1957-10-29

Hon. Paul Martin (Essex East):: Mr. Speaker, I rise on a question of privilege. Last night the Prime Minister spoke to the nation over the television facilities of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, and in the course of that speech he made an announcement of government policy. He referred to the effective date when various amendments to social security measures would be applied in Canada.
I submit to you, sir, that it is within the traditions and practices of parliament that announcements of government policy, while the house is in session, should be made in parliament. I should have thought, Mr. Speaker, that such an announcement by one who in the past has so often regarded himself as one of the champions of parliament would not have been made by that particular right hon. gentleman. I think my question of privilege, sir, is well founded, particularly in view of the fact that on October 22 the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre (Mr. Knowles)-


Mr. Knowles (Winnipeg North Centre):: At
page 248.


Paul Joseph James Martin: -at page 248 of Hansard asked this question of the Minister of National Health and Welfare:
Mr. Speaker, may I direct a question to the Minister of National Health and Welfare. In view of the fact that in the resolutions of which he has given notice calling for amendments to the Old Age Security Act and related statutes he has been good enough to give us all the other details, can he now tell us what is to be the effective date?
The reply of the Minister of National Health and Welfare was as follows:
Mr. Speaker, the effective date will appear in the legislation when the bill appears before the house.
Surely last night's statement by the Prime Minister is a violation of the right hon. gentleman's own counsel, and obviously a violation of the rights of parliament.


Right Hon. J. G. Diefenbaker (Prime Minister):: Mr. Speaker, I must say that my hon. friend is apparently hard pressed to find something to which to object-


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh.


John George Diefenbaker: -in order to bring his name before the Canadian public at a time when he is most anxious to have it brought before the public. Any statement I made last evening was a statement which, with the exception of one item, was covered by the resolution. I am one who does not follow a script too closely, and if in a momentary indiscretion I pointed out that it was the intention of the government to have this social security measure begin on November 1, I am sure nobody was harmed.


An hon. Member:: What about this house you profess to love so much?


John George Diefenbaker: Let me say this. If at any time this side of the house or this government commits no more serious indiscretion, if it is such, than happened last night, the people of Canada will continue to be well satisfied with this government; and the opportunity will not be too long delayed to give them that chance to indicate whether or not they were shocked last evening by the revelation which disturbed the hon. gentleman.


Stanley Howard Knowles: Mr. Speaker, obviously, since I had the relevant page of Hansard open, it was my intention to raise the same question of privilege, believing as I do that the Prime Minister feels that the supremacy of parliament should be maintained.
However, now that the point has been raised and now that the Prime Minister has given over the television network information which his colleague in the cabinet would not give in the house, will he tell us what is meant by "an effective date of November 1"? In terms of what cheque will the increase be effective? Will the cheque at the first of November or the cheque at the end of November be in the full amount of $55?


Mr. Speaker:: I think the question of privilege has been sufficiently stated and commented on, and questions should be deferred till later.

Inquiries of the Ministry


Stanley Howard Knowles: shall be quite satisfied to have an answer on the orders of the day.



INDUSTRIAL RELATIONS


Hon. Michael Starr (Minister of Labour) moved: for leave to introduce Bill No. 16, to provide for annual vacations with pay for employees in public works, undertakings and businesses.


Some hon. Members:: Explain.


Michael Starr: Mr. Speaker, the purpose of this bill is to provide annual vacations with pay for employees in federal works, undertakings or businesses as covered by the Industrial Relations and Disputes Investigation Act, the fair employment practices act and the equal pay act. This bill provides for one week's vacation after the first year of employment and two weeks' vacation after the second year of employment.
Motion agreed to and bill read the first time.



SOCIAL SECURITY


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Stanley Howard Knowles: Mr. Speaker, I wonder if the Prime Minister would now answer my question arising out of the announcement he made last night as to which cheque, in the case of old age security for example, will be in the full amount of $55, the cheque to be received at the beginning of November or the cheque to be received at the end of November?


John George Diefenbaker: Mr. Speaker, while I am not one of the recipients, I do not think the cheques are received at the first of the month. The cheques are received at the end of each month. The first payment, providing that this house goes ahead and passes the legislation, will be provided for at the end of November, thereby commencing the payment of the addition as of the 1st of November.


Stanley Howard Knowles: Why not make it clear? It is the cheque at the end of November, not the cheque at the first of the month, which will include the increase.


Mr. Gauthier (Portneuf):: He was putting on a show; that was all he was doing.



NATURAL RESOURCES


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Hon. Jean Lesage (Monimagny-L'Islet):: Mr. Speaker, I would like to direct a question to the Minister of Northern Affairs and National Resources. Is it his intention to outline to the house the national development policy which is mentioned in the speech from the throne during the current debate on the said speech?


Hon. Alvin Hamilton (Minister of Northern Affairs and National Resources):: Mr. Speaker, in answer to the hon. member for Montmagny-L'lslet, I think this will be shown in due course.


Jean Lesage: A supplementary question, Mr. Speaker. Does the minister intend to deal with the subject piecemeal as he has been doing outside of the house since his appointment to the cabinet?


An hon. Member:: He has done better than his predecessor.



BRITISH COLUMBIA-REQUEST FOR PAYMENT OF COMPENSATION TO APPLE GROWERS

[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. H. W. Herridge (Kootenay West):: Mr. Speaker, I should like to address a question to the Minister of Agriculture, and I do so in a spirit of continuing co-operation with one of his colleagues.
In view of the fact that one of the minister's cabinet colleagues, representing a British Columbia fruit growing district, last year urged the government to compensate the tree fruit growers of British Columbia for their loss of 48 cents per box on the 1955 crop by the granting of a subsidy of not less than 25 cents per box, is the government now giving favourable consideration to the hon. gentleman's representations?


Hon. D. S. Harkness (Minisier of Agriculture):: Mr. Speaker, I wish to thank the hon. gentleman for giving me notice of this question. The short answer to it is "no", but I think perhaps I should say a word of general explanation in connection with this matter.
Representations have been received from the British Columbia fruit growers' association and others requesting special grants to compensate British Columbia apple growers for losses alleged to have been suffered by reason of low prices for apples in 1955.
A review of the situation discloses the following facts. The average farm value of apples in British Columbia in 1954 was $1.24

per bushel. In 1955 the corresponding figure was 72 cents. In 1956 the farm value Tose to $1.34 per bushel, the highest in the past 10 years. These figures are all substantially higher than the average farm value of apples for all Canada in the corresponding years.
In the light of these facts and the relative position of British Columbia apple growers compared with those in other parts of Canada, it does not seem possible or practicable to offer any special compensation to British Columbia growers.



INTERNATIONAL LABOUR ORGANIZATION


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. J. A. Byrne (Kootenay East):: Mr. Speaker, I should like to direct a question to the Minister of Labour. This question has to do with the industrial committee of the international labour organization, which concerns itself with the social and economic problems of the hard rock mining industry, and which meets in Geneva on November 25 of this year.
Has the minister invited the international union of mine, mill and smelter workers of Canada, which represents about 90 per cent of the employees in the hard rock industry, to appoint a delegate to this conference?


Michael Starr: No, Mr. Speaker. The two delegates who have been appointed to the international labour organization conference are Mr. Pat Burke, of the united steel workers of America, from Noranda, and Mr. Henry Schellenburg, of the base metal workers, federal union No. 172, from Flin Flon, Manitoba. Both these men have been nominated by the Canadian Labour Congress.


James Allen (Jim) Byrne: Will the minister agree to give further consideration to this matter, since I have already outlined its importance?


Michael Starr: Mr. Speaker, the delegates
have already been nominated, and since the Canadian Labour Congress is the most representative labour body in Canada we asked them for the recommendations.



TELEVISION


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. G. H. Casileden (Yorkton):: Mr. Speaker, I should like to direct a question to the Minister of Transport. Has his department yet granted a permit for the erection of a television tower in the vicinity of the city of Yorkton?
Inquiries of the Ministry


Hon. George H. Hees (Minister of Transport):: Mr. Speaker, the application referred to by the hon. member has been approved.



FINANCE


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. F. C. Christian (Okanagan Boundary):: Mr. Speaker, I should like to direct a question to the Minister of Finance, of which I have given him notice.
In view of the fact that the Minister of Finance has indicated that no budget will be introduced this session, does he expect that the government tax revenues for the next 12 months will be equal to or in excess of those of the last 12 months?


Mr. Speaker:: Order. I think the hon. member will recognize that this is a budgetary matter. It would be properly left to be dealt with when the Minister of Finance deals with budgetary matters, and is not properly asked on the orders of the day.
I take it that the hon. member for Okanagan Boundary feels he has a question of fact which the minister could answer. If he would rephrase his question, or consider rephrasing it, I will give him another opportunity.


Frank Claus Christian: A supplementary question. Is there going to be a budget? If so, when may we expect it?


Hon. Donald M. Fleming (Minister of Finance):: Mr. Speaker, I am sure the hon. member knows that whenever a minister of finance is ready to introduce a budget he usually gives the house a few days' advance notice of the fact.



TRANSPORT


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Hon. George	H. Hees (Minister of
Transport): Yesterday, the hon. member for St. Antoine-Westmount (Mr. Marler) asked me a supplementary question regarding the meeting which I understand was held in Sorel on Sunday. His question was:
Was the government represented at this meeting? If so, by whom? Was any statement of policy made by the representative of the government?
The answer is, I have checked with my own department, the Department of Public Works and the Department of External Affairs, the three departments which I believed might have had representatives at such a meeting. I found that no government representative did attend the meeting and that no statement of policy was made.
504	HOUSE OF
Inquiries of the Ministry
Hon. George C. Marler (St. Anloine-West-mount):: Mr. Speaker, I should like to ask the Minister of Transport whether the reported presence of the Minister of Mines and Technical Surveys has escaped his attention?


George Harris Hees: No, it has not. The Minister of Mines and Technical Surveys was attending the meeting simply as an interested member of parliament doing a good job for his constituency, visiting the meeting in the adjoining riding, and he assures me that he made no statement of policy on behalf of the government or on behalf of himself.



LABOUR CONDITIONS


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. Alistair Stewart (Winnipeg North):: Mr. Speaker, I should like to direct a question to the parliamentary assistant to the Minister of Trade and Commerce. Is it the case that employees in the commercial products division of Atomic Energy of Canada Limited are being laid off?


Mr. Thomas M. Bell (Parliamentary Assistant to the Minister of Trade and Commerce):: Mr. Speaker, my information is
that there may be some laid off in the near future, but this number will probably be only five to ten. The reason is that in recent months orders for cobalt beam therapy units and certain other miscellaneous items of equipment manufactured by the commercial products division of Atomic Energy of Canada Limited have not been as large as had been anticipated. In addition, the general state of the market suggests that it would be imprudent to anticipate an early substantial increase in the number of orders for these items.


Alistair McLeod Stewart: If I may
I should like to ask a supplementary question. Have these workers been recently certified, and have they asked the company to meet them in order to open negotiations?


Thomas Miller Bell: Mr. Speaker, the workers have been certified and they have asked for a meeting. I understand that it will be held within the next few days.



CORNWALL


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. A. P. Lavigne (Stormont):: Mr. Speaker,
I should like to direct a question to the Minister of Labour. Is the minister aware
[Mr. Hees.)

that a strike of 1,300 employees of Canadian Cottons Limited mill at Cornwall has taken place? Will the minister tell us whether he can do anything to bring about a quick settlement of this dispute?


Michael Starr: Mr. Speaker, in answer to the hon. member's question may I say that I am aware of this lay-off. However, I wish to remind the hon. member that this matter comes under the jurisdiction of the province of Ontario, and that there is not much the federal government can do in such a dispute.


Albert Peter Lavigne: I wish to advise the minister that it is not a lay-off; it is a strike.


Hon. Lionel Chevrier (Laurier):: May I
ask the Minister of Labour a supplementary question arising out of the one which was just asked. In view of the fact that textile mills are to be found in several provinces, and in view also of the fact that the government seems to have taken an interest by virtue of the reference tabled in the house by the Minister of Finance, I now ask the Minister of Labour whether he does not think it advisable to co-operate with the province by sending one of his investigators to ascertain whether these parties cannot be brought together?


Michael Starr: Mr. Speaker, the federal
Department of Labour is always willing to co-operate with the provinces in settling disputes. We should like to do that, provided the provinces request that such help be given them in the matter of disputes.



CANADIAN NATIONAL RAILWAYS


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Stanley Howard Knowles: Mr. Speaker, is the Minister of Transport aware of the reports that are current in Winnipeg that 34 men are to be laid off from the Canadian National shops at Transcona each month between now and June, together with eight men to be laid off each month from the Fort Rouge shops? What steps is the government taking to prevent these lay-offs?


George Harris Hees: I do not believe the hon. member would expect me to know the exact number of lay-offs that might take place on the whole Canadian National system from time to time.
I am very glad he has advised me of the situation, and I shall inquire into it.



MONTREAL


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. J. P. Deschalelets (Maisonneuve-Rose-mont):: Mr. Speaker, I would like to address a question to the Minister of Labour. Would the minister inform the house if he has received from labour organizations in Montreal a telegram or communication stating that if immediate legislation is not adopted to curtail unemployment a march on Ottawa will be organized?


Michael Starr: No, Mr. Speaker, I have not received any communication of the nature to which the hon. member refers.



KITIMAT-REPORTED CLOSING OF CONSTRUCTION OPERATIONS

[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. Frank Howard (Skeena):: Mr. Speaker, I would like to address a question to the Minister of Labour. Is the minister aware that the Saguenay-Kitimat Company in Kiti-mat yesterday closed its entire construction operations, resulting in the lay-off of approximately 1,500 people, which situation will remain in effect for probably a year or a year and a half. If so, is he undertaking any steps through the national employment service or the unemployment insurance commission to assist these people in being absorbed into other industries and, if not, are steps being taken to provide them with immediate means as far as unemployment insurance benefits are concerned?


Michael Starr: Mr. Speaker, I am not aware of the lay-offs to which the hon. member refers, but I assure him I will look into the situation and put all of the resources of the Department of Labour to work in order to help those who may be in need of assistance at the moment.


Frank Howard: If I could follow up that question, I would like to direct a question to the Minister of	Public Works.	In	view ofthe situation to	which I	have	just	referredconcerning the lay-off and resulting unemployment in	Kitimat	and	the	extremehousing shortage that exists in Kitimat for production employees in the Alcan plant, will the minister undertake to release or make available through Central Mortgage and Housing Corporation additional money and facilities to assist in absorbing these unemployed people who	are	construction
workers, and also assist in correcting the housing shortage?
Inquiries of the Ministry


Hon. Howard C. Green (Minister of Public Works):: Mr. Speaker, there is no provision under the National Housing Act for undertaking a program of that kind. The present plan of providing $150 million for lower cost homes is of course available and we will be very glad to consider any application coming under any other provision of the act. I know of no way in which we can move in, in the way the hon. member suggests.



DOMINION-PROVINCIAL CONFERENCE REQUEST FOR TABLING OF CORRESPONDENCE WITH PROVINCIAL GOVERNMENTS

[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
George Carlyle Marler: Mr. Speaker, I should like to direct a question to the Prime Minister. Can he tell us when it is the intention of the government to lay on the table the correspondence with the provincial governments concerning the forthcoming federal-provincial conference?


John George Diefenbaker: Mr. Speaker, I will see that that is done tomorrow.



PUBLIC WORKS


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. A. J. MacEachen (Inverness-Rich-mond):: Mr. Speaker, I should like to direct a question to the Minister of Public Works. Can the minister tell the house what progress has taken place in reaching agreement with the province of Nova Scotia for the construction of the breakwater-causeway between the mainland and Port Hood island in Nova Scotia? If any progress has been made, when can we expect construction of this extremely important project to begin?


Howard Charles Green: Mr. Speaker, I received a copy of the hon. member's question just as I came into the house. I shall have to take it as notice.



NEW BRUNSWICK-PRINCE EDWARD ISLAND   INQUIRY AS TO INVESTIGATION INTO CAUSEWAY

[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. Henry Murphy (Westmorland):: Will the Minister of Public Works inform the house what progress is being made in the investigation of the proposed causeway from Westmorland county, New Brunswick, to Prince Edward Island, or has this investigation been dropped?

Inquiries of the Ministry


Howard Charles Green: Studies are being made by officials of the department of this prospective project.
I am not in a position as yet to make any definite announcement.



HEALTH INSURANCE


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Hon. J. W. Pickersgill (Bonavisia-Twillin-gate):: Mr. Speaker, I should like to direct a question to the Prime Minister. Has he yet been able to ascertain whether a reply has been made to the letter from the premier of Manitoba with respect to hospital insurance, about which I made inquiry on Friday?


John George Diefenbaker: Mr. Speaker, a reply has been drafted. Whether or not it has been sent is something I cannot say without inquiry.


John Whitney Pickersgill: I should like to ask a supplementary question. Is it true that the premier of Manitoba wrote a second letter asking for a reply?


John George Diefenbaker: I think the hon. member could find that out by asking the premier of Manitoba.


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh.



DATE WHEN FEDERAL CONTRIBUTION MAY BE EXPECTED

[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Stanley Howard Knowles: Mr. Speaker, may I direct a question to the Minister of National Health and Welfare. Since Premier Frost seems to be counting on federal money for the Ontario hospital plan by January 1, 1959, is it clear that the other provinces having plans in operation can count on federal money for their plans by at least the same date?


Hon. J. W. Monteiih (Minister of National Health and Welfare):: Mr. Speaker, it would seem logical that all provinces would count on receiving money as soon as agreements are signed and we come to a decision as to when the plan goes into effect.



AIRPORTS


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. H. A. Olson (Medicine Hat):: I should like to direct a question to the Minister of Transport, of which I have sent him notice. Has the Department of Transport any plans under consideration for the enlargement of the Medicine Hat airport to accommodate larger aircraft?


George Harris Hees: Yes, Mr. Speaker. I want to thank the hon. member for his kindness in giving me notice of his intention to ask this question. Consideration is presently being given to the inclusion of an item in next year's estimates for the lengthening of runways at the Medicine Hat airport.



RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Hon. L. B. Pearson (Algoma Easf):: I should like to direct a question to the Minister of National Defence, as to whether Canada is to be included in the agreement between the United Kingdom and the United States, as reported in the press today from Washington, to divide the responsibility for developing future atomic weapons, and to share the information obtained in their separate research and development?


Hon. G. R. Pearkes (Minister of National Defence):: I shall be pleased to take that question as notice.



INQUIRY AS TO NEWFOUNDLAND EXPORTERS


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. L. T. Stick (Trinity-Conception):: should like to direct a question to the Minister of Trade and Commerce or, in his absence, to his parliamentary assistant. What action, if any, is contemplated by the government regarding the Newfoundland Associated Fish Exporters Limited, otherwise known as Nafel?


Thomas Miller Bell: In the absence of the minister I shall have to take this question as notice.



THE SENATE


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Frank Howard: I should like to direct this question to the Prime Minister. What action or steps are to be taken to arrange for the naming of a native Indian to the Senate?


John George Diefenbaker: While I do not think the question is strictly a proper one, Mr. Speaker, I do want to answer it. Over the years I have believed that the Indian population of Canada deserves representation in the parliament of Canada.

There are some 200,000 Indians; and while the time may come when one or more might be elected to the House of Commons, that time is still far distant. I want to see an appointment made at the earliest possible date of a native Indian so that representation in parliament may be provided for these, our very first citizens.


Frank Howard: I wonder if the Prime Minister-I may not be asking this question in the right place-would consider so amending the British North America Act as to remove some of the present real estate qualifications for membership in the other house, inasmuch as many native Indians will not be able to qualify. This would broaden the field for selection.


Mr. Speaker:: I think the hon. member was fortunate in getting an answer to his first question. I hope he will not press for one to the second question.


Mr. Harold E. Winch (Vancouver East):: May I ask a supplementary question. Can we take this answer as an indication that the Prime Minister is going back on the speech he made in Prince Albert and Calgary during the campaign, that if he was elected as head of the government he would immediately name an Indian to the Senate? I have copies of his speech here.


Mr. Speaker:: I think the hon. member will appreciate that a similar question has been answered.



PARLIAMENT HILL


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. Solon E. Low (Peace River):: Mr. Speaker, I normally would have put what I have to say in the form of a question, but I do not know to whom I should address such a question. Consequently I am going to raise this as a matter of privilege. I refer to the parking situation around these grounds, which has become chaotic, to say the least, and something ought to be done about it. Members who are entitled to park their cars in and around the building very often find that they have been pushed out of their places by people who are working downtown but whose cars are parked in these grounds.
It would seem to me that whoever is in charge of the parking arrangements ought to be able to work out some method by which the members and the employees in the building could have a place to park their cars when they have to come to work. I am throwing this matter out, as I say, as one of
Inquiries of the Ministry privilege in the hope that whoever is in charge will do something to bring order out of the present chaos.


Mr. Speaker:: The hon. member raises this question of privilege which seems to me to be an appropriate one. As one having to do with arrangements in the house I would ask him if he would mind taking up the matter with me and the Sergeant-at-Arms. Attention will be given to it immediately.



PUBLIC SERVICE


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
George Harris Hees: Mr. Speaker, yesterday the hon. member for Laurier (Mr. Chevrier) asked me if I knew if an employee of the Department of Transport holding position No. 64 had been dismissed because of political partisanship on the complaint of a member of this house. I said I would inquire, and after having done so I find that the individual who held this position was dismissed, effective October 25, on the written declaration of the hon. member for Grenville-Dundas (Mr. Casselman) that this employee had been guilty of political partisanship during the last federal election.
The hon. member is in the house at the present time and would be very glad to answer questions which might be asked of him with reference to his recommendation in this regard. The man was employed in position No. 64 on May 16, 1957, on an exempt temporary seasonal basis, following a recommendation in his favour from the Liberal candidate in Grenville-Dundas county.
I said in the course of answering the hon. member for Laurier that anyone charged with political partisanship would be given an opportunity to be heard. I should have qualified this statement so far as charges of political partisanship made by hon. members of this house are concerned. I find there has been an understanding over the years that if a member of parliament certifies that to his personal knowledge an employee has been guilty of political partisanship the employee in question can be dismissed without investigation.


