1957-03-22

Mr. Stanley Knowles (Winnipeg North Centre) moved: the first reading of Bill No. 281, to provide for minimum wages for employees.


Some hon. Members:: Explain.


Stanley Howard Knowles: The purpose of this bill is to establish $1 an hour as a minimum rate of wages for all employees in Canada who come under federal labour jurisdiction. The bill provides that its terms do not affect any employee whose rate of wages is higher than $1 an hour, but any rate less favourable would be superseded by this legislation.
Motion agreed to and bill read the first time.



NEW TITLE OF DUKE OF EDINBURGH IN OPENING PRAYER

[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Hon. W. E. Harris (Minister of Finance):: Mr. Speaker, on February 28 the hon. member for Fort William (Mr. Mclvor) asked whether a change would be made in one of the prayers which the Speaker reads at the opening of each sitting in order that His Royal Highness the Duke of Edinburgh might be referred to by his proper title.
Inquiries were made in this regard, and I am now advised that it would appear to be necessary to substitute the words "The Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh" for the words "Philip, Duke of Edinburgh" in the prayer.


Mr. Speaker:: May I ask the house if it is its pleasure to make an alteration in the prayer such as that which has been suggested by the Minister of Finance?


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.



REQUEST FOR ANSWER TO QUESTION ON ORDER PAPER

[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
['Mr. Speaker, the conditions under which the force is now operating in the Gaza strip are not unsatisfactory. As I have just said, if those conditions change to\n\nmake it impossible to carry out the functions which the assembly gave the United Nations force then I think it would be impossible for the governments contributing to that force to continue so to contribute; but before any decision of that kind was taken-and it would be a decision reached only as a last resort and with great regret-the matter would be discussed in the committee of seven so that any action we took could be concerted with the actions of the other governments that contribute to this force.']
Mr. Hayden Stanton (Leeds):: Mr. Speaker, I would like to direct a question to the Minister of Justice. When may I expect
from the minister an answer to my question on the order paper of February 12?


Hon. Stuart S. Garson (Minister of Justice):: I must say I was not aware that the hon. member had a question on the order paper of that date, but I will look it up.



[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. Howard C. Green (Vancouver-Quadra):: Can the Secretary of State for External Affairs answer the question today concerning the functions of the United Nations emergency force in the Gaza strip?


Hon. L. B. Pearson (Secrefary of Siate for External Affairs):: Mr. Speaker, in answer to my hon. friend's question I should like to make the following statement. The legal rights of Egypt in the administration of the Gaza strip derive from the armistice agreement between Egypt and Israel signed in 1949 and confirmed by the United Nations. If these legal rights are ignored or rejected, then the armistice agreement is violated. But the United Nations assembly has affirmed by more than one resolution, including that of February 2 which was carried unanimously, that the armistice provisions, all of them, should be scrupulously observed.
The responsibilities and functions of the United Nations in the Gaza strip come from assembly resolutions and are reinforced by the practical necessities of the situation. These responsibilities and functions in our opinion should be accepted by Egypt, which should fully co-operate with the United Nations in their discharge. If Egypt is unwilling to co-operate in this way, then the United Nations' task in Gaza becomes impossible and the matter in our opinion should be referred at once to the United Nations assembly.
Our position, Mr. Speaker, which has been stated more than once in New York and in this house, is that the United Nations should be associated to the maximum possible extent in the administration of the Gaza strip. I regret that this was not made clear and definite in a resolution of the United Nations assembly which would have specified the arrangements to follow the withdrawal of

Inquiries of the Ministry Israeli forces. Why that was not done, Mr. Speaker, I attempted to explain a week ago today. It should be recalled also that the United Nations already accepts full responsibility for more than 200,000 Arab refugees in Gaza.
The problem then, as I see it, is to find an acceptable balance in the administration of Gaza between the practical position which the United Nations must take and the legal position of Egypt under the armistice agreement. Any such "suitable balance" in particular must give the United Nations that control of internal security in the Gaza strip necessary to enable it to carry out effectively its operations and responsibilities on the demarcation line. So far as the Canadian government is concerned, UNEF could not be expected to discharge effectively its duty of preventing raids and incursions and maintain peaceful conditions along that line if it were not in a position to carry out observations or investigations and to exercise necessary control in the strip itself. A satisfactory agreement to this effect is a fundamental prerequisite of the effective continuance of UNEF's role on the demarcation line. If no such agreement is made and kept, there will not only be renewed trouble between Israel and Egypt but the continued operation of UNEF will be prejudiced. Certainly it would be difficult for Canada to continue to participate in the force under conditions-and we hope those conditions will not materialize -in which it would not be able to discharge satisfactorily the responsibilities given to it by the United Nations assembly. We have made this position clear more than once to the secretary general and to the advisory committee in New York as recently as last week.
The secretary general is at the moment engaged in very important discussions with the governments immediately concerned. As yet we have had only a preliminary report concerning the discussions which are now going on in Cairo, but that report has been enough to cause us to question the accuracy of certain Cairo press messages about these talks.
I hope, Mr. Speaker, and I am sure the house hopes, that these discussions will clear up the difficulties that face the United Nations in this area. Otherwise the results will be serious for United Nations' action there and perhaps even for peace between the conflicting states. At the conclusion of his talk the secretary general will report to the committee of seven, of which Canada is a member, which will no doubt then consider in the light of that report whether a meeting of the full assembly is required.


Howard Charles Green: Are we to take it that the situation at the present time is that the emergency

force troops are being deployed along the demarcation line rather than being centred in Gaza itself?


Lester Bowles Pearson: Our latest information is that the United Nations emergency force is being deployed along the line on the Egyptian side, but not yet on the Israel side, and that two-thirds of the force remain on duty inside the Gaza strip.


Howard Charles Green: Was the minister aware that Mr. Hammarskjold would be taking the position in Cairo which he appears to have taken, judging from press reports this morning to the effect that if Israel is to establish a legal right to use the Suez canal and the gulf of Aqaba she should give up some land in the Negev desert. I raise that because it seems to be an amazing stand Mr. Hammarskjold is taking.


Lester Bowles Pearson: Only 15 minutes ago I was in telephone communication with New York and was assured that the particular report on the stand taken by the secretary general is entirely inaccurate. There is no question of Israel being asked to give up any other part of its territory. What may have confused the authors of this report is the fact that in the armistice agreement which I have mentioned it was provided that this small area on the Israel side of the demarcation line should be demilitarized, but there is no question of Israel giving up any territory.


Mr. Donald M. Fleming (Eglinton):: May I
ask the minister one further question. He referred to the conditions attached to the usefulness of the role of the Canadian force which is part of UNEF. Have the other nations which have contributed components to this force expressed themselves on such conditions?


Lester Bowles Pearson: Yes, a good many of the other governments, especially those represented on the advisory committee, have taken exactly the same position as I have taken this morning in regard to that matter.


Mr. Gordon Churchill (Winnipeg South Centre):: Mr. Speaker, I would like to ask the Secretary of State for External Affairs: If the conditions which he has laid down this morning for the effective utilization of the United Nations emergency force are not met, will the Canadian force be kept in the Middle East or withdrawn? Secondly, how much more time will be given for the implementation of those conditions?


Lester Bowles Pearson: Mr. Speaker, the conditions under which the force is now operating in the Gaza strip are not unsatisfactory. As I have just said, if those conditions change to

make it impossible to carry out the functions which the assembly gave the United Nations force then I think it would be impossible for the governments contributing to that force to continue so to contribute; but before any decision of that kind was taken-and it would be a decision reached only as a last resort and with great regret-the matter would be discussed in the committee of seven so that any action we took could be concerted with the actions of the other governments that contribute to this force.



INQUIRY AS TO CANADIAN


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. W. B. Nesbitt (Oxford):: Can the
Secretary of State for External Affairs tell us whether or not Canada is going to be represented in Ghana by a high commissioner?


Lester Bowles Pearson: I think a statement has
already been made on that matter. The question is now under consideration, and it is hoped before long Canada will be suitably represented in the new state of Ghana.


Wallace Bickford (Wally) Nesbitt: May I ask a supplementary
question. May I take it from the minister's reply that the representation will be by means of a high commissioner?


Lester Bowles Pearson: That would be the normal kind of representation to a state inside the commonwealth, Mr. Speaker.



UNITED NATIONS


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. H. J. Robichaud (Gloucester):: I should like to direct a question to the Secretary of State for External Affairs. Was there a special meeting of the United Nations assembly on Saturday, March 16? If so, is the minister aware of a paid announcement on radio station CJEM, Edmundston, New Brunswick, to the effect that the member for Restigouche-Madawaska was detained at the United Nations on that particular date?


Lester Bowles Pearson: There was no meeting of the United Nations assembly that week end. There was, as I have already indicated, a meeting of the committee of seven of the assembly which I attended. I did not have the advantage of my hon. friend's co-operation at that meeting.


Mr. J. C. Van Horne (Resligouche-Mada-waska):: On a question of privilege, Mr. Speaker-
82715-1041	|
Inquiries of the Ministry


Some hon. Members:: Question, question.


John (Jack) Henry Horner: On a point of privilege, Mr. Speaker: The only matter that could possibly be referred to there was that I was attending a special meeting of the committee on resolutions last Friday, not Saturday, at the United Nations in New York. I do not know why the hon. member for Gloucester should continue these insinuating lies as he has in the past, but that is his characteristic. No wonder his Liberal colleagues-


Some hon. Members:: Order, order.


Hédard-J. Robichaud: Mr. Speaker, I wish to direct a question to the Secretary of State for External Affairs. Can the minister tell the house if there was a special committee on resolutions of the United Nations sitting on Friday last? If so, was Canada represented, and by whom?


Lester Bowles Pearson: The answer to the first question is in the negative, Mr. Speaker, so the second part does not apply.


John (Jack) Henry Horner: I wish to ask a supplementary question of the Secretary of State for External Affairs. Can the minister inform the house if there was a meeting of the committee on resolutions sitting at the United Nations between the hours of three and five o'clock on Thursday last, at which I was present, and a continuation of those sittings into the following day?


Lester Bowles Pearson: Well, Mr. Speaker, maybe
I am ignorant of these matters, but I do not know of any special committee of the United Nations on resolutions. However, I shall be glad to look into the matter and find out if there is such a committee and, if so, whether it sat in New York last Thursday between the hours of three and five.
INQUIRY AS TO APPOINTMENT OF HIGH: COMMISSIONER IN LONDON
On the orders of the day:


Donald Methuen Fleming: May
I ask the Prime Minister when the Canadian government proposes to fin the present vacancy in the office of the Canadian high commissioner in London, or whether this office is to be left vacant until after June 17?


Right Hon. L. S. St. Laurent (Prime Minister):: Mr. Speaker, the government's decision in that regard will be made known when it has been reached. There has been no decision reached as to the appointee to that office, and I am not sure just when it will

Inquiries of the Ministry be reached. In the meantime the minister, Mr. Sydney Pierce, will be in charge of the office.



COMMUNIST CHINA


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Donald Methuen Fleming: Mr. Speaker, I should like to direct a question to the Secretary of State for External Affairs. Is he now in a position to answer a question I asked about pressures exerted by the Chinese communist government on Chinese abroad?


Lester Bowles Pearson: Yes. The hon. member
asked this question some weeks ago-and it required a good deal of investigation- whether my department had taken note of reported intensified efforts on the part of the communist authorities in Peking to compel or exert influence upon Chinese abroad to send remittances to communist China and also what action the Canadian government proposes to take in the light of that reported intensified campaign.
As I said last February, Mr. Speaker, we have seen the press and other reports bearing on this subject. Last June there was a conference on overseas Chinese affairs in Peking, attended by representatives of overseas Chinese, their dependents living in China, and an organization created by the communist Peking authorities called the commission for overseas Chinese affairs. An official of the latter organization at that meeting in Peking made certain criticisms of the way in which dependents of overseas Chinese and overseas Chinese who had returned to their native provinces to retire had been treated by the communist party workers and officials.
Subsequent to this the Chinese government announced its intention of removing the abuses on which this criticism was based. I cannot form any opinion as to the degree to which they have succeeded in this professed intention. However, as the intention of the Peking authorities appears to have been to create a favourable climate for remittances rather than to threaten dire consequences to relations in China if remittances are not forthcoming, it may be that the lot of the dependents of overseas Chinese has improved to some degree, although not likely to the degree the Peking authorities profess to wish.
The hon. member asked what action the Canadian government proposes to take in the light of the alleged intensified campaign. The only action the Canadian government

could take-and I am not sure that it would be desired either by Canadian citizens with dependents in China or by the public at large-would be to institute a system of foreign exchange control. It would probably not serve a useful purpose to initiate exchange restrictions relating to communist China alone, because such restrictions could be evaded comparatively easily though at increased cost to those desiring to send remittances.


Donald Methuen Fleming: Mr. Speaker, may I ask the Secretary of State for External Affairs if the government will keep this matter under continued scrutiny?


Lester Bowles Pearson: Yes, we will, Mr. Speaker, and we shall secure all the information we can although in this we are under some handicap because of course we have no representation in communist China.



HEALTH INSURANCE


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. W. A. Pommer (Lisgar):: Mr. Speaker,
I should like to direct a question to the Minister of National Health and Welfare. Etas the minister of health for Manitoba been in Ottawa to discuss the health plan, and has the Minister of National Health and Welfare any comment to make on this?


Hon. Paul Martin (Minister of National Health and Welfare):: Mr. Speaker, the
minister of health and welfare of the province of Manitoba was in Ottawa on Saturday last on matters having to do with the federal proposal for a nation-wide system of hospital insurance.


Stanley Howard Knowles: Mr. Speaker, may I ask a supplementary question. Is it correct, as reported in the Winnipeg Free Press a couple of days ago, that the Manitoba government has now agreed to the federal government's proposal in this regard?


Paul Joseph James Martin: My hon. friend would have
to direct his question to the minister of health and welfare of Manitoba.


Stanley Howard Knowles: May I ask a supplementary question. Has the Minister of National Health and Welfare supplied the Manitoba government with a copy of the draft agreement, copies of which were supplied to the governments of the five provinces which have agreed to the federal government's proposal?


Paul Joseph James Martin: Following the discussions I
had with the minister I supplied him with those clarifications that would put him in a position to fully understand our position.



UNEMPLOYMENT INSURANCE


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. G. K. Fraser (Peterborough):: Mr. Speaker, I should like to address a question to the Minister of Labour. Is it true that a man who has been in the armed services for three years is entitled to unemployment insurance, but is not entitled if he signs up for a further period?


Hon. Milton F. Gregg (Minister of Labour):: Mr. Speaker, involved in that question is whether or not the man who has served in the armed forces may or may not have served in a theatre of action. If my hon. friend will give me more specific details I shall be glad to give him a precise answer.



CANADIAN NATIONAL RAILWAYS


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. Roland Michener (St. Paul's):: I should like to direct a question to the Minister of Transport. Has he any further information for the house as a result of his inquiry addressed to the management of the Canadian National about the complaints, as I understand them, concerning the organized and non-organized employees about welfare plans?


Hon. George C. Marler (Minister of Transport):: Mr. Speaker, in the committee which was examining the Canadian National Railways accounts earlier this week the matter was brought up and Mr. Gordon gave a reply which occupied 15 to 20 minutes of the time of the committee. I do not think it would be possible for me on the orders of the day to do justice to his explanation and give a short answer.


Daniel Roland Michener: Are those proceedings
printed as yet?


George Carlyle Marler: I am not aware of that.



INCOME TAX


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Hon. J. J. McCann (Minister of National Revenue):: On March 20 the Leader of the Social Credit party asked the following question:
How did employees of the Department of National Revenue become involved in supplying information to certain United States citizens concerning
Inquiries of the Ministry Premium Iron Ores Limited and its accounts and income tax returns? Who gave them authority to supply this information?
I wish to make the following detailed answer. The commissioner of internal revenue of the United States of America made application to the Canadian taxation authorities to furnish information required by his officers to complete investigations being conducted of Premium Iron Ores Limited and certain United States citizens, and in so doing invoked the provisions of article XIX of the Canada-United States tax convention. This article reads as follows:
With a view to the prevention of fiscal evasion, each of the contracting states undertakes to furnish to the other contracting state, as provided in the succeeding articles of this convention, the information which its competent authorities have at their disposal or are in a position to obtain under its revenue laws in so far as such information may be of use to the authorities of the other contracting state in the assessment of the taxes to which this convention relates.
The information to be furnished under the first paragraph of this article, whether in the ordinary course or on request, may be exchanged directly between the competent authorities of the two contracting states.
The officers of my department furnished the information requested as they were required to do under the terms of the article as quoted above.



INQUIRY FOR RETURN


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
William Albert Pommer: Mr. Speaker, I should like to direct a question to the Secretary of State. When may I expect to have an answer to my question which was passed as an order for return on February 20?


Hon. Roch Pinard (Secretary of State):: Mr. Speaker, I will look into it.



ESTIMATES


[Stage Direction]
Mr. W. A. Tucker (Rosihern) presented the first report of the special committee on estimates, and moved that the report be concurred in.
Motion agreed to.


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mrs. Ellen L. Fairclough (Hamilton West):: Mr. Speaker, I should like to direct a question to the Minister of Labour. Will the

Inquiries of the Ministry minister say whether an investigation is being made into alleged violations of the Canada Fair Employment Practices Act by the Bank of Canada and the national employment services?


Milton Fowler Gregg: Mr. Speaker, I am not quite sure that I understand what my hon. friend refers to, but if she will give me further details of the matter I shall be glad to have it looked into.


Milton Fowler Gregg: Mr. Speaker, may I add to the answer I gave to the hon. member for Hamilton West (Mrs. Fairclough) a few moments ago. She has now kindly sent me the memo covering the matter on which the question was based. The items therein are under investigation and I shall be glad to bring in a reply some time next week.



WATER RESOURCES


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Howard Charles Green: Mr. Speaker, may I ask the Minister of Northern Affairs and National Resources when we may expect a report on the preliminary negotiations which took place earlier in the week between the Canadian and United States officials concerning the international rivers?


Hon. Jean Lesage (Minister of Northern Affairs and National Resources):: Mr. Speaker, the officials of my department who will report to me on this meeting have not been able to do so because they have been busy conferring with officials of the governments of New Brunswick and Nova Scotia who came to Ottawa to discuss with them the implications of the policy announced in the budget speech. I expect that I shall receive a full report over the week end.
I also think that it will not be possible for me to report to my colleagues-which I should do before I say anything in the house -prior to the middle of next week.


Howard Charles Green: Perhaps the minister can tell the house how long he expects it will be before the final negotiations commence? This is of great importance in British Columbia.


Jean Lesage: I do not know what the hon. member means by "final negotiations".


Mr. Thomas M. Bell (Saint John-Albert):: Mr. Speaker, may I ask a supplementary question. Do we understand the minister to say that he will be reporting to the

house next week on the implications of the budget with reference to New Brunswick and Nova Scotia?


Jean Lesage: I am afraid, sir, that the hon. member will have to read in Hansard what I said, because he certainly misunderstood my statement.


Thomas Miller Bell: In this connection, Mr. Speaker, are we not entitled to have a report in the house on this very nebulous proposal affecting the maritime provinces?


Jean Lesage: What was said in the budget may have been nebulous for the hon. member but it certainly was not nebulous for the premiers of Nova Scotia and New Brunswick and their officials who were here yesterday.


Howard Charles Green: Mr. Speaker, I think the minister did not get my last question. I asked when he expected that, perhaps, not the final negotiations but the real negotiations concerning this water problem would be commenced. As he knows, what has taken place this week has been a preliminary meeting, not real negotiations at all. How long a delay will there be before the real negotiations are undertaken?


Jean Lesage: Mr. Speaker, how can I
answer that question in detail before I know what happened on Tuesday last?



