place and where the provision of landing strips in considerably increased numbers is essential.
I said that in my opinion the first great key to unlocking the resources of the north is transportation. The second great key I believe is the harnessing of the hydroelectric power of the rivers of this country, particularly those in the north. In this regard I refer particularly to the water power of the Columbia river in British Columbia and of the Yukon river. This whole matter of the development of the water power of these two rivers is now under consideration by the Canadian and United States governments.
In this connection I should like to read briefly from an article by Bruce Hutchison in Maclean's magazine of November 29, 1956, in which he deals with this question of the Columbia river particularly and also the Yukon river and the hydroelectric possibilities of those two rivers. The article is entitled "The Coming Battle for the Columbia". These are the words that I should particularly like to bring to the attention of the committee:
Early next year the two friendly neighbours will begin their most important negotiations since the abortive reciprocity agreement of 1911; Canada seems to hold all the aces in a gigantic poker game of diplomacy. The U.S. is apparently hoist on two separate petards of its own making and ruefully confronts two errors impelled by its lack of foresight.
Nevertheless, the bargain now in the making, though it holds immense opportunities for Canada, presents dangers of equal magnitude. That question-far more significant than most of the partisan issues now convulsing domestic Canadian politics- will be answered in the next year or two.
Then down a little bit further he goes on to say this:
The agenda of Canadian politics contains many impressive items, soon to receive the verdict of the electors. All of them-even the controversial gas pipe line-are dwarfed in importance by the management, or mismanagement, of the Columbia.
Then he goes on to point out what the immense hydroelectric potential of that river is. He points out that all of the rivers of North America are estimated to contain a fifth of the hydroelectric power of the world and that the Columbia is estimated to contain
[Mr. Harkness.l
a third of that fifth, or in other words a third of the hydroelectric power of the continent. The article of course goes on to point out what the legal position is and to express the fear that, in spite of the fact that on legal grounds Canada would seem to be in a position of having complete control of what is done on the waters of the Columbia river and on the waters of the Yukon river, nevertheless the pressure of the United States, much larger than ourselves and upon whom we are dependent as far as defence matters are concerned, and so forth, may be such as to cause our government in effect to give away a considerable number of our rights.
I would like the minister, when he comes to reply to the speeches made here, to indicate to the house what the situation is with regard to the negotiations concerning the use of the water power of the Columbia and the Yukon rivers, and to give an assurance to the house that Canada will not be "sold down the river" with regard to its hydroelectric resources. The whole tenor of this article is that that is the greatest danger facing Canada from an economic point of view at the present time, and I think that in view, particularly, of the considerable amount of speculation there has been about this matter and in view of the numerous statements which have been made in the United States in connection with it, the government, through its ministers, owes it to the house and to the people of Canada to make a definite statement in regard to the Columbia and the Yukon river waters, and to say that Canada is going to maintain its rights in connection with those waters.
There was another matter on which I spoke at considerable length last year, I will mention it only briefly now: that is, the D.E.W. line stations in our far north. Last year I pointed out that a considerable number of newspapermen who had been on a trip up in that area had written articles indicating that to a considerable extent the far north had been alienated to the American air force personnel who were, in many cases, in charge of the air stations being constructed in the north. This view was expressed in another article in Maclean's by Ralph Allen, in this case in an article on May 26. He stated the position in this form:
The suggestion that Canada is only the nominal ruler of this important part of Canada and that the United States is the real ruler is not taken seriously anywhere except on the DEW line itself. There, the truth is palpable and inescapable.
And a little further on in the article, he said:
The most experienced and responsible Canadian I met in the north was a man X would rather not identify more closely than that. I asked him bluntly:	"Do you and your friends resent the

presence of the Americans here?" "No," he said sadly. "It is the other way round. They resent our presence here."
As I say, I spoke on this at some considerable length last year, and the minister did not give any satisfactory replies or assurance in this matter. I urged him that, in order to demonstrate the fact that this was Canadian territory, we should actively exercise sovereignty over it in all parts, and that there should be some representative of the civil power, a mounted police officer or a representative of the minister's department at every one of these D. E. W. line stations rather than the situation which existed at that time, last year, at least, when there was one mounted policeman at each of the main stations, and three or four stations between these main stations would be without any representative. I hope a change has taken place in that situation since last year. I would like the minister to tell us what the situation is at the present time, and what has been done in regard to the matter.
Along the same lines, we had quite a discussion last year in regard to how far north of the Canadian mainland Canadian sovereignty extended, and the hon. member for York West pointed out that booklets put out by the various Canadian departments showed our northland extending in a segment right up to the north pole. The minister completely "pooh-poohed" that idea, and said "No, no, that is only floating ice; we have no sovereignty over it, no control", and so forth. The point was brought up, as a matter of fact, because of reports current last year that the Russians had weather stations and similar installations on some of this ice. We pointed out that whether it was floating ice in all cases or whether some of it was land, nobody knew; it was impossible to determine that, and nobody had been there to survey it. In any event this "segment" principle had been enunciated many years before and we were very surprised, when the question happened to come up, that the minister disavowed it, although it had been maintained by a former minister of the interior.