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh.


Lionel Chevrier: Mr. Speaker, I presume since I raised this question I might be allowed a moment or two to discuss it on a question of privilege-


Some hon. Members:: Order.

Inquiries of the Ministry


Mr. Speaker:: I will certainly give the hon. member an opportunity to discuss this question, but I have already recognized the member for Rosetown-Biggar (Mr. Coldwell) who rose previously.


Mr. M. J. Coldwell (Roselown-Biggar):: Mr. Speaker, I might say that this comes to me as a complete surprise.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear.


Major James William Coldwell: I have been a member of the house for 22 years, and this is the first time I have heard that a member of parliament may lay a charge of this description and, without further investigation, a man may lose his job. I think this is undemocratic.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear.


Mr. Speaker:: I am sure the hon. member who is speaking does not wish to transgress the rules of the house by entering into a debate on the matter at this time.


Major James William Coldwell: I was rising, Mr. Speaker, on a question of privilege with reference to a matter which affects all members of parliament.


Mr. Speaker:: If the hon. member will state his question of privilege I will be glad to hear him,


Major James William Coldwell: My question of privilege is this. As a member of parliament who has been here for 22 years, this is the first time I have become aware of this undemocratic procedure on the part of this parliament, and as a member of parliament I want to protest against it and say that I think this practice should be discontinued immediately.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear.


Lionel Chevrier: Since I raised the question in the first place, Mr. Speaker, I think I too should rise on a question of privilege. I would like to say that I was very careful yesterday not to mention either the name of the employee or the name of the member of parliament upon whose recommendation this person was dismissed. However, I agree with what the leader of the C.C.F. party has said in this respect, that the policy, if it is government policy-although the minister said it was one of the rules and regulations of parliament-should be discontinued.
I have looked up Hansard for quite a number of years and can find nothing in the rules and regulations which permits this kind of conduct. I think perhaps it is a policy that has been followed, and one that was certainly discussed in the house as far back as 30 years ago. It is time this policy should be changed, and I would ask the minister if he is going

to reinstate the occupant of position No. 64.
I think what he should be doing, rather than dismissing people along the canals of the Ontario St. Lawrence, which incidentally are going to be flooded out because of the St. Lawrence seaway, and many hundreds of people are going to find themselves without jobs-


Some hon. Members:: Order.


Lionel Chevrier: -instead of dismissing people he should rather be finding jobs for those who will be flooded out. I ask him now, first, if he is going to reinstate the individual who was dismissed; second, will this person have an opportunity of being heard by the minister; and third, did the minister approve of this dismissal?


Mr. Speaker:: The question previously was one of privilege, and the hon. member has seen fit to ask two more questions. If anyone wishes to address the house on this matter of privilege this would seem to me the appropriate time to do so.


John George Diefenbaker: Mr. Speaker, I would now like to rise on a question of privilege. Statements have been made here and questions have been asked of the Minister of Transport. I think the minister should now be allowed to answer these gratuitous observations which have been made.


Lionel Chevrier: I rise on a question of privilege.


Some hon. Members:: Sit down.


Mr. Speaker:: Order.


Lionel Chevrier: I will not sit down except at the request of Mr. Speaker.


Mr. Speaker:: There is one question of privilege before the house. The hon. member who is on his feet has spoken, and as I have just indicated I am prepared to hear others. I think the Minister of Transport is certainly entitled to speak to this question, but I recognized the hon. member for Grenville-Dundas (Mr. Casselman) on my right. He does not rise now; I recognize the Minister of Transport.


George Harris Hees: Mr. Speaker, I was very interested in the remark of the hon. member for Rosetown-Biggar, when he said he had been here for 22 years but had never heard this question discussed in the house. I looked back to the debates on this matter and found it had been very thoroughly discussed in this house when the hon. member was present, as I understand it, because I think he will find he took part in the debate. There seems to be some doubt in the minds of the members of

the former government that this has been a practice which was not only accepted by their government but by many governments in the past. I call as my witness in this regard no less a personage than the former minister of agriculture-the right hon. member for Melville (Mr. Gardiner)-


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh.


George Harris Hees: -who made a very interesting speech in this house on March 8, 1938, when he was minister of agriculture. That speech is recorded in Hansard of that date at page 1112. I quote the former minister's words:
The question was discussed in 1911, again in 1923, and again in 1928 on the floor of the house, and so far as I have been able to follow those discussions it was admitted from all sides of the house on each of those occasions that it had been the general practice to act upon the word of a member who has a seat in this house and who can, because of that fact, answer for his recommendations upon the floor of the house. When, two years ago, 1 became a member of the government and recommendations of this kind were brought to my attention, I took the trouble to check back and find what the practice was, and determined to follow the practice exactly as it had been followed previously in the Department of Agriculture and other departments, at least until some change was announced in connection with the policy having to do with dismissals of this kind. And when representations were made to the department by a member of the house, to the effect that to his own personal knowledge an employee of the department had been politically active, action was taken automatically by the departmental officials to dismiss him. I did not change the practice in any particular: I gave no instructions to them to make any change, but simply informed them they were to follow the practice that had been followed and that they should do so until such time as they received instructions to do otherwise.
I also think, Mr. Speaker, the former minister may have forgotten what a good filing system his former department has, because I looked back in the files and found a letter written by a former minister of transport, Right Hon. C. D. Howe, dated Ottawa, January 9, 1936. It was addressed to Mr. Peter Sinclair, M.P., Charlottetown, P.E.I., and reads as follows:
I am in receipt of your letter of the 23rd ultimo with further reference to the position of wharfinger at Victoria, P.E.I.
On your statement that Mr. James Gil, the present wharfinger, is convener of the poll at Victoria for the Conservative party and worked and did all he could at the last election, I have directed that his appointment be cancelled and his services dispensed with on the ground of political partisanship.
The letter ends, Mr. Speaker, with this interesting statement:
I am directing that your nominee, Mr. Fred Inman, be appointed.
Mr. Speaker, I think it is clear from what I have said that this has been the practice which has been accepted by succeeding governments over a great many years, and
Inquiries of the Ministry that in taking the course which I have taken I have simply followed that practice.


Lionel Chevrier: Will the minister answer the questions I asked and which the Prime Minister suggested he should answer?


George Harris Hees: I have no intention of reinstating the employee referred to because it is firmly in my mind, from what I have heard, that he actively participated in partisan politics during the last election.


Lionel Chevrier: May I ask the minister this question. Will the government revise the policy which has now been in existence for upwards of 40 years?


George Harris Hees: No dismissal is made by my department until thorough investigation has satisfied the minister that the facts as stated are correct.


Lionel Chevrier: You made no investigation in this case.


Some hon. Members:: Order.


Mr. A. C. Casselman (Grenville-Dundas):: Mr. Speaker, it seems to me that I have heard my name mentioned in connection with the matter now before the house, and for that reason I should like to say a few words on a question of privilege, it being necessary that I put it on that basis.
The hon. member for Laurier (Mr. Chevrier), who asked this question yesterday, takes pride today in the fact that he did not name either the member who laid the charge or the individual against whom the charges were laid. I rise particularly to say that it was I who laid the charges. I made them after long and complete investigation, and I made them because I knew that they were correct. The minister was not responsible for the dismissal of this man; I am, myself, responsible; and if the house has any doubt as to the justice of the position I have taken I would refer hon. members to the issue of the Toronto Star which will come out this afternoon, to which paper this man gave an interview in which he said that he makes no bones of his political partisanship, that he did campaign against me, and in which he made some other comments about the situation.
Mr. Speaker, I think I am perfectly justified in having taken the action which I did take. I am not one who believes completely in the spoils system. I would say that in my riding there are 300 patronage jobs, and that outside of this position, which is partly under the civil service, I have not had any man dismissed.
510	HOUSE OF
Inquiries of the Ministry


Mr. Speaker:: Does the hon. member for
Winnipeg North Centre wish to speak on this matter of privilege?


Stanley Howard Knowles: Mr. Speaker, in connection with
this matter I should like to direct a question to the Prime Minister. How does the Prime Minister square this blatant practice of patronage in reverse with the announcement made this summer by two of his colleagues that this government was going to do away with patronage, and with the support given by some hon. members of his party in the last parliament to the stand which some of us took against patronage?


John George Diefenbaker: There is no question of
patronage here. Public servants who participate in politics certainly jeopardize their jobs. Now I think the minister-


Lionel Chevrier: May I interrupt?


John George Diefenbaker: I think the Minister of
Transport, during the entire period of his service to date, has only had one person dismissed in his department and that is the person in question.


Lionel Chevrier: But this man is not a public servant; he is a casual employee.


Major James William Coldwell: I wonder whether the Minister of Transport will be good enough to refresh my memory with regard to the discussions to which he has referred. My memory generally seems to be very good, but I did not remember until I heard him read the document that that discussion had occurred. Could the minister confirm that the position I took today is precisely similar to the position I took in 1938? That is so, is it not?


George Harris Hees: Yes, Mr. Speaker, it is.


Right Hon. J. G. Gardiner (Melville):: Mr. Speaker, as a matter of privilege because, as was stated by the hon. member for Gren-ville-Dundas in his case, my name has been brought into this matter, I think the record should be made complete, or as complete as my memory can make it when the documents are not before me.
I am sure the hon. member for Rosetown-Biggar requires to do a little more checking, because this question was discussed on two occasions, both of which I remember well. On one occasion it was brought up by Mr. Stevens, who had been a minister in the previous Bennett government, and on the other occasion it was brought up by the late Mr. Bennett himself.
I was accused of being responsible for the dismissal of a number of employees of the department in Prince Edward Island. On


the first occasion it was brought up I undertook to search the files and make some further investigations and so on. Upon searching the files I found there were I think 20 cases where men had been dismissed for similar reasons while Mr. Bennett was in office. I had the files on my desk, the second seat straight across the aisle from here. I asked him if he desired me to read them to the house, and my memory is that he said no and the question was dismissed. I have heard nothing of it since that time until now.


Mr. H. J. Robichaud (Gloucester):: Mr. Speaker, I should like to direct a question to the Postmaster General. Will the policy expressed by the Minister of Transport (Mr. Hees) affecting government employees who take an active part in political activities also apply to rural mail carriers who have been appointed following the calling of public tenders?


Hon. W. M. Hamilton (Postmaster General):: Mr. Speaker, I shall study very carefully the remarks of the Minister of Transport to see whether they apply.


Mr. Wesley Stuart (Charlotte):: Mr. Speaker, I should like to direct a question to the Minister of Public Works. Can the minister inform me of the source from which the recommendation came to discharge foremen on breakwaters in Charlotte county?


Howard Charles Green: Mr. Speaker, if any foreman was fired on the breakwaters in Charlotte county that was done after a thorough investigation, and because he deserved to be fired.


Andrew Wesley Stuart: A supplementary question, Mr. Speaker. It has been suggested that these recommendations must come from a member of parliament. If I may, I would like to know the source from which this recommendation came.


Pierre Gauthier: No answer.



AGRICULTURE


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. Wilfrid LaCroix (Quebec-Montmorency):: Mr. Speaker, may I be permitted to direct a question to the Minister of Agriculture. Why did the government decide to withdraw the privilege granted by the last government to charitable and religious institutions of buying butter at special or reduced prices?


Douglas Scott Harkness: Mr. Speaker, this policy was put into effect by the previous government at a time

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when a very considerable surplus of butter existed, for the purpose of helping to reduce that surplus. We have now moved from that position and we no longer have a surplus of butter. Under those circumstances I could see no justification for the Department of Agriculture continuing to subsidize charitable and other institutions. It seemed to me that if there was any desire or need on the part of the federal government to subsidize hospitals and other institutions it should be done specifically by a grant or by some other means, and not indirectly through the Department of Agriculture.



NATIONAL DEFENCE


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
George Randolph Pearkes: Mr. Speaker, on October 22 the hon. member for Coast-Capilano (Mr. Sinclair) asked if the government is intending to proceed to equip the R.C.A.F. with the supersonic CF-105. I am now in a position to give the hon. member further information on this matter.
After full consideration of the possible threat and of alternative means of meeting that threat the government, upon the advice of the chiefs of staff, has decided now to continue the development of the CF-105 including its intended armament, the Sparrow II air to air guided missile, for a further period of one year, at which time the program will again be reviewed.


Hon. James Sinclair (Coasi-Capilano):: Mr. Speaker, I wonder if I could ask a supplementary question. Has the minister any idea what the extension of the program for one year will cost?


George Randolph Pearkes: No, I am not in a position at the present time to say that.



TRANS-CANADA AIR LINES WINNIPEG  MAINTENANCE AND REPAIR FACILITIES

[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Stanley Howard Knowles: Mr. Speaker, may I direct a question to the Prime Minister. Can the Prime Minister say whether he gave assurances to Premier Campbell of Manitoba that there would be no reduction in the maintenance and repair facilities maintained by Trans-Canada Air Lines at Winnipeg?
If so, can he assure the house that this means Winnipeg will continue to have its share of this work in any expanded program on the part of Trans-Canada Air Lines?


George Harris Hees: Mr. Speaker, I will answer that question because it comes within the realm of my department. The program for the repair and maintenance facilities at Winnipeg is that the repair and maintenance of all Viscount aircraft, present and future, will be done there. The repair and maintenance of the DC-8's and the Vanguards, most of which flights will be terminating in Montreal, will be done when they are received at Montreal. This is not expected to diminish in any way the repair and maintenance services now being carried on at Winnipeg, because the Viscounts, of which we will have a great number, will continue to be serviced at that depot.



NOVA SCOTIA-NEW BRUNSWICK    REQUEST FOR COPY OF REPORT

[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Allan Joseph MacEachen: Mr. Speaker, may I direct a question to the Minister of Northern Affairs and National Resources. Has the minister received a report of the investigation by the Montreal Engineering Company into the requirements for new power capacity and the location of power plants and interconnection lines in Nova Scotia and New Brunswick? If so, will the minister make copies available to the house?


Hédard-J. Robichaud: He does not know what it is all about.


Francis Alvin George Hamilton: Mr. Speaker, the government has received a copy of this report, but as to the advisability of making it available to the house I will have to take notice of that question and reach a decision on it.


John Whitney Pickersgill: Secrecy.



MEASURE TO PROVIDE CASH ADVANCES ON FARM-STORED GRAIN

[Stage Direction]
The house resumed, from Monday, October 28, consideration of the motion of Mr. Hark-ness (for Mr. Churchill) for the second reading of Bill No. 14, to provide for advance payments for prairie grain prior to delivery thereof.
Mr. Pefer Siefura (Vegreville):: Mr. Speaker, last night I was talking about the unfair attitude of some of the members of the former government toward this bill. I should like to return to the quotation I was giving from

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the speech of the hon. member for Russell (Mr. Gour) as reported at page 377 of Hansard.
This session we have another hill to pay cash to the farmers so that they will be able to get money without having to pay interest.
I claim that this bill establishes a dangerous precedent because the government will now have many calls for money from people who would like to secure money without having to pay interest.
I ask, Mr. Speaker, just how dangerous is this bill? Why are the Liberals afraid of starting a precedent as far as any benefits to farm people are concerned? It appears that they were not afraid of starting other precedents. They were not afraid of starting a precedent when they sold wheat under the British wheat agreement, under which the farmers lost about $431 million. They were not afraid of a precedent when they sold wheat at the same time for the same price, which was less than the world market price, to the Canadian millers and the Canadian consumers, and the farmers lost an additional $136 million. They were not afraid of a precedent when they took about $500 million out of the farmers' pockets, out of my pocket and out of my neighbour's pocket and out of everybody else's pockets on the farms in western Canada who were selling grain at that time. They were not afraid of a precedent when they passed the Prairie Grain Producers' Interim Financing Act to protect the banks and see that the bankers got their 5 per cent interest. But when we get a little bill on the floor of this house, such as we have here today, they become worried and say it is a dangerous precedent.
I feel that perhaps we should have started a precedent of this kind a long time ago, a precedent to give the farmers a break for a change, and give them what is rightfully theirs instead of continually taking it away from them. There have been strong hints by some that this bill is subsidizing the agricultural industry and western farmers. There have also been strong hints that the agricultural industry must compete in world markets. So far as I have been able to follow them, these hints are coming mostly from members who have no agricultural industry, or very little, in their ridings.
Let me say to these hon. gentlemen that the agricultural industry has been subsidizing other industries through tariffs and other regulations almost ever since those other industries started. What is more, rumours are abroad that they want more protection and more subsidies from the farm people, who will eventually pay them. Rumours are that some of these other industries want increases in tariffs on steel. They also want increased tariffs on half a dozen other items.
[Mr. Stefura.l
They want it today when the farmer is caught in a price squeeze. Farm prices have dropped to such an extent that farm people, in many instances, have a hard time trying to hang on. On the other hand, the prices of everything the farmer has to buy have gone up, and they find it difficult to hang on in the other way.
Some people call it price squeeze. I call it a tug of war. They are pulling the farmer apart. Under these conditions we have some of our Liberal members defending the interim financing act. I say that policy is not in the best interests of the farm people. All it does is put an additional burden on the farm people, and it is just pulling them apart in three directions. The farmer must go to the bank and borrow at 5 per cent interest. Therefore I say the interim financing act was certainly some plan for western agriculture.
To those who say that the farmers should compete in world markets under present conditions, I say remove your tariffs for the farm people and the agricultural industry and then you may have a good argument. But under present conditions, when the farm people are contributing to the prices of many of these industries the argument does not hold. If you feel that the farm people must compete in world markets, then give the farmer the privilege of buying on the world market without those tariffs and customs duties and all the legal red tape. Let the farmer sell his products for gold or sterling, or barter for goods with any country that suits him. Give the farm people a free hand to do business in the way they see fit, and in a way that they have been asking to do business for years through their farm organizations and through whatever means they have at their disposal. I am sure there would then be no need for any emergency measures such as we have before us in the house today.
I trust the present government realizes that this is only an emergency measure and that legislation must be brought in to get at the root of the ills that we have in the agricultural industry today. I trust that this government will not use this bill as a cure-all for these ills, because the agricultural industry is going to require a lot of legislation to give it a parity of income.
I am confident that this bill having to do with cash advances, as proposed, will not do the job to the extent that the present Minister of Finance believes it will. It allows only 50 cents a bushel for wheat stored on the farm; it allows only a 6-bushel quota. The farmers will be able to get about $600, $800 or perhaps $900. That, I submit, is a long way from the actual need

Grain
or requirement, when we consider that the farmer must pay taxes; he must pay his store bills, fuel bills ond so on. The $600 or $800 will not go very far. This government must give immediate and careful consideration to increasing storage space and to the idea of a food bank; it must give careful consideration to promoting sales by such means as accepting sterling, barter or extending credit to countries which may be short of hard currency at this time.
I asked the Minister of Finance a question on October 23 as follows, as recorded at page 313 of Hansard:
Has the government given consideration to the acceptance of sterling in an effort to increase Canadian exports to Britain and other commonwealth nations? If so, has a decision been reached, and what was the nature of that decision?
I was very much surprised to receive the following answer:
No such proposal was made to the Canadian government.
I repeated the question on page 314 of Hansard and received the following answer:
I have already told my hon. friend that question has not even been raised by anyone.
We had about 12 joint meetings that were sponsored by the Alberta farmers union in our constituency, and all the candidates were present. When the question would come up as to how the Conservatives planned to increase foreign trade, the acceptance of sterling was at the top of the list. The Conservative candidate is a fine old gentleman. I have nothing at all against him personally. I do not for a moment want to believe, nor can I find that I can do so, that he would manufacture his own policy. If the minister denies that it was a campaign promise made by Conservative candidates, then perhaps he can explain why the candidates take a Social Credit policy, a policy which the Social Crediters have been presenting to this house for years and then wish to get elected as Conservative members of this house. To present policies and hope to get elected on policies that the ministers have never even heard presented to them as questions is definitely misleading the people. We can never hope to have good government or to give the people the kind of administration they so desire if we deliberately mislead those people in our country.
I urge the members of this house to get this bill through as a temporary measure to aid agriculture and give the government a chance to introduce legislation which will cure the basic ills of agriculture. The policies that brought agriculture to its present condition have been in effect for a long time, and it cannot be expected that they can be cured over night. However, the sooner you 96698-33
get down to the basic problems, the sooner you will be able to restore the agricultural industry to its rightful place in our economy. (Translation):


Wilfrid Lacroix: Mr. Speaker, I listened with a great deal of interest to the speeches made in this house by the hon. members for Dorchester and Kent (Messrs. Landry and Huffman). Their speeches have made a strong impression upon me, and I thought that their arguments in support of their position should be among those favourably received by the government.
Now, the government is asking us to vote an amount of 150 million dollars to help western farmers dispose of their wheat. I do feel however that he might also have thought of eastern farmers, more particularly those of the province of Quebec. It is recognized in the province of Quebec that it is only right that western farmers should benefit from government assistance with regard to the moving of their grain to the east. Indeed, I think that the government should establish some permanent farm assistance policy with regard to the transport of grain from west to east.
In the matter of farming, the whole province of Quebec has the same difficulties as our western friends. Right now, the Quebec farmer is known to be going through a terrible depression and I wonder what has been and will be the assistance this government proposes to give to eastern farmers. I do not see any sign of it. Nevertheless, we in eastern Canada shall contribute to this amount of 150 million dollars.
I have been in this house for 22 years and, every year, I have heard about the problems of western farmers and the subsidies they were requesting. This year I went out west to gather information and to see conditions for myself. I have satisfied myself that it is a section of this country where there is scarcely any mixed farming, all the acreage being used for grain growing. It has often been suggested to our western fellow citizens that they should take up more livestock breeding and mixed farming. Had they done so, the government would have been spared much of the trouble of providing subsidies, and western farmers would have got more out of their operations, thus doing away with this problem which comes up each year in this house.
This sum of $150 million which we are going to give to the western farmers-with little likelihood of repayment, as has been the case in the past-removes all prospects of an increase in the rate of family allowances, as promised by the Conservative party in the last election. This $150 million which the

Grain
government proposes to give to the western farmers will bar the province of Quebec from securing grants and subsidies to which she, together with the whole population of eastern Canada, is rightfully entitled.