BLIND PERSONS


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. W. M. Hamilfon (Notre Dame de Grace):: Mr. Speaker, can the Minister of National Health and Welfare say whether the government plans any steps this session to abolish the means test in respect of pensions to the blind?


Paul Joseph James Martin: Mr. Speaker, the policy of the government with regard to the blind has been announced, and as a result of that announcement it is possible for us to say in this house that our legislation for the blind, while not perfect by any means, is nevertheless the most comprehensive to be found anywhere.


Donald Methuen Fleming: That does not answer the question at all. It is more sidestepping.


William McLean Hamilton: May
I infer from that answer that the means test for the blind will be abolished this session?


Paul Joseph James Martin: 
William McLean Hamilton: May
I ask the minister whether the question of abolishing the means test for the blind has been discussed during the past year with the provincial governments, and, if not, whether such discussions are planned within the next month or so?


Paul Joseph James Martin: I cannot say there has been any discussion with provincial governments, but I have discussed this matter with representatives of the blind themselves who have not asked for the elimination of the means test but who did ask for a guiding allowance.



PUBLIC BUILDINGS


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. Carl O. Nickle (Calgary South):: Mr. Speaker, has the Minister of Public Works been able to secure the information I sought yesterday about the progress of negotiations for a new post office site in Calgary and, more specifically, what has been done so far as the H. L. Perry building is concerned?


Hon. Robert H. Winters (Minister of Public Works):: No, I have not yet been able to obtain that information.



REPORTED DECLINE IN EXPORTS SINCE JANUARY 1

[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. H. R. Argue (Assiniboia):: Mr. Speaker, I wish to direct a question to the Minister of Trade and Commerce. Would the minister care to comment on the rather serious drop in wheat exports since January 1 of this year as compared with the same period last year? Further, can the minister say what the causes of this decrease have been, and whether any improvement in exports is now taking place?


Right Hon. C. D. Howe (Minister of Trade and Commerce):: The only fact I can state is that exports are 20 million bushels ahead of the figure on the same date last year, according to a report I received this morning. I do not know of any particular circumstance that needs explanation beyond that.


Hazen Robert Argue: Can the minister explain why exports since January 1 this year are just 31 million bushels as compared with 53 million bushels in the same period a year ago?


Clarence Decatur Howe: I am not aware of that fact, but I will be glad to look into it.
Inquiries of the Ministry FREIGHT RATES



NEWCASTLE, N.B.    COST OF SHIPPING FROM MINES

[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
John (Jack) Henry Horner: Mr. Speaker, I wish to direct a question to the Minister of Transport. Has the minister received complaints that it will cost, under the present set-up, considerably more to ship minerals from the mines of Newcastle to Newcastle than to Halifax and other points?
Hon. George C. Marler (Minister of
Transport): The answer, Mr. Speaker, is no.



PRIVILEGE


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Stanley Howard Knowles: Mr. Speaker, I rise on a question of privilege. Because I welcome the invitation I hold in my hand I am reluctant to make a point of privilege out of this, but there are times when propriety should be observed.
My point of privilege relates to the fact that there is still before parliament Bill No. 161, second reading of which has not yet been called, which would give the Minister of Northern Affairs and National Resources power to establish and maintain a national museum to be known as the Canadian museum of human history. Although this bill has not been passed, and although there cannot, therefore, yet be a Canadian museum of human history, we received in the mail this morning a letter from the Canadian museum of human history drawing attention to certain exhibits at that museum.
It seems to me that the government should not rush these things too fast, and that it should not implement features set out in legislation until parliament has passed the legislation.


Jean Lesage: Perhaps I might be allowed a word of explanation. I did not see that invitation, but I believe the hon. member should be aware that there are two branches now established under the present act at the national museum: one is the branch of natural history, and the other is the branch of human history. I am sorry if the invitation went further, and I will see that from now on the error is not repeated.


Stanley Howard Knowles: May I thank the minister for the reply he has made. In order that the record may be clear, I would just point

The Budget-Mr. MacEachen out that this letter reads "Canadian Museum of Human History, Ottawa", and it is over the signature of a civil servant who is described as the director.


Jean Lesage: The civil servant in question is the director of the branch of human history in the museum. The error is in the heading.



COMMONWEALTH RELATIONS


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Howard Charles Green: Mr. Speaker, before the house proceeds to the business of the day might I on behalf of the official opposition wish the Prime Minister and his associates in the cabinet who are accompanying him, and also the senior members of the civil service who are going with him, a safe trip to Bermuda and a safe return to Ottawa. May I add also that we trust the meetings which will be held there will be beneficial not only to our own nation and to the United Kingdom but also to the commonwealth as a whole?


Louis Stephen St-Laurent: I thank the hon. gentleman for those kind words he has expressed which, I am sure, reflect the sentiments of all hon. members of the house.


Stanley Howard Knowles: That is correct.


Louis Stephen St-Laurent: They will be an encouragement to us when we leave early Monday morning for Bermuda, and I hope the conference there will confirm that we are all working to the best of our ability toward the same objectives.



THE BUDGET


[Stage Direction]
The house resumed, from Thursday, March 21, consideration of the motion of Hon. W. E. Harris (Minister of Finance) that Mr. Speaker do now leave the chair for the house to go into committee of ways and means, and the amendment thereto of Mr. Macdonnell, and the amendment to the amendment of Mr. Cameron (Nanaimo).
Mr. A. J. MacEachen (Inverness-Richmond):: Mr. Speaker, last evening before adjournment I was referring to a statement made by the hon. member for Greenwood (Mr. Macdonnell) in his address on the budget. In his speech he quoted a statement made by the labour chancellor of the exchequer, Philip Snowden, apparently with approval,


to the effect that any government that takes half a crown more than it needs is guilty of getting money under false pretences. First I want to suggest that apparently the hon. member for Greenwood has failed to appreciate the various functions that a modern budget can perform and that these functions are not confined solely to the collection of revenues and the estimation of expenditures.
A modern budget is an instrument that can be used to control the level of income and employment and can be used effectively to control inflation or deflation. For that reason, and viewed in that light, a budget which announces a surplus cannot be taken as a sign of improvidence or imprudence. As a matter of fact, in the light of present conditions in Canada and in the light of modern fiscal policy the surplus at present declared in these circumstances can be regarded as a prudent and wise declaration of policy by the Minister of Finance (Mr. Harris).
However, Mr. Speaker, my main remarks this morning will be directed to an appreciation of those parts of the budget having to do with the maritime provinces. I believe that the proposals in the budget are proposals of great dimensions and will have far-reaching effects on the economies of the maritime provinces. I am disappointed that spokesmen for the official opposition have chosen to belittle these proposals and seem to have failed to understand the historical background and the current problems that have given rise to these specific proposals in the budget.
I made reference last night to the fact that the leader of the official opposition (Mr. Diefenbaker), addressing a political meeting in my riding the day before yesterday and as reported in a Halifax newspaper, had stated that the proposals for the maritimes in the present budget were in reality things that the Conservative party had been advocating all along and that the only complaint that he had was that the timing was wrong or that the introduction of these proposals had been delayed. This view of the budget taken by the leader of the official opposition was undoubtedly influenced by the atmosphere of receptivity which he found in the province of Nova Scotia and which would likely induce the hon. member for Greenwood, the hon. member for Eglinton (Mr. Fleming) and, indeed, the hon. member for Saint John-Albert (Mr. Bell), to change their appreciation of the budget if they also journeyed to the province of Nova Scotia.
These proposals are not nebulous proposals in any sense of the term. These proposals do not lack detail, as suggested by the hon. member for Greenwood. These proposals are not a carrot, as suggested by the hon.

member for Greenwood. They reveal a great deal, and not very little as suggested by the hon. member for Greenwood. I believe that a consideration of the two proposals having to do with transportation and power development will bear out the contention that the budget will have very fundamental repercussions on the economy of Nova Scotia.
The government of Canada, Mr. Speaker, has always been conscious of the need to provide a proper transportation policy in relation to the province of Nova Scotia. In his budget speech the Minister of Finance referred to the fact that the government is now making substantial payments on the movement of maritime and Nova Scotia coal to the central markets of Canada. Furthermore, the central government has been making helpful payments for the movement of feed grain into the province of Nova Scotia, and if you consult the estimates for this year you will find that the government has estimated an expenditure of roughly $13 million for the movement of goods under the Maritime Freight Rates Act.
In the past year the assistance given to the coal industry under the subvention policy reaches an amount of $8 million while the total paid for the movement of Nova Scotia coal since the inception of this policy is in the neighbourhood of $64 million. These figures I have quoted are correct and reflect the fact that the central government has been keenly interested in the transportation problem of the maritime provinces.
In the budget address the Minister of Finance suggests that an immediate review of maritime transportation problems will be undertaken. He suggests further that action will be taken to increase payments under the Maritime Freight Rates Act by 10 per cent restoring the comparable level of assistance as it existed in the immediate postwar period. I believe that in order to understand the significance of this proposal one should examine for a moment the historical background of the introduction of the Maritime Freight Rates Act in 1927.
As all hon. members know, one of the terms of union in 1867 was a promise written into the British North America Act that an intercolonial railway would be built to link the eastern provinces with central Canada, and this intercolonial railway was regarded as absolutely necessary in order to implement the dream of the fathers of confederation that a national market should be created in the new country. As hon. members are aware, construction of the intercolonial railway was determined by strategic and imperial considerations which added well over 200 82715-165
22, 1957
The Budget-Mr. MacEachen miles to a route that would ordinarily be built, barring these considerations.
With the passage of time it was apparent in the maritime provinces and in Nova Scotia that the intercolonial railway was not indeed carrying out the expectations held for it at the time of confederation. As hon. members will recall, before 1927 Sir Andrew Rae Duncan presided over a royal commission on maritime claims and it was from his just and fertile mind that recommendations were made in the transportation field that were embodied in 1927 in the Maritime Freight Rates Act.
Since that time the level of assistance has been held at 20 per cent and it is now to be raised to 30 per cent pending a complete investigation into the transportation problem of the maritime provinces. I should like to refer particularly to one sentence in the paragraph dealing with transportation where the Minister of Finance suggests that as a result of a study of transportation it might be possible for the Atlantic region to get more value from the present level of federal expenditures in this field and from any of the increased funds that might become available.
It is apparent that the assistance given to the coal industry and under the Maritime Freight Rates Act are based upon historical considerations and it should be one of the first tasks of any inquiry to establish whether the present level of assistance available to the maritime provinces could be employed more usefully on the basis of modern and present day economic developments in the maritime provinces. The suggestion has been made that this inquiry should devote itself to a consideration of a special assistance for special products. For example, the Crows-nest pass rates assist the grain growers of Canada in a special way and I have in mind that if similar assistance could be made available to the steel industry of Nova Scotia in that way it would assert a special comparative advantage for that industry in competition with the steel plants of central Canada.
There is nothing nebulous about this proposal; there is nothing lacking in detail because the proposal made by the minister is in line with the consistent attitude of the government to retain and maintain the particular conditions conferred upon the provinces of Nova Scotia and New Brunswick under the terms of union of 1867.
I want to say a word about the proposal in the budget for the development of thermal power plants in Nova Scotia and New Brunswick. In the winter of 1954 the dominion coal board, which had been studying constantly the problem of thermal power in

The Budget-Mr. MacEachen the maritime provinces, asked Professor Christie, an outstanding thermal power expert at Johns Hopkins University in the United States, to study the problems of power development in the Atlantic provinces in its relation to the coal industry. In September 1954 Professor Christie submitted his report to the dominion coal board and it is upon the full details of that report that the suggestion in the budget is based. I suggest that those in the official opposition who find these proposals nebulous and lacking in detail should study that report which is the basis of the recommendations in the budget.
I think it is clear that future power development in Nova Scotia depends upon the use of coal and thermal development. It is clear also that in New Brunswick there are future possibilities in the field of hydro development. As Professor Christie suggests, these two provinces are complementary as regards power resources and for that reason it was suggested that greater economy and efficiency could be reached by an interconnection of the power systems of Nova Scotia and New Brunswick. On pages 9 and 10 of his report Professor Christie gives at least ten reasons why this interconnection and consolidation should occur.
Not only has the federal government endorsed this proposal, it has stated in the budget that these thermal power plants will be built, provided the provinces of Nova Scotia and New Brunswick agree to the proposal. Three years ago this proposal was made by Professor Christie who in the concluding paragraph of his report said that in order to realize this advantage for the maritime provinces real statesmanship will be required. I quote from his report: Real statesmanship will be necessary to realize such a consolidation as local politics and provincial pride will oppose such a move.
The real statesmanship called for by Professor Christie was provided by the Minister of Finance in this far-reaching proposal. It is now up to the provinces of Nova Scotia and New Brunswick to participate in this imaginative and forward-looking proposal which in my view is fraught with the same consequences for Nova Scotia as the gas pipeline holds for other parts of Canada.
First of all, cheap power is an important factor in industrial development. While efforts have been made to provide power in our provinces we know that cheaper power could be a compensating attraction to industry which might wish to locate in that area. We know also that from the first effect of this proposal there will follow a second effect, the stimulus to the coal industry in Nova Scotia.

In his report Professor Christie suggested that in ten years the consumption of coal for thermal development would increase by half a million tons per year. If you examine the proposals in the budget for the maritime provinces you will find that they form what I would regard as a correlated attack on the problem of the development of our provinces. First of all, they attempt to overcome the transport factor which in the minds of most economists is the most important single factor in industrial location. Then these proposals tackle the problem of power in the only constructive manner in which it can be tackled, given the resources and the fuel supplies in the provinces of Nova Scotia and New Brunswick. Combined with that there is the obvious stimulus given to the coal industry which now requires greater markets and greater assistance.
I certainly do not share the views which have been expressed by members of the official opposition that this budget is a disappointment for the maritime provinces. I believe that this budget is constructive and if there is any disappointment to any group in the house it can come only from a knowledge that this budget has been received very warmly by the people of the province of Nova Scotia, with whose views I keep in touch.
Mr. Speaker, I want, for a moment, to speak about one or two matters that fall into the same category but of a less general application. I have always felt that economic development could proceed through the enunciation of general policies and also through the establishment of particular projects that might have a local application, and that might assist in stimulating economic development in certain areas. I want to refer to an item in the supplementary estimates which appeared under the Department of Public Works. The funds available from this item will have very important repercussions to an important part of the county of Inverness. I refer to the decision taken by the Department of Public Works to go ahead with the erection of a breakwater causeway between the mainland of Port Hood and the island of Port Hood.
There is interesting history involved in this project. At one time there was a natural land bridge joining these two land areas, but with the passage of time this bridge was removed through erosion and wave action. A splendid harbour which had supported a large fishing fleet was completely or almost completely destroyed. The residents of the area have been working since 1906 to have the federal government undertake the restoration of this harbour by the erection of a breakwater causeway. I am happy to say that their dream extending back to 1906 has been realized

through the fine co-operation given to this project by the Minister of Public Works (Mr. Winters). Last week when I visited this area I was told on all sides that the decision to go ahead with this project will mean a great stimulus to the southern part of Inverness county. I believe, Mr. Speaker, that in this case, although not as important in itself as the problem of power development, there lies a model that we could usefully follow in trying to rebuild certain parts of the economy of Nova Scotia.
For a moment, Mr. Speaker, I want to refer to a proposal put forward to the government in Nova Scotia and the federal government by the farmers of eastern Nova Scotia. Recently eastern co-operative services and Cape Breton co-operative services amalgamated their business into a single administration. They undertook the amalgamation in order to provide increased marketing facilities for the farmers of eastern Nova Scotia. At present there are large quantities of agricultural products imported into eastern Nova Scotia while agriculture in that area is not in the position in which we would like to see it. In order to overcome this difficulty, there is a proposal to build a processing plant in eastern Nova Scotia to provide a market outlet for those farmers. This requires assistance from the government in order to have it established. It is a place where there could be fruitful federal and provincial co-operation. Marketing is primarily a provincial responsibility, and for that reason it is up to the provincial government at this stage to announce its assistance for this project in order to put members of parliament from eastern Nova Scotia in a proper constitutional position to press a claim for assistance against the federal treasury in Ottawa. I do believe that if this action is taken initially by the provincial government it will assist in Ottawa in putting forward the claim of assistance from these producers.
I intended, Mr. Speaker, to say something about the social benefits, and in particular about the amendment proposed by the C.C.F. group. However, I fear that my time is drawing to a close. I shall simply refer for a moment to this amendment and to the suggestion by the C.C.F. group that the old age pension should be increased to an amount commensurate with the increase in the gross national product since 1949, which would call for a pension of approximately $75 per month.
I do not intend to comment upon the validity of associating pension raises with the gross national product or with any other economic quantity that could be employed. But I would like to suggest that if further action is desired, there is another source 82715-1651
The Budget-Mr. MacEachen from which this action can be had. I understand that when the constitution was amended in order to provide for old age security, the provinces of Canada reserved to themselves their capacity to take action in this field in the future and protected the action they had already taken. In that way the provinces have recognized their jurisdiction and, automatically, their responsibility. The federal government has responded to the requests made upon it to increase social benefits. The provincial governments also have recognized responsibilities in this field. I would suggest with all earnestness that the advocates of greater pensions from the C.C.F. group might use their influence with the province of Saskatchewan to come forward now with greater supplemental benefits. I would suggest to those people in the official opposition who have influence with the premiers of Ontario, New Brunswick and Nova Scotia that they have those provinces come forward with increased supplemental benefits.
I have made some investigations into the system in Saskatchewan. While I certainly would not attempt to say I have the intimate knowledge of that province possessed by the members from that province, I find that the supplemental system in Saskatchewan is somewhat puzzling. I understand, for example, that no assistance is available to the recipients of old age assistance; in other words, those in the category from 65 to 69 receive no supplemental assistance from the provincial treasury of that province. It would seem that if there is a desire to assist any needy group, Saskatchewan and its friends here might do something along that line. I am aware that the supplemental assistance available to persons over 70, or old age security, extends from $2.50 to $20 for those in the most favoured assistance range.
There are roughly 47,000 receiving old age security in the province of Saskatchewan and of these roughly 17,000 receive supplemental benefits, while 4,925 who receive old age assistance receive no supplemental benefits at all. Therefore, while this amendment is interesting and certainly appealing, I suggest that this problem of greater assistance for the aged is one that is as intimately connected with provincial responsibilities as it is with federal responsibilities, and that the account taken in this budget, which is evident in its wholesome effects, can be followed up in the provincial legislatures which have reserved their own prerogatives in this field of supplemental assistance. I make this suggestion, not in any effort to annoy my friends from Saskatchewan, but in an effort to clarify a problem which sometimes seems to get rather confused.
I have dealt a good deal with economic problems, Mr. Speaker, and now I want to


Mr. N. A. Malheson (Queens):: Mr. Speaker, as a loyal Scot and one whose ancestors came from the Highlands, and not too far removed, I could not help but be very interested in the closing remarks of the hon. member who has just taken his seat.
The Minister of Citizenship and Immigration said the other day in the house that these people were showing excellent judgment in the idea that they come to Newfoundland. I could not help but think that if they come to Newfoundland the people of Newfoundland will be very lucky indeed. His remarks about the Gaelic language reminded me of an incident in my undergraduate days in university. There was a certain teacher there with whom I never seemed to get along very well; I never seemed to be able to get through to him. Finally, one day I was leaving his office to go home for Christmas holidays and he said good-bye to me in Gaelic. I am not going to use the term here because Hansard could not spell it and I am not sure that I could help them to spell it correctly, but I replied in kind. He said, "Come back here, young fellow; where did you learn to speak Gaelic?" I will drop the story there, but the ensuing conversation very quickly and very effectively fixed up any breach that there ever was between my professor and myself.
In my opening remarks, Mr. Speaker, I would like to say something about a matter that I think should be of interest to all hon. members. For some years now the Prince Edward Island historical society has been advocating that space be set aside in our capital city of Charlottetown for a provincial museum. To date that desire has not been realized. Recently, the president of that society and the council of Charlottetown

board of trade asked me to look into the possibilities of a development that would be in keeping with the desire for a provincial museum and in keeping with the thoughts of Canadians who rightfully wish to preserve buildings and sites which have played an important part in our national development.
The suggestion is that the provincial building in Charlottetown should be taken over by the historic sites and monuments board and made a national shrine. It includes also the suggestion that somewhere in that building a space should be set aside for this museum.
For the benefit of hon. members who are not familiar with our provincial building, I might explain that this is the building where the first conference on confederation was held. In a room on the second floor which we refer to as confederation chamber a meeting was held on September 1, 1864 of representatives from the maritime provinces and from Canada, as the term was loosely applied to the general area which comprises Ontario and Quebec today. There in that room in our provincial building this great country of Canada was conceived and there was laid the foundation for our confederation.
Now it is true perhaps that the actual birth of confederation took place at Quebec a little later for there the actual pact of confederation was signed. I suggest that the need of preserving our building in Charlottetown is highlighted and emphasized by the fact that the building which housed that meeting in Quebec no longer stands. It has been lost to the nation and to posterity so that our building at home is now the only real link with confederation that remains.
I have discussed the idea with leading public men in several of our provinces and on each and every occasion they have agreed it would be a splendid idea.