Jean Lesage: On a question of privilege, Mr. Chairman, I am sorry I have to correct the hon. member. What I said was that Canada has claimed, for a great number of years, all land within that sector as being Canadian territory.


Douglas Scott Harkness: The minister, as I say, disavowed the segment principle entirely and tried to throw as much ridicule as he could on the hon. member for York West and myself for advancing it, and for expressing surprise that it was not still part of Canadian policy.
Supply-Northern Affairs As a matter of fact there was something which appeared in the newspapers about two weeks after the debate took place-it was just at the end of the last session-which pointed out that in some book that is put out by the minister's own department what we had maintained in regard to the segment principle was what was being maintained in this book.
In any event, I would like to know if the minister has had any change of heart in regard to that particular matter.


Jean Lesage: I just told you what the policy was.


Douglas Scott Harkness: Well, perhaps the minister realizes that he was much too vehement last year in disclaiming any territorial control over this area immediately north of our mainland, and now he wants to get off the hook.


Jean Lesage: Mr. Chairman, I am sorry but I cannot let the hon. member put into my mouth things that I never said last year. I said that we did not claim the open seas in either liquid or frozen form, but that we claim as Canadian all land within that sector up to the north pole.


Mr. Hardie:: Everything north of the
Northwest Territories is Hardie's land.


Douglas Scott Harkness: In any event, these estimates will be under discussion after today, particularly the northern territories branch, and we will have plenty of time to look up exactly what the minister did say, and also some of those articles in regard to the matter which were written afterwards, and I think they will show that what he said was essentially what I have been maintaining.
Now I come to another matter. I have, for the past two years, been making the same complaint each year, when these estimates were up for consideration, in regard to the method of tendering which has been followed in this department. I spoke of it at some considerable length last year, pointing out that the method of tendering was very much open to criticism in the light of the methods used by the Department of Public Works, Defence Production, and so forth, in that, generally speaking, public tenders were not called for and tenders were not opened in public. So I was very glad to see that when the construction of gondola lifts in the Banff and Jasper national parks was finally agreed to some time in the past few months, apparently, an announcement was made that these would be put out to public tender-the first time as far as I know that this has taken place in connection with any works in the parks.
I am, as I say, glad that the minister apparently has had a change of heart with regard to the tendering system at least as

Supply

Northern Affairs far as these three projects are concerned. However, I did receive a letter just yesterday from a resident of Banff in connection with the matter in which some concern was expressed whether or not the newspaper announcements that had been made were actually correct because the notice put in the newspapers inviting tenders made no mention whatever of the fact that the tenders would be publicly opened. I should like the minister to reassure us that that actually will be done, that the sort of aura of secrecy which has prevailed in the department in the past as far as tenders are concerned will in the case of these three gondola lifts at least be done away with and the tenders will be opened in public, and that the aura of mystery in connection with tenders in this department in these instances will be brought to an end.
I would hope too that tenders of all kinds involving work, supplies and so forth for the department will in the future be on the same sort of basis as they have been for some time in defence production, public works and other departments and will in all cases be public tenders which will be advertised so that everybody will have an opportunity to tender and not just those people on a selected list, which has been the case up to now in the department. I hope that all tenders will be opened in public as has been the case in these other departments.


William Alfred Robinson: I am extremely sorry to interrupt the hon. member but it is my duty to advise him that his time has expired.


Herbert Wilfred Herridge: Mr. Chairman, the minister's department ranges over a great expanse of time and history, much more so, I think, than any other department of government. Some of the minister's officials are concerned with the fossils of the pre-Cambrian era and others are making plans in connection with the welfare of the Eskimos which will not likely mature for another hundred years. Therefore I think it is quite safe to say that this is a most interesting department dealing with human and natural history and the administration of human beings and things connected therewith. It is an interesting department under the supervision, I think all of us will admit, of a very versatile and keen minister. But he is fortunate indeed to be supported by a very well qualified, capable, hard working and loyal staff.
When the items come under consideration I will have a few words to say in connection with national parks, water resources, northern administration, wild life and tourist bureau and also a few remarks in connection with the proposals for the development of the Columbia, but at this time I am going