Douglas Scott Harkness: The hon. member for Melville (Mr. Gardiner) said it would cost less than $10 million-


Wilfrid Lacroix: If the hon. minister spoke French, I could reply to him. I did not understand a word he said.
Mr. Speaker, I think it is our duty, especially for us in eastern Canada, to support the views so eloquently expressed by the hon. members for Kent (Ont.) and Dorchester. (Laughter). You may very well laugh, you people sitting on the government side; I can even see the hon. Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Harkness) grinning. I would ask him to make a trip out east instead, so that he may study on the spot the farming conditions in the province of Quebec and the difficulties facing our farmers; he could then, at that time, take other decisions liable to remedy the situation.


Mr. Arsenault:: You knew of those conditions before this.


Wilfrid Lacroix: I have always known of them, and I have always made the same requests. I did not do as did the hon. member for Bona-venture (Mr. Arsenault) who, after being returned as an independent, on the very day after the election proclaimed himself a Conservative member.


Nérée Arsenault: He was your man.


Wilfrid Lacroix: I have never betrayed my mandate.


Nérée Arsenault: He was a Liberal, that one.


Wilfrid Lacroix: You ran as an independent candidate.


Nérée Arsenault: Not I, I was a Conservative candidate.


Wilfrid Lacroix: In any event, to come back to the point, Mr. Speaker, may I say that in fairness to the province of Quebec, the agricultural needs of our province should be taken into account.
I have here a resolution adopted by the Union Catholique des Cultivateurs (Catholic Farmers' Union) of Quebec North, a district within my own constituency. I would like to bring this resolution to the attention of the Minister of Agriculture:
Resolved that the government be requested: (a) to give permanency to the federal government,s present policy of price support for farm products; (b) to fix support prices for farm products according to a formula which would take into account the cost of living, production costs, and

variations in demand as suggested in the formula put forward by the Canadian Federation of Agriculture.
The dairy industry is very important in our province. Here is a resolution adopted by the Union Catholique des Cultivateurs of the province with regard to that industry:
Whereas the dairy industry is the mainstay of agriculture in the province of Quebec and, as a consequence, Quebec agriculture tends to favour forage crops;
Whereas even though a large number of Quebec farms can produce considerable quantities of grain, their area is such as to provide a good permanent market for western grain;
Whereas the increase in freight rates on feed grain has already had an advance effect on the production costs of cattle raising and dairying . . .
I believe that the government should at least have provided a sum of money to allow eastern farmers to benefit from lower freight rates and thus get their seed grains at a lower price than they did under the former government. But no, the sole concern of the Prime Minister (Mr. Diefenbaker), the member for Prince Albert, is for his electoral riding in western Canada.
Well, Mr. Speaker, allow me to say that eastern Canada also needs some grants, and some subsidies. I mentioned one a moment ago when I asked the minister why the government had not continued to grant to our religious communities and our charitable institutions the subsidies from which they had benefited when they were allowed to buy their butter at a reduced price. The minister answered that this could not be done this year since there is no butter surplus. He also said to me that the former government had adopted the same policy.
I say to him that the former government always granted the religious orders and charitable institutions of my province the advantage of a reduced price on the butter it had to sell. If the government changes its policy, that is its concern.
May I say, in closing, that I will vote against this bill, that I will vote against it on second reading and that, in so doing, I support the stand taken by my colleagues from Kent, Ontario, (Mr. Huffman) and from Dorchester (Mr. Landry). I support their stand because I think that the west is being given a considerable amount of money which will eventually prevent the government from giving the people of eastern Canada what it promised them and what they are entitled to, in the form of an increase in family allowances, of subsidies to agriculture and of lower taxes. You will see when the budget comes before the house.

This amount of 150 million dollars handed out to the western farmers will have to be paid somehow. Indeed, we shall see the effects of those 150 million dollars when the new budget comes before the house.
(Text):


Mr. Jacob Schulz (Springfield):: Mr. Speaker, in speaking on this bill which is to provide advance payments to farmers who cannot sell their grain, I find myself in a rather awkward position. 1 do not like the measure in its present form, but I cannot possibly oppose it because I am one of those who have been advocating emergency assistance for years. I am thankful the government has acceded to the request, and I will support the measure. No matter how little benefit the farmers will receive from it, I will support it on the assumption that in this case something is better than nothing.
However, I feel I would be remiss in my duty if I were not to point out the shortcomings of this legislation. I only hope I can find the right words to do that and not be misunderstood, especially at a time when there is such an acute mortality prevailing amongst the members of this parliament. I am not against the principle of this measure, but I must indicate the inadequacies compared with the needs. Perhaps I should not do this, because everyone seems to be fairly well satisfied with the bill. I know the farmers are badly in need of this support.
In mentioning the weaknesses of this bill before us I find myself about in the same position as a lay observer watching a doctor perform an emergency operation on a dying person. He would think twice, at least, before he would tap the doctor's shoulder and offer advice in the moment when the doctor was performing that vital and delicate incision. I think he would rather be inclined to keep his mouth shut, for such an interruption might irritate the doctor and cause his hand to shake, thus endangering a life. I would not want to do that at this point. I shall therefore try to be careful in choosing my words to express my disappointment at the value of this government action.
Perhaps I can do this best by using the well known phrase coined during wartime; "too little and too late". In order to make a proper analysis I would divide the phrase into two parts. I would concentrate on the "late" part first by saying that what we are 06698-33i
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doing now should have been done years ago, and should have been done in much fuller measure than we are attempting to do now. The former government was confronted with this request year after year, but they refused to even consider it. It was branded a wild idea, an unreasonable demand, absolutely impossible to implement. Now that we have a new government the farmers' petition is granted in principle at least, and the former minister of agriculture wants to get in on the credit. He tried hard the other day to make out a case for himself, and in his desperation he went so far as to intimate that this step could have been taken before if it had not been for the backward farm organizations. They did not even ask for it.
At this point I should like to make it clear that if the right hon. member for Melville (Mr. Gardiner) wants to use the Canadian Federation of Agriculture to shield himself from an embarrassing position it is quite all right with me. Perhaps he is even justified in doing so. This organization has provided a barricade behind which he and the former minister of trade and commerce have hidden for years, and perhaps that is one of the reasons we have not got advance payments yet.
However, when the right hon. member goes so far as to indicate that all farm organizations have been against the idea of cash advances, then he should know he cannot get away with such backstage manoeuvring in this parliament. I have with me the last three briefs presented by the interprovincial farm union council to the government. The first one was presented on February 16, 1956, and on page 15 it says:
Therefore, the interprovincial farm union councils continuing to press for adoption of its original proposal (which has been endorsed at the three wheat pool delegate meetings) that the government arrange for interest-free cash advances by the Canadian wheat board on farm-stored grain to the value of 50 per cent of the initial payment on an estimated delivery of 8 bushels per cultivated acre.
This proves that the proposal was made and that it had been adopted by three wheat pool meetings. The next brief was presented on February 19, 1957. On page 8, it asks that a permanent system of cash advances be established on the basis recommended in previous submissions in order that farmers will have the means to meet their annual obligations. This should be enough to destroy the validity of the assertion made by the former minister of trade and commerce which was seized upon by

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the hon. member for Melville. The next brief was presented on August 15, 1957 in which the same request is repeated.
This I am sure will do away with any implications that our farm organizations were against advance payments. Where did the idea come from in the first place if it was not from the farm organizations? if the Liberal government had been as interested in the farmers as were some of the farm organizations then the farmers would not today be in a position of having to ask for emergency assistance.
The government could have prevented the situation by adopting a more aggressive attitude in selling our wheat; other people are selling their wheat. The United States exported 535 million bushels last year while Canada exported only 260 million bushels. Is there one natural reason why the United States should be able to sell one single bushel more than Canada, when our wheat has been recognized as the best in the world? Our wheat is hard wheat which some countries are forced to buy whereas the United States wheat is soft wheat which can be obtained anywhere.
Our final certificate covering export sales is accepted with the same confidence as a certified cheque. In contrast, the United States grading system, from No. 1 to the lowest, is inferior to ours in every respect. Nevertheless they almost doubled their sales last year when they exported 275 million bushels more than we did. In the same period our sales went down 49 million bushels. What is the reason for this difference? Could it be that those who were in charge of the development of policies for the United States wheat disposal program had enough imagination to conceive of strategies and approaches which have proved successful while those who were responsible for our program lacked incentive and vision to the point where they are relying on an orthodox trade policy and waiting for Santa Claus to bring them some customers?
United States policy makers have used four different ways in which to introduce a progressive sales policy: sales for American dollars, sales for local currency, barter trade and other relief assistance. Instead of adopting at least some of these various beneficial methods our government embarked on a course of criticism which to my mind is senseless to the highest degree, degrading those who do it, stifling business and resulting in a danger to this country.
When my neighbours sell faster and better than I do, do I criticize them? Of course not. I will find out how they do it and learn something.

In the 1955-56 crop year the United States exported 344 million bushels of wheat of which 97 million were sold for dollars, 93 million bushels for foreign currency, 67 million bushels were barter transactions, and 87 million bushels were exchanged under a mutual aid and relief program. If our government had adopted similar progressive sales policies during the years we would not have to find the cost of storage which now amounts to about $100 million a year and which includes some farm storage costs, but we could have sold a large portion of our wheat when the price was high. How much the farmers have lost in this respect alone can be seen from the fact that at the opening of the crop year 1953 the price of No. 1 Northern wheat was $2.03 a bushel and on July 21, 1957 the price was $1.61, a loss of 42 cents in four years. In last year alone wheat prices dropped by 12 cents a bushel.
Farmers have not only lost in sales and prices at the export level but also at the domestic level. From 1947 to 1953 the export price ranged from $2.00 to $3.40 a bushel but our domestic price was held down by the government and ranged from $1.55 to $2.55. When you know of these facts it is rather amusing to listen to those hon. members on the Liberal side who have voted against the resolution talk about discrimination and to those who with tears in their eyes talk about the United States give-away program and the terrible sums of money it costs the people of the United States. You never hear anybody talk about the Canadian giveaway program for which these farmers alone had to pay; no one mentions the United Kingdom wheat agreement which cost the western farmers in the neighbourhood of a $300 to $400 million; no one talks about the millions and millions of dollars paid by the farmers in storage charges.
This is the way western farmers have been backed up against the wall to the point where they are now forced to ask for emergency assistance. I am happy this government seems to recognize that fact, at least to some extent, and has brought down a measure which is a step in the right direction, but it is still too late and too little. In dealing with the too little aspect I want to say that in speaking in the debate in reply to the speech from the throne the other day I made it clear that no half measures are good enough at this time.
Unfortunately this first legislation brought down by this government will no doubt be exactly that. Six bushels an acre is only half of the normal crop; what about the other half? Can farmers at this time afford to get only half their payment on merely half their crop? What about last year's crop?

What about the crop from the year before? It is most unfortunate that in this case this government is doing to the farmer something similar to what the former government did to our senior citizens. The advance payment on only 6 bushels an acre compares, I suggest, with the measly $6 increase in pensions which was granted last session. Will the farmers be more satisfied with this treatment than the old age pensioners were?
What is the material difference between this bill and the Prairie Grain Producers Interim Financing Act, aside from the interest, which in this case is paid by the government, and the fact that it is received by the farmer as a matter of right. Apart from that there is no difference. A farmer cannot obtain any more money under this act than he could under last year's act. As a matter of fact, he would get less. Under the provisions of the interim finance act a producer could borrow up to $3,000 if he had the grain to cover that sum, but under this proposal the amount of grain a farmer has in store does not matter; it is acreage which counts, not grain. A farmer has to have 1,000 acres before he can get $3,000. Furthermore, he can only get this amount if he grows only wheat. If he grows barley or oats he will get less. Is this the best this government can do?
Let us take, for example, an average farmer with a half section of land and 270 specified acres. If his production is all in wheat, he will receive $810; if in barley, $567; and if in oats, $324. This shows clearly how little benefit those hard-pressed farmers who have reached the end of their rope in financing their operations can hope to get out of this legislation if no changes are made.
Mr. Speaker, my hon. friend from Proven-cher (Mr. Jorgenson), speaking on the resolution last week, expressed the opinion that farmers are a reasonable group of people and that they will, therefore, be satisfied with this proposal. I have reached the opposite view. It will be the reasonable people who will recognize the fact that this is a feeble effort on the part of the government. They will see that this gesture is not only of little assistance to the average farmer but will create an incentive to grow more wheat, which is most dangerous. By allowing advances only on six bushels an acre regardless of the grain delivered, and then graduating the amount he receives from fifty cents for wheat to thirty-five for barley and twenty cents for oats, he may be inclined to grow the grain that brings the most money under this arrangement as it stands.
Mr. Speaker, it is hard to understand how hon. members of this house can stand up, speak on this bill and assert that everything
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is really quite all right, when some of its features are so obviously all wrong. There is plenty of evidence that this legislation in its present form is not only inadequate but is disturbing in some respects. For example, I point out sub-clause 4 of clause 3, which reads as follows:
No person who has received an advance payment under this act in any crop year is, until his undertaking in respect thereof has been fully discharged, entitled to receive an advance payment in any subsequent crop year.
This means, in simple terms, that if a farmer is unable to deliver his six bushels allowed under the quota by the end of the crop year he cannot get any advance on his new crop until he delivers his old quota and discharges his obligations.


Douglas Scott Harkness: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker, the hon. member is now discussing the clauses of the bill, and I suggest it would be better and make for a more orderly discussion if he would postpone discussion of this particular clause until we come to deal with the bill in committee of the whole.


Jacob Schulz: Mr. Speaker, if the Minister of Trade and Commerce (Mr. Churchill) or the Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Harkness), who has taken his place today can guarantee us that we can deliver six bushels this year I shall be not only satisfied but gratified by his assurance. But only a very cheerful optimist would dare to make such a prediction at this stage in the present circumstances. We could not do it last year, at least in my constituency, and I do not think it can be done this year either.
There is only one way in which it could be done: we must sell more grain than we are doing now. So far there is no evidence of such a trend. All signs point to the fact that up to now no all-out effort has been made to cope with this problem in a practical manner and, therefore, our present position can be described without fear of contradiction as a pitiful and deplorable stalemate. We are forced to accept it as such until the minister sees his way clear to tell this house what his plans are. We know that he is confronted with one of the most complicated problems, and we appreciate his position. We do not expect that he should sell all this wheat overnight, but I do feel that he and those who work with him should by now have been able to figure out some idea, some plan or some action that may be taken. So far he has said nothing that satisfies my curiosity or which does justice to the urgency of the situation.
From the minister's silence in this house and the address he made in Winnipeg to the national dairy council of Canada I have

Grain
reached the conclusion that those who are in charge of our present grain marketing problem are tarred with the same brush of fear that has caused the indecision which has plagued that group for years. They seem to be, in a sense, prisoners of the past who have failed to respond to the challenges of the present.
Commenting on the minister's speech in Winnipeg, the Western Producer has this to say:
After making due allowance for the handicaps under which he suffered it must, we fear, be admitted that Mr. Churchill was disappointing. His speech sounded dull and pedestrian, contained little that was new or inspiring and indeed would not have sounded much out of place coming from the mouth of a spokesman for the former regime.
How true this analysis is was proven by the minister when in the same speech he fell into the old rut of criticizing those who do something to dispose of their surpluses, and blaming them in the main for the reduction of our sales.
It is a sorry picture, when farmers are economically bankrupt while sitting on a pile of wheat to the magnitude of one billion bushels, to see those who are responsible for our sales program doing little more than criticize those who do something. Even the Prime Minister (Mr. Diefenbaker) has joined from time to time the parade of critics.
Perhaps it is true that we should not follow exactly in the footsteps of the United States in disposing of our surplus, but we should, indeed we must, find means to distribute our surplus wheat to those who need it even if they cannot pay for it in dollars. Every fair-minded observer must admit that our present method of selling for dollars only has failed us miserably. At the same time the United States, by her easy selling terms, has disposed of considerable quantities of wheat to needy people who have not the money to pay in the ordinary way.
Unfortunately, the Minister of Finance (Mr. Fleming) made it clear the other day that this government has no intention of taking the initiative in investigating the possibility of selling wheat for sterling or other local currency. On October 23, 1957, as reported at page 315 of Hansard of that date, the Minister of Finance made this statement:
-until some of the countries on a sterling basis regard this as a matter of sufficient importance to them to come and ask us to accept such an arrangement, I do not see any reason why we should go out proposing to take sterling.
We are still acting in an independent manner as if we were in a seller's market. It is difficult to follow this line of reasoning. The minister made this comment in spite of the fact that from November 15, 1954, to April 30, 1957, the United States has signed 92 agreements with 32 countries to the value of

$1.8 billion which covered 446 million bushels of wheat. Twenty-three of these countries received wheat in exchange for local currencies. For some reason our authorities seem to be afraid to tackle this problem in a progressive manner. They have taken the passive course which has always proven to be most unsafe in the competitive business world. Those in charge do not seem to realize that this situation demands a high order of creativeness and instead of being afraid of doing something they should be afraid of doing nothing. If they would move we would not need to waste our time today talking about providing emergency assistance nor would we have had to waste millions upon millions of dollars in storage charges. We have paid enough unnecessary storage charges in the past few years to pay for at least half of that surplus wheat and give it away.
Our new Minister of Trade and Commerce made it clear in his speech that he has no intention of changing the policy of storing surplus wheat. On August 30,	1957, as
reported in the Winnipeg Free Press of that date, he is reported as having said in that city:
I hold the view that our higher grades of wheat might better be kept in store rather than given away or sold at cut rate prices.
And so we are sitting on our pile of surplus wheat and apparently the government intends to let the farmer and the nation pay storage until they are blue in the face. We will continue to sit on it even though it has become a crushing burden to western farmers and in spite of the fact that over half of the world's population is going to bed hungry every night. That we cannot dispose of our surpluses in a hungry world is a disgrace to our intelligence and those who brought us to this point should hang their heads in shame.
They are responsible for the creation of the situation in which we now find ourselves of being forced to pass emergency legislation to alleviate this deplorable condition. Measures designed and saturated with the same platitudes which are partly responsible for the plight of the western farmer will not come near the mark in terms of solving this problem. Apparently the government is still hoping that some day, somehow this problem will solve itself by some semimiraculous means involving no effort on its part. It is hoping against hope that the problem will vanish of its own accord.
(Translation):


Mr. Raymond O'Hurley (Lotbiniere):: Mr. Speaker, I had not planned to take part in the discussion on this bill which, I contend, is

one of extreme urgency for a certain part of our population. However, I would not like either, by keeping silent, to give the population of this country the impression that members on the government side are opposed to an emergency measure designed to give western farmers some money until this year's crop is sold.
It is for that reason, Mr. Speaker-this is my maiden speech in this house but I am being forced by circumstances, to take part in this debate-that I feel it my duty, indeed a sacred duty, as a representative of an essentially agricultural constituency of the province of Quebec, to speak in the French language, the language of my electors.
Mr. Speaker, I know for having discussed this matter in caucus and in discussions with the Prime Minister that this is an urgent measure. This is no grant, no outright gift made by the country to western farmers but, for all practical purposes, a loan which will provide them with ready cash until such time as their crop is sold. That is why I would like to take a clear stand on this issue, as did other Quebec members who spoke before me.
I would not like this measure offered by the government to be considered as a gift. I know that this legislation does not apply to the other farm products, but I know also that it is a part of the policy announced by the Prime Minister in order to achieve balance in the field of agriculture. I support it, though, because I have as much feeling as those members who preceded me.
This plan is not perfect because perfection is not of this world but we shall try to reduce the margin existing at this time between prices obtained by the producers and what the consumers pay. Being a farmer's son and the owner of a farm, I know that the price obtained by the farmer for his products does not provide him with a salary comparable to that of other classes of society at the present time.
That is why we will shortly propose legislation with a view to filling this gap between the price paid to the producer and the price paid by the consumer.
Therein lies, I think, the difficulty facing the farmers of the province of Quebec. I had intended to deal with various aspects of agriculture in the province of Quebec during the debate on the address in reply to the
Grain
speech from the throne, but the examination of this measure prompted me to say a few words on the question of loans or grants to western farmers.
Just recently, I heard the hon. members from the opposition, my good friends from the constituencies next to mine, say that prices paid this year for maple syrup, pulp wood and various farm products were lower than last year's. If they remember well, in March and April 1956 maple syrup was selling at $7 a gallon in my riding. This year, the same syrup, of identical quality, sold at $3 a gallon. And yet, it was not the Conservative party which was in power. Therefore, it is not our fault, it is a legacy for which we cannot be held accountable, but, nonetheless a legacy that we have come into. In any case we shall try to be fair to everyone, while at the same time helping western farmers.
This bill, this loan we are suggesting is, in other words, an advance on their crops, which is going to be refunded to the federal treasury through their wheat pools. It is not an amount of $2.5 million which they are going to keep, but a cash advance.