Mr. Hahn:: If we form the government we will do it.


Neil Alexander Matheson: That will be a long time, I am afraid.


Frederick George Hahn: Not as long as you fellows think.


Neil Alexander Matheson: "It would be a crime to lose that historic building; it should be preserved through the years," one man told me recently here in Ottawa.
If I may digress for a moment, I might say that the latter statement was made to me in Ottawa recently just after I had listened to our St. Dunstan's debating team win the national intercollegiate title. I am very proud of that feat. The coach of the team Rev. Fred Cass, happens to be an old football pal of mine which perhaps gives me a greater personal interest in it. I am also proud to say
The Budget-Mr. Matheson that this is the second national title they have captured in five years. Indeed since 1950 they have been national finalists once and reached the semi-finals on one other occasion in addition to winning two titles. Getting back to my subject, I might say that the proper approach with respect to the preservation of this building is through the historic sites and monuments board. I have made that approach through the Prince Edward Island representative, Hon. Chief Justice Thane A. Campbell.
However, as the development eventually would come under the Department of Northern Affairs and National Resources, the department to which the historic sites and monuments board is responsible, I thought it fitting to take this opportunity of putting this reference to the proposal on the pages of our country's parliamentary record.
I have discussed the proposal with our premier at home and he has expressed agreement in principle. There are, of course, certain reservations. He would, for example, want to retain the legislative assembly in this historic building. I feel that most of us would agree that this should be done.
I do not think there is anything further I should add at this time. I am sure that most hon. members will agree that the proposal is sound, and that it is in keeping with our wish to retain and cherish places and memories that are closely linked with our historic past.
The hon. member for Saskatoon (Mr. Knight) made a statement in the house during the course of this session which may have reflected on the quality of the bacon hogs we produce in Prince Edward Island. Let me say right away that I know he did not intend it that way and I do not charge him with that intent but I think I should say a word or two about our bacon hog quality.
The figures for last year which are the most recent figures I have indicate that our province again topped all other Canadian provinces in the percentage of top grade hogs. Our provincial swine breeders have been doing that consistently for some years now and last year they set a new all-time record for the excellence of their bacon products; 57.9 per cent of all Prince Edward Island hogs shipped through inspection plants were graded A or top quality. This corresponds with 54.1 per cent in 1955, 51.4 per cent in 1953 and 35 per cent in 1941.
There has been a general improvement in bacon hog quality right across the country although other provinces do not closely approach our breeders in top quality. If I may cite the figures for last year only they indicate that Nova Scotia breeders were closest

The Budget-Mr. Matheson to ours with 52.5 per cent in top grade, New Brunswick was next with 49.9 per cent, Ontario was a rather weak fourth with 35 per cent and the others trailed well behind with Alberta's 21.3 per cent at the bottom of the scale. The all-Canadian average was 30 per cent, but even this is an improvement over the all-Canadian average of 28.5 in 1955 and the same percentage in 1953.
I might point out that these figures were taken from the official report prepared by H. W. Clay, senior livestock fieldman for the federal Department of Agriculture at Charlottetown. Mr. Clay is a man who grew up with the developing swine industry at home and one who, at the official level, is very closely concerned with it and shares in the credit for its great progress.
A neighbour of mine, L. W. Roper, has been a strong and a consistently effective livestock fieldman through the years, and he has made a great contribution. Since I have mentioned these two gentlemen I should not overlook mentioning the other member of the staff, Jim Mundy, who comes from Alberta. The popularity of this likeable young fieldman indicates to us at home that something really good can still come out of the west.
I want to thank the member from Wellington South (Mr. Hosking) for the very fine tribute he paid to our island bacon hogs here last year. He noted that although they did not place in the live classes at the royal winter fair when they showed there several years ago, they did score very heavily in the dressed carcass competition at the same fair. He noted-and I agree with him-that there is something wrong with the system of judging when animals that top all other competition in the carcass classes are so completely overlooked by the judges in the live classes.
The royal winter fair is our top agricultural fair. It has been properly named the show window of Canadian agriculture, yet there is evidently some marked improvement needed in its method of judging when such a thing can and does happen.
I know personally of several royal shows there where our hogs were not placed on the hoof in breeding classes and yet island hogs cleaned up in both the Brethour and Todd trophy competition for dressed bacon. It is so evident that there is an inexcusable inconsistency there that I am not going to say anything more about it.
Before I leave the subject, I should note that the member from Saskatoon had observed that he had seen very low grade western grain being ground for feed for our island hogs. The feed came from our grain


growing prairie provinces. Anything he or other hon. members from that area can do to help our farmers get a better grade of feed grain would be appreciated.
The hon. member himself told me privately that it was the fault of some of our feed mixers in the east, because they buy a low grade of grain. If that is so, they have no reason to be proud of their action or their product.
Prior to the two freight rate increases of seven and four per cent respectively the freight on a ton of feed from the head of the lakes to Charlottetown was $17.80. Of that amount the federal government, through the feed grain freight assistance policy, paid $12.80. The farmer paid $5.
After the two freight rate increases went into effect, the freight from the head of the lakes to the maritimes was $19.80 and the farmer had to pay $7. Now the situation is that the federal government pays $14.25 per ton leaving $5.50 to be paid by the farmer. On top of that now, of course, we have the 50 per cent increase in the assistance under the Maritime Freight Rates Act on traffic originating in the maritimes and outward bound.
These two developments, Mr. Speaker, will do a great deal to bring a much needed measure of relief to our producers. It will help all our people including our manufacturers, but I am thinking more particularly now of our primary producers, and especially those in my own province who grow and ship heavy, bulky products on which the freight is a very large item indeed. It will be valuable, for example, to our potato producers who have had some difficult times during the past years.
I note that Howard Mann, executive manager of the maritime transportation commission, viewed the increased freight assistance with delight, to use his term. He said it was "the first real break in our freight wall in 30 years."
I note with approval too that the Minister of Finance (Mr. Harris) observed in his speech that "a change of this kind will only go part way toward meeting the transportation problems of the Atlantic provinces." There is satisfaction too in his indication that the over-all transportation needs are being studied with a view to further action. We agree that further action is needed and we shall keep pressing for that further action.
There are other problems of agriculture. There are many of them. But my discussions with the people here indicate to me that many of them are receiving serious and sympathetic consideration.
The house is aware of the move to adjust the potato tariff structure more favourably

for our Canadian growers. Like my hon. friend the member for Kings (Mr. Kiekham), who is himself a moderately large potato grower, I have followed this question closely ever since it was introduced some two years ago. I am still keeping in close touch with it, and I am satisfied that the appropriate departmental people here are doing what they can to get a favourable adjustment along the lines of the request made by representatives of the potato industry right across the country.
I am spending considerable time on agriculture, Mr. Speaker, and I do so because it is of major importance to our province. I hear spokesmen from other provinces suggest that difficulties in agriculture affect adversely that particular phase of their provincial economy. But in our case, I will be exaggerating only very slightly if I say that agriculture is the whole of our economy. Certainly, it is our basic economy, and if it is not prospering our people cannot prosper. It is true that we have an important fishing industry in Prince Edward Island, and here I want to refer with appreciation to the unemployment insurance benefits being made available to fishermen.
We also have a growing tourist industry. If the investigations now under way concerning the proposed causeway between our province and New Brunswick indicate that this project is financially feasible, we shall have a much greater tourist industry. But, for the present, agriculture is our main source of revenue. Unless it prospers, our province cannot prosper.
One of the recent handicaps under which agricultural producers are labouring is caused by a lot of ridiculous nonsense being written about diet and about the use of non-fattening foods. Hundreds of self-styled diet experts are trying to reap a profit by writing a lot of senseless junk about dieting principles. Some of them talk about food values without even the slightest knowledge of what they are discussing.
The result is that some people are being induced to stop using some of our most valuable food products. I believe that dairy products are, perhaps, most adversely affected.
Recently there seems to be almost an organized campaign against the use of whole milk. They talk about skim milk, and about fat-free milk, and about a lot of other similar nonsense. Mr. Speaker, I could quote you a number of eminent medical scientists who have made a study of this problem and whose findings indicate that milk still is one of our most valuable and necessary basic foods.
Dr. V. E. Collum, Johns Hopkins University, says for example: "The people who have achieved, who have become large, strong,
The Budget-Mr. Matheson vigourous people, who have reduced the infant mortality, who have the best trades in the world, who are progressive in science and in every activity of human intellect, are people who have used liberal amounts of milk and its products."
I have read numerous books and quotations by people who suggest that one cannot avoid overweight or reduce on a diet which includes whole milk. I can disprove that, Mr. Speaker, from personal experience. I have taken off weight very successfully-indeed fairly rapidly-and drank a quart to a quart and one half of whole milk a day while I was doing it. Rarely a day passes when I do not drink that much milk, and I do not think anyone could suggest I have any overweight problems now.
Let me cite for you a more scientific authority. Dr. John J. Miller is director of nutritional research of Medical Dairy Specialties, Incorporated, Chicago, Illinois. He notes that it is a burning question whether milk fat is going to "win out" in the debate over the causes of heart disease. I am now quoting Dr. Miller:
To understand the critical nature ol the disease, we must take a look at the causes of so-called heart disease. Actually, we are speaking not of a disease but of heart failure. This arises from poor circulation or a complete lack of circulation of blood.
The basic causes of the heart trouble we are discussing include a thickening or hardening of the arteries. Perhaps the most apparent chemical "villain" causing thickening or hardening of the arteries is cholesterol. It is a white, fatty crystalline alcohol which is found in food fats, and which is formed from other fats and nutrients in the body.
It was discovered a few years ago that improper use of fat by the body was a factor in the formation of these cholesterol patches in human arteries. Since then there has been a gradual build-up of misinformation and prejudice, among laymen and professional people alike, as to the role of milk fats as a possible cause of this abnormal condition in the arteries.
I am quoting from Dr. Miller, Mr. Speaker, but because of limited time I can only quote bits and pieces of his article. I am, however, trying to be fair and accurate. If any hon. member wishes to read the entire article I shall be glad to make it available to him.
Turning to the nutritional phases of the problem, he says, in part:
If whole milk and its products, all containing butter fat, are a menace to the health of the nation, then all people should be informed of this fact. On the other hand, if this is not true, and if whole milk is fully nutritious and health-promoting at all ages, then the entire nation should be aroused. The campaign of misinformation about milk and dairy products should be stopped immediately.
Continuing, Dr. Miller says:
The crux of the issue is as follows:

The Budget-Mr. Matheson
And he lists his findings in nine paragraphs. I can only quote a few of them. Here they are:
High human consumption of total fats cannot be correlated directly with thickening or hardening of the arteries.
The type of fat consumed has more to do with injury to blood vessels than the amount of fat involved.
The amount of cholesterol in the blood is not a measure of the amount deposited in the walls of the arteries.
And listen to this one:
Thickening of the arteries is a modern disease, especially of the last 20 years, whereas whole milk has been a healthful, basic dietary food for more than 2,000 years.
The increased incidence of hardening of the arteries and its severity may possibly be correlated with the greatly increased consumption of "hardened" vegetable oils and with the decline in intake of milk and butter.
There is more, Mr. Speaker, but I think 1 have quoted enough to indicate the general nature of Dr. Miller's contention. I might add that he is a man of wide experience who is, apparently, highly regarded by medical scientists. He is at present a member of the committee on nutrition of the Illinois State Medical Society, and he was formerly editor of Chemical Abstracts, a publication international in scope. He is also a member of various scientific organizations and the author of numerous treatises. He has lectured on nutrition before many medical meetings throughout the United States.
Mr. Speaker, I referred a while ago to the fishing industry. With the co-operation of Department of Public Works officials both here and at home we have been building and developing wharves and other harbour installations in an effort to help the fisheries development. Some real progress is being made, but there is still a great deal to be done.
Rustico, the biggest fishing area in my riding, has had a harbour problem for years. A sand bar at the harbour's mouth has barred it to all but shallow draught boats. Developments now under way will, we hope, remove this handicap. When that goal is realized, this harbour will be able to handle draggers and the fishing and processing potential will be greatly increased. Then it will, possibly, be challenging for leadership a place like Souris, in the riding of the hon. member for Kings. The advent of the dragger has caused a major development in that town.
Before I close, Mr. Speaker, I would like to express my appreciation for the increase in veterans pensions, and the increased benefits available under war veterans allowances. We owe our veterans a debt of gratitude that we can never fully repay.

It is something that we must never forget. We must never allow our children to forget it either.
I should like also to thank the Minister of Northern Affairs and National Resources for the improvements that are being made in our national park in Prince Edward Island. The appointment of a full-time superintendent is a major forward step, and in Fred Browning, the present superintendent, we have a man who is taking a keen interest in the development of the park.
The construction of the gulf shore drive is a major undertaking. It is linking the various parts of our park and will, I suggest, be a major factor in our future tourist development. The road runs along our beautiful north shore and will, when completed, be one of the most beautiful drives that can be found anywhere in the country.
A delegation from the Atlantic provinces economic council met the government in Ottawa this week. The council, generally known as APEC, is relatively new but I have great hopes for it. It has attracted some capable and busy men who are finding time from their own businesses to devote to this general effort towards self-help for that area. In their presentation to the government the council spokesmen indicated that although they have no notion of interfering in dominion-provincial relationships they are prepared to place their full resources at the disposal of the federal and provincial governments in assessing any situation in which joint government action is contemplated. I am sorry that more of our Atlantic members do not give it their vocal support here.
I know it is impossible to include in a budget speech everything that everyone wants, but I think that perhaps the most regretted omission of all is the failure to include any reference to increased allowances for retired civil servants. I am thinking now particularly of the widows of several former civil servants whom I know personally and of the difficulty they are having in making ends meet on the portion of the retirement allowance which was left to them when their husbands passed on. This is one problem which I would earnestly commend to the attention of the minister and his colleagues for the earliest possible future action.


Mr. Alistair Stewart (Winnipeg North):: Mr. Speaker, the hon. member for Queens (Mr. Matheson) discussed in a controversial and also informative way the effect of hardening of the arteries on the body. I should like to have heard him discuss the hardening of the arteries which we see in the Liberal government and the ageing which is taking place but obviously with an election impending

this is not the time to show such signs of disunity. Today the troops are being brought together, the cohorts are being formed, the phalanx is being created and all is unity in the Liberal ranks. The most extraordinary example of that can be seen in an editorial in the Winnipeg Free Press on the 13th of March, an editorial which was written last week. This Liberal paper states that "it is becoming now to declare our allegiance." It goes on to say:
Our criticisms of the government are of three kinds. (1) In some important ways it has paid too little attention to the interests of western Canada ... (2) It has been guilty ... of some major fumbles, evasions and plain errors; ... it has used some public money wastefully and it ought never to have allowed inflationary pressures to build up as strongly as they did last summer. (3) On some major issues, it has lapsed from fundamental Liberal principles; this is true, for example, of immigration policy; of the retention of Mr. Howe's extraordinary defence production powers . . . and above all of the degradation of parliament involved in the way the pipe line bill was pushed through last summer.
This being a Liberal paper in the great tradition, the editor in the same section comes to this conclusion:
Our view is that Canada's interests will best be served by keeping the present government in office.
Liberalism as we see it today! Last year some of us thought that the Free Press was perhaps showing a little courage in opposing the government in some of the things that it did, but that glow of last year has flickered and faded into miserable oblivion. It is becoming for the Free Press to take the position of the eternal Pharisee. I do not know why the paper changed its mind. Perhaps the Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Gardiner) had a hand in it and if he did I am quite sure he had a knife in that hand. It is also conceivable that the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration (Mr. Pickersgill) had a few words to say to the Free Press and licked it into shape. But no matter what the situation is, until the election is over we can expect no more objective criticism from that newspaper or from, of course, the Liberal benches, and so the opposition will have to take on that responsibility.
The problem which really faces the country is that of inflation. As found at pages 2215 and 2216 of Hansard of March 14 the Minister of Finance (Mr. Harris) said:
* * . it may well be that the full effects of the heavy spending program of 1956 will only reveal ^gg^nse^ves ^ ^r*ces finished goods during
That, Mr. Speaker, is a euphemism for a higher cost of living for consumers all across the country, and apparently there is no legislation whatsoever envisaged by the government whereby inflation can be combatted. Despite the recommendations of the governor
The Budget-Mr. A. Stewart of the Bank of Canada, despite his statement that inflation cannot be combatted only by monetary means, the government is insisting on taking no fiscal measures to combat a serious menace to the welfare of the Canadian people. The government has tried to combat inflation by means of monetary controls, a hit-or-miss method, a bull in a china shop method, one which is not selective at all, with the result that one segment of our economy has been affected more than any other. I refer, of course, to the building of homes for the people of Canada. This is going to be rectified to some extent.
Despite the fact the minister tells us we are in an inflationary period, the Bank of Canada is going to make available to the chartered banks another $15 million approximately so that their cash reserves can be increased, and the net effect will be an increase of bank credit of anything up to $150 million. Granted that is going to be used for house building, granted that is a legitimate and proper thing; nevertheless it is going to increase the inflationary trend in the country unless the government takes fiscal measures to reduce spending in other segments of the economy.
In the past we have been dependent mostly on our life insurance companies for mortgage money. Then the banks were brought into line in 1954. I remember arguing in the house at that time that the banks would only lend up to a certain sum of money in absolute terms and then they would stop. I said 7 per cent of savings. That, of course, has happened. Apparently the banks came to the conclusion that they were prepared to lend between 7 per cent and 8 per cent of their savings deposits to home builders in this country. Obviously when they reached that percentage not much more money would be available from the banks for this purpose, and that is the situation in which the government finds itself today.
The banks had stopped lending and now they are being induced to increase lending for this purpose. We believe, of course, that the cost of housing will go up and as prices increase then the buyer of a house will really have to pay for it. The cost of money has gone up in the last few months by 20 per cent. Before the minister brought down the budget we advocated that certain steps should be taken, amongst them being the amending of Canada's banking legislation so as to channel savings deposits into longterm investments for uses such as housing, debenture and bond issues of municipalities, provinces, school and hospital boards.
We ask that action be taken similar to that taken in 1951 to defer depreciation

The Budget-Mr. A. Stewart allowances. We ask that corporations having a taxable income in excess of $20,000 and subject to standard corporation tax pay an immediate direct tax of 25 per cent imposed on their undistributed profits. We ask that legislation be brought in to regulate the volume of loans of finance companies, and we ask above all that this iniquitous measure should be repealed, namely, the provision of the Income Tax Act which permits a 20 per cent tax exemption on dividends from Canadian corporations. The government has done nothing whatsoever by fiscal means to reduce the threat of inflation and we are going to find as the months go on this year that the inflationary trend is still very much with us.
But while we are concerned with the effects of inflation and with the government's lack of policy, we are also very concerned with the absolutely inadequate measures taken by the government to improve substantially the position of the people of Canada in so far as social security is concerned. My friend, the Minister of National Health and Welfare (Mr. Martin), has got to take a major part of the responsibility because he accedes to these miserable pittances which are now being given to the Canadian people who demand and need very much more. My hon. friend has been a member of the government for many years. He is a believer in the free enterprise system. Were he working for a free enterprise company and had managed to fail so signally as he has failed here, he would have been fired long ago.
I think the best thing the minister can do in view of the failure of his policies is to get out and let somebody else handle the job who can do it.
Perhaps one reason for the failure of the minister is that he suffers from schizophrenia, he is not sure whether he is acting Secretary of State for External Affairs, or the Minister of National Health and Welfare. He has become thoroughly confused in those two jobs.
A little while ago he went to Asia at the request of the Prime Minister (Mr. St. Laurent). I am not sure whether he went there to act as a peripatetic record of his master's voice or as an advance agent for Chou-en-lai. It is debatable and anyone can make up his own mind about it. But I do know he has given a report on his journey. He gave a report to this house which was grossly inadequate, but then he wrote another one for the external affairs magazine entitled "Visit to Asia". If the minister wrote that himself he should be ashamed; if he got some stenographer to do it for him one could hardly blame her. I have never seen anything quite so trite.