to relate my remarks principally to the forest branch of the minister's department. This is one branch in which I feel somewhat at home as I have lived in the woods all my life and expect to end my days in the woods.
During recent years there has been a great expansion of the lumber and allied industries in Canada. With that expansion has come an increasing awareness of the great importance of the forest industry in the economic life of Canada, and because of that prominent leaders in the forest industry, in industry in general and a good number of organizations consider that the time is ripe for a department of forestry to be established and that the forest industry of Canada is too important to continue as a branch of a larger department. When one considers the vast administration that comes under the jurisdiction of the minister, one can readily realize that not only would the forest industry benefit by having a department created to administer its affairs but other branches in this department would, I am quite sure, benefit from the greater specialization and attention that would come to them.
In that connection I want to quote from a summary of the panel on forestry objectives presented at the resources conference in Ottawa on Friday, April 23, 1954. Mind you, this summary is the result of very informed people in the industry expressing their opinions before that important conference. The part I wish to quote reads as follows:
While our forests are and will continue to be administered by provincial governments, they nevertheless make an important contribution to the federal revenue-
I notice the Minister of National Revenue has disappeared.
-and many of the problems affecting their management are of national scope and significance, and the need for increased federal assistance in connection with forest development and protection programs was emphasized. While there is no factual information readily available on the over-all amount of taxes that have been paid into the federal treasury by the various units of the forest industry, a perusal of the published reports of some units of the industry shows that the payments are in very sizeable amounts, and a rough estimate suggests that over the past decade the total comes to well over $8 billion. On the other hand, a review of the annual federal expenditures reveals that only very small amounts have been expended on forestry.
That there has been a lack of concern for forestry matters by the federal government was suggested by Mr. Johnson when he drew attention to the fact that although there is a department of mines and a Department of Agriculture at Ottawa, there is no department of forestry, and that forestry matters are administered by a branch in the Department of Northern Affairs and National Resources. He pointed out that the name of the department under which the forestry branch has been administered at various times in the last decade or two since it was originally set up in the old department of the interior has been changed

several times, and that the closest reference to forestry in the departmental name was that of "national resources".
I think that summary clearly expresses the opinion of people who have a great interest in the forest industry, who have a full appreciation of its value to the economic life of Canada and are not given to making unreasonable requests to governments. I suggest that the minister and his colleagues give serious consideration to this matter.
To indicate the growing importance of the forest industry at the present time, may I say that according to the figures given to me the average production of the forest industry in the years 1926 to 1929 was $437 million annually. The total production of the forest industry in 1953 amounted to $1,988 million. That shows the tremendous increase. Taking wages, average wages paid per year between 1926 and 1929 amounted to $205 million a year. Wages paid in 1953 amounted to $1,099 million.
Owing to the condition of the overseas market particularly, and the market in the United States, there is a slight lessening of capital investment in the forest industry in Canada, but even this year the forest industry in Canada expects to spend somewhere between $62 million and $65 million on plant expansion. Now, that indicates to me the importance of the industry and the need for a special department of government to administer the forest industry in Canada in its relation to the federal government, particularly in view of the very large contribution made to the federal exchequer at this time by the industry.
Having said that, I want to refer to one or two other matters. There is a gradual improvement in the recognition by this government of the importance of the forest industry to the Canadian people. This improvement comes as a result of the representations from various organizations, from the industry itself and from other public bodies. The improvement is almost snaillike in pace. First of all, after a good number of years the government finally proposed the Canada Forest Act. It was a step forward, and indicated the government's growing interest in the development of the forest industry in Canada. Then, after a bit more urging, pushing and shoving, this federal government made certain grants to the provinces, by agreement, for forest inventories. Then, further grants were made for reforestation. They are all to the good because you cannot tell where you are in the forest industry until you know what you have got in timber stock. I was glad to know that last year the government was providing funds for 82715-126i
Supply-Northern Affairs further forest inventory surveys in this country. There is certainly a necessity for continued expansion of funds for reforestation and forest management because without keeping your capital intact your industry will soon start to decline.
The industry and representative organizations pointed out to the government the great importance of forest protection from fire in this country. This is essential; in fact, I think it is the first and most important thing upon which the larger sums should be spent. I have mentioned before that I have had some experience with forest fires. I was in charge of a crew attempting to fight a fire when I saw a hundred million feet of timber consumed in four hours. As a result of a high wind, a patch of timber some three miles wide and 15 miles long was totally destroyed in about four hours. When you see things of that sort, you realize what a devastating effect fire can have on the forest resources of this country. I have had similar experiences on a number of occasions, but that was the worst one. Since that time I have always been particularly interested in adequate forest protection against fire. I was very pleased that finally the government again responded to the requests of forest organizations and the industry to grant this year, I understand, a half million dollars to be used in co-operation with the provinces for expansion of forest protection services. This is an excellent start, but it is not sufficient. However, I am glad that the government has started in that direction.
In this connection I want to quote from the summary of the National Forestry Conference, 1956, which was held at Winnipeg and at which the minister made a most interesting speech, a copy of which was later supplied to me. I read it with great interest. I shall have some reason to quote a section of that speech some time in another debate. The summary reads:
The announcement by the Hon. Jean Lesage that forest fire prevention appropriations had been approved by his department to provincial departments of lands and forests is considered a "milestone" in forest management progress.
It has taken a long time to go that mile, though.
Forest inventory and reforestation money has been available for several years under this legislation. However, the failure in providing, until now federal source money for forest fire prevention, the most important item, has been difficult to comprehend.
I agree with that statement.
The announcement of this partnership between the Department of Northern Affairs and National Resources and the provincial departments now permits an effective attack on the national forest fire problem.