Wilfrid Lacroix: An advance that will never be refunded.


Mr. O'Hurley:: I had always understood that once a legislation is passed, it has to be complied with, and farmers, whether they live in the west or in the east, in Ontario, Quebec or New Brunswick, are accustomed to observing the law.
I say these grants are liable to help our rural population, because western farmers would then be able to reduce their production costs and, consequently, resale prices, which will open up new markets to them.
Mr. Speaker, like all members sitting with me on this side of the house, I put my trust in this government, and I shall vote in favour of this legislation, because I know that this government will be inclined to submit new bills to assist Quebec farmers. And I know for certain that those farmers will understand our position and, in their turn, be fair to us.
(Text):


Mr. A. B. Patterson (Fraser Valley):: Mr. Speaker, this is the first time I have risen to participate in a debate in the course of the present session. I want to assure you, however, that it is not my intention to delay to any appreciable degree the passage of this measure; but I do feel there is one principle

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that should be restated and kept in mind in considering the agricultural measure now before us.
The position of this group relative to the matter under consideration has been declared very clearly and concisely not only in the course of this debate but on other occasions as well. Recognizing as we do the serious financial difficulty in which the wheat producers of the prairie provinces find themselves owing to the inability to market their grain we have supported and do support the principle of cash advances on farm-stored grain as proposed in the measure. However, once again I would like to call attention to what I consider to be a very serious weakness or, shall I say, a danger in the legislation which we are now considering.
We are singling out a particular section of our country and a specific part of our agricultural industry for special attention. Let me again state, as I have already done, this proposal is receiving my support, but I do feel that in this parliament we must concern ourselves with policies and measures the benefits of which will, in comparable circumstances, be available to citizens right across our country. As an illustration, I should like to refer just briefly to our plea made on other occasions for the expansion of such measures as the Prairie Farm Rehabilitation Act. I mention this at this time only to illustrate my point.
Our agricultural industry, or economy, in British Columbia is, as you know Mr. Speaker, more diversified but we have marketing problems as well. We feel that as regards at least some of our products we might be justified in claiming some such assistance as is contemplated in this measure. I am reminded as well of the maritime section, and the producers in that area who might feel justified in requesting consideration, and no doubt would benefit considerably were the benefits of such legislation made available to them.
Some months ago I had the opportunity to be in the province of New Brunswick and the problem of marketing their potato crop was brought to my attention. When the crop is harvested the markets are usually in a very depressed condition; but because of the desperate position in which the producers find themselves they dispose of their potato crop to buyers or speculators at a few cents a barrel. Those potatoes are stored on the farms by those producers and when the markets improve and a good price is commanded the buyers come along and take delivery and, of course, reap the benefits. I would suggest that if some such legislation was passed, or if a provision was included 
in such a measure as we have here, cash advances in that particular instance would be of inestimable value to the producers of that section. If those advances were available they could store their crop just as they do at the present time but they themselves would benefit from the improved market at the time of selling. I know it would be very hard on the speculators but it would be good for the producers.
I raise this point, Mr. Speaker, not because of any opposition to the principle involved in this measure but because I and many others are of the opinion that the benefits of measures designed for the good of our people should be available to all under comparable circumstances.
I listened with a great deal of interest to some of the members who participated in the debate last evening, for instance the hon. member for Calgary South (Mr. Smith). I was charmed by his quality of voice; I enjoyed his powers of oratory but I could not appreciate, as can be understood, his wholehearted confidence in the present administration to carry through a program that in its totality would take care of all the problems that face agriculture at the present time. I believe one of the other members suggested that this was only the first in a list of measures which would be introduced by this government and which would be in the interests of the agricultural industry of the nation. My own fear, Mr. Speaker, is that unless the fires are kept burning and a good head of steam is maintained this government may grind to a stop before the destination is reached, before the point is reached where legislation has been brought in which will bring to the agricultural industry of Canada the help it needs at the present time. Therefore, I raise this point once again, Mr. Speaker, in the hope that when measures are introduced in this house we shall keep in mind the fact that we are dealing with national issues, and the measures which are contemplated, considered and passed should be in the interest of all the people of Canada regardless of where they may reside. (Translation):


Mr. C. N. Barbes (Chapleau):: Mr. Speaker, on behalf of the farmers of my constituency,
I would like to say a few words at this stage on Bill 14, providing for cash advances on prairie grain prior to delivery thereof.
Through this legislation the government wishes to authorize cash advances to prairie farmers-and I repeat this-on threshed grain, before its delivery to the Canadian wheat board. The producer of wheat, barley or oats will therefore be enabled to receive

Grain
cash advances up to a maximum of $3,000. In this way 100 to 150 million dollars will probably be advanced to western farmers on farm stored grain.
Mr. Speaker, the bill is possibly to the advantage of the western grain producer, but in the opinion of the farmers who, like myself, live in the eastern part of the country, this appears to be preferential treatment at the expense of the taxpayer, if the measure is adopted as such.
As for myself, before voting for such a measure, I would like our homesteaders and those farmers of ours who have woodlots to benefit from cash advances also, though not exclusively on pulpwood which has been cut and offered for sale but not yet delivered to the buyer. Advances such as are proposed by the bill, carrying no interest, should, to my mind, apply everywhere.
Those thousands of farmers who clear land, cut wood and farm in our districts will certainly not approve this legislation. It is not enough to promise an inquiry on the price spread between what is paid to the producer and what is paid by the consumer. Such an inquiry has nothing to do with a nation-wide agricultural policy.
Yesterday the member for Victoria-Carle-ton (Mr. Montgomery) told us that this measure was a part of the Conservative national policy, that it had been explained throughout the length and breadth of this country during the last general election. Well, as far as I am concerned, I would like to point out here that, during the last campaign in my constituency, my opponent was at pains to say that legislation in favour of those people who live on the prairies was preferential treatment costing millions of dollars, that these privileges were unacceptable if we remembered that our own farmers do not benefit from similar federal legislation concerning what they produce on their own land.
This particular point having been raised in our constituency, I am of the opinion that many Canadians who live on the land in Abitibi would not favour such a proposal. I have all the sympathy in the world for our western friends, but on the other hand I will not forget our own farmers who would like to keep on farming and, at the same time, receive their fair share of the national income.
On October 15 last, Mr. Speaker, an hon. member asked the government whether it intended to set up a commission to investigate price spreads. At that time, the right hon. Prime Minister (Mr. Diefenbaker) stated that the government had given immediate consideration to this most serious and difficult 96698-34
farming problem, one respecting which he himself had spoken on a number of occasions, stressing the need of something being done to investigate this spread in prices paid to the producers as compared to those required of consumers. The right hon. Prime Minister promised at that time that a statement would be made on this matter in the near future.
A few days later, that is on October 23, the hon. Minister of National Health and Welfare (Mr. Monteith), in submitting the government program, explained the details of government bills relating to the Old Age Pension Act, the Old Age Assistance Act, the Blind Persons Act and the Disabled Persons Act.
On the following day, that is on October 24, the hon. Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Harkness), speaking of farming problems and of a stabilizing price measure, merely stated that he had realized, when he took office as Minister of Agriculture, that the situation was extremely serious, adding that he had tried to improve the situation as far as some agricultural products are concerned and that he would continue to take every possible step with all possible speed to correct this unfortunate situation.
Well, Mr. Speaker, once the government has proposed an overall plan and submitted all the farming measures as a whole, taking into account the needs of eastern farmers, I shall be in a position to consider this bill. However, for my part, it is my duty to vote against this measure if a vote is recorded on second reading.


Mr. Georges Villeneuve (Roberval):: Mr. Speaker, as a member representing a farm riding and not having had the opportunity to express my views on this legislation at the resolution stage, I would like to say today what the farm people in my riding are thinking of this bill No. 14 providing for advance payments up to a total of 150 million dollars with regard to the delivery of grain from the prairies.
I admit that these advance payments will probably allow western farmers to survive while waiting for wheat deliveries, but I think this is an expedient designed to conceal the government's inability to dispose of our wheat on the international market.
I would favour this bill if it were such as to lower the price of grain, and wheat in particular, to eastern farmers, for whom this government is apparently showing little concern.
I remember that the former government had passed legislation which was much more

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helpful to all farmers throughout Canada, byawarding subsidies on the transport of grain. This had helped eastern farmers to consume more of that commodity while giving western farmers a chance to sell their grain on the national market.
I voted against the resolution preceding the bill and I will vote against the bill itself, because I believe the farm industry of this country is not going to be saved by electioneering stop-gaps like this legislation. Our farming industry is not going to get better by the application of such poultices, but by some bill which will consider farm conditions throughout Canada, not forgetting those existing in the east, and more particularly in the province of Quebec.
(Text):


Mr. C. E. Johnston (Bow River):: Mr. Speaker, 1 should like to take this opportunity to say a few words on this bill which provides for cash advances. It is not my purpose to oppose the measure. I think the measure is long overdue. The people of Canada, and particularly the farmers of western Canada, have been forced into a position where they are nearly bankrupt. It does not make any difference what government is in power; the result would be the same. Because of the great demands being made and the situation of the western farmer, any government which was in power would be obliged to put this legislation through.
We well recall that when the Conservatives, who now form the government, were in opposition they, along with the Social Crediters and C.C.F., on every occasion protested the dire situation in which farmers found themselves. We all pressed for some assistance in the form of cash advances to the farmers of western Canada. The fact that the present government is introducing this measure does not alter the fact that it would have been introduced by any party which formed the government.
I think it can be truly said, Mr. Speaker, that the farmers of western Canada have found themselves in very poor financial circumstances. Because of a lack of a sales policy by the former government, and certainly because of the lack of a sales policy by the present government, this measure is a necessity. The farmers, not only in my constituency but in nearly all western constituencies, have found themselves in a position where they were forced to sell grain at cut-rate prices to any source that was available in order to secure cash to carry on from day to day. The farmers in my constituency, and in other constituencies, were forced to sell their grain at 50 cents to 60 cents a bushel. All hon. members who

were in the opposition protested strenuously to the government and requested the inauguration of a system of cash advances so that farmers would not be forced by their creditors to sell grain at cut-rate prices and thereby lose hundreds of thousands of dollars.
I want to say a word, Mr. Speaker, about the attitude taken the other day by one of the members, the hon. member for Charlotte (Mr. Stuart). I can appreciate his situation and his statement that under this measure no assistance is being given to the Atlantic provinces. I would suggest to him, however, that rather than take the attitude that he would vote against this measure he should support the measure and then make every effort to have this government and this house introduce legislation to give the people of the maritimes some relief. Conservative governments have been in power for some time in the maritimes, in New Brunswick and Nova Scotia, and they have done little, if anything, for those two provinces. In fact, the Liberal government did not do very much more, so I suggest to the hon. member for Charlotte that he insist upon some form of assistance being given by this government to the people of the Atlantic provinces. Those people received no assistance from the last government, of which the hon. member was a supporter, so I feel it would be good judgment on his part to support the Social Credit movement in the Atlantic provinces, kick out both the old line parties and put in a government that will do something.


Mr. Murphy (Lambton Wesi):: I know where they lose their deposits.


Charles Edward Johnston: That is not true in progressive provinces, because in the west there were few of the old line party men returned. When the people in the Atlantic provinces get to the point where they are fed up with the old line parties, they will kick them out. It would seem that there is no difference between old line parties anyway, and I think the Atlantic provinces are beginning to realize that.
Let me come back to this Bill No. 14 which provides for cash advances to the farmers. It must not be thought for a moment, Mr. Speaker, as I feel the inference was left by the Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Harkness) when he was introducing this measure, that the farmers are going to receive a cash advance of $3,000. That is just not the case. There are some farmers, a very few, who may receive $3,000 in the form of cash advances but that will be limited to those who have the qualifying 1,000 acres. As the minister indicated the

other day, about two-thirds of the farmers in western Canada will have a qualifying acreage of about 300 acres. This means that two-thirds of the farmers in western Canada, on the basis of 300 acres and $3 per acre, will receive about $900. This amount is not going to go very far in solving this emergency which faces our western farmers. There is now on the statute books an act known as the Prairie Grain Producers Interim Financing Act, which was passed in 1956. Under that act there were about 10,326 loans made and the average loan amounted to $647.04.
This measure points out most clearly that when an applicant for an advance is indebted to the bank in respect of a guaranteed loan obtained by him under the Prairie Grain Producers Interim Financing Act, 1956, the unpaid balance of the guaranteed loan, together with any interest or other charges owing thereunder, owing to the bank shall be deducted from the advance payment and paid to the bank, and the bank shall cancel any endorsement in the permit book. This is set out in section 18 of the present Bill No. 14.
A moment ago I pointed out that over 10,000 farmers in western Canada owe on an average $647.04 under the Prairie Grain Producers Interim Financing Act. If, as the Minister of Agriculture has pointed out, two-thirds of the farmers in western Canada have about 300 acres that will qualify under this bill, that means that those farmers will get about $900. When you subtract the amount of money they owe under the Prairie Grain Producers Interim Financing Act you And they will have the magnificent sum of $253 coming to them. Certainly, the government cannot stick out its chest and say what a great boon this is going to be to the farmers of Canada. I feel, Mr. Speaker, that this section 18 should be withdrawn from Bill No. 14 so that those farmers who are in dire need would not be compelled to repay that money before they received any money under Bill No. 14.


Mr. Speaker:: Order, it being five o'clock the house will proceed to the consideration of private and public bills.



INDUSTRIAL RELATIONS


Stanley Howard Knowles: the second reading of Bill No. 2, to provide for annual vacations with pay for employees.
Industrial Relations
He said: Mr. Speaker, this is the third occasion upon which I have had the privilege of presenting this bill. As hon. members are aware, it is a bill which would provide for annual vacations with pay for workers in Canada who come under federal labour jurisdiction. The main point of this Bill No. 2 is that the annual vacations with pay to be provided should be on a basis of two weeks after one year's service. There is also a provision for holidays on a pro-rata basis for service of less than one year, but the basic and fundamental fact about this bill is that the annual holidays with pay should be, as I say, on a basis of two weeks after one year's service. I mention this in my opening remarks to distinguish it from another bill which is now on the order paper, the first reading of which was given by the house this afternoon. I refer to the bill introduced by the Minister of Labour (Mr. Starr) which in some respects seems to be similar to my bill. I congratulate him for following the lead given in these past three sessions, but in his explanatory words to the house today the Minister of Labour indicated that his bill provides for only one week's holiday with pay after one year's service and requires two years' service before two weeks' holidays with pay are guaranteed to an employee.
As a matter of fact I delayed proceeding with the second reading of my bill until the government's bill had been introduced, hoping that the government's bill might be a carbon copy of my own and that therefore it would not be necessary for me to proceed with Bill No. 2. However, now that the Minister of Labour has made it clear that, commendable as is his bill in that he has introduced it at all, it does not go far enough. I feel that I must ask the house to consider not merely the idea of legislation providing annual vacations with pay but the granting of those holidays on the basis of two weeks after one year's service. In this connection perhaps I might read a sentence from the brief presented to the government on October 21 by the Canadian Labour Congress. At page 18 of that brief I read these words:
We welcome the announcement of a vacations with pay act and hope it will provide for two weeks after one year's service.
That hope, expressed so recently by the delegation representing the Canadian Labour Congress, has not been fulfilled in the bill introduced today by the Minister of Labour

Industrial Relations
and, as I say, it is for that reason that I ask the house to proceed with this bill which is better than the one proposed by him.


Donald Methuen Fleming: Mr. Speaker, if my hon. friend will permit me, I think I should rise at this time on a point of order, in view of the extent to which my hon. friend has indicated the nature of the bill and has himself compared it with the bill introduced this afternoon by the Minister of Labour (Mr. Starr). My friend has I think conceded that the bills relate to the same matter. My friend has sought to distinguish his bill from the bill introduced this afternoon by the Minister of Labour on the grounds-the very narrow grounds-that whereas Bill No. 2 makes provision, according to its explanatory note, that all employees in Canada who come under federal labour legislation be granted at least two weeks' vacation with pay after one year of employment, the bill introduced this afternoon by the Minister of Labour makes provision for a statutory right in the case of all employees under federal labour jurisdiction to one week's vacation with pay after one year of work and two weeks' vacation with pay after a second year and thereafter. Now in my respectful submission this is not a difference sufficient to distinguish the two bills and to warrant my hon. friend proceeding with the bill he is now purporting to submit and of which he has moved second reading.


Mr. Speaker:: May I ask the hon. minister if it is his point that it is out of order for the house to proceed on this bill in view of the other bill being on the order paper?


Donald Methuen Fleming: Exactly, Mr. Speaker. The bill on the order paper has been introduced.


Stanley Howard Knowles: am not surprised, Mr. Speaker, that the Minister of Finance on behalf of the government has raised the point of order but it seems to me that he should have something more to say. Where are his authorities for the assertion that, because the government has brought in such a bill, my bill cannot be proceeded with? There are citations in the books which make it clear that a bill takes precedence over a motion; indeed there is a descending order of values in what is known as the rule of anticipation, but I have not been able to find any rule which says a government bill takes precedence over a private member's bill. There is a rule which says-and this is a very clear rule-that the house having taken a decision on a matter, in the course of a session, that matter cannot be raised again. However it just so happens,
[Mr. Knowles (Winnipeg North Centre) .1
to put it in chronological terms, that my bill was before the house first. My bill had first reading a few days ago and is now up for second reading. We are now under a new dispensation where the supremacy of parliament is supposed to count. I suggest that if this rule upon which the Minister of Finance seems to be relying has any merit what will actually happen is that my bill, having been introduced first, is the bill before the house and it is the government bill which will be out of order.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear.


Stanley Howard Knowles: think the Minister of Finance had better think twice before he presses his point of order. I would be quite happy if it were that way and that we should have before the house the bill which offers a better provision rather than the bill which offers a lesser provision. At any rate unless some authorities are presented to you, Mr. Speaker, I do not see how you can rule that this bill which was on the order paper first is now blocked by a government bill which came in later.


George Carlyle Marler: Mr. Speaker, it seems to me the point of order raised by the Minister of Finance (Mr. Fleming) is entirely without foundation, that it is equivalent to saying that if a private member introduces a piece of legislation which seems to be politically attractive to the government all the government has to do is to introduce a bill in similar terms and, on the thesis which has just been invoked by the Minister of Finance, the government would take over the parenthood and the credit for the measure from that point on. If there is any principle to support what the Minister of Finance has said, I think he should at least enunciate that principle so that it may be considered.


James Sinclair: Mr. Speaker, I would like to point out one or two things in connection with the scope of the bill. From the information we have received in the routine proceedings the bill introduced by the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre (Mr. Knowles) is to include all that group which comes under federal labour legislation, whereas the wording on page 2 of the routine proceedings with reference to the government bill indicates that it is just for employees engaged in federal works, undertakings and businesses. In other words, as I would take it, it applies to all government employees.


Donald Methuen Fleming: No, my hon. friend is quite mistaken in that respect. Employees affected by the bill introduced this afternoon by the

Minister of Labour are co-extensive with those affected by the bill now under discussion. It applies to all employees who are subject to federal jurisdicition. The point is very simple and it is not a novel one. The house can hardly have current at the same session two proceedings and two debates on the same subject matter.


Stanley Howard Knowles: That is right.


Donald Methuen Fleming: In such cases my understanding of the rule and the practice of this house is that where there is a government measure which relates to the same matter and covers the same ground-it does not need to be precisely the same ground-the introduction of the government measure has the effect of staying further proceedings on measures introduced by private members.


An hon. Member:: What is your rule?


Donald Methuen Fleming: You cannot duplicate debate.


Mr. Speaker:: I have conferred with the clerk on the point raised by the minister, and he has advised me that the point which has been made by those who have opposed the point of order raised is the correct view according to the authorities. I am referred to May, fifteenth edition, page 499:
There is no rule or custom which restrains the presentation of two or more bills relating to the same subject, and containing similar provisions.
It is where a decision of the house has been taken on one bill that a problem arises, but apparently there is no difficulty about two bills, they being both of the same status or rank, as was suggested by the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre (Mr. Knowles). I think I must respect the point of order.