He tells us in this report that he saw the people dancing. I quote from his report of his visit to the Philippines as follows:
One of the highlights of this all too brief visit was the elaborate marienda dance which was performed for us by workers in the ministry of health.
I wonder what dance the workers in the ministry of health here might have performed for the minister when he came back. Perhaps they went through a ritualistic fire-dance in which I would have liked to have seen the minister take a very important part. Then the minister goes on and tells us that when he got to Indonesia he was received there as a most important person. You know, we have I.P.'s, meaning important persons; we have V.I.P.'s meaning very important persons; and we have V.I.P.I.'s meaning very important persons indeed.
In Indonesia they have borrowed from us a wretched practice of having motorcycle escorts who go around with their klaxon horns blowing all the time, and here is how the minister describes one ride he made when he was being taken up to some Canadian cabin in the mountains:
There is an almost continuous settlement along the road for the 60 miles which separates Bogor from the capital. On hearing the strident noise of the siren of our police escort, people came out of their houses by the thousands to watch us pass. As I felt the occasion called for some manifestation of our friendship I waved continually to the crowd.
A great Canadian contribution to international friendship, a great Canadian contribution to the problems of the people of Indonesia. When the minister came back and made his first speech in the house, instead of dealing with national health and welfare he dealt with other matters and indicated that he was completely exhausted.


Paul Joseph James Martin: I have never had so much fun in all my life.


Alistair McLeod Stewart: The minister has his fun at the taxpayer's expense. The minister also told us in this report that his visit provided excellent opportunities for a Canadian to demonstrate our true feelings toward these people. But when he comes back to Canada how does he demonstrate his affections for the people of this country? He gives the old age pensioners a miserable and paltry $6 a month. The minister should feel thoroughly and absolutely ashamed. All through the years he has bled at every pore over the sufferings of the people of this country, and yet he gives older people only $6 a month, much less than the increase in the cost of living since 1949. One could go on almost indefinitely. When the legislation comes before the house I hope that we can indicate what we think about this matter.

The Budget-Mr. Martin
When certain barbaric tribes are encumbered much better had he stayed in Ottawa and by their aged they leave them to die in the tried to bring down a comprehensive health frozen wastes or kill them rapidly in other insurance bill. He takes pride in the fact ways, but here the minister feels that if he that he was the first Canadian minister gives our aged another $6 a month their lives to go to some country in Asia but he could can be protracted. This Christian government have taken more pride had he been the first of ours condemns them to slow extinction. Canadian minister to introduce a health This is the policy of the Liberal government scheme to the people of this country, which professes to have the welfare of the
people of Canada so much at heart.	Mr- Harris: He does both.
What about our disabled persons? This legislation is a fraud and a farce. Before a person can qualify for this pension he must be a basket case. If he can dress himself, no pension.	If he can feed himself, no
pension. If he can walk at all, no pension. This is the humanitarian attitude of the Minister of National Health and Welfare who feels so strongly about the needs of the people of this country. What about health insurance? Here is what the minister had to say in 1949, as reported at page 845 of Hansard of February 23 of that year:
A transformation has taken place in our thinking: we now accept without question that there are ways to the future that only governments can open.
This minister has not found a way, neither has this government.
There are hazards to human welfare that only the collective strength of the community of citizens can overcome.
A magnificent phrase. The mountain groaned in the pangs of birth and, lo, a mouse was born. But is it a mouse or is it another red herring? It smells as though it came from the sea somewhere. Then in 1947 when health insurance was being discussed the minister replied to the hon. member for Mackenzie (Mr. Nicholson), as reported on page 4423 of Hansard of June 20, 1947 as follows:
I regret that the hon. member thinks our active interest in pursuing these studies is not adequate.
We did not think they were adequate then, nor do we now.
I do not know what more one can do than constantly engage one's attention on the problem.
For nine years the minister has been engaging his attention on the problem and has done nothing. The minister is a colossal failure and I am surprised that he stays in his position. It must take a great degree of effrontry, a degree which I can hardly appreciate, to come to this house and defend the legislation which is going to be presented to us. It is time that the public learned of the minister's shortcomings and that is what we are going to see they do learn in the next week or two.
I do not deny that the minister has every right to a legitimate interest in external affairs, but it should not be at the expense of his own department. It would have been


Alistair McLeod Stewart: He does nothing. I have been telling him that he is getting $27,000 a year under false pretences. He is worse really than the Minister of Vet-rans Affairs (Mr. Lapointe) because that minister does not talk in the terms used by the Minister of National Health and Welfare. But here again the pension for the burnt-out veterans is completely inadequate. It is disgraceful when we realize that the burnt-out pensioner and the burnt-out pensioner's widow get no increase at all. We ought to have more gratitude than that toward those who suffered for us and the dependents of those who died to save this country. As I said before, if we had any gratitude at all for these people they ought to be given more generous treatment than they are receiving. Too little consideration is being given to those who have really produced the wealth of this country and to those who have fought to save this country. All we hear are unctuous and oleaginous phrases. It is time that the mask of hypocrisy was stripped from the face of the Liberal party.
At one o'clock the house took recess.


[Stage Direction]
AFTER RECESS

The house resumed at 2.30 p.m.
Paul Joseph James Martin: Mr. Speaker, the budget debate is of more than usual significance this year. In addition to the policy decisions of the government relating to fiscal matters, which it usually reveals, it also contains important announcements of government policy in respect of two items of veterans legislation and five items of social welfare legislation. The debate thus far has confined itself largely to discussions having to do with the matter of old age security and old age assistance. Completely overlooked is the provision announced by the Minister of Finance (Mr. Harris) for disability pensions, for family allowances and for blindness allowances. Few have noted the importance of the government's effort during the past few months, in co-operation with the provinces, in the matter of a proposed nationwide
2608	HOUSE OF
The Budget-Mr. Martin scheme for hospital insurance, which I believe we are to discuss at the beginning of next week.
No one has mentioned that the total dollar value of the announcements made concerning social welfare by the Minister of Finance last week will come to some $132 million. When one thinks that our total responsibility dollarwise on federal account for old age pensions, before the universal scheme came into effect, was $100 million, and takes into account the fact that we are now proposing additions to present benefits totalling in all some $132 million, it will be seen that altogether apart from the commitment involved in hospital insurance, this government cannot on any count justifiably be accused by anyone in this house of not having taken the lead in the matter of social welfare legislation. This being a declaration, I recognize it should be supported by arguments, and that I now propose to do. Since these five items are all the administrative responsibility of the Department of National Health and Welfare, I propose to direct my attention to them particularly, rather than those other important matters referred to in my colleague's budget speech.
These five major changes, changes in social welfare policy, as announced in the budget were as follows: first, all pensioners 70 and over now receiving $40 a month under the Old Age Security Act will have their pensions raised effective July 1 of this year. The cost of this 15 per cent increase in the universal pension will amount to $60 million in the first year, well over half the total amount provided by the federal government in 1951, the last year of the former old age pension scheme. Now, family allowance payments in respect of children under six years of age, as well as of children who have passed their tenth but not their thirteenth birthday will be increased by one dollar monthly effective September 1 of this year. Incidentally, this family allowances program was first proposed by the present government of Canada at a time when it was not unanimously accepted in this house, and indeed in many quarters outside.
The increase in family allowance payments represents a total annual commitment of not less than $42 million a year. Now, this increase is equivalent to a 20 per cent increase in the amount of family allowance payments to younger children under six years of age and between 14 per cent and 15 per cent in the case of the older children, 10 to 13 years. An estimated 2.5 million children will benefit from the change in the $5 rate to $6, while an additional one million children will benefit


from the change in the $7 rate to $8. In addition to those groups who will derive immediate benefits effective September 1, a further 1.5 million children over six and under 10 years will likewise benefit when they reach their tenth birthday through the fact that they will receive a $2 increase in the rate of benefit instead of $1 as formerly. When hon. gentlemen attack these increases, let them consider what the total commitment is. It is $60 million for old age security, $42 million for family allowances, and that represents a very considerable expenditure of money, particularly when one takes into account that we are now spending over $400 million annually for family allowances in this country and close to $400 million on old age security. There is no country in the world that has a comparable record.
This means, Mr. Speaker, that five million children altogether out of 5.5 million on allowances will benefit from the increases announced last week by my colleague the Minister of Finance. This represents over 90 per cent of the children whose parents receive family allowances in the entire country. Only half a million children out of the 5.5 million, that is those who have passed their thirteenth birthday, will receive no added benefit but in a large number of cases these children have younger brothers and sisters and the family will thereby benefit. The cost of these benefits, as I say, will represent an additional $42 million to be borne by the taxpayers of Canada each year on top of the $412 million already shown in the main estimates as presented by the Minister of Finance. I think this is the proper place for me to make the observation that it is not the government that has to pay for these particular proposals; it is the people of Canada. It comes out of the hard work of the people of Canada and those hon. gentlemen on all sides of the house who do not bear this in mind are not fair in their presentation of this issue.
Now, with regard to old age assistance, the recipients of assistance under this legislation now number just over 90,000 people in our country. We share with the provinces on a fifty-fifty basis the cost of assistance on a means test basis up to a maximum of $40 a month. If the provinces agree, the federal government is now ready to enter into new agreements under which we will share the cost up to $46 a month. Action, of course, on this depends on the provinces.
Within a few hours of the delivery of the budget speech I telegraphed to all of the provincial governments and pointed out the decision of the federal government, and we are now awaiting for them to take the necessary legislative steps to make the agreements effective as soon as possible. A number of

the provinces have the legislative power to take advantage of our offer. In addition to increasing the maximum amount of assistance payable we are also proposing, if the provinces agree, to increase the over-all income ceilings as follows. And I would ask the house to note this and realize the significance of the amendments that are proposed. The income ceiling of a single recipient goes up from $720 to $840 a year; the income ceiling for a married recipient goes up from $1,200 to $1,320 a year; the income ceiling for a married recipient with a blind spouse goes up from $1,320 to $1,680 a year. We estimate that if all provinces agree to these changes the case load will rise from 90,000 recipients at present to about 95,000. The total additional costs will increase between 15 and 20 per cent, or slightly more than $8 million per annum. The federal share of this will be roughly $4 million.
With regard to disability allowances, no one in this house who has criticized the government, including the last speaker who spoke so amusingly, has mentioned the increase provided for disability allowances, and I am not aware that anyone in this house in this session or in the last session has ever asked the government to increase the basic amount of disability allowances.


John (Jack) Henry Horner: I did.


Paul Joseph James Martin: My hon. friend says he did. I have carefully searched the record. What he suggested was that we should liberalize the basis for qualification.


John (Jack) Henry Horner: And increase the amount.


Paul Joseph James Martin: But neither he nor any other member, as far as I have been able to find out, has suggested an increase in the basic amount. If I should be proven wrong the hon. gentleman will have the chance of showing that that is so.
With regard to disability allowances, it will be recalled that when the act was introduced I said we estimated that we would have a case-load of recipients of about 25,000. To give some indication of what the Disabled Persons Act means in terms of its effective results, I can now say that we have at the present time some 32,000 disabled persons on allowance, 7,000 more than we estimated. The proposed increase in the amount of the disability pension and in the income ceilings is exactly the same as in the case of old age assistance. In addition to this, however, we have proposed a new and more liberal definition of total and permanent disability to which nine of the provinces have now agreed. The effect of these changes will be to bring additional numbers of recipients on to the rolls. It is expected that by the end of the
The Budget-Mr. Martin fiscal year, 1957-58, the disability allowance cost load will have risen to a figure close to 40,000 recipients and, with the increase now contemplated, it will mean an increase in cost of about 15 to 20 per cent. The federal share of this will be about $1,500,000 a year.
When it is remembered that old age security and old age assistance take care of all persons in need over 65, including the disabled, that the blind and workmen's compensation and veterans' pension laws take care of other large numbers, that practically all institutional cases are excluded, any fair-minded person will agree, I am sure, that 32,000 to 40,000 disability pensioners is a high figure indeed to represent the totally and permanently disabled population between 18 and 65 in a country with Canada's economic prosperity and health facilities and general standard of health and well-being.
Little or nothing has been said about blindness allowances in this debate. No mention has been made of the fact that the government, through the Minister of Finance, has not only proposed a 15 per cent increase in the matter of disability allowances, old age assistance and old age security, but that we are doing something additional as well for the blind. I ask hon. gentlemen to compare what we have done for the blind in this country-the federal government, the provinces, the municipal governments and voluntary agencies together-with what other countries have done, and I can say with confidence that no one will be able to show me that in any other jurisdiction the measures are any more comprehensive than ours are. I do not mean by that that we have done all that we would like to be able to do, but I am saying that our legislation for the blind is comparable with that of any other jurisdiction. It will be recalled that while this is a sharing program, it is one that we bear to the extent of 75 per cent of the cost. The recipients of blindness allowance number 8,300 at the present time. As in the case of old age assistance and disability allowance, the federal government is proposing an increase in the maximum amount of pension payable from $40 to $46 monthly, and the increases proposed in the income ceilings are as follows. I give these to the house for the first time. Single blind person, from $960 to $1,080 per annum; single blind person with child dependent, from $1,160 to $1,560 per annum; married blind person with sighted spouse, from $1,560 to $1,680 per annum; married blind person with blind spouse, from $1,680 to $1,800 per annum.
What is the consequence of these changes? The consequence is that we now expect that the number of recipients of blindness
2610	HOUSE OF
The Budget-Mr. Martin allowance will rise to 8,500, and that the annual cost will be increased by about $600,000 annually, of which $450,000 will be borne by the federal government.
A week ago I telegraphed to all the provinces-actually on March 15-communicating to them the details of the federal government's intentions and asking their concurrence. To date we have received affirmative replies from Manitoba, New Brunswick, Ontario and British Columbia. I have not yet received any definite reply by the way, from certain provinces, including the province of Saskatchewan. I have noted also from press reports of March 19 that the governments of Prince Edward Island and Nova Scotia have announced their concurrence in the federal proposal. Interim acknowledgment has been received from Saskatchewan and Quebec has promised a further reply later on and I expect that shortly we shall hear from Alberta and Newfoundland.
I should also like to say a word about the size of the increase provided in relation to the increase in the cost of living since the Old Age Security Act and other acts were passed in 1952. The increases made compensate 71 times over for the increase in price levels since those laws were passed. Old age security payments were first made in January of 1952. Old age assistance payments to persons 65 to 70 years of age were first made in January of 1952. The new Blind Persons Act was also passed to take effect in January of 1952. Disability allowance payments were first made in January of 1955. In all of these acts the maximum amount of the pension was set at $40 in January 1952 or later.
If anyone would examine the situation and what has happened to the cost of living since 1952 he will see that the increase in the amount of pensions-15 per cent in its total effect-is very greatly in excess of the relatively slight increase that has taken place in the cost of living in that period.
I do not mind saying, as I said on another occasion, that to relate these benefits to the rise or decline in the cost of living or even to the gross national product can be a dangerous thing because if that standard is maintained at all times you could create a situation leading to pressure for reductions. Let no hon. member in this house fail to note that there is a demand for such reductions in many parts of this country through many of the newspapers which we read daily in this area, in this province and in the neighbouring province of Quebec.
One was drawn to my attention this morning which criticized the proposals we have made and which have been concurred in by


my colleagues with respect to social welfare benefit. I would simply like to say to those critics that while it is acknowledged that our welfare and health expenditures today on all accounts in Canada total about $1,850,000,000, the federal government being responsible for $1,500,000,000 of that,-and while these figures should be compared with the figure of $250 million in 1938 and represent a tremendous increase in the financial responsibility that governments have accepted in the matter of social welfare, nevertheless the health and social welfare policies and expenditures of this government represent, in terms of percentage and in relation to net national income and to the gross national product, a proportion of our national wealth and productivity that is no greater than it was in the year 1938.
That may give satisfaction to my friend the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre (Mr. Knowles) but it is a complete answer to those people in the country who keep saying that this government is trying to establish in this country the welfare state. We are not seeking to establish the welfare state.


Mr. Ellis:: You certainly are not.


Paul Joseph James Martin: This is a state based upon freedom of initiative. If by "welfare state" you mean that we are putting emphasis in terms of welfare, yes. But the real champions of the welfare state are those who sit behind the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre and not those, Mr. Speaker, who sit on your right.
What we on this side have sought to do is not to give in to the reckless demands of my hon. friend nor have we on the other hand heeded the reactionary attitudes of others in this house. We have sought in accordance with what we believe to be our capacity to meet the need which we think exists in this country and I have no doubt that the people of Canada regard the attitude which we take in this matter as the responsible and proper attitude for us to assume.


Stanley Howard Knowles: Forty-six dollars a month is the freedom to starve.


Paul Joseph James Martin: My hon. friend says, "the freedom to starve." I will tell my hon friend, for whom I have a high personal regard as he knows, that by the excessive demands that he has made from time to time-


Alfred Claude Ellis: Fair demands.


Paul Joseph James Martin: -he has made it more difficult in so far as getting acceptance of some of these measures is concerned.


Stanley Howard Knowles: He has made you move despite yourself.


Paul Joseph James Martin: The hon. member has done more to obstruct unintentionally the bringing about of the realization of good measures than he can possibly realize.


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh.


Alfred Claude Ellis: You would not do a thing if you were not pushed.


Stanley Howard Knowles: You even have to be pushed into making a speech.


Paul Joseph James Martin: The trouble with my hon. friend is that he cannot listen to an argument that is contrary to his own point of view. What I am going to say is this, and I hope my hon. friend will take this in good part. When the provinces agreed to give the federal government the authority to impose contributions for the development of the scheme -at least partly contributory-for old age security, my hon. friend was a member of the committee that made a recommendation to parliament for such a scheme. That committee that reached a unanimous conclusion as to the desirability of establishing a universal system that would do away with the means test and would provide the government, depending on acceptance by the provinces, with the power to impose at least in part contributions on the beneficiaries to the scheme.
This is very significant-and the hon. member for Inverness-Richmond (Mr. MacEachen) referred to this- and I think it is an argument to which I should add a word or two. He said that the responsibility for many of the social welfare measures did not lie alone on the shoulders of the federal government and I think that is true. We are now bearing about 93 per cent of the cost of old age assistance and old age security in this country. The provinces altogether spend about $20 million as compared with our $400 million expenditure proposed this year altogether apart from the $60 million which the Minister of Finance has brought forward as a result of his budget a week ago.