Supply-Northern Affairs
As I said before, it is only a start and I do hope the government will consider increasing this fund because it is invested in a very good cause in assisting the provinces to provide more forest protection against fire.
Before concluding, Mr. Chairman, I want to have a word or two to say about research which comes under the forest branch of the minister's department. Once again I must express my appreciation, and the appreciation of a good number of people I know in the industry, of the excellent work being done by the forest products laboratory of this branch and other research of which the branch has charge. The research being done in utilization, into equipment for mills, into the development of different processes and so on is very valuable to the forest industry in this country. Very few people, in fact, realize what a contribution a relatively few men in the forest branch of the minister's department are making to the forest production of this country now and in the future. Here again, I am expressing the view of a good number of people in the industry who are not given to making irresponsible demands on the government; people with their feet on the ground, who are convinced that there should be a greatly increased expenditure in research under the forest branch of the minister's department.
Before I say anything in that connection, I want to pay tribute to the work done by private industry so far as forest products research is concerned. I think the research carried on by the pulp and paper research institute has made an excellent contribution. The work being carried on now under the minister's supervision, and the work being carried on by private industry across this country, is an illustration of the excellent team work that can be established-I know they exchange information regularly and continually-by a public administration and private operations.
Now, with respect to this research question I want to quote from an address given by Mr. Lowell Besley, chairman of the Woodlands Research department of the pulp and paper research institute of Canada. This address was given before the national forestry conference in Winnipeg, September 17, 1956. I read this whole address with a great deal of interest, and I think it is a very meaty affair. In support of what I am saying now, and in support of my plea for larger funds to be devoted to research under the forestry branch of the minister's department, I want to quote this paragraph;
Underlying all growth and improvement in our forestry practice is a strong program of research and experimentation to provide the basic facts for intelligent management. The federal forestry branch has been carrying on useful research for a number of years. Today, it has a well balanced program

which recently has been revamped by setting up well-thought-out objectives in an integrated approach.
Its main weakness is that it is far too modest for the job immediately ahead. It must be refinanced on a much more generous basis if the forestry branch is going to be able to furnish soon enough the answers which will be urgently required in the critical period ahead as we pass from reliance upon the past growth of centuries in our virgin forests to dependence upon the future growth of forests managed by man.
I think that puts the case very well indeed. We in Canada generally, even in British Columbia, are emerging from the period where we are cutting virgin timber to a greater extent and going to the period where we are cutting what is known as second growth, and more and more from forests managed by man. As we enter that stage the more evident it becomes there must be increased research if we are to have satisfactory forest management, satisfactory forest development, and an efficient utilization of the greatest portion of the tree possible. Therefore, Mr. Chairman, I do urge the minister to give consideration to the opinion of the organizations representing the industry, the Canadian forestry association and the many individuals who know what they are talking about.
In closing this portion of my remarks I just wish to repeat my three main pleas: First, consideration for the establishment of a department of forestry within this government which we consider is necessary to properly serve the forest industry of Canada; second, increased grants to the provinces for forest fire protection, which is simply another way of asking the federal government to protect its own equity in the forests which are held in the name of the crown in the right of the provinces; third, give consideration to the necessity for increased expenditures for research in order to make certain that that investment is utilized to the best advantage.
Here we have an industry with an annual production at the present time of over $2,000 million. I am not sure of the latest figures, but there may be more than that. It is an industry producing between 10 per cent and 12 per cent of the national income. Surely, such an industry is entitled to the consideration which the representatives of the industry, and many other Canadians, are asking this government to give it at this time.
The previous speaker, the hon. member for Calgary North, made some reference to the government's proposal with respect to the Columbia river basin. Naturally, as the member whose riding straddles the greatest area of the Columbia-that is the only way I can get the greatest in-I am interested in this question, but I am going to confine my remarks on this very important subject to the item when it comes before the committee.

Mi. Gillis: Mr. Chairman, I am not going to hold the item up unduly, but I should like to say a few words on an important matter on this first item. The minister will recall the bill that he introduced in the house a few days ago dealing with the question of setting up two separate museums in the city of Ottawa. It was challenged by the hon. member for Eglinton on the ground that it was not in conformity with the resolution and he was quite right. However, I did like the wording of the bill much better than I do the one before us at the present time. If Bill No. 161 had in it powers which would enable the minister to promote other museums across the country I would not be raising this question at this time. The matter I am talking about is one that I had some correspondence with the minister over within the last few months. It is a matter that is of particular interest to my own community. The minister's records will indicate that a few months ago I wrote to him and sent him a resolution emanating from the Marconi sports club located in the town of Glace Bay. That club was largely responsible for putting on a drive a few years ago for the erection of a memorial at the site where Marconi sent his first trans-Atlantic message across the ocean. They were successful in promoting the establishment of a modest museum there commemorating the life and work of Marconi in that area. A year ago the minister was down in the riding of Cape Breton north to open a building to commemorate the life and work of the late Alexander Graham Bell in that area.
Now, the type of building that this particular club, not only the club but a lot of the mine workers' local unions, are interested in on that site is a building along the lines of one established at Baddeck last year to commemorate the life of Alexander Graham Bell. It would not be a great expenditure. I would remind the minister that not only that area but many areas across Canada have important historic sites that could be very well developed into small museum setups to gather together many of the relics and tokens that are available to commemorate certain activities in different areas. I think this one in particular is very important. The work done by Marconi in that area is very well demonstrated by the many relics and things that are left behind. His home was there for example. He erected the first towers in that particular town to transmit the messages. Well, the home and the building that he lived in are still there. They are occupied; they are in good shape. A lot of the furniture that was used in his home, including the bed that he slept in, is in that area, and a lot of the stuff could be gathered
Supply-Northern Affairs up provided that there was a suitable place to house it. It would be a good tourist attraction.
I know it took us years to convince the department and the historic sites board that Louisburg, for example, should be recognized by the historic sites and monuments board. Eventually, that was done. A lot of work was done there. There is a museum that gathers together all of the relics of Louisburg. I have been there a few times during the summer months and I saw tourists from all over Canada and the United States, hundreds of cars, gathered at Louisburg. I saw the tourists going through the building and asking for the literature that is available there. That would be equally true of the site that I am talking about at the present time. I wrote to the minister. He answered my letter and said that the matter was on the agenda of the next meeting of the historic sites board. But what I am particularly interested in is the bill to replace the one which the minister withdrew. The one that we shall have up for consideration is too restrictive in comparison with the bill that was withdrawn. The bill that was withdrawn gave power to the minister to promote or establish museums in other parts of Canada. You have deleted that from the bill which is on the order paper at the present time.