Stanley Howard Knowles: Mr. Speaker, just as the Minister of Finance (Mr. Fleming) was rising to speak to the point of order which has now been settled by Your Honour I was on the point of offering a basis for my hope that the house will accept this bill, with its better provisions, rather than the one introduced today by the Minister of Labour.
The basis on which I rest that hope is the fact that on the one occasion when this bill, or a bill identical with the one now before the house, came to a vote it received support from a number of hon. members who now sit on the government side of the house. Until the minister rose on his point of order I had not intended to read the names but in view of what has happened I will do so.
It was supported on a vote by no less a person than the present Minister of Finance. It was also supported, according to the recorded vote on pages 6576 and 6577 of
Industrial Relations
Hansard of July 27, 1956, by the present Minister of Trade and Commerce (Mr. Churchill), the Secretary of State (Mrs. Fairclough), the Minister of Justice and the Acting Minister of Citizenship and Immigration (Mr. Fulton)-that is just one vote, of course-the Minister of Public Works and Acting Minister of Defence Production (Mr. Green), the Postmaster General (Mr. Hamilton), the Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Harkness), the Minister of Fisheries (Mr. MacLean), the Minister of National Health and Welfare (Mr. Monteith), the Minister of National Revenue (Mr. Nowlan) and the Minister of National Defence (Mr. Pearkes).
It was also supported by a number of hon. gentlemen who are now parliamentary assistants on the government side and also by the gentleman who is now the chief government whip. It was, of course, supported by all those present in this party, in the Social Credit party, and by at least two hon. members of the Liberal party who were then on the government side of the house. I am hoping, too, that in view of the events of June 10 the Liberals will see the unwisdom of having, in the main, opposed legislation of this kind, and that today they will be on the side of those who are supporting this legislation.
It is a good thing in a democracy that we have elections once in a while and that people can be given an opportunity to express their views. I do hope that hon. gentlemen opposite who feel that they have been given support for some of the views they hold will realize that one of the views that they held in the last parliament was that there should be on the statute books of Canada legislation providing for annual vacations with pay on the basis of two weeks' holiday after one year's service.
There are some objections with which we have had to contend during the last parliament which will obviously not be raised today. The former minister of labour used to take the position that this was a matter that should be left to the processes of collective bargaining. Obviously, the Minister of Labour has departed from that position. Thus we can take it there is now general acceptance that this is an appropriate field for legislation. After all, surely the position has been established that in modern society those who toil, those who do this nation's work, should be entitled to holidays, not just when there is illness, not just when there is unemployment, but as a matter of right, and with sufficient pay to enable them to enjoy those holidays.
As hon. members are aware, this principle has been accepted to a considerable extent by the provinces. Six provinces have general

Industrial Relations
legislation in this field-British Columbia, Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, Ontario and Quebec. In addition to those six, a seventh, namely New Brunswick, has enacted legislation covering some of its workers. The legislation in these provinces varies as to the extent of the holidays guaranteed; it varies also as to the point at which holidays come into effect, but there are at least two provinces whose legislation provides what this bill seeks, namely two weeks' holidays after one year's service. Those two provinces which are at the top of the list are the provinces of British Columbia and Saskatchewan.
It is our view in presenting this bill, and it was the view held in the last parliament by those who spoke to this legislation on the Conservative side of the house, that this is the kind of matter with regard to which the federal government should give a lead. We recognize that so far as labour questions are concerned we have a divided jurisdiction in this country; the greater portion of our industrial workers comes under provincial labour jurisdiction, leaving only some 9 or 10 per cent under federal labour jurisdiction.
It is to that group that this bill would specifically apply, but we feel that there would be more to it, when enacted, than simply its direct benefits. In addition to providing the type of benefit it does for this group of people, if the federal parliament would enact legislation of this kind it would give a lead to the provinces and hasten the day when it will be a universally accepted fact, recognized in law, that workers are fully entitled to the benefit of holidays with pay, and that it should be not less than the period set out in this bill, namely, two weeks after one year's service.
Mr. Speaker, as members of this house know-at least those who have sat in this house before-the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre is quite capable of occupying the full 40 minutes allowed to a member, but I do not think it is necessary to do so in connection with this bill. The matter has been debated several times in the house before, and it is something to which all parties are committed. I therefore hope that now that the measure is before the house it will receive support from the same quarters which supported it previously, namely my own party, the Conservative party and the Social Credit party. I hope too, that the Liberals will also see the light and go along with this bill so that it may become law.
I join with the Canadian Labour Congress in welcoming the fact that the new government has seen fit to propose legislation of this kind. As hon. members may know, it just so happened that having introduced this bill on previous occasions I caused it to be introduced

on the very first day of this new session so that it is on the order paper ahead of the government's bill. I think that is a fortunate circumstance, for it means that the house can now come to grips, not only with the issue of holidays with pay but also with the issue of the length of holiday after one year's service that should now be the case. Therefore, Mr. Speaker, I have much pleasure in presenting this bill and I hope that the evidence I have given will indicate that it should now be passed by this House of Commons.


Mr. Speaker:: Before further debate takes place I think I should perhaps supplement what I said previously because of the problem which arises where two similar bills are on the order paper. I indicated that neither had precedence over the other but that if a decision had been taken on one it might affect the status of the other and I did not read the full citation from May to which I referred. This appears in the fifteenth edition of May at page 499 and I think I should continue with the reading of it as it may have some bearing on the views of the house concerning this rather unusual situation. May says:
There is no rule or custom which restrains the presentation of two or more bills relating to the same subject, and containing similar provisions. But if a decision of the house has already been taken on one such bill, for example, if the bill has been given or refused a second reading, the other is not proceeded with if it contains substantially the same provisions, and such a bill could not have been introduced on a motion for leave. But if a bill is withdrawn, after having made progress, another bill with the same objects may be proceeded with.
The reference in Bourinot is to be found in the fourth edition at page 548. I will not trouble to read that but I thought perhaps I should amplify what I said previously.


Mr. Arthur Maloney (Parkdale):: Mr. Speaker, I rise to speak on this occasion with some diffidence but I would like to say a few words in respect to the bill which is being proposed by the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre (Mr. Knowles). As has already been clearly intimated it is the intention of the government to introduce legislation which, it seems clear, from what has been said, respects the same principles that apparently are the concern of the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre.
Annual paid vacations for workers are now generally recognized as desirable for the health, welfare and efficiency of employees. The major principle of any legislation directed to a subject matter of this sort is to ensure that a minimum period of paid vacations should be provided in law as one of the conditions of employment which an employer must be prepared to make effective in application to his employees.

In my opinion provisions for annual paid vacations for workers should not be left wholly in the discretion of employers or left entirely to collective bargaining. I feel that there should be federal vacations with pay legislation to complement the legislation enacted by the great majority of provinces in this field. Annual vacation plans more favourable than the minimum standard which the government legislation may contain in my opinion may be properly left to collective bargaining or to individual arrangements. I recognize that it is only by means of legislation that there can be an assurance that all workers whether organized or unorganized, and the welfare of everyone of whom must be our very real concern, will have an annual vacation with pay and that it will conform to a reasonable minimum standard.
It now remains to decide what constitutes a reasonable minimum standard in so far as legislation making provision for it is concerned. We have to bear in mind that vacations represent a cost to the employer and in my view a balance must be struck between the cost it is reasonable to impose on the employer by legislation, on the one hand, and the standards it is reasonable to require for workers, on the other. The effect on collective bargaining is a consideration that cannot escape us either.
The employer who makes an improvement in his vacation policy through collective bargaining or as required by legislation or otherwise will probably feel that this lessens his ability to grant wage increases or reduces the size of the wage increase he can afford to grant. On the other hand it may be assumed that a worker who enjoys an adequate annual vacation is a more productive worker. Thus it is very difficult to measure in cents per hour the exact cost to an employer of providing a vacation for his workers. These are matters that are threshed out around a bargaining table.
A union and an employer may decide to make improvements in vacation practices, in wages or in the pension plan but it will be mutually recognized that the employer may not be able to afford to do everything the union wants and they may both agree that improvements in the pension plan, for example, are more desirable than improvements in respect to the provisions of the plan in so far as vacations are concerned.
The essential point I think we should all bear in mind in considering legislation of this kind is that the legislative standard for vacations be not so high as to intrude unnecessarily upon the processes of collective bargaining but that it be high enough to establish a reasonable and adequate
Industrial Relations
annual holiday standard and provide assurance of protection to those employees who are in need of it.
In considering what constitutes a proper standard it strikes me that we have to look at the practice prevailing in Canadian industry including those industries which come within federal jurisdiction and we must also look at the legislative provisions adopted by the provinces. Some type of plan with an annual vacation of at least one week's duration is almost universal in Canadian industry. Vacations of two and three weeks are also common and, here and there, even four-week vacations are making an appearance. The practice most commonly found in Canadian industry is to relate the length of the vacation to the length of service of the employee; thus plant workers in manufacturing customarily receive one week's vacation after their first year of employment, a two-week vacation after three to five years' service, and a three-week vacation after service of 15 years. There are variations in vacation policy but our research would indicate that these are the most widely adopted practices. Office workers on the other hand usually get two weeks' vacation after their first year of employment. These practices, an investigation indicates, are widely found in Canadian industry generally and they are also common in industries which fall within the federal jurisdiction.
I would like to say a word or two in reference to the standards set by legislation in effect in some of the provinces. The provinces of Ontario and Quebec set a minimum standard of one week with pay for each year of service. This, as I understand it, is also the standard adopted in New Brunswick in the case of the mining and construction industries. In the case of Alberta and Manitoba, they require one week after one year of employment and two weeks each year after a longer period of service, two years in Alberta and three years in Manitoba. Saskatchewan and British Columbia require two weeks after one year of employment.
Now in the light of the study we have given to this subject we would not agree that any legislation to be proposed to this house in respect to vacation practice should provide merely for a one-week vacation. On the other hand, three-week vacations are not legislated for in any jurisdiction and they hardly constitute a minimum standard.
It strikes me that we have to address ourselves to what constitutes a reasonable service requirement. To provide two weeks after only one year would not in my opinion be a reasonable minimum legislative standard since it is not commonly found in existing

Industrial Relations
provincial legislation, nor in practice, other than in the case, as I have already mentioned, of office workers. To provide two weeks after two years service is somewhat ahead of prevailing practice for non-office workers, and it is a little ahead of the legislative standards provided in a majority of the provinces.
In the light of all the factors I have mentioned it strikes me that what appears to be embodied in the bill which will be presented later on by the government, if it should be afforded the opportunity, and the standard contemplated in its proposed legislation make it the sounder of the two plans that this house will have an opportunity to consider.
The impact of legislation of this kind on industries within federal jurisdiction will be appreciable, even if it is not in the precise form proposed by the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre. About 5,000 such workers are now employed in establishments which do not now grant two-week vacations. In most of the remaining establishments the effect will be confined to new employees who will now receive benefits which they otherwise would not enjoy.
Under the legislation the government has in mind the employees will certainly be assured-and many of them are not at present-of receiving to a very satisfactory degree the same benefits and privileges that are envisaged or contemplated in the bill of the hon. member now before the house for consideration.
It is in the light of the remarks I have just made that I would ask the hon. members to consider the legislation that is now before us.


James Allen (Jim) Byrne: Mr. Speaker,-


Leonard T. Stick: Don't talk it out.


James Allen (Jim) Byrne: I can assure the hon. member who has just spoken that I have no intention of talking out this bill. I had made some preparation this afternoon to discuss the measure having to do with holidays with pay and had not expected that this bill would come before the house. However, there should be no difficulty in one making up one's mind as to the necessity for assuring every worker in this country at last a minimum of two weeks holiday with pay.
Legislation of this kind was introduced many years ago in the province of British Columbia by a former Liberal premier. Every workman has a holiday book and he, in one way or another, after working one month is provided with stamps which he inserts and which show that he has worked a month. I understand it transpires that after working 12 months he is entitled to two weeks

holiday with pay. But, of course, the debate now resolves itself into whether we should support the measure brought forward by the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre (Mr. Knowles) or the measure which is being introduced by the government.
The government had enough confidence in the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre to offer him a very responsible position in this house. I wonder whether they should not just accept the legislation brought forward by the hon. member. It differs so little, the exception being that it assures everyone of two weeks pay.
The matter of procedure and order was raised and subsequently dealt with by the Speaker, which does leave me with some apprehension as to what might be the result if this measure introduced by the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre were defeated. If, as Mr. Speaker has indicated, a decision has been rendered and it should be an adverse one, then it follows that the bill could not be re-introduced. Whether the government bill has proceeded far enough so that it is not a question of it being re-introduced is perhaps a matter for decision, but before the vote is taken certainly the house should be made aware of the procedure that may be followed.
It is true that in industry and no doubt in government service there is some difference with respect to the length of service and as to the number of days or weeks holiday that one may expect to receive, but certainly a one-week holiday is not a holiday. In these days of enlightenment, when very often in industry we have a four-day weekend,-that is only considered a long weekend-five days is a normal work week in Canada. Hence one week cannot be considered as a holiday. Two weeks should be the minimum that anyone would be receiving.
In the particular industry in which I work, after a year's service the employee receives a two weeks' holiday with pay; after 15 years service he receives a three weeks' holiday with pay; and after having attained the 25-year mark, he is eligible for a four weeks' holiday with pay. Of course, he has been normally working a five-day week. That is something which we do not expect to be put into legislation but we should not be niggardly and expect anyone to have less than the actual two weeks.
There is another aspect of this matter. It has been reported that this winter unemployment may reach the 900,000 mark or even the 1 million mark. We have found, particularly in our industry, that the giving of holidays requires quite a large amount of extra labour. Some of it may be temporary labour, but in

the main it requires a larger staff. In the face of this impending disaster, if it comes about -and certainly the situation is serious enough at this present moment-I think that the government should either incorporate in their legislation this bill which has been introduced by the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre or decide to move an amendment of their own which will give the same coverage. I do not remember whether or not I was here at the moment when the vote was taken.


Stanley Howard Knowles: No, the hon. member did not vote against the bill. He apparently was not present at the time.


James Allen (Jim) Byrne: I want to assure the hon. member that it was because I must have been absent from Ottawa at the time because it has been my practice to vote for labour measures which seem to have about them a measure of responsibility and reasonableness. For my part I am prepared-and I am speaking for myself only-to support the bill.


Charles Edward Johnston: Mr. Speaker, I do not intend to take very long in speaking on this measure. It is well known that this bill has previously been before this house and that to it the Social Credit party has given its full support. We favour giving to the working people of this country a holiday of at least two weeks out of the year with pay, particularly under the present conditions of unemployment prevailing in this country where we have such a large number of unemployed, as indicated by the hon. member who spoke previously. We believe that some of these people who are going to be unemployed would benefit by such a bill as this if it were passed in this house.
A moment ago it was stated that two bills were before the house, one introduced by the government and the present Bill No. 2 in the name of the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre (Mr. Knowles). Actually, though, we are concerned only with this one bill. Hence that is the one to which we must give our attention. In the past we have always supported any progressive legislation that was in the interests of the labouring people of this country. We see no reason why we should now change our stand. We therefore intend to give this bill our support.


Mr. F. C. Stinson (York Centre):: Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to have the opportunity of participating in this debate having to do with a bill providing for statutory annual vacations with pay. Some years ago, before the legislation in this field was introduced in the province of Ontario, I can remember speaking with a man who, by misfortune, had moved around from job to job in the course of
Industrial Relations
his working lifetime and had never in that period enjoyed one week of vacation with pay. At that time I decided that if the opportunity came to me to say anything on this matter in any legislature or in the parliament of Canada I would do what I could to help put on the statute books a measure which would make it obligatory for employers to provide vacations with pay for their employees. Since that time much legislation has been passed in this field. In six of the provinces of Canada there is general legislation covering all industries under provincial jurisdiction and in one province I understand there is limited legislation in this field.
When considering the potential effects of this legislation, however, I think hon. members should keep in mind the fact that about one-half of the employees under federal labour jurisdiction already obtain benefits which are contemplated in the bill proposed by the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre (Mr. Knowles) and that some 90 per cent of the employees under federal labour jurisdiction qualify for two weeks' vacation with pay after a period of employment of three years.
When giving this bill consideration, Mr. Speaker, I think we must consider seriously the possible invasion of the rights of employers in the industries covered by this legislation, inasmuch as it may be that many employers and employees, through the collective bargaining process in these industries, may come up with other benefits which would be of greater significance and greater value than might be provided by the giving of two weeks' vacation with pay under the statutes. It therefore seems to me that we would do well to consider that fact carefully and to consider the advisability of limiting this proposal to the giving of one week's vacation with pay after the completion of one year's employment in the industries under federal labour jurisdiction.
To a newcomer here, Mr. Speaker, sitting on this side of the house it is interesting to look across the way today and to see how few supporters of the former government occupy those benches when they all had full notice that an important measure of this kind was to be under debate this afternoon.


John Whitney Pickersgill: Look at the other side.


Mr. Ellis:: Look around at your own side.


Frederick Coles Stinson: It seems to me also of some real significance that for the first time in the history of this country a government is bringing forward legislation of this kind and it is legislation proposed by a Conservative government.



S30 HOUSE OF COMMONS

[Stage Direction]
Industrial Relations
(Translation):
Mr. Theogene Ricard (St. Hyacinlhe-Bagol):: Mr. Speaker, it had not been my intention to speak today, but since my constituency is half agricultural and half industrial I believe it is my duty to offer a few remarks on the question at present under discussion.
I would have liked to wait a little longer, but I am certainly happy to be able to speak on behalf of those who have sent me here.
Every member of this house will certainly agree that annual holidays with pay for workers are now necessary. This fact has been long recognized by the workers themselves. When they joined together in labour unions they put the matter of paid holidays to the forefront of their demands. We believe that parliament must act in order to ensure at least a minimum holiday for all workers. Should parliament fail to act, arbitrary measures could possibly be taken against workers.
If employees on the one hand and employers on the other should agree to paid holidays even more favourable than those provided by this legislation or by the proposal under discussion at this time, they are quite free to do so. Without in any way interfering in collective bargaining, I believe that the present proposal is certainly such as to grant the demands and wishes of workers. That is why I shall certainly be happy as representative of the constituency which is partly industrial, to give it my support.
The cost of holidays must therefore be proportioned to the salary of the employee because, if it is too high, it necessarily follows that workers will possibly have to give up other benefits such as pension plans, health insurance, or recreational facilities for employees themselves or their families.
The general rule prevailing within the industry falls short of the proposal put forward by the member for Winnipeg North Centre (Mr. Knowles). I wonder, though, if we would not be acting against the best interests of employees if we were to go as far as the hon. member wishes us to go.
I therefore would like the house to give every possible consideration to the proposal now under discussion so that our working people may enjoy the privileges they are entitled to, which are their due and which they so richly deserve.

(Text):


Mr. A. R. Smith (Calgary South):: Mr. Speaker, I am very happy to be associated with those who have already stated with some enthusiasm their support for the intent of the bill which is before us. I think it speaks well for this house that there is such a substantial extent of general agreement, not only as to the principle of this bill but also as to the legislation which will unquestionably be placed before us.


Alfred Claude Ellis: Is the hon. member in favour of the two weeks?


Arthur Smith: I liked, too, the references made by the hon. member for Bow River (Mr. Johnston) to the position which his party had taken, and indeed for which I must give them credit, in the provincial legislature, in co-operation with industry as a whole, in recognizing the change of pace in our economy. We must recognize the fact that industry has outgrown those days when they were endeavouring to limit the ordinary opportunities of the labouring force.


James Allen (Jim) Byrne: Six o'clock.
At six o'clock the house took recess.


[Stage Direction]
AFTER RECESS

The house resumed at eight o'clock.

[Stage Direction]
The house resumed consideration of the motion of Mr. Harkness (for Mr. Churchill) for the second reading of Bill No. 14, to provide for advance payments for prairie grain prior to delivery thereof.
Charles Edward Johnston: Mr. Speaker, if this legislation means anything at all I think it should be that it is intended to give immediate relief to the farmers who are in dire need of cash. It is, I believe, well understood or it should be, by every member of this house that the only possible way the farmer has been able to keep going at all is by the local grocery man, the local butcher and machine agent supplying the farmers with goods, repairs and machinery on time; in other words, they have been financing these farmers.
It was hoped that this legislation would provide a means whereby the farmers would get a little cash to meet these obligations, because it goes without saying that these people who have been assisting the farmers cannot long continue to finance them. Therefore the cash which is to be given through

cash advances should be intended tor use in relieving these local financial obligations, but according to clause 18 of the bill something of a damper is put on that idea. In a great many cases, as I indicated before six o'clock, a great part of this money is not going to be forthcoming because this very bill has made provisions for the government to have the first claim on these cash advances.
As I also pointed out, about two-thirds of our farmers in western Canada will receive only the small amount of approximately $900 and if you take off the amount of money which would be owing under the Prairie Grain Producers Interim Financing Act there is not going to be very much left. I would recommend to the government and to every member of this house that clause 18 be withdrawn because the government is certainly setting an example by including this clause and encouraging all other creditors to make pressing demands on the farmer in order to get as much of this cash advance as they can before the farmer has an opportunity to use it for the needs of his family and to pay up all the small obligations incurred throughout the community.
Now at best this legislation is of a very temporary nature. It cannot be considered in any sense as a solution of the farmers' problems. It is certainly time that the government brought down measures or at least indicated to this house their intention of making good their election promises, not only to regain our lost markets but to get some new ones. Now nothing very noticeable has been done so far in the way of fulfilling these promises. They turned down the only practicable offer and that was the one proposed by the United Kingdom government. We had been given to understand from the speech from the throne and throughout this debate that this government was going to bring down legislation which would increase our sales but when I read over the speech which the Minister of Agriculture made on October 28 I was somewhat confused, for on page 458, towards the latter part of the first column the minister had this to say about the prospects of increased sales of our agricultural products.
Our sales to the United Kingdom and Europe this crop year should compare favourably with last crop year.
Now that certainly does not indicate any bright prospects for agriculture; it means in fact that this government does not intend to do anything different in the way of increasing our sales from what was done by the former government. In fact up to the present moment our sales have been less than for the corresponding period last year.
Grain
The minister himself does not indicate that it will be any better than it was last year. Now unless something is done to increase our sales abroad it is certainly not going to bring much relief to the agricultural industry in western Canada. The Minister of Agriculture when presenting this bill the other day on behalf of the Minister of Trade and Commerce (Mr. Churchill) made reference to his trip to the United States and the discussions there with respect to the prospects of increased trade. He said hopes were quite good and that things were going along quite satisfactorily as far as discussions with the United States were concerned. He condemned the United States government for the methods they employed in getting rid of their surplus products and referred particularly to the give-away program and the barter deals. He said the impression was, as has also been indicated in the press, that these transactions would cease or at least be lessened. However when you read the minister's speech I do not think you can get that out of it at all because at page 458 of Hansard of October 28, the Minister of Agriculture had this to say:
"I should perhaps explain to the house that, in effect, this barter program has been only a concealed form of additional subsidy by the United States. The result has been to reduce normal United States commercial sales as well as hurt the Canadian competitive position."
Here is the most important part:
"We found that our United States colleagues agreed in the main with this point of view and they affirmed to us their intention that before approving further barter transactions they would require proof that those transactions would result in additional sales."
It surely cannot be true to say that this is any change in the United States policy or that any promises given to our government would have the effect of lessening the barter deals. This cabinet committee commission which was sent by the government to the United States came back and reported that prospects were better. What could be further from the truth? The United States told that committee and the minister has in his own words told the house that those transactions will result in additional sales. For whom? For the United States, certainly not for us.
Of course the United States in their disposal program has never adopted any other attitude and these give-away programs and barter deals have one purpose and one purpose only, to increase the sales of the United States surplus products. That is exactly what they told the Canadian delegation in Washington and anybody who thinks this government is making proposals which are going to increase our foreign markets had better take a closer look at the words of the Minister of Agriculture the other day.