John (Jack) Henry Horner: But you take 78 per cent of the taxes.


Paul Joseph James Martin: No one can argue that the provinces do not have a responsibility to share in the matter of old age assistance; they do now share with us on a fifty fifty basis.


John (Jack) Henry Horner: But you take 78 per cent of the taxes.


Paul Joseph James Martin: In the matter of blind allowances we pay 75 per cent of the cost. Now on the matter of supplemental payments the province of British Columbia pays up to $20, the most generous old age supplementary payment in the country.
The Budget-Mr. Martin In the province of Saskatchewan they also pay up to $20 by way of supplement but it is not administered in such generous terms as in British Columbia.


John (Jack) Henry Horner: What about the Liberal provinces?


Alfred Claude Ellis: There are not many.


Paul Joseph James Martin: I will come to that. I shall deal with each province. There are 47,000 recipients of old age security in the province of Saskatchewan and only 16,000 of those receive any portion of the supplementary payment. In the case of the blind there are 400 blind pensioners in the province of Saskatchewan and only about 350 receive any form of supplementary payments according to their latest annual report. In the case of old age assistance in the province of Saskatchewan not one person receives a supplementary allowance from the province. Now, I am not saying that the province of Saskatchewan should-


Hazen Robert Argue: What about hospitalization?


Paul Joseph James Martin: Well now, that is quite a different subject.


Alfred Claude Ellis: What about medical care for the aged?


Paul Joseph James Martin: Obviously there is no doubt that what you say is right. My hon. friends have never heard me criticize-


Mr. Nicholson:: What about Prince Edward Island?


Paul Joseph James Martin: -I have not criticized the hospital insurance scheme of any province. What I am simply pointing out is this. If there are reasons for governments at one level finding it difficult to meet every demand, by the same principle it is fair to point out that other jurisdictions representing the political ideology of my hon. friends opposite have not done all that they in this house advocate should be done.


Alfred Claude Ellis: What about Manitoba?


Paul Joseph James Martin: Here is the constitutional amendment that we brought in-


Alfred Claude Ellis: What about Manitoba?


Paul Joseph James Martin: I shall deal with that in a moment if my hon. friends will listen.


Stanley Howard Knowles: Before you finish what you are saying be sure you deal with Manitoba.


Paul Joseph James Martin: If my hon. friends will listen they will learn much that they have not yet divulged to this house and which I propose to do. The constitutional amendment to which

The Budget-Mr. Martin we were able to get agreement with all the provinces, including the province of Saskatchewan, reads as follows:
It is hereby declared that the parliament of Canada may from time to time make laws in relation to old age pensions in Canada, but no law made by the parliament of Canada in relation to old age pensions shall affect the operation of any law, present or future, of a provincial legislature in respect to old age pensions.
That being the case-and the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre (Mr. Knowles) will remember I said this last year on this very question-having in mind that the federal government has assumed expenditures in the matter of health and welfare in this country in the amount of $1,500 million out of $1,850 million; having in mind that we are spending over $400 million by way of assistance to our senior citizens; having in mind that the provinces are spending about $20 million altogether, apart from the supplementary payments made by British Columbia and others, is it not fair to suggest that cases of need-and there are cases of need, and no one knows it better than I do should also be met by certain senior provinces who now make either inadequate supplementary payments or no supplementary payments whatever? There are no supplementary payments made in the province of Quebec. The supplementary payments in the province of Ontario, now increased from $10 to $20, are conditional on initial action being taken by the municipalities. When that is done, the province is prepared to contribute 60 per cent. In Ontario, however, the payment of supplementary allowances is based on a different principle from that which obtains in Saskatchewan, Alberta or British Columbia. In Ontario, payment of the supplement is decided not by the province but by the municipality under the Unemployment Relief Act and its regulations. Ontario, as I say, pays 60 per cent, up to a maximum of $12 a month, depending on the contribution which the municipality makes.
Now is it unfair to suggest that the provinces, having insisted on concurrent jurisdiction, should, in cases of need particularly, bear some of the responsibility for what is required by way of giving assistance to the aged of our country?
Hon. members opposite forget altogether that in addition to these measures we have relieved the provinces entirely of the responsibility for unemployment insurance and the cost thereof, which is borne at federal level-[DOT]


Stanley Howard Knowles: Before the minister leaves the subject of old age pensions, will he tell us about provinces like Manitoba, Prince Edward Island and Newfoundland?


Paul Joseph James Martin: If the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre will allow me time, I will be glad to give him the complete picture, but I am going to complete my argument. I acknowledge at the outset that the province of British Columbia, the province of Alberta and the province of Saskatchewan have the most generous supplementary payments of all the provinces-much more generous than those of the two central provinces or the maritime provinces. I have said that many times. But what I am saying to hon. members now, is this: if you insist on having concurrent jurisdiction there is no reason why, in the province of Saskatchewan where there are 47,000 people on the old age security lists, you should not be able to provide supplementary payments for more than 16,000.


Mr. Cameron (Nanaimo):: What about
Manitoba?


Paul Joseph James Martin: In 1952 when the universal old age security measure came into being, the federal government relieved the provinces of 25 per cent of old age pension costs with regard to people over 70. That amounted to a saving to the provinces of at least $35 million annually, and that has been more than enough to pay for all the old age assistance payments made by all ten provinces in any year since old age security began. I am not singling out any one province as opposed to another. I have said that the three western provinces provide supplementary payments. But I have also said clearly that in the province of Saskatchewan they have not fully emulated the province of British Columbia.


Colin Cameron: What about the Liberal government of Manitoba?


Paul Joseph James Martin: I have dealt with Manitoba.


An hon. Member:: You have not.


Paul Joseph James Martin: I have said they pay no supplementary payments. I have said that all along.
The Minister of Finance (Mr. Harris) has put into his budget the suggestion that he should spend another $132 million on social welfare. Hon. gentlemen opposite have said that that is not enough. They clap now. But they have not mentioned in any of their speeches the fact that the federal government made a proposal to the provinces under which we are undertaking to provide 50 per cent of the public ward hospital costs of every individual in any consenting province.


Colin Cameron: What province is stopping you?


Paul Joseph James Martin: The hon. gentleman asks what province is stopping us. He should know that

this proposal of the federal government which will cost in the first year almost $200 million will represent together with the increases announced in the budget speech additional expenditures in the field of social welfare of some $332 million.


Hazen Robert Argue: What is the first year?


Paul Joseph James Martin: The hon. gentleman, now, is only interested in politics. He belongs to a party which seeks to give the impression that it alone is interested in welfare measures. What really irritates these hon. gentlemen is this: that the party which brought in old age pensions, which brought in blindness allowances, which brought in old age security, disability allowances, payments to veterans, and other such benefits and which now proposes to bring in hospital insurance, has stolen their thunder.
There has never been a budget brought in by any Minister of Finance which has, in the past, to my knowledge, dealt with matters of health and welfare in the comprehensive way the budget of the present Minister of Finance has done. That reveals not only his own point of view but the determination of this government, in accordance with the nation's capacity, year in and year out, to give to the people of this country not all that is involved in the demands that have been presented, not all the Utopias that have been proposed, but, in accordance with our pattern of freedom, in accordance with our capacity to bear the burden, and remembering that these things have got to be paid for by the people, all that can reasonably and fairly be done. The Minister of Finance can feel secure in the position he has taken in having provided a budget that reveals the concern of this government-


An hon. Member:: It certainly does.


Paul Joseph James Martin: -in the welfare of the people, who now have a social security program which, taken in its proper context, is comparable with that of any other country in the world.


Stanley Howard Knowles: Mr. Speaker, may I ask the minister a question before he sits down?


An hon. Member:: He is down.


Stanley Howard Knowles: I assure him that it is a question for information and not the kind of question that his speech might call for. When he gave the new ceilings on old age assistance did he indicate what the new ceiling would be in the case of a married couple, both of them on old age assistance?
I thought I took it down as an increase from $1,200 to $1,320, but I think it is a point about which we should be clear.
The Budget-Mr. Martin


Paul Joseph James Martin: Just a minute. I think I did give it. Hansard has got half of my notes. I think we had better wait for Hansard and make sure it is right. Was it old age assistance?


Stanley Howard Knowles: That is ' what I am asking about.


Paul Joseph James Martin: As to old age assistance, the amount at present for the unmarried person is $720 and with the proposed increase it would be $840. For a married couple it is now $1,200 and it will be $1,320. For a married couple with one spouse blind it is now $1,320 and with the proposed increase it will be $1,680.


Stanley Howard Knowles: May I ask a supplementary question? Is the minister aware of the fact that in the case of a married couple he is providing an increase in the ceiling of only $120 a year whereas the proposed increase in the pension for the two of them would be $144 a year?


Paul Joseph James Martin: I am aware of that.


Stanley Howard Knowles: On that basis the new ceiling will not permit all married couples to get all the pension increase that is proposed.


Mr. Speaker:: Order. I am afraid that question goes much further than what is allowed at this time. They must be ones arising out of the speech and asked for purposes of clarification.


Stanley Howard Knowles: It certainly related to the minister's speech.


Mr. Speaker:: The hon. gentleman may think so. The first question was but I do not think the second was a question of the type provided for under our standing orders. It is a matter for the hon. member to debate whenever he has another opportunity to speak.
While I am on my feet, I should like to point out that while the minister was speaking there were generous interruptions, may I say, and I should like to point out that when interruptions of this character do take place they may be repeated but in reverse.


Hazen Robert Argue: We like it that way.


Mr. Speaker:: I do not particularly like it but I want to point out that it may be difficult to provide the protection that is sometimes requested.


Mr. McCullough (Moose Mountain):: Mr. Speaker, I rise on a question of privilege. My question of privilege is that when the minister was speaking he stated that he had examined the records of this session of parliament and had not found one single case where

The Budget-Mr. Martin any member of the opposition had asked for increased blind pensions. To put the record straight, Mr. Speaker-


Paul Joseph James Martin: Mr. Speaker, I rise on a question of privilege. I did not say that.


Edward George McCullough: Oh
yes, you did.


Paul Joseph James Martin: What I said was that no hon. member-


Edward George McCullough: On a
question of privilege-


Paul Joseph James Martin: I am on a question of privilege. My hon. friend is attributing to me words I did not use. What I said was that no hon. member, as far as I was able to determine, had recommended any increase in the amount of the disability pensions. The hon. member for Restigouche-Madawaska corrected me at that time. He said he had and I said he would have the opportunity to put me straight. I said nothing about blindness allowances, and if my hon. friend will look he will find that what I said is still the case.


Mr. Speaker:: The hon. member will have an opportunity to set the record straight when he speaks.


Mr. Bryce:: I want to rise on a question of privilege. I am one of those who remained quiet while the rest were having their innings and I want my innings now. In the cross-fire that the Minister of National Health and Welfare had with the hon. gentleman behind me the minister said that no one had risen in support of increased disability pensions.


Mr. Speaker:: Order. The hon. gentleman is not in order at this moment on a question of privilege in contradicting what the minister has said. This is not a question of privilege. So far the hon. member has not spoken in this debate. Whenever he has the opportunity to speak he can argue the points raised by the minister but at this moment he cannot do so on a question of privilege.


William Scottie Bryce: Mr. Speaker, I may be wrong and if you say I am wrong-


An hon. Member:: Sit down.


William Scottie Bryce: Who is the Speaker in this house?


Mr. Benidickson:: Why don't you abide by his ruling?


William Scottie Bryce: I am raising a question of privilege because I think the minister has done me an injustice and I want to correct it now when there is an opportunity. I would not like the hon. gentleman's remarks to go

back to the constituents of Selkirk as representing my position, and I have the record here to prove that I have supported increased disability pensions.


Mr. Speaker:: I understand and sympathize with the hon. gentleman's point of view but the rules as we have them do not allow what the hon. gentleman proposes to do at this time. It may be that so-called questions of privilege are being raised so often in the house as to give that particular vehicle a construction which was never intended.
If the hon. gentleman had made a speech and the minister had misquoted or misunderstood part of his speech the hon. gentleman would be entitled, according to standing order 37, to put the record straight. But that is not the case. The hon. gentleman has not spoken. The minister has made a point in the debate to which the hon. member takes exception. He will have to take his turn and when he speaks he may contradict the minister if he so wishes.


Edward George McCullough: The
minister should get his facts straight next time.


Mr. A. J. Brooks (Royal):: Mr. Speaker, after waiting for all these other gentlemen to make their protests I take it I can now have my innings. It is not my intention to follow the arguments of the Minister of National Health and Welfare. I always listen to his remarks with considerable pleasure. He is a very eloquent speaker, but I should like to say to him before he leaves the chamber that I think it will take more than the eloquence of the Minister of National Health and Welfare to persuade the old age pensioners who are condemned to live on their old age pensions that they should be satisfied with an increase of $6 a month.


Hédard-J. Robichaud: What about 1930 in New Brunswick?


Alfred Johnson Brooks: Neither is it going to satisfy the people of Canada generally.


Hédard-J. Robichaud: What about 1930 in New Brunswick?


Mr. Harkness:: You people were in power in 1930.


Alfred Johnson Brooks: My friend had better go back and see what was happening to the whole world then.


Hédard-J. Robichaud: Where were you then in New Brunswick?


Alfred Johnson Brooks: It is not my intention to deal with a lot of these remarks we hear in the little schoolhouses during an election campaign from speakers such as the hon. member who has just spoken. This budget debate,

like every other budget debate, is very interesting. It brings out hopes and fears and sometimes the hopes are realized and sometimes the fears are justified.


Walter Edward Harris: Hopes on this side, fears on that.


Alfred Johnson Brooks: When the Minister of National Health and Welfare was speaking a few moments ago he referred to the great contributions which the federal government makes to social welfare and he rather belittled the efforts of the provinces and the municipalities. It is not my intention to go into the reasons why the federal government should bear the greater burden in this regard. I think the reason is known to all members of the house and the people of the country generally.
As a matter of fact, whether it is federal, provincial or municipal taxes, it is the people of Canada who pay the bill. But if we make a comparison of the revenues received by the federal government and by the provincial and municipal governments across Canada we find that 78 per cent of the taxes are gathered by the federal government and 22 per cent by the provinces and municipalities. I think that answers very well why the responsibility is and should be placed on the shoulders of the federal government.
Just as an example, in 1956 federal government revenue increased 16 per cent according to the white paper issued by the Minister of Finance (Mr. Harris), whereas the revenue of the provinces and municipalities increased by only 9 per cent. In that same year of 1956 federal expenses increased only 6 per cent whereas the expenses of the provinces and municipalities increased 13 per cent. I submit that that is a complete answer to the argument made by the minister a few moments ago about the burdens that should be borne by the federal, provincial and municipal governments.
Perhaps I can be pardoned this afternoon if I confine my remarks mainly to matters concerning the maritime provinces. The maritime provinces have come in for special attention in this budget. Apparently the federal government has at last discovered that there are maritime and eastern provinces in Canada. After 20 years of neglect, after the New Brunswick people realized that they were receiving nothing from this government and turned out their Liberal government in 1952, and gave them another sound trimming in 1955; after Nova Scotia which had had Liberal governments for most of the time since confederation realized that it had been neglected by this government and turned out its Liberal government in 1956, the federal government realized that the people of the maritime provinces were disgusted with the
The Budget-Mr. Brooks lack of attention which had been paid to them and their problems. We find by this budget that we are suddenly discovered by this government which is trying to make some amends for the neglect we have received at their hands over the last 22 years.
I have sat in this house and at times have heard our provinces referred to in a manner which 1 found to be humiliating. Our people of the maritime provinces are satisfied with most of the things down there. They are well satisfied with their climate and scenery. We feel there is no finer section in Canada in which to live than the maritime or eastern provinces. We are satisfied with our people, but there is one great exception.
That exception is the lack of a national policy. For the last number of years, and in fact almost since the days of confederation, there has not been a national policy in Canada which considered the rights of the people of these provinces. This is well illustrated by what is contained in the Gordon report which states that the income of the people of the maritime provinces is 37 per cent lower than the income of the people in the rest of Canada. I am not going to go into the history of how this situation has arisen because it has been referred to on many occasions. It is well known to all hon. members; it is well known to the government; it is well known to the people of Canada from one end to the other.
There are two things which have reacted particularly against the economic advancement of the eastern provinces, and both of these have been mentioned in the budget. One is the freight rates situation and the other is the lack of cheap electrical power. Those are two keys to the prosperity and success of our provinces. These are two matters which I contend have been neglected by this government now for many years.
The Gordon report mentioned the matter of freight rates. As I have just stated, it was not necessary for that to be mentioned in the Gordon report because it was well known. This situation has prevailed for a long time. If I had the time I could give a history of the freight rates situation in the maritime provinces since early days. Up until 1912, to put it briefly, we looked after our own freight rates and there was very little difficulty; but between 1912 and 1927 the situation kept getting gradually worse and there was an almost impossible situation existing at the time of the Duncan commission in 1927. At that time the recommendation was that something must be done and after that report was made the Maritime Freight Rates Act was put into operation.
Under the budget the government proposes a further examination of our transportation
2616	HOUSE OF
The Budget-Mr. Brooks system. It has been found that since 1927 the benefits which we receive under the Maritime Freight Rates Act have been gradually nullified and taken away. In 1946 railway experts in the maritime provinces examined the situation and found that practically all the benefits granted under the Maritime Freight Rates Act had been whittled down owing to the change in freight rates in Ontario and Quebec, and to a smaller degree in other parts of Canada. Because of the competition by trucks and water transport in Ontario and Quebec freight rates in those provinces were lowered while at the same time freight rates in the maritime provinces were raised. As a result, as I have just stated, all the benefits received under this act were nullified.
I am surprised that this is the year in which the Minister of Finance decides to bring about an improvement, as he calls it, in our situation. He should have acted ten years or more previously, but nothing has been done to relieve the situation until the budget of 1957.
What are we offered? We are offered $2 million as compensation for the lack of improvement in the freight rates situation in the eastern provinces. I said the other day, and I mentioned this briefly, that it is too little. I still contend that it is not realistic and does not meet the situation as far as our needs are concerned. In 1956 the amount paid under the Maritime Freight Rates Act was $14 million or 20 per cent of railway rates collected on freight moving west from the select territory under the Maritime Freight Rates Act. If $14 million represents 20 per cent of the western-bound freight, then the people in the select territory must have paid between $65 million and $70 million for freight that moved out of those provinces. It should be pointed out that the Maritime Freight Rates Act does not apply to freight moving from the west into the eastern provinces. The cost of the freight on all our automobiles, all the manufactured goods that come to New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island and Newfoundland has to be absorbed in the price our consumers pay. The people of the maritime provinces not only pay between $65 million and $70 million for freight moving out of the province but I would say, although I have not the exact figures, that the cost of the freight coming into the eastern provinces would probably be another $65 or $70 million, making a total freight bill for these provinces of around $135 million or $140 million a year. We are now offered by this government a paltry sum of $2 million to offset our loss. I can assure the government that the people


of our province will realize that such an offer as this will not in any way improve the position of the maritimes. It will not introduce more industry into the provinces. This proposal means very little in paying the freight on goods going out of the province, and so far as freight coming into the province is concerned there is nothing at all provided.
When we are told that the government is being very generous in giving $2 million to assist in freight rates, I feel like using the expression which was used by the Minister of Trade and Commerce (Mr. Howe) when he said, "What is a million?". What is $2 million on a freight rate bill amounting to anywhere from $130 million to $150 million a year. I would venture to say that the cost of keeping three icebreakers on the St. Lawrence river-the Minister of Transport said the other day that it was two, but I checked and found it is three-for a month or five weeks in the spring to keep the ice clear in the gulf of St. Lawrence to advance a few weeks the opening of the port of Montreal comes to twice the $2 million that is paid to us on freight rates.
Now, Mr. Speaker, another matter which I mentioned a moment ago as being of great importance to our finances is cheap electric power. If we had these two matters cleared up, if we had low freight rates from our provinces so that our goods could compete in the markets of Canada with goods from other parts of the country, if we had cheap electric power which would encourage industry to come to our provinces and remain there, we could compete with any other province in Canada. The fact that we have not these things is the reason why the income of cur people is from 30 per cent to 37 per cent a year lower than the income of people in other parts of Canada. These are the reasons why our people are leaving our provinces and going to other parts of Canada. These facts have not been appreciated by this government until now, on the eve of an election. The Minister of Finance has suggested, as a solution to our power problem, certain proposals. It is too early for us to know just what effect the proposition might have on our electric power situation.
He suggests an interconnecting system between New Brunswick and Nova Scotia and the introduction of thermal plants using coal from the two provinces but mostly from Nova Scotia. I might say, Mr. Speaker, that this is not a new idea. This is not an idea that has just been thought up by this government. The hon. member for Inverness-Richmond (Mr. MacEachen) spoke about Professor Christie advocating this three or four years ago. At this stage I should like