Jean Lesage: Mr. Chairman, I am sure the hon. member will not mind if I interrupt him at this point.


Clarence Gillis: I am listening.


Jean Lesage: The Baddeck museum was established as a historic park and what the hon. member proposes would not be considered a museum but a historic site. That is why the matter has been referred to the historic sites and monuments board.


Clarence Gillis: Thank you, sir. I raised the question because I consider that the present bill restricts the powers of the minister to carry on with that type of activity. That was the very point on which the hon. member for Eglinton based his objection to the original bill, because the resolution did not forecast the wording of the bill as it appeared at that time.
I am quite satisfied with the minister's explanation and I look forward with a great degree of pleasure to having him come down there in the foreseeable future to dedicate the building which will be erected in due course as a monument to the life and work of Marconi.


Mr. Barnett:: Mr. Chairman, I would like to make a few comments in the light of what was said by the hon. member for Cape

Supply-Northern Affairs Breton South in regard to what was contained in the bill which we no longer have.
I was interested when I saw that particular part of the bill which has disappeared from the order paper because only a few days before I happened to note rather casually a reference to a proposal for the development in British Columbia of a museum which would deal specifically with the history and background of our native Indian peoples. I do not have the exact reference with me but I have described my recollection of it.


Jean Lesage: Mr. Chairman, that again
would be a historic site. Is the hon. member referring to Fort Langley?


Thomas Speakman Barnett: No. As I read the dispatch it was some other project and those who were interested in it, as I recall the situation, had some hope that they might be able to secure financial assistance from the federal authorities in developing it. When I saw the original bill I wondered if the words "development of other museums" would refer to projects of that nature. Has the minister any information concerning this particular project?
As I have explained, I came across it in my casual reading. I should like to have the minister offer an explanation if he has any further information on it. In view of what the hon. member for Cape Breton South has just said I thought this might be an appropriate place to raise that point and to say my reaction to the bill we had but do not now have-I am leaving aside the technicalities which were involved in the point of order raised this afternoon-was rather a favourable one.


Jean Lesage: Mr. Chairman, perhaps I might be permitted to reply immediately to the question raised by the hon. members for Cape Breton South and Comox-Alberni. Under the act governing the activities of the Department of Northern Affairs and National Resources the minister has the power, with the approval of the governor in council and of parliament, to financially assist other museums. The part of the original bill No. 161 that does not appear in the reprint of Bill No. 161 concerned only the power to establish and maintain other national museums. That refers to museums other than the two which are mentioned in the bill, but it has nothing to do with the establishment and maintenance of historic sites or assistance to museums across Canada. The four lines which were deleted related only to other national museums to be established and maintained by the department.


Edward Turney Applewhaite: Just before I recognize the hon. member for Brandon-Souris, I am going to request the committee, if they
[Mr. Barnett.l
are going to pursue the matter of what I perhaps might be permitted to describe as the decentralization of culture, the holdings of museums in various parts of Canada, that they make their points if they possibly can without bringing frequently into this discussion a bill which is on the order paper and which I feel should not be debated on this particular item of the estimates.
I am quite frank to admit that no harm has been done and no one has attempted to debate the merits of that bill, but we might find ourselves in the position of establishing a dangerous precedent which might be used against us.