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During the recent election campaign in Alberta Conservative candidates made no bones about the fact that if the Conservative party was elected sterling would be accepted in exchange for sales, at least in sufficient amounts to balance our trade with Great Britain. However, the Minister of Finance (Mr. Fleming) said in the house the other day that such was not the case and that the government had no intention of accepting sterling. All right, how does this government propose to increase our trade? How does it propose to regain these lost markets and to find new markets?


An hon. Member:: China.


Charles Edward Johnston: The government just has no policy whatsoever, as far as we in this house are concerned there has been no evidence of increases in our trade with British markets by the acceptance of sterling. That was one of the solemn promises given by the Conservative candidate in the Bow River federal constituency.


An hon. Member:: He will be the member next time.


Charles Edward Johnston: Oh no he will not. He will never be the member there as long as we decide to run a Social Credit candidate, do not make any mistake about that.


Stanley Howard Knowles: What is the date for the next time?


Charles Edward Johnston: That is not something which concerns me. I have never taken a political stand on this question. All I am trying to do is put the facts before the house, but since the Conservative candidates make these statements on behalf of their party I would invite the member for Calgary North, the Minister of Agriculture, to get up and deny that the Conservative candidate made any such promise on behalf of his party.


Douglas Scott Harkness: Mr. Speaker, I am very glad to rise on this occasion. I have no knowledge as to what the Conservative candidate in Bow River said to the hon. member's constituents but I can say definitely that I have never made any such statements and the leader of this party has never made any such statements.


James Allen (Jim) Byrne: You were elected on false pretences then.


Charles Edward Johnston: When I speak on the address in reply to the speech from the throne I intend to deal with that very thing, and I will have the evidence with me to show that the leader of that party, the Prime Minister in 1953 made that declaration

in voting for the amendment which the Social Credit party introduced in this house at that time, and not only did the Prime Minister vote for that amendment, which asked for the acceptance of sterling, but one of his cabinet ministers, the present Minister of Labour (Mr. Starr), and four hon. members who are now parliamentary assistants stood up beside him and voted also, while some of the others in the Conservative party would have liked to have voted that way but who did not have the gumption stood behind the curtain.
Now the Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Harkness) says no such promise was made. I can tell him that the Conservative candidate in my riding did make that promise in my presence at several public meetings, and many hon. members could confirm this and say the same thing with regard to their constituencies. So do not let the government back out from this deal, too, as they are trying to back out from barter exchanges; as they are trying to back out from the acceptance of sterling; and as they backed out from accepting the United Kingdom proposals. What have they got to propose?


Douglas Scott Harkness: We backed out from
nothing-


Charles Edward Johnston: You backed out from everything that has been worth while. This legislation on cash advances is brought down because it was the only thing that would save your political necks, and because every party in the house except the Liberals thought it should be done. It was public pressure that brought this bill about.


Douglas Scott Harkness: I know you are worried. This is only the first instalment, too.


Charles Edward Johnston: Make no mistake about it, we are not worried; we can handle these Conservatives any time they come along, and the bigger they are the better we like it.
Mr. Speaker, I think the government will be well advised in the interests of the farmers of western Canada to have clause 18 withdrawn from this bill. They will be well advised, too, to bring down legislation this session which will make it possible to give our farmers what they have asked for for so long, and what they deserve, that is their fair share of the national income.


Mr. William Bryce (Selkirk):: Mr. Speaker, I want to rise at this time to let people know where I stand with regard to this bill. I want to support it, of course, as hon. members know, although I do not think it

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goes quite far enough. It seems there is nothing we can do about that. Someone said today that half a loaf is better than none, and I am looking on the measure now before us in that way.
I have risen in this house on many occasions to plead the cause of the farmer and never got anything. This time I am getting a little, and I am quite well pleased. When farmers get into difficulties they go into the towns, and when that happens they compete for employment on the labour market. Surely it is right that the government should try to keep the farmers on the land. As I stated, many of those who leave the farm go into the towns, see the bright lights, find that they can make a living there, and then decide they are not going back again. That is one of the reasons why we have fewer farmers today.
This bill will be of some help to agriculture, though I think everyone agrees it is not enough. But it is something. The position of the Canadian farmer today when he cannot sell his crop is a serious one. Hon. members must realize that he has no wages, no other source of revenue of any kind. When he gets his advance payment he will have to share it with the storekeeper, the oil man, the implement agent and, no doubt, the bank, because on the farmers' dollar, or business-call it what you like-the whole agricultural economy depends. The advance payment will be like a blood transfusion to a sick man, but it is going to take a lot of transfusions to bring the agricultural economy back into a healthy state again.
It has been suggested that the grain farmer should raise hogs and cattle. We have a surplus of wheat at the present time, and I am sure some of the hon. members who were here in 1943 and 1944 when we were producing hogs in a bigger way than any other country in the world know how many hogs we are capable of producing and realize that we would have a surplus of hogs and, no doubt, a surplus of cattle in three years' time if this policy was followed.
I think that by now almost everything has been said that could be said both for and against the bill, and I suggest that we should have a vote in order to enable the farmers to get the advance payment. However, there is one point I wish to draw to the minister's attention. In some districts, where we have five or six elevators in line, a farmer has the privilege of delivering to any one of them. But if we move further out into the country we arrive at points which have only one elevator. A man living in that area can go nowhere else; he is bound to sell to that one
elevator, and take all the dirt that the elevator agent likes to dish up to him. Why cannot the government give him the right to go to one other elevator, the one either to the east or west?
Since I was appealing to my colleagues to let us have this vote and let the farmer get the money, I think it would be better if I raised this matter again later when the estimates of the Minister of Trade and Commerce (Mr. Churchill) come up for consideration, and explain further what I have in mind. I think the minister knows already, because this is obviously something that should be corrected.


Mr. Irvin Siuder (Swift Current-Maple Creek):: Mr. Speaker, it is certainly not my wish to delay the passage of this bill, but if you will permit me to say a few words that might have the effect of encouraging those who may not be inclined to support this bill, the effort might be worth while. Everyone knows that the operation of this bill will put money into circulation, as has been said time and time again in the course of this debate, and of course when money is in circulation that is good not only for the direct recipients but for all the people in Canada. I believe everyone can support this bill in the hope that if the present government implements its agricultural policy-the one I hold in my hand-great things are in store for the farmers of Canada. The farmers will be watching this government's agricultural policy with great expectation, and hoping for action at the earliest possible moment.
I would just like to mention that if the former government did not progress with the supplying of advances on approved farm-stored grain as rapidly as hon. members think it should, perhaps it was because it had an alternative policy which was the acceleration of the sale of wheat which in itself would eliminate the necessity of the proposal we have before us today. Unfortunately, however, the election of June 10 terminated that effort and at the moment we have from the present government an admission that irrespective of how they thought they were going to sell wheat prior to June 10 it could not be accomplished in that way and thus we have the alternative of paying advances on farm-stored grain.
I would like to deal briefly with some of the criticism that has been offered by our Social Credit friends, most of which has been directed this way, that is to say toward the former government. I should mention also the criticism raised by the socialist members in this house who have spent most of their time in what perhaps could be best described, according to their interpretation, as kicking

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a dead horse because in every one of their pronouncements they have said that the Liberal party is dead.


Mr. Argue:: The dead horse is very noisy.


Alfred Claude Ellis: The Liberal party is dead.


Irvin William Studer: If a party is capable of commanding 41 per cent of the popular vote of this country as compared to the next party standing of 39 per cent of the popular vote I do not think that party can be accurately described as dead. I suggest to my hon. friends that when the next election takes place that 41 per cent of the people of this country may have something to say in regard to this.


Mr. Small:: Well, bring them on.


Irvin William Studer: I would suggest to my socialist friends that they take care of their own percentage of the popular vote and dwell on that because their standing has consistently deteriorated over the past year in terms of the percentage of the popular vote they are able to command in Canada. I would suggest also to them and to all hon. members in the opposition that we direct our criticism not at the former government but at the new one. Let us all try to improve its policies in order to accomplish something that will be of benefit to the farmers of western Canada.
To those hon. members who represent eastern constituencies I would suggest that they can support this legislation knowing that after the next election the Liberals will make all the benefits included in it available to all agricultural producers in Canada.


Mr. Fraser:: You want to watch it, the alarm clock might go off.


Irvin William Studer: 
Mr. F. G. J. Hahn (New Westminster):: It
is apparent, Mr. Speaker, that every hon. member of every party in this house who has taken part in this debate has indicated that he is wholeheartedly in support of this legislation, or at least the general principle behind it. I am sure that if as was suggested by the hon. member for Swift Current-Maple Creek (Mr. Studer) the benefits were to be extended to all other classes of agriculture it would be most desirable and would win unanimous support.
The Social Credit group, the C.C.F. group, and when it was in opposition the Conservative group, indicated that they wanted this legislation and now the Liberal group has indicated that it also wants it. In fact, a few moments ago the hon. member who was speaking suggested that if the Liberal party again formed the government of this country they would want to ensure that the benefits of this legislation are extended to all classes of agriculture.
As I listened to the hon. gentleman who just resumed his seat I wondered if this theme might not become the next election cry. I can hear the voices of Conservative candidates in my own riding clamouring, "Re-elect us and we will see to it that the principle of cash advances is extended to other fields of agriculture as well".
My reason for supporting this legislation differs from the reason of the western grain growers. For the past few years in this house I have drawn attention to the need for a change in the legislation with respect to the wheat board to make it possible for the livestock and poultry producer of British Columbia to receive grain at the fire-sale prices at which it is made available to the prairie poultry and livestock producer. I see that the former minister of agriculture is nodding his head in agreement. This has been my plea for some years.


James Garfield Gardiner: If I am nodding my head I must have Saint Vitus' dance.


Gordon Knapman Fraser: You had better put your head in a brace.

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Frederick George Hahn: It is apparent to me that at least theoretically there is the possibility that the prairie farmer is going to have to have a lien or some other form of agreement attached to the sale of his wheat so it will not be offered for sale to his neighbouring poultry and livestock producer at the ridiculous price of $18 to $20 a ton. This being the case it will put the prairie livestock and poultry producer in the position where he will have to pay the wheat board price for grain. I hope that in turn this will assist those particular industries in my own province to get back on their feet again for they have lost many sales of their own products by reason of the fact that they could not compete with these fire-sale prices.
This legislation was described yesterday by the hon. member for Yorkton (Mr. Castleden) as being legislation of an emergency nature. I must admit I have been in the house for only a few years but I fail to see how what has been a chronic condition which has existed in this country for a long time should suddenly become an emergency situation. For this reason I suggest that the legislation has been designed to meet a longstanding chronic condition in a stop-gap fashion. I would like very much to see the same kind of legislation extended to the fruit and vegetable growers of the province of British Columbia and eventually to all agriculturists in Canada.
I can appreciate that both the present and former ministers of agriculture say that such a measure would be impractical at this time and that it is necessary to get this legislation through the house in order that the prairie farmers might get funds which they badly need to buy the apples of British Columbia and other produce and for this reason I will be only too happy to see this legislation go into effect as quickly as possible.
However, it does not detract from the need for legislation to assist the fruit grower, the potato grower and other segments of the agricultural industry of Canada today.
The government of the day has indicated time and time again that it is concerned with the fact that the agricultural industry in this country is in a depressed state, and this condition applies not only to the grain growers of the prairies. For instance, we find in today's paper that the apple growers of Lebanon are going to sell their apples to Great Britain. That immediately causes me some concern because I begin to wonder what is to happen to the apples from the Okanagan valley of British Columbia which we have been accustomed to sell to Great Britain. Certainly if there is one thing that the government of the day has proven to us it is
that while it may have a 13-point program for agriculture it has not set it to work very quickly.


An hon. Member:: George!


Frederick George Hahn: I hear some groans behind me. I have not seen the 13-point program. It may be that it was not desirable to show it in my particular riding. I am interested in knowing what it does say. How does it intend to stabilize the agricultural industry of this country?
This legislation is stop-gap legislation to assist the prairie grain grower and the wheat farmers of the prairies. It is not going to help us particularly on the Pacific coast other than possibly-and I say theoretically -helping the grower of livestock and poultry. Does the program say what my Conservative opponent said throughout the campaign? The hon. member for Bow River (Mr. Johnston) drew attention to what his opponent said. It does seem strange to me that it does not matter what riding one represents, except the hon. gentlemen who are now occupying the Conservative benches in the house, every candidate who ran in this country for the Conservatives said that this government, if elected, was going to accept sterling. Here are the exact words of my opponent. He said:
A vote for me is a vote for John Diefenbaker. We will see the farmer get-


Mr. Speaker:: Order. May I interrupt the hon. member. Some time ago I stopped the minister because it appeared that quite a number of other members wished to take part in the debate on this bill. It has been a pretty free ranging debate tonight, dealing with almost everything but the bill. If the hon. member would go back to the principle of the bill, which has to do with cash advances to the grain growers of the west, I would appreciate it.


Frederick George Hahn: Mr. Speaker, I am very glad to do that. I did note that a good number of other members were drawing attention to these matters and it was in that same frame of mind that I was drawing to your attention what the gentleman who opposed me had to say with respect to the matter.
I am sure you will appreciate that while the bill that is before us has to do with cash advances, the providing of advance payments for prairie grain, you will also appreciate that this whole question is interlocked with the need for getting rid of this particular grain and it is in that vein that I speak. We have those individuals who are claiming that this government is going to accept sterling. I for one am interested in knowing exactly what the point of view might be.

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Douglas Scott Harkness: Order.


Frederick George Hahn: The minister says "order". It is not too pleasing to his ear to hear some of these things. I can appreciate that.
When we were discussing this same question of cash advances for grain stored on the farm in former years we suggested that we should sell our crop and accept sterling. The hon. member for Bow River indicated a while ago that two or three of the new parliamentary assistants voted for the amendment that we proposed on November 26, 1953. I think the house might like to know exactly those who were in favour of accepting sterling. On the list I see the names of the parliamentary assistant to the Minister of Trade and Commerce (Mr. Bell); the parliamentary assistant to the Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Charlton); the present Prime Minister (Mr. Diefenbaker); the parliamentary assistant to the Minister of Public Works (Mr. Hodgson); the Minister of Labour (Mr. Starr) and four or five others, one or two of whom are not with us today. You will gather, sir, that there is a need for the government of this country to find a way or a means of disposing of the surplus products, the goods that we have, rather than resorting completely to this particular measure which is only a temporary measure.
You will recall reading, as I have done, that the one-time prime minister of Canada, Sir Robert Borden, brought in a measure on a temporary basis. That measure was so temporary that it is with us today. I refer to the income tax. How temporary is this going to be? Is it going to be the solution of the particular economic problems that face us today? This is a question that we must be prepared to answer and to take responsibility for.
This government has promised an over-all agricultural policy which will get rid of our products. It has brought in a measure having to do with cash advances on grain stored on the farm. No one is opposing this particular measure but we would be interested in hearing the minister's reflections on this particular question. What is going to be done with the grain after it has been delivered and the cash advances made? How is the government going to get rid of it? Are they going to receive it in one place and bury it in another?


Mr. A. M. Campbell (The Baitlefords):: Mr. Speaker, I fully intended to let this measure go through without saying anything about it; but representatives from the grain-growing areas and a good many others have taken part in the debate and perhaps my constituents would be disappointed if I did not

have at least a few words to say on it and I can assure you they will not be long.
I have heard a good many optimistic speeches during last night and today about what this bill will do toward putting money in the hands of the farmers. When I listened to some of the new members sitting on the government benches I had the impression that they seemed to think that the government of the day has all the answers. I want to warn them at this point that this is a huge problem and it is going to take all the brains that they have and probably a few more before it is solved.
As far as putting money into the hands of the farmers is concerned-that is what I am mainly interested in-there is one clause in this bill that I am a little worried about. This clause says that if a farmer has borrowed money under the interim financing act of 1956 that money will have to be repaid out of those cash advances. In my district last year our quota was four bushels to the acre and a good many of the farmers in the district were not able to deliver even that amount of grain. When I left home this year very few of them had been able to deliver the initial quota although they were on a one-bushel quota. The people who were not able to deliver more than five bushels per acre last year y/ere not in a position to repay those loans; it was impossible for them to do so. If, when they get an advance this year on this year's crop, they have to repay those loans there will not be very much money in their pockets.
That is the question that is bothering me. Perhaps the Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Harkness) who is piloting the bill through the house may have the answer to it. However, I just want to warn the government that many of the farmers will not get much benefit from this legislation.


James Allen (Jim) Byrne: Mr. Speaker, because of the number of speeches that have been made on this bill it may be interpreted that hon. members coming from ridings that are not predominantly wheatgrowing ones are not entirely sympathetic to the bill. It may also be miscontrued that hon. members on this side of the house are also hopeful that when this legislation is passed something further is going to be done to assist the diversified farmer or the small tree fruit grower.
In my riding we have tree fruit growers in certain areas who are in quite dire circumstances. These people market their product through a central selling agency, receiving perhaps a small down payment. Yet they have capital tied up for a year or maybe two years.

It is conceivable that they may wish to borrow money on the certificates which they have. There are other circumstances which are even more trying in that many of the small fruit growers, even this year, were obliged to allow the fruit either to rot on the trees or to pick it and take it to a suitable dump because they were unable to market their fruit. Only 80 miles away from where my home is cherries were selling at a price of $8 a crate. Yet they were rotting on the trees because there was no market. All of these difficulties will have to be ironed out.
I am going to support the bill. Since I have been in this house for the past nine years there have been more bills and more measures dealing with the wheat problem and the wheat farmers on the prairies and I have supported them all along the line. I realize that they are under grave difficulties at this time. But I do not want some of the new members on the government side or the members of the C.C.F. party to think that I swallow everything that they say about the conditions or about why these conditions have arisen. For instance, the hon. member for Yorkton (Mr. Castleden) had this to say last evening about the reasons for the circumstances that prevail on the prairies at this time. I am reading from page 491 of Hansard:
The producers are not responsible for the condition which exists but they are forced under legislation to sell their grain to the wheat board.
Of course he qualified that statement by saying this:
They asked for it and the government adopted the plan.
He might as well say, "They asked for it and they got it." The farmers asked for the wheat board; they wanted it set up. It was not the miners in Kimberley or the fruit growers in Creston. The farmers asked for it, it was set up. Now, of course, they say that it was because the board was operating under a Liberal government that they did not sell grain. If a board is set up and is going to be directed entirely by any government, then it is not a board at all. I therefore do not think the blame is entirely on the administration. Of course, the hon. member for Yorkton started to say that it was the administration that was responsible for the situation and then he went on to say that it was the give-away policies of the United States. At least we have in this western hemisphere some countries that are prepared to do something for the underdeveloped countries. They are willing to give some wheat away. That should be the charitable attitude of many of the members of this house and they should not say that the circumstances under which they
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find themselves are brought about owing to the charity of some other government.
There was another member over here who dragged out that old story that we have heard for nine years. I hope that all the new members over there do not feel obligated to tell us about the circumstances in which they contributed $600 million to the economy of this country by having a fixed price during the war and immediately after it. We have heard all that before and, in my opinion, much of it is nonsense. We had price fixing during the war. We had wage regulations during the war. If they want the truth of the matter, I can recall working in the mines producing the lead and zinc for the war effort, and I can recall the time when up to 300 or 400 miners sold their automobiles out on the prairies where wheat was being sold. The miners just could not get the gasoline. They were being taxed to such an extent that they could not afford to operate their cars. The cars were being sold out on the prairies. I am not kicking about this matter. However, let us not have too much of this talk about hard luck. We are going along with it but some time we are just going to get tired.
There is another speech to which I take some exception. I think it is despicable that a member of this house, having sat with one of his hon. colleagues for many years, should stoop to attack that member as if that member were completely dishonest, and charge him with certain things when it was impossible for him to appear on the floor of the house and defend himself. I am referring to the speech made last evening by the hon. member for Humboldt-Melfort (Mr. Bryson). The hon. member seemed to imply that the former member for Moose Jaw-Lake Centre was running a dishonest bootleg joint, not in rye but in wheat. He had this to say. While he had not mentioned the former member up to this point, as reported at page 484 of Hansard of October 28, he said this:
It is an offer to buy wheat provided that the farmer delivers it to a point specified in this advertisement for a cent a pound. This applies to No. 5 and No. 6 wheat which today are selling on the market for 97 cents a bushel.
What market? We understand that there are on the western prairies a billion bushels of wheat for which there is no market. This former member apparently is offering to buy wheat at 60 cents a bushel. Of course the hon. member points out that the market price, if there was a market, is 97 cents a bushel. But he fails to point out that the freight charges on a bushel of wheat to the lakehead is 20 cents a bushel. Therefore, if his figures are correct,-and of

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course I have no reason to doubt them- that would make the price of that wheat delivered to the elevator 97 cents less 20 cents which is 77 cents.