"to ask the members from Nova Scotia, if this is such an excellent proposition to solve the power problems of the maritime provinces, why not one of them stood up in this house during the past three years and described it or advocated it to this house. Only a few months before an election do we hear any mention of it from any hon. member.
However, the government heard something about it, not from the members of the Liberal party and not from Professor Christie. When Premier Flemming of New Brunswick made his two propositions to the government for assistance in the development of power in the maritime provinces, particularly New Brunswick, his second or alternative proposition was along the lines of the one suggested by the Minister of Finance in his speech the other day. I should like to read, sir, from page 17 of the submission from the New Brunswick government presented to this government in January, 1956, for the development of electric power in New Brunswick particularly and in the maritime provinces generally. On page 17 the premier of New Brunswick has this to say, and this is an alternative proposition:
Or alternately,
(2) The government of Canada to advance to the government of New Brunswick the funds required for the projected construction program of the New Brunswick Electric Power Commission through to March 31, 1967, the rate of interest to he that prevailing on long-term government of Canada bonds. As has been stated above, the funds required are estimated at $211,094,000.
Federal financial assistance on this scale would be a major contribution to the growth of the Atlantic region and the Canadian economy as a whole. It is of great importance to note that the large thermal units which it is proposed to erect in New Brunswick could provide a substantial market for New Brunswick and Nova Scotia coal, and provided a subvention was available to reduce the cost of coal to at least that of oil, calculated on a B.T.U. basis, the new market would be of the greatest assistance to the Nova Scotia coal industry which is beset by so many economic problems. The total coal requirements of these large thermal units is estimated at approximately 1,500,000 tons in 1965.
This was the submission presented by the premier of New Brunswick. You will note in that submission he not only mentioned using coal from the provinces of New Brunswick and Nova Scotia but he also suggested that the coal subventions should operate on coal used for electric power development as it does on coal going outside of Nova Scotia to other parts of Canada. I believe the subventions on Nova Scotia coal amount to about $6 million a year. We in the province of New Brunswick receive a few thousand dollars but most of our coal is consumed in the province. So far as subventions are concerned, we receive little benefit from them.
The Budget-Mr. Brooks
I should like to express this thought, that that was an alternative proposition made by the premier of New Brunswick. There are many matters which should be considered by the government in connection with this proposition and which should be thoroughly investigated. I have emphasized, and it has been emphasized many times, that the power we have in the maritime provinces must be cheap power. We can get lots of power from coal or from other sources, but unless it is cheap power, and the cheapest power we can get, it is of very little value as far as the introduction of industry is concerned. If power can be produced by this method cheaper than it can be produced from water resources, then I say, let us have it, but it must be thoroughly investigated.
We have talked about the production of power on the Saint John river. It has been investigated by the international joint commission; it has been investigated by some of the best hydro electric engineers in Canada. They all say it is a feasible proposition; they all say it is cheap, that we can get cheap power from that development if we can get the proper financial assistance. I suppose Great Britain has as much coal as any other small country in the world. As a matter of fact, she is sitting on a bottom of coal, but Great Britain today is studying the development of her electric power from atomic and nuclear energy. She has one plant in operation at the present time and five or six more are nearly completed, and now she is going to extend her activities to the building of 20 more plants. She claims that in 10 years time she can, through nuclear energy, produce cheaper electric power than it can be produced either by coal or by water resources.
When this is investigated, Mr. Speaker, we want to take all these factors into consideration. The premier of New Brunswick is anxious to use as much coal from New Brunswick and Nova Scotia as can be used, and we need to help our coal industry. The hon. member for Inverness-Richmond said this morning that this is going to be the gas pipe line for New Brunswick. The gas pipe line, Mr. Speaker, from which we received no benefit, is the reason that the coal mines of the province of Nova Scotia are having such a difficult time and have such a gloomy outlook for the future. Their markets have been taken away from them. Therefore, I do hope that if it is not possible to use complete thermo-electric power production, we may be able to use at least sufficient to help along these two industries in our different provinces. I say the matter should be thoroughly investigated. We in New Brunswick are very much hurt over the refusal of

The Budget-Mr. Brooks assistance for the Beechwood development. The people find it hard to understand why, when our provincial premier came to Ottawa for help, he was turned down. He realized the economic situation of our province; he realized the possibilities in that province for future development; he realized that we had natural resources which were comparable with practically any other province in Canada. He said he was determined that those natural resources would be produced and refined in our province. He is determined, if possible, to produce the electricity necessary for smelting and refining the minerals in our province, which is one of the poorest provinces in Canada financially. Finding it impossible to finance cheaply the operation and the building of a great dam on the Saint John river at Beechwood, which has since been completed but not without great cost and great anxiety on the part of the government and the people, he approached the federal government in Ottawa and asked for assistance. He did not ask the federal government to give money to the province of New Brunswick but to lend money with the borrowing strength of the federal government behind it. The money could have been borrowed at a cheap rate of interest.
He and the people of New Brunswick were turned down. Just a few months afterwards -you have heard this story often but, as I say, the people of the province of New Brunswick fail to understand it-when a United States company wished to build a pipe line from Alberta to Toronto and Montreal to supply gas, and when money was plentiful almost anywhere in Canada or the United States for this purpose, this government felt that it had to assist in the building of the pipe line, but it refused absolutely to help the province of New Brunswick in a matter which would have meant very much to the future prosperity of that province.
This is something which the people of my province find very difficult to understand. I would like to read part of the submission that was made to the federal government at that time with reference to assistance for the development of hydro electric power at Beechwood. At page 4 of the submission sent by the premier to the government he had this to say:
At prevailing costs for provincial financing, approximately 5 per cent, capital expenditures on such a scale would represent a heavy burden calculated to have adverse effects upon the credit position of New Brunswick. The estimated cost of delivered energy in mills per kilowatt hour would be 6.92 for 5 per cent money, 4.76 mills for 21 per cent money.
It was believed that it would cost the province 5 per cent on the money that they obtained to develop this hydro electric power.


It was believed that, with the assistance of the federal government, the money could be obtained for 2J per cent, and, as is stated here, the difference in mills per kilowatt hour would be 6.92 for 5 per cent money as compared with 4.76 mills for 2J per cent money, a difference of over 2 mills per kilowatt hour, which is, I might say, just the difference between costly and cheap electric power. That is the situation.
The submission goes on to say:
It can be seen that borrowings at present rates will only accentuate the problem of high-cost power.
As I mentioned a moment ago, my province was not asking that this money be given to it. A proposition was submitted by which the money would be paid back, and on page 5 of the submission we find:
That repayments be made at the rate of 1.5 per cent of the principal amount each year; the first payment to be due one year after the completion of the particular project for which the money was advanced.
I mention these things, Mr. Speaker, to show that we have been very sadly neglected by this present government. I think the people of my province will look askance at these deathbed efforts, I might say, these last minute efforts just before an election. We hope that they are serious. We hope that something will be done, but the government had its opportunity. In my opinion this country of ours has the most out of balance economy in the world. The economic policy of Canada has been so built up as to allow the centre of this dominion to have most of the manufacturing industries, with people coming particularly from the east to find opportunities here. Everything has been done for the central part of Canada and the other parts of the country have been neglected.
I have compared in this house before and I compare again the attitude which is taken by the government of the United States. We all know that following the civil war the southern states shipped all their cotton to the northern states. Their economy was depressed and the people were poor. I believe it was Mr. Roosevelt who a few years ago said that all parts of the United States should have equal opportunities. In the southern states hydroelectric power has been developed through the Tennessee valley association.


Robert Henry Winters: Authority.


Alfred Johnson Brooks: Thank you; the Tennessee valley authority. That was not done by the state of Tennessee or by any of the southern states. It was done by the federal government at Washington. The result has been that the southern states have become a great manufacturing section of that country. Their

people are staying there and they are finding work. Tremendous industrial development has taken place.
The same thing has occurred in the northwestern part of the United States. I read only the other day in a newspaper article that the Dakotas, another somewhat depressed area in the United States, are receiving attention from the federal government at Washington. I have in my hand a report from Sioux Falls, South Dakota, dated March 5, 1957. The article reads:
There has been an increase of 64 per cent in the power generated this past year by the four dams built on the Missouri river by the federal government.
I emphasize the words "by the federal government". The article continues:
Despite this growing influx of power, it has been announced that an atomic power plant-*
In addition to hydroelectric power they are developing an atomic power plant. I observe that the minister smiles at the suggestion of an atomic power plant. I believe it is atomic power plants that will save the economy of Great Britain and they could very well save the economy of certain parts of Canada, too. The article continues:
Despite this growing influx of power, it has been announced that an atomic power plant, adding millions of more kilowatts of electricity to present sources, will be built in or near the Sioux Falls area by Northern States Power Company.
I commend to this government the attitude of the government of the United States. If our federal government want to make this country of ours one great nation, if they want to have people remain in their homes in all sections of the dominion, and if they want the maritimes to prosper-and we have everything there except cheap electric power and cheap transportation-then they will have to adopt an attitude similar to that adopted by the United States government. In my opinion the maritime provinces could prosper as well as any other part of this country.
I would like to mention a few of the opportunities which this government have had to assist the maritimes. They have taken this opportunity of granting assistance just before the election but I would like to point out some of the opportunities they have had during the past 20 years or more. I have already mentioned the Beechwood project and I shall say nothing more about it at this time. It is well known to everyone that we were turned down with respect to the Beechwood project.
For many years we have been advocating the construction of a canal across the Chig-necto isthmus. This has been advocated for many years in this house. I see that the hon. member for Charlotte (Mr. Stuart) is in his
The Budget-Mr. Gregg seat. It has certainly been advocated ever since he and I came to this house and for many years before that.
I believe that the Chignecto canal is probably needed more today than at any time in the history of the maritime provinces. In speaking about it in this house a few years ago I said that it was complementary to the development of the St. Lawrence seaway. Anyone who looks at the map of eastern Canada and sees the routes that coastal ships have to take away around the northern part of Nova Scotia in order to reach Saint John or Portland or any of the eastern Atlantic ports will realize that a canal through this narrow neck of land some 16 miles across would assist greatly in the development of water transportation in that area.
Some people have expressed the opinion that the St. Lawrence seaway is being developed because United States interests in Labrador needed to facilitate the transportation of iron ore from Labrador and northern Quebec.
The United States coastal shipping industry would benefit from the Chignecto canal and if it is pressed for by them I feel that possibly we will have a better chance of getting it than if the people of the maritime provinces alone request it. We have pressed for it for many years and I believe it will now be asked for not only by the people of the maritimes but also by the coastal shipping industry of the United States. Their ships could pass through it and through the St. Lawrence and down into the great lakes.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: Order. I am sorry to interrupt the hon. member but I must advise him that his time has expired.


Milton Fowler Gregg: Mr. Speaker, I am glad to have this chance to follow my friend the hon. member for Royal (Mr. Brooks) in a discussion of the budget. Friday afternoon is probably a very good time for a discussion of the province of New Brunswick and its affairs to be brought before this house, and I for one am extremely anxious that this subject should be brought forward this afternoon in a thoughtful fashion, in a fair fashion, and without attempts to utilize any features of New Brunswick need as a political football or as a matter of partisan discussion.
I am going to say immediately that I welcomed the note of optimism that I discerned in the voice of my hon. friend today. I also welcomed the commendation-reserved though it was, but still wholehearted-the hon. member gave this government for the actions it has taken. But when he was comparing the percentage of revenue raised by

The Budget-Mr. Gregg federal, provincial and municipal governments during the fiscal year 1955-56 the hon. member forgot to mention that this government, as I shall point out later in my remarks, collected from the taxpayers of Canada and spent in his and my province of New Brunswick in that year a total of $127 million.
During that same year and because of the amounts that were so spent, the province of New Brunswick found it necessary to raise by direct provincial taxation and by sundry revenues such as the sale of liquor and from other sources less than $30 million to meet the provincial budget.
The hon. member has commended the federal government for taking action on what he describes as the two most important and needed factors in our Atlantic region economy -and I wholly agree with him in this- cheap power and cheap transportation. He said that immediate action for increasing the subsidy on outgoing freight does not meet the situation in so far as transportation is concerned. I quite agree with that, because if it did meet the situation there would have been no cause for this government to take the second and more important step of complying with the recommendations of the Gordon commission and indeed in complying with the recommendations of the transportation committee of the maritimes board of trade, which it has done in both cases.
He said further that if these two matters were cleared up we could, indeed, compete with the rest of Canada. I may not go with him the whole way on that. I think we would have to have some other things, but I think in general I agree. I am not going at this time to enter into a technical and financial discussion regarding power, but I think there is an impression that should be cleared up now. The brief that came to this government in January, 1956, from which the hon. member quoted, quite clearly indicated a budget reflecting the power thinking of that time. There was a total budget of $211 million. Now the impression has been gained-how, I will not discuss-that Beechwood and its ramifications is requiring or will require a great slice of that $211 million. I know my hon. friend did not attempt to give that impression today, but it has been given elsewhere.
As a matter of fact the first phase of Beechwood is to cost approximately $15 million and the second phase will carry the cost, which is still in the future, up another $15 million to a total of $30 million. The third phase is still in abeyance; the experts are still talking about it.


Mr. Speaker, the budget gives me a chance to bring to the attention of the house some special things related to my native province that I have often wanted to discuss here. Though representing a constituency and a province which are in the main rural, much of my time has been related to the industrial centres of our country and to those who work there. For a while now I want to speak on behalf of the rural workers of my section of Canada.
In early years on a hilltop farm I knew intimately the New Brunswick rural scene of that period as did the hon. member for Royal. In later years, after some vicissitudes, it has been interesting to have a part in the surge and stress of the industrial centres of Canadian activity. The memories of the surroundings of my youth are still fresh, the more so because I have the chance to visit them often. This being the case, I have an understanding of my fellow Atlantic region residents, who looked with a jaundiced eye at that minor part of the Gordon commission report that had to do with deportation. However, that initial irritation did cause many people, who otherwise might not have done so, to study the report.
I like to think I have learned something of the aims and aspirations of those who labour on the New Brunswick hillsides as well as those who work in the more noisy and crowded communities of our country. As long as I am a member of the government from New Brunswick, with this portfolio, I feel I have some responsibility for the well-being of both.
For the latter, the industrial workers, highly organized channels exist through which their wishes can be made known to government at all levels. For the former it is not so easy. At the time of confederation, in the areas of New Brunswick outside the cities and towns, there were 9 persons per square mile. Today there are 14 persons per square mile. As the tempo of population growth is known on this continent, that cannot be called rapid.
Those who do remain there are not there because they are stranded but because they have chosen to remain, or to return after some time of absence. Why have they so chosen? They have done so because they believe they get from life there the things they want to a greater degree than they can elsewhere. It is perhaps not surprising that many have gone west and south from New Brunswick. Far pastures always look greener; people are ever impressed by the attractions of places where people live together in large numbers. Expatriates-and there are many in various parts of the world who come from

New Brunswick-often send back to the folks at home more glowing reports than their conditions warrant. Statistics tell how much higher salaries and wages are in central Canada or in New England or British Columbia than they are in New Brunswick.
But statistics do not tell the whole story; there are compensations. Down where I come from in the country, most people who work get their meals at home. They live and work in healthy surroundings, they have a personal and family privacy, and most of them know everybody else in the community. Most of them, too, enjoy the attractions of the woods, the hills and the sea. Some of them can still catch a few speckled trout near home- sometimes the hon. member for Royal poaches in my waters-and they all know that their neighbour judges them by their industry and integrity, not by the size of their fixed assets or bank accounts.


Alfred Johnson Brooks: On a point of privilege, Mr. Speaker, the minister said I poached in his waters. I want to make it clear that he told me where the waters were.


Milton Fowler Gregg: As long as the hon. member doesn't tell the house I shall not mind.
Such a life makes for simplicity. Simplicity is less expensive than complexity. Besides, it is easier on the nervous system and much more pleasant as a way of living. To say that rural New Brunswick will never become a replica of southwestern Ontario is not to cry with the voice of jealousy or of despair, neither is it crying down the real attractions of the big urban areas.
Few will deny the pull of life in the large cities. There is great diversity. There is variety of social relationships, of entertainment, of educational and cultural opportunities. To me one of the atttractive features of Canada's big urban areas is that they send here members who cordially support measures that will help the rural worker of the Atlantic provinces. As a New Brunswicker I would like to see more of the kind of economic strength that has made our urban areas in central Canada big and available as an economic foundation for the kind of country life we want to retain and develop in New Brunswick under our own power.
This is not just so we may also be big and crowded. It is that we might create opportunities for those who now go away but who would rather stay there and live their lives and raise their families. Many of the items that are contained in this year's budget will do much toward helping to gain this objective. They are designed so to do.
In years past there has been pessimism as to whether we would ever be able to 82715-166
The Budget-Mr. Gregg strengthen the economic foundation and find the opportunities. More recently, while a few of the briefs on New Brunswick submitted to the Gordon commission showed some hope, there has been a tendency to look with concern upon the gloomy side. In its turn, the Gordon report found a good deal of evidence for good cheer in the natural resources which are available to be conserved and developed.
They found problems, too, and the report did not blink when it came to those problems. There were the problems of the submarginal farms, of transportation, of resource development, of education, of fostering and encouraging existing basic and secondary industries and finding scope for new ones. I am very glad that the commission faced these Atlantic problems with deep concern rather than by just saying that everything in our garden was lovely. The commission made some hints and some speculations and some very good and firm recommendations. I say with a good deal of satisfaction that the federal government has already announced in the budget and otherwise its determination to carry out the spirit of several valuable suggestions in the report having to do with the Atlantic provinces.
Having to some extent charted the course of the battle against defeatism in the Atlantic area, I wonder whether it was a very sinful thing for the commission to face facts and admit that there still might be some casualties who should be given help to go to a better place in which to recuperate. In cooperation with several of the provinces we in my department have been providing financial help to willing Canadians who could get no work where they were, to enable them to go where work could be found. The Gordon report felt this might be continued and perhaps extended where absolutely necessary. That to my mind is not deportation. It is the practical application of an effective and necessary placement plan.
Quite a few things have been going on in recent years that are having good effects upon our rural countryside down east. Our No. 1 industry in New Brunswick is the woods industry. These resources are under the exclusive jurisdiction of the province. Nevertheless, the federal government has realized the importance of the survival of this industry to our country people, and has been assisting financially in the cost of a long-term inventory. It has been sharing the cost of what has now become quite a long-term and hard-fought battle to halt- the devastation by insects in our forest areas, and it is costing a lot of federal money. Last

The Budget-Mr. Gregg year a further step was taken by sharing in the cost of fire protection by an amount that will be approximately a quarter of a million dollars in New Brunswick during the next five years.
While this action to defeat the twin forest enemies of bug and fire reacts mainly, I think, to the benefit of the pulp and lumber industry, it is also an important conservation factor for many individual farmers as well, because the average farm in New Brunswick is made up of one portion of crop land and pasture and the other portion of wood lot. To protect the forest and the farm wood lots the federal government on its own account and at its own expense has set up scientific services and facilities at the University of New Brunswick, at Mount Allison University, at the provincial experimental farm and at Acadia forestry station, and on all these activities related to forests, some of which react to the benefit of the farms, the federal government expended in New Brunswick in 1955-56 a total of over $1 million.
This, of course, brings me to another of our New Brunswick methods of attempting to earn a living in the rural areas; that is, farming. Very often farming as the main effort is augmented by lumbering, by pulp cutting either on or off the farm, by fishing- 1 mean fishing for fish to sell-by construction work, or by guiding sportsmen, or by a combination of one, two or three of the activities I have mentioned. As indicated recently by the Prime Minister-and I like to think he was talking about the small, 120-acre more or less Atlantic province farm -the situation on these small eastern farms has reached the point where it must receive very special federal attention and study. So we have working in the other place a committee which is doing just that. I am glad it is conducting this inquiry, and I hope it will find some good solutions for the small farmers about whom I am talking today.
Some may think that because I am Minister of Labour I have no particular interest in agriculture, but that is not true. The economic welfare of our country homes and the morale of the people who work there have a tremendous impact upon the well-being of our whole Canadian life in general and the industrial workers in particular. My department has to do with the activities of labour in the broadest sense. We cover all members of the Canadian working force including the farmer, the farmer's family and the hired man. Through its farm labour program my department and the national employment service co-operate with the federal and provincial departments of agriculture and other interested bodies in helping to meet seasonal and year-round farm labour needs.