Mr. Dinsdale:: Mr. Chairman, in entering the discussion at this stage I do so in the hope that I may be able to encourage the minister to make a further general statement concerning the current operations of his department. I was disappointed, when the discussion of his estimates opened, that the minister did not seize the opportunity to bring before the people of Canada the important developments that must be taking place in the Department of Northern Affairs and National Resources.
This department was reorganized in its present form quite recently, I think about 1953. Unfortunately the only occasion in this house when we have a chance of obtaining certain information from the minister relating to the activities of his important department is during the discussion on the first item of his estimates. I trust as a result of some of the things that have been said here this evening that when the minister replies to this general discussion he will take the opportunity to place before the committee and also before the people of Canada the current activities of his department particularly as they relate to northern affairs and national development.
It is commonplace to say in regard to these matters that there is a lack of knowledge, particularly concerning the activities in the Canadian Arctic. Indeed, I think we could almost say there is abysmal ignorance concerning the activities there.
In the past few years we have been busy with a substantial defence development in the north and there has been a tendency to obscure somewhat the nature of that development in the interests of national security; but I would venture to say that were the information available with regard to the two or three years during which we have been engaged in northern Canada in the building of the mid-Canada radar screen and the distant early warning radar screen we would find that a significant impact has been made upon the general development in that part of Canada.

It is important to Canadians everywhere that we keep abreast in terms of knowledge of our activities in the north. Indeed in our national song one of the lines is, "O Canada, the true north strong and free," and notwithstanding the sentiment of that verse most of us crowd just as close to the southern border as we possibly can. I say it is important that Canadians generally take an increasing interest in the development of the north because we are one of the two major powers in the world today with an Arctic frontier. Canada and the U.S.S.R. have this at least in common, namely that a large part of our land area lies within the Arctic. It is commonplace to observe that up to the present time Canada lags behind considerably as compared with the U.S.S.R. in the development and the exploitation of its Arctic area.
We have had discussions on this particular point in past years. It is appreciated, of course, that we have started late in this development. It is also appreciated that our particular type of democratic organization does not permit aggressive activity similiar to that exercised by the U.S.S.R. in recent years. But still, when we recall that our population in the Canadian Arctic stands today at some 30,000 and that in the similar area in the Soviet the population is over 4 million, I think it will be readily seen that we must take vigorous action in this regard. I trust that the minister will take the house into his confidence and will give us the information that does not seem to be available from any other source with regard to this particular type of development.


Jean Lesage: I spoke two or three weeks ago. I made a speech two or three weeks ago on northern affairs.


Walter Gilbert Dinsdale: On the estimates?


Jean Lesage: No; when I spoke on the subject two or three weeks ago in the house in answer to the Leader of the Opposition.


Walter Gilbert Dinsdale: I shall check into that.


Jean Lesage: You were away.


Walter Gilbert Dinsdale: Supply-Northern Affairs not been so. It is interesting to note those figures. I hope the minister will give to the house some information concerning the attempts being made by that particular branch of his department to offset the negative trend.
There are various reasons why the United States tourist does not see the natural tourist advantages that we have in Canada. It must be that we are not publicizing them as effectively as we might. No doubt the lack of adequate highways in Canada is one of the major reasons. I venture to say that if we had an all-weather trans-Canada highway completed through the wilderness of northern Ontario, you would have the American tourists clambering across the border to get in close touch with nature in the raw. Rather than tearing over the United States highways in search of what relaxation and contact with primitive nature there might be in the states and travelling the crowded highways there, he would be coming into the wide open spaces of Canada where he could actually have that experience for which he craves.
There is another little item which could possibly be an irritant to the United States tourist. I believe we discussed this matter last year and I am wondering what has been the experience of the department in attempting to enforce this particular item.
I believe Canada is levying a tax, a licence fee, on small pleasure craft. We passed that legislation last year, and I understand that it applies to the small pleasure boats carried by tourists. I have had several complaints that this is proving difficult to administer and constitutes a nuisance rather than a source of revenue. It is a particular nuisance to American tourists, and perhaps the minister would comment on the degree of success or otherwise which has attended the collection of this particular tax.
I think there is a real opportunity in Canada-and this is the crux of the matter- to attract a growing percentage of the American tourist dollar, provided we make the maximum use of all the promotion and publicity channels that are available. We have an outstanding series of national parks right across the country, but in the literature which is available, as far as I have been able to discover, we are still not giving maximum publicity to these attractions, whether it be in the press, through films, or through the medium of publicity pamphlets.
I have visited several of the national parks and they are second to none as tourist attractions. I wonder if the minister can give us some idea of what additional steps have been taken in the past year, for example, to increase the volume of publicity through films,


through the press, through magazines and also through individual pamphlets?


Jean Lesage: In general, or for the parks?


Walter Gilbert Dinsdale: I don't want too many details, but if the committee could have some idea of the progress made in this regard-of increased activity in the promotional and publicity aspect of our tourist industry-I think it would be valuable.
I do not want to venture into a territory that has been forbidden by the chairman, but I am intrigued by the possibilities of developing educational tourist attractions through cultivating our natural historical sites and the areas which are unique to the Canadian scene. This includes the protection and the marking of our historic sites, but it seems to me, Mr. Chairman, that if we do not move very rapidly to preserve the artifacts of our early Canadian history, which are rapidly disappearing from the scene, we are going to lose a treasure of inestimable value to this country. The American tourist, when he comes across the border, wants to see something that is uniquely Canadian, and what is uniquely Canadian does not lie so much in the present, I am afraid, as in the past because there is a tendency, and I think the minister will agree with this, to ape the Americans today, in cultivating the American tourist policy, rather than give him something that is uniquely native. But we do have contact with the exploits of the explorers. We have evidence of the early Indian inhabitants north of the Canadian border which would stir the imagination of our American visitors. Unfortunately, however, we are not moving very rapidly to preserve this particular heritage. This point involves a discussion of the whole question of museums and of providing facilities for gathering together these artifacts, this heritage, in suitable areas across Canada.
I understand, and I believe it is in the estimates at this point, that the department is granting the sum of $10,000-


Jean Lesage: To the Peace Gardens.