Douglas Scott Harkness: The hon. member had better learn something about the wheat business.


James Allen (Jim) Byrne: I know that in the Lethbridge marketing area the farmers are going to the feed lots and selling wheat at 60 cents a bushel. They were glad to get the cash. Now, this was an advertisement, and it was not forced upon anyone. A man is in business, and I presume he is feeding the wheat to feeder cattle. If that is a crime, there are a great number of people throughout this country committing that crime. At least he has gone out to find a market for wheat, found the wheat and disposed of it. I think it ill behooves a member to attack this gentleman because of his enterprise, and certainly I would not like to hear any more of that.


Hazen Robert Argue: Mr. Speaker, when the resolution was before us I said I would support the principle of the legislation because I understood the payments were to be made available through elevator agents and that they were to be made available interest free. These two facts are correct, and I shall not change my position. I certainly feel that the elevator agents in western Canada are the people who best know the business of the local farmer. They are friends of the farmer, and they are held in high regard by their farmer customers. They are certainly the people who are best able to handle the cash advances.
I disagree with the hon. member for Melville (Mr. Gardiner) when he contends that the old bank loan scheme is superior to the legislation that is before us. I believe it will be only a matter of weeks until the amount of money taken up under this measure will show the hon. member was just as wrong in the statement he made as to the amount of money that would be taken under this legislation as compared with the amount of money paid out to farmers under the other legislation as he was in other statements that he has made in this house in recent days. Over the years I have noticed that the hon. member for Melville very often, not only gets himself into hot water with the statements he makes but causes great anxiety and a great disturbance in his own party. On so many occasions we have seen the hon. member taken to task in this house by the leader of his own party or another colleague in the cabinet.


James Garfield Gardiner: I consider where it comes from.


Hazen Robert Argue: I think you are speaking about your own statement when you make that interjection.
There is one part of this bill that I feel is far from adequate. 1 had hoped that when the government was considering the payment of cash advances that in setting forth the quota on which cash advances would be made they would have guaranteed that the farmer would have an opportunity of delivering grain against that quota so that at the end of that crop year, or at some later date if the quota should not be available, the farmer would have an opportunity of delivering, in this case six bushels of wheat, against an advance that was being made in the current crop year. X had hoped that the government would not do as they have done in this legislation, and that is give no guarantee at all as to the quota that the farmer may have at any given marketing point.
Moreover, there is a stipulation in precise terms that if the 6-bushel quota is not available at any marketing point and an individual farmer has taken advantage of this legislation, the balance he owes will be a first claim against grain he draws in the succeeding crop year. In other words, there is no guarantee in this legislation as to marketing opportunities that western wheat producers will have in this crop year or in any other crop year.
This legislation is going to be of advantage on a very temporary basis. It is going to do exactly what the minister has said. It is going to mean that out of the national treasury this crop year will come somewhere between $2 million and $3 million to pay the interest charged against the money advanced under this legislation, and that is the sum total of the real effect in economic terms. It will do the other things we have been saying it will do, should do, and which are of advantage, namely it will make a large sum of money available within a matter of weeks.
The benefit during this crop year is going to be small, particularly small because there is no guarantee that the 6-bushel quota will be available or that the farmer will have an opportunity to deliver six bushels. How could that be done? It could be done very simply. It may not be possible, it is true, to have a 6-bushel quota at every marketing point, although as other members have said the promises that were held out to the western electorate caused us to expect that a 6-bushel quota would be no trouble at all. If a 6-bushel quota is not available at a marketing point, a farmer has not an opportunity of discharging his obligation under this legislation. It would not be difficult to provide

a supplementary quota at that marketing point equal to the amount of the quota that could not be delivered in the current crop year. In other words, if farmers at a marketing point had an opportunity of delivering five bushels on the quota this year, then a supplementary quota of one bushel could be made available in the following crop year. In this way all producers in the various marketing points would have the same opportunity of delivering grain.
Under this legislation, however, there is no guarantee as to what market will be available for grain. I feel that is a very serious omission. If we had turned the corner, if we had reached the bottom and were on the way up in regard to markets, we would not be as concerned as we are. From August 1 to date under the present administration there has been a very substantial drop in exports of Canadian grain as compared with a similar period the year before. There has been a very substantial drop in markets. In introducing this legislation the minister said it was expected the measure might cost the federal treasury something in the neighbourhood of $2.25 million, and that is true. This $2.25 million will accrue to the benefit of the producer. During the current crop year 1956 from August 1 to October 16-I am quoting now from the board of grain commissioners for Canada, statistics branch, Canadian grain position, Wednesday, October 16, 1957-farmers marketed a total of 118.9 million bushels of grain, this year, in the same period marketings had dropped to 93.3 million bushels.
In other words, from August 1 to October 16 of this year farm marketings of all grain were down 22 per cent as compared with last year. If I were to make a very conservative estimate I might say that farmers, because of the drop in marketings, have lost in revenue over $30 million.
So from August 1 of this year as compared with the same period last year, there is a drop in farm marketings to the farmers from the sale of grain of over $30 million.
With regard to exports, in the same period this year they are down as compared with last year. I am quoting now from the export figures for all grain. A year ago the total was 78.8 million bushels; for the same period this year the total was 60.6 million bushels, or a drop of 23 per cent.
Farmers by the thousands in the three western provinces are facing imminent bankruptcy. It is in my opinion only a matter of one or two years or perhaps even a few months-unless something is done to correct the basic situation, which is a falling off in markets and in agricultural prices together
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with an increase in the cost of production- before thousands of farmers will be driven off their land.
The legislation now before this house will help for a few months but it will not help materially for a longer period unless something is done to correct the situation in regard to our loss of markets and to improve our sales to the export markets of the world.
I do not know what the government will be able to accomplish in this field. We in this group have advanced policies from time to time which we believe will restore and increase our markets for agricultural products-the acceptance of sterling, sales on the basis of long-term contracts, the setting up of an export-import board and so on. We have a policy directed to increasing our sales and exports of agricultural products. One would have expected when the minister was introducing the bill to the house and there was a short review of our export prospects that there would have been some statement from the official opposition as to their present position and their policy. However, there has been no such statement and the official opposition has not advanced a single suggestion to restore our markets or to gain new markets. As a matter of fact in this house a few days ago one very prominent and outstanding member of the official opposition made a careful speech in which he gave the government a dressing down for not having done something in this field, for not having advanced a policy and for not having achieved great things. Then, when he was asked what was the policy of the official opposition, here are his words:
Our policy over here is to get the government which is responsible to tell the people what their policy is.
I am quoting of course the words of the hon. member for Algoma East (Mr. Pearson). I do not think any statement would have been more bare or weak than that. If that is the best the Liberal party can offer the people of this country as far as an export policy is concerned, merely to say "our policy is to find out what the Conservative policy is", the Liberal party will get even less support in the days ahead than it has had in recent months.


An hon. Member:: That was a leadership speech.


Hazen Robert Argue: Oh-what a leadership speech that was. As far as anything constructive is concerned it is empty and barren; just as empty and barren as the Liberal party was in its campaign during the recent election. Of course the Conservative party had a great objective; they have not spelled out just how they might reach this objective but their

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objective is a good one. It has been to reduce Canada's purchases from the United States by some 15 per cent and to transfer those purchases to European and soft currency countries, in other words to countries which might purchase greater quantities of goods from us.
We have seen little in the way of constructive accomplishments towards this end. As a matter of fact with respect to this agricultural problem the new Minister of Trade and Commerce (Mr. Churchill) in his speech on September 9 to the national dairy council of Canada said:
The long-range view with regard to our wheat entails a forward-looking policy with regard to general production, and it may well be that progressively over the years our acreage devoted solely to the growing of wheat should be appreciably reduced and greater emphasis should be placed on diversified crops and on the livestock industry.
Then, in a later interchange he was talking about 20 million acres of wheat. Of course the acreage is down to just about 20 million acres this year but if the government is suggesting, through the Minister of Trade and Commerce that wheat production should be reduced and that livestock production should be increased he is talking about something which affects the Minister of Agriculture. I now ask the Minister of Agriculture to say what agricultural products he would like to see reduced and what livestock products he wants to see increased. Does he want to see an increase in the production of beef; does he want to see an increase in the production of pork.
I have looked over the markets since the Minister of Trade and Commerce made this statement and from a quick review since that time I would say there has been a drop of anywhere from $1 to $1.50 a hundredweight for good steers; since he made this statement the price of hogs has dropped by something like $7, from $32 to $25 within a few weeks. Does the Minister of Agriculture agree with the statement made by the Minister of Trade and Commerce that wheat acreage should be reduced and livestock production increased.
As I see the situation, and from what I have heard from members from all parts of the country who have been taking part in this debate, the agricultural market and prices in other parts of Canada are in just as bad a mess as they are on the prairies. Is it going to help livestock markets and prices in eastern Canada for the Minister of Trade and Commerce to suggest that western farmers should reduce their wheat acreage and increase the production of livestock. Is the farmer going to take land out of wheat production. If so he will likely do what he has done in the past, namely increase the production of barley and oats. Well, there is a glut

of oats and there is a glut of barley; there is a surplus of pork if you can judge by the market prices.
This government has not found an answer to the critical problem which faces agricultural producers across Canada, the increasing prices which have to be paid for agricultural products in relation to the farmer's income. I think the statement made by the Minister of Trade and Commerce which I have read to the house was ill considered. It was a statement which was opposed by farm organizations right across the country, and if this is the best the Minister of Trade and Commerce can do as a suggestion for improving agricultural conditions in Canada it demonstates to me that worsening conditions as a result of falling markets are likely to continue.
Many members have made reference to western Canada in this debate and spoken of what they would like to have in other parts of this country. To all those hon. members who are saying that this measure is just for the prairies, or that it seems to represent special treatment for people on the prairies, I would say this: many years ago the grain producers in the prairie provinces came to the conclusion that they would do better if they marketed their grain through a central agency, in this case established under federal legislation, than they would if they relied upon the open market, or private trade, or free enterprise. I suggest to those from other parts of Canada who want and need improved prices for their products, or who need better legislation for their constituents, that they should first of all propose that the government in co-operation with the producers be prepared to establish marketing boards in line with the producers' wishes and that then, after having established marketing boards in which the federal government takes a direct interest if so requested by the producers, they should ask for initial prices at reasonable limits, cash advances, and all the other things that are a necessary part of an orderly system of marketing.


Mr. B. R. Leboe (Cariboo):: Mr. Speaker, I wonder if the wheat farmers could wait another three minutes for these cash advances? I do not think I shall take more than three minutes to say what little I have to say, not being an expert. The bill we have before us is, of course, a temporary measure and, as has been pointed out, it is a relief measure. In addition it has been pointed out by the hon. member for Vegreville (Mr. Stefura) and others that this measure of relief has been well deserved because of the action of the farmers during the war years.

The measure also calls attention to the distress of the farmers due to the increased cost of farming operations. There is also no doubt in my mind that these conditions must, either directly or indirectly, be the responsibility of the federal financial policy adopted both by this government and by governments of the past, and also of the trade policy of the past government.
What I wish principally to deal with is the idea of a food bank, an indea which is related to this measure, in my opinion, because I think the setting up of a food bank would bring about a situation in which cash advances would scarcely be needed. I think it would be in the interest of the Canadian people as a whole that they should invest in the purchase of wheat to be stored, not only in this country but in the countries of other friendly nations, in order that the wheat might be readily available for marketing at those points. Orders for wheat would then not have to be placed many months in advance in order that an individual wishing to purchase could obtain delivery.
In addition, the food bank would be a guarantee to those people who are interested in the purchase of wheat that over a period of years there would always be a supply on hand. It may be said that the fact that wheat was readily available might lead to depressed prices. I do not agree with that view because it is a common practice in all manner of trade to have goods available for trade in places where they are to be sold.


An hon. Member:: Three minutes.


Bert Raymond Leboe: Well, you will have to wait another minute and a half, I am sorry. I have not got much more to say in connection with this. It would seem to me that the policy I am advocating would to a large extent remove the distress which this bill is designed to lessen. It has been pointed out by hon. members on all sides of the house that this is only a start on what could be a very complicated and involved program. I think we should be following a course, instead, which would lead us to a more effective and simple solution to this agricultural problem.
It was pointed out by the hon. member for New Westminster (Mr. Hahn) that this legislation would remove the undesirable effects of a fire sale of wheat such as so adversely affected the poultry and dairy industry in the province of British Columbia, and I would like to go on record as supporting this legislation, not only because it will aid the farmers in the area I represent but also because it will be of assistance to farmers in other agricultural areas in the southern part of my province.
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Mr. Daniel Mclvor (Fort William):: Mr. Speaker, I have just a few brief words to say, perhaps they will be the last spoken in the debate. I have got the impression from the speeches made by representatives of different parties in this house that the farmers in Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Alberta are all hard up. I speak only from what I know -I like to give credit to hon. members who know more than I do-but my experience in Manitoba and Saskatchewan which I have visited in the last three or four years, and where I studied as a student over 40 years ago, is that farmers there are not hard up. Quite a number of them are able to go to a more sunny climate from time to time, and when I attended church there on Sundays I noticed the collection plates. Formerly, Mr. Speaker, they contained coppers and nickels. When I was last there I saw a number of plates going forward and you could not see a piece of silver, they were covered with dollar bills, two dollar bills and five dollar bills. I do not think it is fair to the farmers of the west to tell this house that they are on the verge of bankruptcy.
I have promised to support the government, to give them a chance to make good. I support this bill on another ground, too. The Progressive Conservative party also promised to reduce taxes. The increased taxes which will be necessary because of the cost of the bill are not going to amount to anything, because we are going to have decreased taxes just the same.


Solon Earl Low: Mr. Speaker, I assure you that I do not intend to take too much time to talk about the bill because I support the principle of the measure now before us. I do wish to commend the minister for bringing in this bill and for keeping the promise of his party that they would provide cash advances to farmers. I congratulate him because in the first place he did keep his promise and secondly because he has kept faith with those things he said to western farmers during the election campaign.
I look upon this method of helping the farmers in a temporary way-and of course that is all it is-as being quite superior to the method used by the previous government under the Prairie Grain Producers Interim Financing Act, and I have said so right from the beginning. Over the next few months I think the farmers will indicate that they prefer it as well.
I followed what was said by the hon. member for Assiniboia (Mr. Argue) a few minutes ago and in a general way I pretty well go along with it. He did make the complaint, however, that there was no

Grain
guarantee to the farmer in the present legislation of a quota of any particular size during the crop year and that is quite true. I would say to him that if I understood his suggestion about a supplementary quota correctly the quota for the new crop year of course would be that much less and in the long run would not be of too great help. It may be that I did not understand exactly what he suggested but it did appear to me that the idea of a supplementary quota would merely deduct from the new quota for a new crop year and be that much less.


Hazen Robert Argue: Not at that marketing point. Of course, if the grain was delivered you could not fill one space twice. But the purpose of my suggestion was to give each producer in western Canada the same opportunity to deliver grain as every other producer.


Solon Earl Low: Yes. I find myself in general agreement with that suggestion but I doubt very much that it would be possible to guarantee to the farmer a quota of any particular size during the crop year for the simple reason that storage is not available. Fundamental to the whole problem raised by the hon. member for Assiniboia is the question of adequate inland and terminal storage.


Hazen Robert Argue: I agree.


Solon Earl Low: As a matter of fact, I think that has been one of the weaknesses of Canadian government policy over the past 20 years. It was about two decades ago that we began to increase our wheat production tremendously due to increased mechanization, better methods of farming and that sort of thing. At this time we began to consolidate small farms into larger ones and brought into use big strings of equipment and as a consequence there was a greater production of wheat. We should have been keeping pace with that increase in production by making available increased storage facilities.
As I have said on other occasions, providing increased storage facilities for grains or other farm products that could benefit the whole country is, in my opinion, the responsibility of the government of the country. I have constantly said that individuals in this nation should not be expected to do for themselves that which is prohibitively expensive or which they cannot do nearly so well as the government could and it is the role of government to accept responsibility in this regard.
I have pointed out in this house on many occasions that the government of the United States did not wait for the farmers to provide storage for themselves. Some years ago when it introduced its farm price support bill

it decided it was necessary to provide approved storage so it would know that any of the products against which advances were made were maintained in proper storage and could be preserved properly in facilities for which the lock and key was in the hands of an inspector of the government.
The United States government increased storage facilities on a large scale. I pointed out the other day and I now repeat it for the benefit of those who may not have heard it at that time and because of its application to this legislation that between 1953 and 1957 the United States doubled its amount of approved inland and terminal storage for grains. This was done entirely at the expense of the government of that country and for the clear purpose of making it possible to receive grains from the farmer as soon as they were threshed so advances could be made against them. The government of that country did not make advances on a basis like this and their advances were far more generous, almost exactly the same as our initial payments. I suggest, Mr. Speaker, this act will never be completely successful until we have provided a great deal more internal and terminal storage for grain.
Perhaps it is a practical suggestion or perhaps it is not but I know one man who could build elevators. Regardless of how he looked upon parliament and no matter what he did in this house to raise the hackles on people's necks-particularly those in the opposition- the Right Hon. C. D. Howe could build elevators-


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear.


Solon Earl Low: -and I suggest that we put him to work and keep him busy building elevators and by so doing we would certainly make this act workable.
I seriously suggest to the minister that he will find tremendous difficulty on the very ground that was mentioned by the hon. member for Assiniboia, that if you do not have a guarantee to the farmers of a specific quota during any crop year then the benefits under this legislation are going to be pretty small in many sections of the country.
There is nothing in the act to indicate just what kind of storage the grain must be in before it qualifies for advances. Up in the Peace river country that I represent most of the grain is in cold storage. The fact is that this was a very wet year in most parts of the Peace river country. Grain growth was rank and heavy but it was late and then early this fall we had a heavy snowfall, as much as 24 inches in some parts of the country. The grain is all down under the snow and doubtless the farmers will not be able to get it out until next spring.

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The question that now arises is this. Does the grain which is in cold storage qualify for advances? This does pose a problem. There is nothing in the bill that qualifies it; the bill simply refers to grain that is to be delivered and does not specify threshed grain.


An hon. Member:: No.


Solon Earl Low: If you look at the bill you will find it does not; it simply says grain that is to be delivered. Now the grain I have referred to ostensibly is to be delivered and this is a matter that will be of great concern to the people in this area who will have to depend for their livelihood on getting advances against grain that may be on the ground as yet unthreshed and undelivered.
Some people in the Peace river country some years ago took the advice thrown to them by experts in Ottawa and began to convert their wheat farms into barley farms. They have attempted to get in the production of livestock and most of the grain produced is oats and barley. If you take your pencil -you do not have to have it sharpened at both ends at all-you can calculate what these people are going to receive at 20 cents a bushel out of their 150 or 200 acres of very excellent oats. You will soon see how little this act is going to mean to those people up there unless it is accompanied by other measures such as have been suggested, particularly measures that will result in proper marketing of their crops and sales at prices that will make it possible for them to continue in business.
These are some of the things which must be considered. I look upon the principle of this bill as being a principle of legislation which is to be applied in a temporary fashion until something much more important and more far-reaching is done to help the farmers. But I insist again that it will not give the full benefit envisioned for it until we get much better storage facilities in this country so that we can guarantee the farmer some sort of specific quota in the crop years.


Douglas Scott Harkness: Mr. Speaker,-


Mr. Speaker:: I have to inform the house that if the minister speaks now he will close the debate.


Douglas Scott Harkness: Mr. Speaker, as I was saying when I was interrupted an hour and a quarter ago, I do not think there is any need for me to say a great deal in closing this debate. Most of the hon. members who have spoken in the debate have been in favour of the bill. Those who have criticized it, with one or two exceptions, have stated that in spite of their criticism they were going to vote for it.
I should, however, like to make a few remarks and to reply to a few of the statements which have been made which I think have left an erroneous impression. To begin with, most of the debate has been of an extraneous nature and dealt mainly with general agricultural questions rather than with the legislation before the house. That, I suppose, has been endemic in this house for many years; it certainly has in the past 12 years that I have been here. I think perhaps instead of being endemic in this case it became epidemic; but, in any event, a very large number of the people who spoke really did not speak in connection with this bill at all; they spoke about various other things such as apples and the necessity of doing something for other segments of the agricultural economy and other segments of the economy, altogether and completely divorced from agriculture. We have never pretended, Mr. Speaker, at any time, that this was a solution of the wheat problem, in spite of what the hon. member for Melville (Mr. Gardiner) said at one stage in his remarks- right near the end, as a matter of fact-that we were holding up this bill as a solution of all the problems in the west but we never-


James Garfield Gardiner: I did not say you were doing that; I said some of the members were.


Douglas Scott Harkness: Well, you meant that the government was doing it.


James Garfield Gardiner: Just what you are saying now.


Douglas Scott Harkness: Nobody in this party has ever taken that position. We have said quite frankly from the start of this legislation, and before the legislation came before the house that the cash advances legislation which we thought was required was in the nature of what you might call emergency legislation. It was required at the present time in order to tide western farmers over the extremely difficult financial situation in which they find themselves. As a matter of fact, it has been required for several years past but the Liberal administration steadily refused to meet that requirement.
We have never pretented that this legislation really was anything more than a means of getting western farmers over the difficult situation in which they find themselves in the fall of the year because of inability to deliver their grain. But I will say this, Mr. Speaker, that in addition to doing that it has a lot of other widespread benefits, as I indicated in my speech here yesterday. In other words, the amount of money which is put out into the hands of the farmers, which we estimate will be between $100 million

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and $150 million, is going to have a very-important effect on the general economy of this country. It is, as I said yesterday, just one more step in the various steps that this government is taking to meet what were difficult economic situations which we inherited from the previous administration.
Mr. Speaker, I have not any doubt whatever that the matter which was brought up by several members opposite during the course of this debate-and they have been bringing it up every day and trying to attribute it to the present government-the matter of unemployment, will be helped very considerably by the passage of this bill and by the putting into circulation of $100 million to $150 million, which we think this bill will put into the farmers' hands and start circulating right through this country. That money will have a very beneficial effect, not only so far as the farmer who receives it is concerned but so far as the country storekeeper, the wholesale merchant, the transportation worker, the manufacturer, the people working in financial institutions and in industries of all kind, right through this country from Vancouver island to Newfoundland.