I have spoken of this program generally at other places and I will do so again. However, it is of value mainly to the large commercial agriculturist for whom I have great respect and regard but about whom I am not talking today. I am speaking here about the conditions prevailing on the little farms of my province, most of which can afford neither heavy farm equipment nor any great amount of hired help.
Here is where the federal social security measures that were outlined by the Minister of Finance in the budget and explained by the Minister of National Health and Welfare in his address this afternoon come into play. It is in these areas that we get such tremendous value from the federal social security measures as a backlog of security. One point to remember about the people on these farms is that even though they have little income, many do obtain genuine satisfaction from the basic values inherent in rural life. There is a danger perhaps of these simple yet real values of farm life being lost when agriculture becomes very highly commercialized. On the other hand, I think it is possible to improve the country workers' economic position in my part of the country without losing these basic values. There should be no conflict, in other words, between agriculture as a way of life and agriculture as a mere means of earning a livelihood.
It must be recognized, however, that on their own it is not easy for these farm families to improve their economic position. It may be that their farm is too small for efficient operation, or that the soil is too poor. These are factors that will be explored by the Senate committee on agriculture. They may be too far from a market. In this regard I hope the steps indicated in the budget will help, namely the increase in the freight subsidy on products shipped out, and the new look at how all the means of transportation may be improved. While these studies are under way, the important work being done on a regular basis by the federal and provincial departments of agriculture on soil surveys, on crop and livestock improvement and on other types of experimental work will be continued, and I am sure will eventually be integrated into the main effort. In much the same way facilities have been made available in New Brunswick for the encouragement of the farmer wood lot owner so he may get the best long-term value from the wooded portion of his farm.
I speak with great conviction on these matters because I have seen the value of having as part of our Veterans Land Act administration field men well qualified in farming methods to assist farmer veterans on a regular month to month basis to organize

and develop their little farms. I believe that much of the success of this effort has been due to the continuity of the guidance and to the practical application of scientific knowledge. I hope that plan, too, and how it has developed will be taken into account in the co-ordinated study that is now going on.
More attention is also needed with respect to the capital and the training required today, especially by our young farmers in the light of the high cost of land and of mechanization, and the improvements that are taking place in farming methods. The greater capital that is needed in this regard has been recognized this session by the improvement of our federal farm loan act brought in by the Minister of Finance.
The Department of Labour co-operates with the provinces, including my own, in the training of farm youth, just as we have done in other industries, and this year I have in my estimates the means for extending this type of training. I think training in this context should not be confined to the learning of new techniques. Even though the economic farm unit of the future must be larger and even if, as the Gordon report says, relatively fewer people will be on the farms, nevertheless we ought to help our people who will work there to seek richer and fuller lives.
In that field, without thinking of any government particularly, one cannot help but think of the useful efforts that are being made in the broader educational field by such organizations as 4-H clubs, which are of great assistance to young people in the country, and by that grand group of country organizations the women's institutes-which are located all across Canada. There are helpful things economically that the federal government has been doing, such as the subsidy on feed grain, floor prices on the dairy products which have been referred to most recently, the maritime freight rate subsidy which has been discussed, the marshlands reclamation, the lime program, and other things.
To encourage production and to stabilize year-round distribution in the provinces the federal government has assisted in the capital cost of public cold storage plants, and has given encouragement to co-operative plans of one kind and another. One cannot leave the farming picture in New Brunswick without stressing the importance of our own Atlantic provinces home market, which is growing. Another is the importance of good transportation facilities to central Canada, which has been discussed.
Recent developments are augmenting the home market. The five cities and perhaps a score of towns in New Brunswick, even though they are not large, offer the best 82715-166i
The Budget-Mr. Gregg possible markets for our country products. These urban centres are growing. Camp Gagetown and the town of Oromocto, where a total of $100 million will have been expended federally by 1958 by the Minister of National Defence and by Central Mortgage and Housing Corporation, will be a continuing market for farm products, for there will be an additional 15,000 population of men, women and children during the years ahead. In this and other ways this project has been giving to our New Brunswick community the greatest economical lift I think it has had for a long time. To this is mainly due the fact that in New Brunswick this last year we have had the nearest thing to full employment that we have had since the far away days of wooden ships and iron men.
I should like to refer briefly again to the Maritime Freight Rates Act, referred to by the hon. member for Royal. Since 1927 this act has been of great assistance to the shippers of agricultural products to central Canada, but gradually the benefits have been whittled down because of the increase in freight rates. The present plan will raise the subsidy from 20 per cent to 30 per cent on outgoing shipments, and will be of great assistance.
But that is not the whole story. There is the further plan of complying with the recommendation of the Gordon commission to conduct a thorough-going investigation into all phases of transportation, rail, water, air and, by co-operation with the province, road. This holds good hope for the future, and I know all our people in New Brunswick will welcome it.
Joining with the province of New Brunswick, or acting on its own in promoting activities designed for the improvement of our farming industry, the federal government expended in 1955-56, the last fiscal year for which records are complete, approximately $4.5 million.
The tourist business offers great possibilities. I have long felt that our province could develop its resources to the maximum and at the same time retain and improve the unspoiled features of our countryside, a welcome retreat for people during the open season. I could tell you much about the attractions of our New Brunswick air-conditioned Fundy national park, but the Minister of Northern Affairs and National Resources will do that quite ably, I know, when he presents his estimates. Incidentally, I should like to thank him for the interest he has taken in the park as well as in the development of our resources generally. This park is becoming increasingly popular, and it pleases me very much that this is the case not only with visitors but with our own people as well.

The Budget-Mr. Gregg
It gives me satisfaction to know that in this coming year, in addition to all the regular federal tourist advertising, the Atlantic provinces have a special budget for this purpose of $300,000 under the federal tourist bureau. This new and larger advertising program will prove most useful. Its success will be helped by federal co-operation in building the Trans-Canada highway and in subsidizing transportation across to the great island in the gulf of St. Lawrence, Prince Edward Island. One of the many advantages that we in New Brunswick have in being a neighbour of the island is the fact that nearly all the many thousands of tourists who visit the island must pass back and forth across New Brunswick in order to do so.
Until a few years ago we thought we had no base metals in New Brunswick, but in the late 1940's the provincial government undertook an investigation, in the course of which the federal government co-operated in carrying out an airborne magnetometer survey of the northern part of the province. Out of that survey there emerged directly the realization that New Brunswick had a mineralized area which placed it among the leading mining regions of Canada. By the very nature of things our country people, about whom I am talking, have not taken any large part in putting up the risk capital required, so they have not had much part in the paper profits that have been made nor will they participate greatly in future dividends. This is true even though this provincial natural resource is the property of all the people of the province. It is true because our country people have not the money with which to speculate.
However, I hope the processing of these minerals will be carried out to the most advanced stage possible within our province. Even in this technological age this processing will provide employment for a number of our workers. But there is another phase. In addition to the fruits of speculation and of employment there are the important fruits of the production royalties which will accrue to the provincial government.
Here is where I hope the fruits of this mining development will be felt, and really felt, in the well-being of our people. You may ask how. It will be. by augmenting provincial revenues so that provincial taxation may be less; by making more revenue available for schools, roads, health, and all those things which go to make for a higher standard of living about which we have been talking. I hope the provincial government is now enacting measures so our own people will in fact receive a fair dividend from the exploitation of their own provincial resources.
Before I leave this topic I want to thank the Minister of Mines and Technical Surveys

for having carried out a new airborne magnetometer survey across the southern part of New Brunswick, and for the increased tempo of geological parties working this area this summer. When this survey is completed I am sure many people down there will be anxious to use the results.
I should like to pay a special tribute to the courage, industry and perseverance of the fisher-folk along our Fundy and gulf shores. They have proved indeed the hardihood of our New Brunswick population. That is why I hope some real value may accrue to them, as well as to fishermen all over Canada, when unemployment insurance begins to function next year as far as they are concerned.
The Department of Fisheries has been conducting an aggressive program on behalf of these producers. There is a fishing bounty which is designed to aid them. There is assistance to the fishermen in the form of educational work in co-operative producing and selling. There is assistance in the form of industrial development for technical services. There is construction assistance for fishing vessels. There is assistance to bait freezers for fishermen. There is insurance of fishermen's boats and gear against loss by storm.
I can truthfully say that more helpful programs for our fishermen have been put under way during the last 10 years than during the whole period before that since confederation. Fisheries is a federal responsibility, and last year the Department of Fisheries expended over a million dollars to improve the conditions of our fishermen in New Brunswick.
No survey of the economic strengthening of New Brunswick would be at all complete without some reference to the federal-New Brunswick tax sharing arrangement or agreement. The simple fact is that this sharing of tax moneys with the continuing equalization feature is New Brunswick's foundation for hope of economic improvement or salvation, and also for real Canadian unity as we see it down there. Ten years ago, in 1945-46, at the beginning of the tax agreements, the federal government on all accounts provided the provincial treasury of New Brunswick with approximately $6 million from Canadian taxpayers at large. During the year 1955-56 the transfer on all accounts from Ottawa to Fredericton was $42 million, made up of $18.5 million from tax rentals and $23.5 million in health grants, social security payments, trans-Canada highway, vocational training and these other things. In addition the federal government departments and agencies spent in New Brunswick, directly to individuals or in communities,

a total of $85 million in 1955-56. So I think my hon. friend from Royal will immediately agree that the dear old province has not been so badly neglected as he tried to indicate this afternoon.


Alfred Johnson Brooks: Were not all those benefits shared by the people in other provinces in the same proportion? Did not New Brunswick pay her taxes just the same as any other province?


Milton Fowler Gregg: A great many of them were, but I could name at random from memory a number of things that are confined to New Brunswick or the Atlantic region. Freight rates subsidies to the Atlantic regions, feed grain subsidy for the Atlantic region, the development of the marshlands, Camp Gagetown, fighting the budworm and many others.


Alfred Johnson Brooks: Were not most of the marshlands developed in Nova Scotia?


Milton Fowler Gregg: Oh, no. I hope my hon. friend will come down when the dam across the Shepody is opened by the Minister of Agriculture some time this summer.


Mr. Stuart (Charlotte):: I wonder if the minister would have the figures in front of him to show the amount of taxation which was taken out of New Brunswick and the amount that came back?


Alfred Johnson Brooks: I should like you to know that, because you have not known it since you came here.


Milton Fowler Gregg: I have the figures and I can recapitulate them for 1955-56. From the federal treasury to the provincial treasury, in round figures, there was $42 million; then from the federal treasury to the people in social security or to the communities in construction work a total of $85 million or, in round figures, a total of $127 million of federal taxation spent in the province of New Brunswick.


Alfred Johnson Brooks: And how much for Nova Scotia?


Milton Fowler Gregg: I have not the figures here.


Alfred Johnson Brooks: Well, it is no argument unless you have the others to compare.


Milton Fowler Gregg: My hon. friend can look at those figures, and I hope he will not be jealous when he looks at them.


Alfred Johnson Brooks: The Liberals have already started their campaign, not only for provinces but for constituencies, and they give only one side of the story.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Applewhaite):: Order. I think it should be pointed out that we are not in committee at the moment.
The Budget-Mr. Hansell


Milton Fowler Gregg: I hope I am not being parochial this afternoon. I have a high regard for Nova Scotia and for the rest of Canada. This is the first time in my period in this house that I have taken the liberty of speaking exclusively in defence of the people of New Brunswick, and that is what I am doing today. If my hon. friend will look at the figures he will find there is no great disparity between the federal assistance to our province and that of the provinces adjoining throughout the Atlantic region.


Alfred Johnson Brooks: The minister should have been speaking on behalf of New Brunswick long ago.


Milton Fowler Gregg: Along with the $127 million in federal tax money that were expended in New Brunswick, there was less than $30 million collected from New Brunswick being spent by the provincial government. There was something less than $54 million in direct and indirect taxes collected from New Brunswickers by the federal treasury in 1955-56, included in which are all the import and customs revenues from the constituency of my hon. friend the hon. member for Saint John-Albert, from the great port of Saint John.
Why do I bring in these fiscal totals in a talk on behalf of people in the New Brunswick rural areas? I can tell my hon. friends it is not in any sense of the word a political motive that urges me on. I do so because in some quarters, and I shall not stop to mention them, statements have been made to create the impression amongst these same hard-working people that this federal government is not trying to encourage their efforts. These statements are absolutely false. The people of our province have constantly added to the wealth of the corporations of central Canada from whom much of the equalization money originates. The large sums I have mentioned are in no sense of the word hand-outs. They are evidence of the willingness of this government to see to it that some of Canada's wealth goes back to the people at the ends of the country who help to earn it, which lays a sound foundation for Canada's unity and good will, and this our people will ever remember.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Applewhaite):: am sorry to have to interrupt, but it is my duty to inform the minister his time has expired.


Mr. E. G. Hansell (Macleod):: I have just listened to the minister telling how much the government put into some provinces and how much they may have taken out. It goes without saying that if the government puts into one province more than it takes out.
262G	HOUSE OF
The Budget-Mr. Hansell then it must take out of some other province more than it puts in. There may not be anything wrong with that. Perhaps it is just logical to assume that some of the wealthier provinces may, at times, have to act as a sort of big brother to some of the less wealthy provinces.
A few nights ago, Mr. Speaker, we listened to what was supposed to be an election budget. After the speech had been delivered by the Minister of Finance one of my colleagues came to me and said, "I do not think that is an election budget; if you ask me, it is a sort of an election dud." I thought I knew what "dud" meant but I took Webster's dictionary and purposely looked up the meaning of the term. I found that the definition was "a thing that does not go off". If the minister's budget was an election budget, I am afraid they will find it is a dud, because I do not think it will go off with the people of Canada as anything to be proud of when they begin to realize the vast wealth that Canada possesses.
I would characterize the budget as one without imagination. Canada is a country rich in mineral and oil resources, rich in all sorts of natural resources; huge forests; vast farmlands; vast wheat and grain producing areas; oceans to the east and west teeming with fish; power galore; coal mines that can produce coal for generation upon generation to come. Yet we find that this same coal mining industry is in the most deplorable and depressed condition of any industry in the country. When we look to this present government for a solution of those problems, particularly the problem of the coal mining industry, I declare that they have not got a clue.
We have the possibility of vast storages of water, yet we have to argue over the Saskatchewan dam. The hon. member for Acadia has suggested over and over again a plan in respect of the Red Deer diversion project. But these projects are not developed. Why? Because the budgetary proposals of the finance minister year in and year out have no imagination. No new proposals are enunciated that can be applied to the real problems which face this nation. It is a budget with little concept of reality.
What is needed in Canada is a change in financial policy that will take the bull by the horns and make that which is physically possible and desirable financially possible. We have heard orthodox ministers of finance use that term, copying it from the Social Crediters. Oh, yes, they would make that which is physically possible and desirable financially possible, but we wait year in and year out and find no such change in financial policy.


Not so long ago I was talking to a top newspaper man, one of considerable repute, who said to me, "You know, I never have been able to quite understand your Social Credit monetary proposals". And he ended his few sentences by saying, "It does not matter to me, Mr. Hansell, what you propose in changing any financial policy. You have to use the same deck of cards; you cannot come along and use some other deck of cards". So I turned to him and said, "Well, now, whoever told you that we were going to use another deck of cards?" He said, "Well, that is my way of putting it; it is a metaphor that I am using". I said, "No, that is where you are wrong; we would use the same deck of cards but we would change the rules of the game, and we would change them in such a way that the people would have a chance once in a while at least of winning the jackpot".
I think what is needed in Canada today, Mr. Speaker, is an alternative financial policy to that which this government has been proposing over the last 21 years. I have sat in this house and listened to 21, if not more, annual budgets, and still they come down with no new policies enunciated. Oh, they may boost taxation here and reduce it there; they may try to balance their books. Finance ministers come and finance ministers go, but their job year in and year out is only a matter of seeing how much they can get when they bleed the people and how much they can spend after bleeding them, and it does not take very much brain power to figure that out. In my mind there is nothing imaginative in anything of that kind. What we need is an alternative to the present financial policy and I say to you, Mr. Speaker, that the Social Credit party of this country presents that alternative.
It is a significant thing, Mr. Speaker, that the only two Social Credit governments in Canada are beginning to reverse the order, and instead of taking something from the people are beginning to give the people something back.


Alfred Johnson Brooks: There are only two Social Credit governments in the world and they do not practise Social Credit; that is the strange thing about it.