Walter Gilbert Dinsdale: To the Peace Gardens, Mr. Chairman-and also that there is to be a grant of $10,000 to an agricultural implement exhibit or museum which was recently founded in the province of Manitoba close to the town of Austin. This is an exhibit that will provide a worth-while tourist attraction. In its initial form it is going to be a collection of all the early agricultural implements which have been used in developing the prairie wheat economy down through the years. I believe I have located that in the estimates, though I cannot give the particular item; if I am wrong about this, perhaps the

minister would correct me. But it this is the case, I am wondering how tar the department is willing to go in encouraging or subsidizing similar developments of this kind.
One final word, Mr. Chairman. Not only, it seems to me, is the American tourist dollar insufficiently cultivated by the department, but it would also seem, judging from the spending by Canadians in the pursuit of tourism that a large proportion of their travelling is done south of our Canadian boundaries. That indicates that we are not cultivating this particular area of tourist activity as well as we might. According to the figures I have been able to gather, Canadians are spending more across the border and in other parts of the world than within the confines of Canada itself. I think, Mr. Chairman, that we should emphasize a "see Canada first" policy. The Americans, in season and out of season, repeat the theme "see America first" and, as a result, they have a tremendous amount of travelling done within their confines. I think that if we adopted a similar emphasis in our various promotions we would see an encouraging increase in tourism by Canadians in all parts of Canada.
These are a few of the matters I wished to raise at this time, and I mention them because the minister did not take the opportunity to bring them before the house- matters which are brought all too infrequently to the attention of hon. members and, through the medium of the press, to the people of Canada generally.


Mr. Low:: I do not imagine the minister is very proud of the debate that is taking place at this time. I listened to what was being said this afternoon, and I came to the conclusion that this is about the dullest debate I have heard in the house this session.
What is the reason? I think I must agree with the hon. member for Brandon-Souris that one of the big reasons is that the minister has not given a statement concerning the policies of the department as a prelude to the study of his estimates. If I wanted a real debate on proposals for the expenditure of money in a department over which I had any jurisdiction I think I would feel it my duty to stand before the house and divulge what the policies were. I think I would feel it my duty to make known to the members of the house whether or not this year's estimates are planned to advance the policies, and I think I would throw out invitations to the members of the house to debate the policies that I had enunciated. In that way I would get useful suggestions and reactions to what I was doing and perhaps improve the efficiency of the whole department.
Supply-Northern Affairs
The minister is a young man and a personable young fellow. He must want to get ahead. He must have ambition. I cannot quite understand why he did not stand up here to begin with and give us a straightforward statement of exactly what the government hopes to do in each of the branches covered by his estimates and then invite members of the house to come to grips with him. That is the way you have a sparkling debate. What we are fighting now is a sort of Dutch battle where no blows are struck. We are reaching out in an effort to get something. We are trying to set up straw men and knock them down and then we find later that perhaps we have not even set up a real straw man.
If I cannot make any other contribution to the debate tonight, let me say that I think it is important each time the minister opens up his departmental estimates for him to tell the house exactly what he has in mind by way of policy. He might say, as he has already hinted, that two weeks ago he did speak. Sure we heard that speech but that did not in any way cover a statement of policy of the department. Two years ago he gave a speech and three years ago he gave one, but what we want to know is how far has he advanced the policies laid down when the department was set up? What we want to know is how far does he expect, through the expenditure of the moneys set out in the estimates this year, to advance those policies? There are a good many things that he should have told the house so that we could come to grips with these matters.
I have in mind, for example, the situation with respect to the north. I believe one speaker tonight mentioned the fact that to begin with when .the new department was set up emphasis was placed on the necessity for developing the north because of the great contribution it was thought that development would make to the strength of the nation and our security in the years to come. Unfortunately, I feel exactly as one speaker said tonight-I have forgotten which one it [DOT] was-that interest in the north seems to have degenerated into a simple interest in how far the radar screens have been developed. That is about all we hear. We hear nothing about policies in connection with transportation in the north and we have a right to expect some statement about that.
We all realize that we cannot expect the kind of development in the north country that will make a contribution to the strength of Canada unless we do something about transportation. Transportation should precede resources development. It has to, and unless we get the kind of transportation envisaged

Supply-Northern Affairs in the report of Mr. Robertson of the minister's own department to the royal commission we will not see the development that we hope for in the northern country. What is the minister's policy? Has he been able to develop one or is he still struggling to try to get a policy? If he has not been able to get a policy, who is to blame for it? Are his colleagues holding him back? Is he able to carry them along with him? We want to know these things and I think we are entitled to know.
I believe we should also have a straightforward statement on the policy of the government with respect to resources development in the north, what they have done thus far to encourage that development, how far that development has proceeded, what they expect to do by way of encouragement of development through the estimates that we are studying today. Then we will have a decent chance to know whether or not we should agree with the minister's appropriations. But under the circumstances all we can do is to take a look at them and say: Well now, for a certain branch we have got $10 million. What does he expect to do with it? We look at the fine print in the details and we get a nebulous idea but it does not give us one bit of information about how this appropriation is going to advance the policy that has been laid down by the department, if one has been laid down.