Irvin William Studer: And the banks.


Mr. Brown (Essex West):: Will the minister permit a question?


Douglas Scott Harkness: Yes.


Donald Ferguson Brown: Before he finishes making his reply I wonder whether he would sum up by explaining how this legislation is going to be of assistance to the market gardeners in my constituency who have lost hundreds of thousands of dollars by reason of floods?


Douglas Scott Harkness: Mr. Speaker, this legislation is not going to be of direct benefit to those market gardeners who have lost their year's earnings unfortunately because of floods but it is going to be of indirect help to them, as it is going to be to people all through this country.
There is one other general remark I should like to make. I was pleased, Mr. Speaker, to see so many Liberal members from the province of Quebec taking part in this debate. This was the first time in the 12 years that I have been here that I have ever heard one of those members take part in a debate with regard to a wheat matter and I am glad to see this change of heart on their part. I do not understand why it is that during all those past years they have never said a word in connection with a wheat measure, but today and yesterday they

have been springing to their feet one after the other and saying something with regard to this measure.


Pierre Gauthier: Does the minister want an answer to that?


Douglas Scott Harkness: Yes, I would like to know.


Pierre Gauthier: I will give it to you. You are surprised because some members from Quebec are getting up in this debate and talking on the wheat bill. They learned this from your candidates in Quebec speaking and writing in the last election against any cent going to the west.


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh.


Douglas Scott Harkness: Mr. Speaker, the hon. members to your left seem to enjoy applauding canards of various sorts more than they enjoy applauding anything else.


Mr. Gauihier (Porineuf):: It is not a canard; it is true. I will show you the manifesto if you would like to see it.


Douglas Scott Harkness: These are not the sort of canards that help the situation.


Some hon. Members:: Sit down.


Rosaire Gauthier: I will not sit down. It is just speaking the truth.


Douglas Scott Harkness: In any event, Mr. Speaker, I was very pleased to find this sudden interest on the part of those members in these wheat questions and I hope it will be continued.
I should like to say just a few words about some of the remarks that were made in this debate. The hon. member for Melville rather astounded me. He took the line and tried to establish the fact that the loan legislation which the Liberals had in effect last year was better than this legislation. All I can say to the hon. member is that I think he has not wakened up yet. He does not seem to realize that the reason he is sitting where he is and the reason he has hardly any members from western Canada sitting with him, or one of the reasons, is the very fact that they refused to put cash advances in and insisted in putting into effect the loans which were so highly unpopular in western Canada. Possibly it is that the hon. member for Melville has not yet recovered from shock, that he is still suffering from the shock of June 10 and it has affected his judgment. I have always looked upon the right hon. gentleman as being one of the most acute men politically in this House of Commons but he certainly did not show any acuteness in the line he took in regard to this bill.
My right hon. friend went on to make quite an argument to the effect that this bill was

more limited than was the loan legislation. He said that it was limited with regard to the number of farmers who were eligible. There is no limitation on the number of farmers who are eligible. Every farmer who has grain in store on his farm is eligible under this legislation. Any idea that the hon. member for Melville tries to put out that this legislation is more limited in its application than was the loan legislation that his government introduced is completely contrary to the facts. He also tried to establish the point that it was limited as to advances to those with the current crop. In fact, his words in connection with that matter, which are to be found at page 464 of Hansard, are as follows:
But Bill No. 14 limits the number further-
That is the number of farmers who can take advantage of it.
-to those with a current year's crop, and limits it by that quota.
It does nothing of the kind. As a matter of fact, the right hon. gentleman's speech indicated the fact that, as I pointed out to him while he was making it, either he had not read it very well or if he had read it he had not understood it. The bill does not do anything of the kind.


James Garfield Gardiner: We shall discuss that matter when we get on the sections of the bill.


Douglas Scott Harkness: That is right. The right hon. gentleman also tried to maintain that the cash that would be received by the western farmers under this legislation could and probably would be less than that which they received under the loan scheme. All I can tell him is that not one of the western farm organizations, and particularly the elevator companies, the pools, the United Grain Growers, the line elevator companies, the wheat board itself, the people who are going to administer this act and deal with it have that opinion. As a matter of fact, they think that the number of loans, according to the estimate, will be something along the line I have indicated in the house on several occasions.


George Carlyle Marler: Loans or advances?


Douglas Scott Harkness: Advances. The hon. member for Humboldt-Melfort (Mr. Bryson) seemed to be under a misapprehension with regard to the form of these advances and so on. I do not think I had better go into it at this stage. He can bring that question up again at the committee stage. However, he tried to maintain that this was not an advance at all. As a matter of fact, it is a true advance. It is exactly the same as the illustration about which he was talking, namely the way in which we used to buy cattle and horses and 96698-35
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so on in western Canada. You bought them and you paid an advance on them; it might be $10 or it might be $100. This is exactly the same principle.
The hon. member for Meadow Lake (Mr. Harrison) tried to maintain-the hon. member for Assiniboia came back to this matter- that the Minister of Trade and Commerce (Mr. Churchill) said that the farmers should not grow wheat. Neither in his speech at Winnipeg nor at any other time, did the Minister of Trade and Commerce say any such thing. What he said was that there should be some shift from wheat to diversified crops and livestock. I will deal with that matter a little bit later on.
As to the hon. member for Charlotte (Mr. Stuart), I think perhaps the less I say with regard to his speech with regard to this matter, the better. In other words, he raised a purely sectional cry, one which I was disappointed to hear the hon. member raise because we have been good friends for many years and I know that he has many good qualities. However, apparently good judgment with regard to this matter is not one of them. Of course the hon. member for Quebec-Mont-morency (Mr. LaCroix) did the same thing. He raised this sectional cry as did a considerable number of other hon. members. I deplore the fact that that type of argument has been advanced here in the house.
I now come to the hon. member for Bow River (Mr. Johnston). I must say that his speech was what you might call a great deal of sound signifying nothing.


George Carlyle Marler: The minister is giving a fairly good example himself.


Douglas Scott Harkness: I can understand the hon. member for Bow River talking in the way he was talking. He is frightened. He knows that when another election comes along his chances are fairly small. As a result he is talking in a sort of wild way from fear.


James Allen (Jim) Byrne: In other words, this is a political bill.


Douglas Scott Harkness: I might just say that his interpretation of my remarks in connection with the trade conference held in Washington shows no understanding of the general situation or of what went on there. I would advise him to quit speculating along that line because it will only get him into trouble, not only here but out in our home town of Calgary and the surrounding countryside. As to his statements about barter transactions, I think he should read up on that matter also. The barter transactions which were carried on by the United States in recent years and their undertaking not to engage in those same kind of barter deals is a matter which is going to

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be of considerable benefit to us; that is the fact that they said they were not going to enter into those transactions except when there were additional commercial sales, which meant additional commercial sales not only for themselves but for us. In other words, that type of barter deal is something they are not going to enter into in countries such as Great Britain and those in western Europe where they entered into them last year, in markets which we formerly had and which we would have had if those barter deals had not been taking place.


James Sinclair: What about Japan?


Douglas Scott Harkness: The hon. member for Selkirk (Mr. Bryce) raised the matter of alternate elevator points and I will come back to that matter when we are at the committee stage.
I should like to say to the hon. member for Maple Creek-Swift Current (Mr. Studer) that I think he made quite a sound speech in regard to this matter.


Andrew Wesley Stuart: Who are you to
judge?


Douglas Scott Harkness: I can understand why he was anxious not to have his name attached to the speech which was made yesterday and to which his name was attached.


Andrew Wesley Stuart: Who are you to
judge? I can express my opinion of your speech.


Douglas Scott Harkness: The hon. member for Assini-boia stated that the sum total of the economic effect of this legislation is only $2 million to $3 million in interest which will be put out or help that will be given in that way to farmers. When he made that statement he must surely have completely lost sight of the fact that I pointed out when I started this speech the great general benefit to the farmers and to the western economy of this $100 million to $150 million of cash which is going to go into their hands.


Hazen Robert Argue: I might say to the minister that I was talking about the full crop year and not an immediate period.


Douglas Scott Harkness: Very well. The hon. member for Assiniboia also said that there was no guarantee that the 6-bushel quota will be capable of being filled. Certainly there is no guarantee in this legislation. This legislation does not pretend to guarantee that result. But I can tell the hon. member this. We believe there is every expectation that this 6-bushel quota will be filled. The scheme is based on the expectation that it will be filled. That is why the 6-bushel quota is mentioned in the scheme. We have every confidence and every expectation that the 6-bushel quota will be filled. Nobody can guarantee that it will be

filled. As somebody here said this afternoon, nobody can guarantee that it will be filled. Nobody can look into the future. However, there is very good expectation that it will be filled.
The hon. member also said that there had been a substantial drop in exports since August. This is just not so. I have here the list showing the exports right back to 1927. The substantial and big drop in exports took place back in the months of January, February, March, April, May and June and the situation has been improving since that time. As a matter of fact, back in April of this year approximately 15 million bushels were sold and in the previous April-that is 1956- 33 million bushels were sold, well over twice as much, and nearly the same situation prevailed in May and so on, but when we get up to August we find that 29.7 million bushels were exported in 1956 and 27.1 million bushels this year.
In September there were 27.4 million bushels in 1956, and in this year-the estimated figure is not quite complete yet- there is between 24 million and 24.5 million bushels. In other words, the figures for the period August-September are quite close to last year's figures. The big drop was in the period back in the winter, spring, and early summer.


Mr. Harrison:: Would the minister permit a question?


Douglas Scott Harkness: No, I want to finish this right now. The hon. member for Assiniboia also asked what agricultural products did I wish to see increased, and do I agree that wheat acreage should be reduced? Yes, Mr. Speaker, I do agree that there should be some reduction in wheat acreage. During the last four years in this house, as the hon. member probably recalls, I have been saying we should take a long-range view in regard to the general agricultural situation, and particularly the wheat situation. I have said that it was foolish for us to continue planning for the same amount of wheat every year and constantly building up a surplus; that we should divert some of our land into other types of crops. As to the types of crops in which I think we could increase production, I would mention beef and sheep as two of them. I would be quite glad to go into this subject in more detail at a later date.
The hon. member for Peace River (Mr. Low) said that we should call on the Right Hon. C. D. Howe to help us out at the present time by building some elevators. I doubt whether it would be wise for us to call on the Right Hon. C. D. Howe, no matter

how good an elevator builder he may be, because during all the years he handled the wheat business he certainly made a mess of it.


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh.


Daniel (Dan) McIvor: I rise on a point of order. I think that this expression is altogether uncalled for and untrue.


Douglas Scott Harkness: Mr. Speaker, the proof of the pudding is in the eating and we have been eating a very rough pudding in the past few years.


Mr. Mcllraiih:: And in the last few minutes.


Douglas Scott Harkness: I should like to tell the hon. member for Peace River that unthreshed grain does not qualify under this measure. We have a very unfortunate situation in the Peace river country this year, but if he looks at clause 3 (1) he will see it is laid down quite definitely that it is only threshed grain in storage to which this measure applies.
I believe those are all the remarks I wish to make at this time.
Mr. Speaker, is the house ready for the question?


Stanley Howard Knowles: Will you put the yeas and nays, Mr. Speaker?


Mr. Speaker:: Will those who are in favour of the motion please say yea?


Some hon. Members:: Yea.


Mr. Speaker:: Those who are opposed will please say nay.


Some hon. Members:: Nay.


Mr. Speaker:: In my opinion the yeas have it.
And more than five members having risen: Mr. Speaker: Call in the members.



BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE

Lionel Chevrier: May I ask the leader what the business is for tomorrow?


Howard Charles Green: Tomorrow we shall proceed with this measure and after that we shall consider the four resolutions standing in the name of the Minister of National Health and Welfare, and then the resolutions standing in the name of the Minister of Veterans Affairs.


Lionel Chevrier: And after that?
Bill read the second time and the house went into committee thereon, Mr. Courte-manche in the chair.


Some hon. Members:: Ten o'clock.
Progress reported.


Howard Charles Green: And after that, the throne speech debate.


[Stage Direction]
It being fifteen minutes after ten o'clock the house adjourned, without question put, pursuant to standing order.

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

Mr. Chevrier: 1.	Who are the members of the St. Lawrence river joint board of engineers?
2.	What are the duties of the board?
3.	Has the board approved of the plans of the respective governments of Canada and the United States for the transfer of 14-foot navigation from the Canadian side to the American side?
4.	Is the board satisfied that this plan will be effective and in operation by July 1, 1958? What effect will this plan have upon traffic over the south channel low level bridge at Cornwall?
5.	Will traffic be interrupted over this bridge after April 1, 1958? If so, what alternative means of transportation is being provided to residents of Canada and the United States in this area?
6.	Has the board approved of the plans of the respective power entities for channel enlargements from Chimney point to the control dam at Iroquois?
7.	What do these plans contemplate so far as the requirements of navigation are concerned?
8.	Are they on schedule?
9.	Will they meet the requirements of navigation in all respects when (a) transfer of 14-foot navigation from Canada to United States on July 1, 1958, takes place; (b) 27-foot navigation opens in April, 1959?
Answer by: Mr. MacDonald, Parliamentary
Assistant, for the Minister of Transport:
The St. Lawrence river joint board of engineers advise as follows:
1.	Members for Canada: Hon. George Hees and Mr. Chas. Gavsie; alternates: Mr. H. W. Lea and Mr. Geo. H. Kohl. Members for United States: Hon. Wilber M. Brucker and Hon. Jerome Kuykendall; alternates: Maj. Gen. Chas. G. Holle and Mr. Francis L. Adams.
2.	(a) To review, co-ordinate and approve, in behalf of the governments of Canada and United States, the plans and specifications of the works for the development of power in the international rapids section, submitted by the joint builders, namely the Hydro-Electric Power Commission of Ontario and the power authority of the state of New York; (b) to insure that the works are constructed in accordance therewith as approved.
3.	The board has reviewed the most recent plans of both power and seaway entities for works to be constructed to permit the transfer of 14-foot navigation from the Canadian side to the American side and on the basis of these plans and the accompanying schedules, the board considers that the plans are satisfactory.
4.	Yes, if the above schedules are met. As to the effect on traffic, the plans require
Questions
restriction of public use of the bridge from February 3, 1958, through March 31, 1958, and cessation of public use on April 1, 1958.
5.	Yes. Traffic will be diverted to a ferry.
6.	Yes.
7.	A minimum channel width of 600 feet, a minimum depth of 29.5 feet based on method of regulation 12-A-9 and a maximum velocity of 4 foot per second.
8.	No, see answer to question No. 9.
9.	(a) Yes; (b) yes, although in some limited reaches the permanent channels may not be completed to full width by April, 1959.


CANADIAN COAST GUARD
Mr. Barnett: What steps, if any, since assuming office has the government taken toward the establishment of a Canadian coast guard?
Answer by: Hon. George H. Hees (Minister
of Transport):
The functions that are normally considered to be the duty of a coast guard are performed in Canada by several agencies of government, in particular my department, the Department of National Defence and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. All these agencies continue to give attention to improvement of their ability to carry out their responsibilities but no decision has been taken to remove functions from these departments and place them under a new and separate agency.


CENTRAL MORTGAGE AND HOUSING LOANS, NORTHERN ONT.
Mr. Fisher: 1.	What number of loans have been made through the assistance of Central Mortgage and Housing Corporation for house construction in the following communities in Port Arthur constituency; Horne-payne, Nakina, Geraldton, Nipigon, Beardmore and Armstrong?
2.	What has been the total value of these loans in each of these communities?
3.	What percentage of successful applications for loans assisted through Central Mortgage and Housing Corporation offices come from Canadian communities with a population of more than 5,000?
Answer by:	Mr. Hodgson, Parliamentary
Assistant, for the Minister of Public Works:
1 and 2.
Gross loans approved under the national housing acts 1946 - July, 1957

Location	Loans Units Amount
Hornepayne	
-	-	-Nakina	
-	-	-Geraldton	
-	-	-Nipigon	
4	4	39,339Beardmore	
-	-	-Armstrong	
-	-	-
Questions

3.
Percentage of loans approved in centres over 5,000 population
January - July, 1957 Location	Loans	Units	AmountCanada	
17,560	21,463	221,676,190
Centres over 5,000
population ______ 14,616	17,745	183,442,506Per cent	
83.2	82.7	82.8


LOCKS ALTERATIONS, SAULT STE. MARIE, ONT.
Mr. Fisher: 1.	What alterations are planned for Canadian locks at the Sault to make them capable of carrying deep-sea draught vessels?
2.	If alterations are planned, what is the target date for completion and the total estimated cost?
3.	In terms of width, draught and length, of ships using it, how do the Canadian locks at the Sault compare with the Welland locks?
Answer by: Mr. MacDonald. Parliamentary Assistant, for the Minister of Transport:
1 and 2. At the present time there are no definite plans for alterations to the Canadian Sault Ste. Marie locks to make them capable of carrying deep-sea draught vessels.
3.	The dimensions of the Sault Ste. Marie and Welland ship canal locks are as follows:
Canadian Sault Welland Ste. Marie ship canal locks	locks
900 ft. 859 ft.
60 ft.	80	ft.
Normal draught 30 ft. 18'-3" depending on the stage of the St. Marys river.
The Welland ship canal locks were constructed for a depth of 30 feet of water over the sills, but the connecting canal reaches were only excavated for 25 foot depth; these reaches are now being deepened for 27-foot navigation. The limiting length for vessels transiting the Welland ship canal is 715 feet.


NATIONAL LIBRARY
Mr. Fisher: 1.	What is the total staff of the national library?
2.	How many employees are French-speaking?
3.	Is there a target date for completion of the proposed national library building?
Answer by: Hon. Ellen L. Fairclough (Secretary of State):
1.	Thirty-four.
2.	Sixteen (mother tongue); six (bilingual).
3.	No. It is expected that the building will be completed by 1962.
Length
Width
Depth of water on lock sills


UNEMPLOYMENT FIGURES, NOVA SCOTIA
Mr. MacEachen: 1.	How many are registered as unemployed in the province of Nova Scotia at the present time?
2.	What were the figures for the same one year ago?
Answer by:	Hon. Michael Starr (Minister
of Labour):
1.	The number of persons registered for employment at offices of the national employment services in the province of Nova Scotia on October 10, 1957, was 11,064.
2.	The figure at October 11, 1956, was 7,438.


HOUSING STARTS, BLIND RIVER, ELLIOTT LAKE, BANCROFT
Mr. Peters: 1.	How many new homes have been started in the last 12 months in Blind River, Elliott Lake and
Bancroft?
2.	How many of these were built under the National Housing Act?
3.	What was the amount of the down payment necessary to purchase these units?
4.	What was the rate of interest?
5.	Has any consideration been given because of the temporary nature of these particular mining areas?
Answer by:	Mr. Hodgson, Parliamentary
Assistant, for the Minister of Public Works:
1.	The information is not available. The population of each of these centres is less than 5,000 and a physical count of housing starts is therefore not undertaken. The dominion bureau of statistics conducts a sample survey only.
2.	The number of N.H.A. insured homeowner loans during the 12 months from August, 1956, to July, 1957, are as follows:
Blind River	   3
Elliott Lake	 678
Bancroft	 Nil
The number of N.H.A. rental units in the same period are as follows:
Blind River	 Nil
Elliott Lake	 104
Bancroft (Paudash twp.)	 200
3.	Blind River-$3,050 (average); Elliott Lake-average down payment $1,160, average cash $606, the balance being provided through second mortgages by the mining companies.
Bancroft

answered by No. 2.
4.	The rate of interest on loans currently being made under the National Housing Act, 1954 is 6 per cent. The rate was increased from 5J per cent by governor in council in January, 1957.
5.	Yes. As a condition to insuring loans under the National Housing Act, 1954, Central Mortgage and Housing Corporation has

required each of the mining companies operating in Elliott Lake to provide, commencing December 31, 1959, an increasing cash security to protect the corporation against losses which might be incurred on mortgage loans made to employees of each company. The protection is afforded against any losses which might be incurred prior to 1976.
As Blind River is an established community, no additional security was considered necessary. In Bancroft, and in one instance in Elliott Lake, the mining company itself is the mortgagor, as the loans were made under section 17 of the National Housing Act.


OPERATING GOLD MINES
Mr. Peters: 1.	How many gold mines are operating in Canada today?
2.	How many, if any, have closed in the past twelve months?
Questions
3.	How much subsidy has been paid in this period?
4.	What mines received emergency gold mining assistance, and what amount in each case?
5.	What was the amount of declared dividends in each case?
Answer by: Hon. Paul Comtois (Minister of
Mines and Technical Surveys):
1.	51 lode gold mines as at September 30, 1957.
2.	One during period October 1, 1956 to September 30, 1957.
3.	$9,070,532.66 during period October 1, 1956-September 30, 1957.
4.	Answer is contained in Emergency Gold Mining Assistance Act report for fiscal year ended March 31, 1957, which was tabled on October 25, 1957.
5.	The Department of Mines and Technical Surveys does not collect and publish this information. It can be obtained from the companies concerned or from trade publications.

Wednesday, Ociober 30, 1957