Mervyn Arthur Hardie: What about the millions for roads and bridges? That is transportation.


Solon Earl Low: Well-


Mervyn Arthur Hardie: What is the transportation for if not to develop resources?


Solon Earl Low: If the meagre amount of information that has been given by the minister satisfies the hon. member who has just interrupted, I say that it does not satisfy me.


Mervyn Arthur Hardie: Nothing satisfies you.


Solon Earl Low: Well, it may be that we are a bit hard to satisfy on this side of the house but a lot of you fellows over there on the back benches are too easily satisfied. You will take anything that is handed out to you.


Mervyn Arthur Hardie: There are no yes men from the north, my boy.


Solon Earl Low: Mr. Chairman, in reply may I say that many members in the house seem to be quite a bit jealous about this dividend business. When they see these dividends in a part of the west and not in the east or in Saskatchewan they all start to yell and make slighting remarks. I think they ought to hold their horses and see what they are talking about.


Mervyn Arthur Hardie: What has the Alberta government done about maintaining the Mackenzie highway?


Solon Earl Low: I will have something to say about that. It is a good question.


Mr. Johnston (Bow River):: Once you get to the end of Alberta you cannot go any farther because the federal government has not got a road.


Mervyn Arthur Hardie: What are you talking about? It has got the best road.


Solon Earl Low: Mr. Chairman, it is ten o'clock. If I have done nothing more I have wakened somebody in the house. I will continue at another time if I may.
Progress reported.



BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE

Walter Edward Harris: Tomorrow we shall take the estimates of post office and this department.


Solon Earl Low: In that order?


Walter Edward Harris: Yes.


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

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

Mr. Knowles: 1.	How many retired employees of the Canadian National Railways are in receipt of pensions of less than $25 per month?
2.	How many are in receipt of only the basic pension of $25 per month?
3.	How many are in receipt of non-contributory service pensions, (a) $25.01 to $29.99 per month; (b) $30 to $39.99 per month; (c) $40 to $49.99 per month; (d) $50 to $59.99 per month; (e) $60 to $69.99 per month; (f) $70 to $79.99 per month; (g) $80 to $89.99 per month; (h) $90 to $99.99 per month; (1) $100 to $124.99 per month; (j) $125 to $149.99 per month; (k) $150 or over per month?
4.	How many are in receipt of pensions in part
basic and in part contributory, (a)	$25.01 to
$29.99 per month; (b) $30 to $39.99 per month; (c) $40 to $49.99 per month; (d) $50 to $59.99 per month; (e) $60 to $69.99 per month; (f) $70 to $79.99 per month; (g) $80 to $89.99 per month; (h)	$90 to $99.99 per month; (i) $100 to $124.99
per month; (j) $125 to $149.99 per month; (k) $150 or over per month?
Answer by: Hon. George C. Mailer (Minister
of Transport):
The Canadian National Railways advise as follows:
Question
1. 7 (pensioned under C.N.R. plan prior to
1935).
2.	3,068.
3.	(a) $25.01	to	$29.99	per	month....	959(b)	$30.00	to	$39.99	per	month....	618(c)	$40.00	to	$49.99	per	month. . . .	442(d)	$50.00	to	$59.99	per	month-	176(e)	$60.00	to	$69.99	per	month....	73(f)	$70.00	to	$79.99	per	month. ...	67(g)	$80.00	to	$89.99	per	month. ...	27(h)	$90.00	to	$99.99	per	month-	22(i)	$100.00	to $124.99 per month. .	32(j)	$125.00	to $149.99 per month..	11(k)	$150.00	or	over per month....	14
2,441
4.	(a) $25.01 to $29.99 per month

	420
(b)	$30.00 to $39.99 per month.. . . 1,627
(c)	$40.00	to	$49.99	per	month. .	.	.	1,394(d)	$50.00	to	$59.99	per	month. .	.	.	1,113(e)	$60.00	to	$69.99	per	month. .	.	.	1,053(f)	$70.00 to $79.99 per month.... 1,117(g)	$80.00	to	$89.99	per	month. .	.	.	1,110(h)	$90.00	to	$99.99	per	month. .	.	.	1,036(i)	$100.00 to $124.99 per month.. 2,234(j)	$125.00 to $149.99 per month. . 1,549(k)	$150.00 or over per month .... 2,835
15,488
82715-127J

Friday, March 8, 1957