Ernest George Hansell: I do not know whether my hon. friend's remarks got on Hansard, but if those two provinces can do what they are doing without the adoption of Social Credit monetary policies, imagine what they could do if they could adopt Social Credit monetary policies, if they had the constitutional right to do it. I say to you, Mr. Speaker, put a Social Credit government in Ottawa where we will have the constitutional authority in terms of currency, credit and banking, and then see

what can be done in this country. Then see whether or not we can develop our coal mining areas; then see whether we can develop our forests and the wealth of our natural resources. I think it is almost beyond imagination what we could do if we adopted a proper financial policy.
The government of British Columbia decided to return something to the people of that province and they returned it by alleviating the tax burden, giving it to the people and saying, "This will help you to pay taxes on your homes". That is something worthy of note. When the Alberta government began to calculate their income from the oil industry in the past year they turned around and they said, "The natural resources of the province belong to the people. It is only right that they should share in those natural resources". They took part of the oil royalties which came in as revenue to the province and said, "We are going to give our citizens a dividend from those oil royalties". They are now passing legislation whereby everyone over 21 will receive a cash dividend from part of the revenue they receive from their oil royalties.
Now, of course, as soon as a government reverses the order and, instead of taking something away from the people, begins to give something to the people, something they can handle with their own hands and spend on things of their own choice, the cry goes up from politicians, from Liberal and Conservative newspapers, "Oh, that is morally wrong; you should never do that". Now, imagine saying it is morally wrong to give to the people part of that which is their own natural heritage. Even the Minister of Labour, when referring to his own province this afternoon, declared that the natural resources belong to the people. Well, now, should it be morally wrong to return to the people something that is their perfect right to share in?
When I say the Liberal and Conservative press cries to high heaven and tries to portray a moral wrong that exists in this situation, I must admit that not all the newspapers have joined in the same cry. My attention has been drawn to an article in the Camrose Canadian which is a splendid weekly newspaper published in the very fine town of Cam-rose. I think it is more than a town; it is becoming a young city. The people of Cam-rose are to be congratulated on their fine weekly newspaper, just as they are to be congratulated on the representative they sent to this house, who came here as the result of a by-election held not very long ago. He has really come to grips with the problems that face his constituents, and is one of the most active members in this house.
The Budget-Mr. Hansell
Let me return to the Camrose Canadian. Here is what it says about the action of the government of Alberta in returning to the people a part of their heritage:
There were several factors In the new Alberta budget, brought down by the provincial treasurer, Hon. Mr. Hinman, that could have been pounced upon for criticism by the political opponents, but that $22 direct dividend cheque was not one of them. Even there it is very evident that the idea embraces a good deal of political expediency . . . but it's mighty potent expediency. Had the dividend come out of general taxation revenues we would have laid into the ethics of the move ourselves, but this money is direct oil royalty money-money derived from natural resources, more or less a legacy. Our only criticism is that the dividend was not set at a higher figure, say $50 per adult. Thus Alberta is doing something no other province in Canada has ever been able to do . . . directly distribute some fruits of the natural resources to the people. Most people will welcome the chance to spend this money as they see fit.
Now, Mr. Speaker, the cries against such a policy wail forth from the politicians not because they think it is wrong, even though they may say that, but because they know it is a reversal of the outworn policies of old line governments, and because it begins to sound the death knell of the old political parties in this country.
Nothing is said concerning moral wrong when a government hands out cheques in the form of family allowances, and no mention is made of anything being morally wrong when a government doles out pension cheques to people who are incurably ill or in the form of veterans allowances, all of which we support. When a billion dollar oil company issues its annual dividends as the result of profitable investments, no cry goes up as to the moral wrong in that case. If people buy stock in an oil company and as a result of having that stock receive a yearly dividend, there is no cry of moral wrong. When a person deals in leases and sells them and receives in return stock in the company and an annual dividend, no one says there is anything morally wrong in that. If a farmer who settled on a homestead prior to 1905 has oil rights on his land and sells them to an oil company, and receives stock and dividends which cause him to become a very wealthy man, no cry goes up about there being anything morally wrong in that and we do not say there is. But when the Social Credit government through their careful administration are able to obtain revenue from a natural resource which belongs to the people, and turn around and say, "Now, we are able to give you a little share in this natural resource," the politicians shout to the high heaven that it is morally wrong.
I must say, Mr. Speaker, I have not yet heard one politician say he will go out on any election platform or issue in any printed political platform a statement to the effect

The Budget-Mr. Hansell that if he is voted into office he will withdraw that dividend from the people and channel it in some other way, giving it back in the form of municipal grants for roads, hospitals, health benefits or anything else. I have not heard one politician say he would go out on that sort of platform.
I want to call to your attention another small matter in respect to this dividend which I think is a shame. Of course someone had to rise and ask the Minister of National Revenue whether this cash gift from the governments of British Columbia and Alberta to the people of those provinces would be considered income and therefore taxable for income tax purposes, and of course the minister had to reply. But what was his reply?
It was that in the case of British Columbia, where the government was turning the money back to the home owners as a partial refund of taxation, it would not be considered taxable for income tax purposes. We welcomed that decision. He also made a pronouncement in respect to the dividend that is being given to the people of Alberta. That, he said, is to be considered income and therefore will be taxable.
I am quite certain, of course, he made that pronouncement on the basis of advice from his officials, but let me say this. I think the minister could well have said, "Well now, we do not have to collect the tax for another year-if it is collectable-and we are not going to be too anxious to make a pronouncement on this. We are going to look at this situation and suggest to the government of Alberta that this gift may be liable for taxation, and invite them to send a representative here to talk over this matter with us or present their representations to us concerning why this dividend which is being given to the people from their natural resources should not be considered taxable for income tax purposes."


Walter Edward Harris: Would my hon. friend permit a question? Is that not just about what the leader of your party or yourself expected when you asked the question-a frank statement on the basis of what we understood was Alberta's legislation-so the government of Alberta could consider that frank statement having in mind their legislation, and so consideration could be given, as my hon. friend suggests?


Ernest George Hansell: If that is the minister's conception then I think we will welcome it. I understand now that the answer the Minister of National Revenue gave is to be interpreted in this way, that a final decision has not been reached and that the government of Alberta can make representations before


the final decision is reached. Is that what I understand from the minister?


Walter Edward Harris: I don't want to say anything beyond what I have said, in the absence of the Minister of National Revenue. However, I am sure the intention of those who asked the question and the answer given by the minister was for that purpose.
On motion of Mr. Hansell the debate was adjourned.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Applewhaite):: think, perhaps, for the second time I must point out that we are not in committee. It being five o'clock, this debate stands adjourned on the motion of Mr. Hansell, seconded by Mr. Blackmore. The house will proceed to the consideration of private and public bills.



PRIVATE BILLS


Mr. W. G. Weir (for Mr. Henderson) moved: the second reading of Bill No. 235, for the relief of Theophila Yanishewski Lazoryk.


Alexander Malcolm Nicholson: Mr. Speaker, I note that this is the 202nd report of the Senate committee on divorce. I understand we are about half way through the divorce bills which are supposed to come before us this session.
I notice that the Reliable detective agency, previously known as the Fidelity detective agency, has been retained again in connection with this particular case. I also note that in clause 7, lines 2 and 3 have been altered. I think it would be more convenient if hon. members of the house were to have the petition in the form in which it was originally written on the 5th day of December, 1956; that is, printed as written without the amendments being made. The striking out of this section leaves it unclear exactly how this particular paragraph read before the alteration was made.
I am interested in the number of occasions when, apparently, it is necessary to make important changes in sworn statements that were originally presented. In this particular case there is a boy six years of age involved, and according to the evidence given the husband is an alcoholic. She said in her evidence, when asked about her husband:
My husband is an alcoholic and he continuously drinks, and he ran around and never came home. When I asked him when he did come home under the influence of liquor I would ask him where had he been and he would get into a fury and get angry with me and beat me and tell me to mind my own business, and he would go out and not come back for another three or four days.

It is obvious that the hon. members of the other chamber or, indeed, the hon. members of this chamber, have not the facilities at their disposal to deal adequately with an alcoholic who, it is alleged here, was guilty of beating his wife. The wife did take her problems to the appropriate court in Montreal, and did obtain a judgment and a separation as to bed and board. Further, she was given an allowance of $15. The record does not say whether it was $15 a day or $15 a week or $15 a month or $15 a year. Apparently it was not paid very often. I am a little surprised that the evidence did not bring out how frequently this sum of $15 was supposed to have been paid.
I also noticed in the written evidence that the husband apparently is living permanently with some other person. That being the case, I do not see why it was necessary to retain the services of the Reliable dectective agency. It occurs to me that in a very large percentage of the cases which are reaching us this year, when the husband and wife decide they cannot get along together they both appear before the other chamber and seem to tell the whole truth and nothing but the truth; and so long as they indicate that there has not been any collusion the divorce is granted. It would appear to me that this poor woman who is getting $15 periodically from her husband and who also gets $5 a month family allowance-that, of course, will be increased to $6-should not have to be put to the expense of engaging the services of this very costly agency, the Reliable detective agency.
I find that two detectives here gave conflicting evidence. The two detectives concerned were the owner of the agency, Mr. Etheridge, and one of his investigators, Mr. Paquette. Mr. Etheridge in giving his evidence swore that he found the corespondent, whose name is not given, lying in bed. And the other detective, Paquette, swore that the corespondent was sitting; in one place it says "sitting in the bed" and in another it says "sitting on the bed". In any event there is certainly a contradiction in the evidence which these two detectives have given.
In view of these facts I move, seconded by the hon. member for Moose Mountain:
That Bill No. 235 be not now read a second time, but that the subject matter thereof be referred to the standing committee on miscellaneous private bills.
It appears to me that these two detectives who were up some time ago on a charge of fabricating evidence should appear before an appropriate committee of this house so we could find out whether or not their evidence appears to have been fabricated.
Private Bills-Divorce


Mr. Speaker:: Is it the pleasure of the house to adopt the motion?


Stanley Howard Knowles: On division.
Motion agreed to on division, bill read the second time and referred to the standing committee on miscellaneous private bills.



DAVID HUTCHESON MACKAY

William Gilbert Weir: the second reading of Bill No. 236, for the relief of David Hutcheson MacKay.


Edward George McCullough: Mr. Speaker, this Bill No. 236 is the 203rd report of the committee on divorces. The hon. member for Mackenzie has pointed out that we are just about half way through the work that will have to be done if all divorce bills are to be completed this year.

Private Bills-Divorce There are at least three reasons why this bill should not be given second reading by this house at the present time and why the subject matter should be referred to the miscellaneous private bills committee. It appears that the petitioner is still a young man, as his age is given as 46. He is asking for a divorce from Gertrude Ethel May Sawers Brown MacKay.
I should like to point out that both the petitioner and respondent were married formerly. Apparently the marriage took place in 1946. A child was born of this marriage, and a child of a former marriage of the respondent to Frank Charles Brown was adopted. It would seem that there is a conflict in the evidence before the Senate committee, and I would point out that this particular bill was considered by three senators.
The petitioner was formerly married to Evelyn Anderson in 1934 in Glasgow, Scotland. According to the evidence, in 1939 Evelyn Anderson went to London, England and was never heard from afterwards. The petitioner submitted to the committee of the other place an affidavit purporting to set out a judgment apparently establishing the death of this woman. From the cross-examination of the petitioner it would appear that some rather conflicting evidence was given, and I should like to read some of that evidence. Dealing with the previous wife of the petitioner, Senator Roebuck asked the following question:
By the Chairman (Senator Roebuck):
Q. Had you corresponded with her after she went to England? A. Once only.
Q. You had one letter from her? A. One letter, yes.
Q. And no intimation in that letter as to her future intentions or anything of that kind? A. No. sir. She said she was going from Scotland to England and that is all I know.
Q. And then you had a judgment presuming her to be dead? A. Yes, sir.


Mr.   Budyk@: I have not got that judgment here,


Mr.   Chairman.The Chairman@Senator Roebuck: That does not matter.
By the Chairman (Senator Roebuck) :
Q. You have seen that judgment, witness? A. Yes.
Q. You took part in getting that judgment? A. Yes.
Q. You were a witness before the court? A. Yes.
Q. And you know the court so decided? A. Yes.
Q. Have you read the judgment of the court? A. Yes, sir, I read it.
Q. And the judgment stated that she was presumed to be dead? A. Yes, sir.


Mr.   Budyk@: May I interject for a minute, Mr. Chairman? I had the judgment but it was not certified and to have it certified I sent it to a Vancouver lawyer by the name of Mr. Fleischman fully five months ago and we never heard from him since then.


William Alfred Robinson: Have you written him again
during those five months?


Mr.   Budyk@: Yes.


William Alfred Robinson: Did you wire him?


Mr.   Budyk@: No, I sent him two letters. I cannot understand why he does not answer. He is the lawyer who got the judgment in Vancouver.


William Alfred Robinson: Was the judgment signed by the
proper officer of the court?


Mr.   Budyk@: It was not certified.


William Alfred Robinson: Was the judgment a formal
judgment?


Mr.   Budyk@: No, sir.


William Alfred Robinson: Was it not signed by the
registrar of the court?


Mr.   Budyk@: No, it was a blank.


William Alfred Robinson: Was it not signed at all?


Mr.   Budyk@: It was typewritten, but I wanted
it certified.


William Alfred Robinson: Very true, but you know there
is a difference between a document being signed and being certified? Was there no signature on that document?


Mr.   Budyk@: No, it was typewritten.


William Alfred Robinson: It was a copy of a judgment?


Mr.   Budyk@: Yes, sir.


William Alfred Robinson: Was the signature typewritten?


Mr.   Budyk@: Yes, sir.


William Alfred Robinson: Was that the signature of the
registrar of the court?


Mr.   Budyk@: Yes, but I do not remember his
name.


William Alfred Robinson: Where did it come from?


Mr.   Budyk@: Mr. MacKay gave it to me.
By the Chairman (Senator Roebuck):
Q. Mr. MacKay, where did you get it? A. From Mr. Fleischman.
Q. Mr. Fleischman was the lawyer you retained and who represented you in the proceedings? A. Yes.
Q. He carried them through? A. Yes.
Q. And he sent you a copy by mail? A. Yes.
Q. And told you in the letter it was a copy of the judgment? A. Yes.


Mr.   Budyk@: Mr. Chairman, will you dispense
me from producing that copy?


William Alfred Robinson: Yes.


William Alfred Robinson: Is that all this witness can tell
us?


Mr.   Budyk@: Yes.
I submit that what took place in the other place is indicative that this was not a bona fide affidavit. I submit that considerable of the evidence given by the petitioner should be examined. For instance, the following questions were asked of the petitioner in respect to his present wife:
Q. Will you state in brief-


Mr. Crestohl:: Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. Is not the hon. gentleman out of order? This evidence has been circulated to hon. members, who are familiar with the facts. If the reading of the evidence is intended to waste time, then perhaps the hon. member is achieving that purpose, but I submit respectfully that this procedure is really a waste of the time of the house.


Edward George McCullough: I do
not know if the hon. member has read the evidence given in the other place, but I submit that those of us who are on the committee have a responsibility to determine at least whether the evidence given before the Senate committee was proper evidence on behalf of the petitioner. I am just pointing out the portion of the evidence presented to

the other chamber by this petitioner seeking a divorce which should be re-examined to see if its correctness can be sustained. These questions were asked:
Q. Where did she move to?
A. She moved to Kingston, Ontario, first of all.
Q. I want to ask you whether you have personal knowledge of what she did in Kingston?
A. No, sir.
Q. Do you know whom she lived with in Kingston?


William Alfred Robinson: If anybody?
Witness: I didn't know that then, sir.
Then counsel for the petitioner is questioning the petitioner:
Q. Did you send her money?
A. I sent her money for four years when she was away.
I should like the house to take notice of this evidence. Farther down he is asked this question:
Q. When did you know whom she was living with in Kingston?
A. In 1954.
Q. What did you find out in 1954?
A. That there was this chap living with her in Kingston.
It would seem, Mr. Speaker, that the petitioner at one point is saying that his wife walked out of his home and he did not see her for four years and had no personal knowledge she was living in Kingston, yet he makes the statement that he sent her money from the time she left his home.
There is just this other point I should like to make at this time. Here are two people who had been married, and for one reason or another their homes were broken up and divorces were granted. They remarried, and now the petitioner is asking for a divorce. I am just pointing out that I believe, for the welfare of the children and certainly to try to substantiate the petitioner's plea for divorce, this evidence should be reexamined before the standing committee. Therefore I move, seconded by the hon. member for Humboldt-Melfort:
That Bill No. 236 be not now read a second time, but that the subject matter thereof be referred to the standing committee on miscellaneous private bills.


Mr. Solon E. Low (Peace River):: I do not
know a single thing about the evidence in this case. I have not read it. The order paper is so cluttered up with divorce bills that it becomes impossible for anyone who is doing justice by a lot of other work to sit down and carefully consider the evidence in these cases. On one or two occasions we have voted in support of motions to send some of these bills back to the committee on private bills.
We did so entirely for the reason that we wanted thereby to make a protest against this method of handling divorce cases. We do not 82715-1674
Private Bills-Divorce
feel it is the right way. We feel that year after year the order paper of parliament is cluttered up with an increasing number of cases which ought not to come before parliament in the way they are doing. It was for that reason we did support motions that have been moved, I think entirely by the C.C.F., but that does not mean to say we will continue to support every motion that is made because, as I said, we did take a stand in protest.
Now, having made our protests we reserve the right to vote as we please on any of these others that are being considered, without being considered as changing our minds. I just wanted that statement to be made at this time, Mr. Speaker.



KARL HEINZ GRUBE

William Gilbert Weir: the second reading of Bill No. 237, for the relief of Karl Heinz Grube.

Private Bills


Mr. Speaker:: Is it the pleasure of the house to adopt the motion?


Stanley Howard Knowles: On division.
Motion agreed to on division, bill read the second time and referred to the standing committee on miscellaneous private bills.



TRANS MOUNTAIN OIL PIPE LINE COMPANY

[Stage Direction]
The house resumed, from Monday, March 11, consideration in committee of Bill No. 15, respecting Trans Mountain Oil Pipe Line Company-Mr. Fairey-Mr. Applewhaite in the chair.
On clause 1 - Subdivision of shares.
Colin Cameron: Mr. Chairman, I think when we come to the principle of this bill, contained largely in clause 1, it is well if we examine for a few moments, sir, what are the purposes and duties of parliament. I submit to you, sir, that they are in the main to legislate for the benefit of all the people of Canada, not to become an instrument for the benefit of those who operate on the stock markets, and not to be used in the interests of any special group in the community but in the general interests of the whole Canadian population.
I think you will agree, sir, that there has been a tendency in recent years to use parliament and the legislatures as part of the method by which certain individuals in our society hope to profit from their operation within the particular economy. It is, of course, necessary sometimes to legislate for certain groups on the basis that their activities will redound to the benefit of the whole community; and it is on that basis that parliament and the legislatures on occasion have passed legislation setting up privately-owned corporations to perform certain functions in our economy. Sometimes, sir, we have to legislate in order to enable groups of Canadian citizens to organize themselves into companies and raise funds for carrying out a project which, in the view of parliament, will ultimately redound to the benefit of the whole community.
While I myself am not prone to subscribe to that point of view, I am prepared to admit that in the circumstances of our private enterprise economy it is occasionally necessary to do that in parliament and in the legislatures; but in the case of this particular bill which is before us now, no such consideration arises. We have the evidence of company officials themselves that the company is in no need whatever of raising funds by the sale of its shares, that it has all it requires. We have evidence from the officers that the company's financial situation is unusually healthy,

shall we say; healthy from their point of view but I submit, sir, profoundly unhealthy from the point of view of the unfortunate users of oil in my province of British Columbia.
I should like to place before the committee again the financial position of this company, to show how unnecessary it is for this parliament to act on behalf of the Canadian people and grant any more privileges to this particular group. Their profits in 1955 amounted to $3 million. In 1956 they amounted to over $7 million, and it was estimated for us before the committee-perhaps rather rashly and indiscreetly-by the company's treasurer that if all goes well, this year their profits will amount to over $10 million.
Every now and again during our discussions in the railways, canals and telegraphs committee reference was made to the fact that the Trans Mountain Oil Pipe Line Company has not been declared a common carrier. In fact I think it is not too much to say that the company's officers exhibited a certain amount of satisfaction over the fact that their company had not been declared a common carrier; and I can well understand that, sir, when I consult the Pipe Lines Act and find there the provisions governing the actions of a company which has been designated a common carrier by the board of transport commissioners.
In section 39 of the Pipe Lines Act I read this:
The board-
That is the board of transport commissioners.
-may, by order, declare a company to be a common carrier whether the company has or has not acted or held itself out as a common carrier, and the expression "common carrier" in the following sections of this part means a company that has been declared by the board to be a common carrier.
Let us now see what happens to a company which has been so declared a common carrier, presumably in the interests of the Canadian people. I find in section 40 of the Pipe Lines Act the following:
The board may make orders and regulations with respect to all matters relating to traffic, tolls or tariffs.
Section 43 of the act spells out in more detail the obligations a common carrier will be obliged to uphold when it has been declared such. I am sure this section will be of great interest to the oil users on the lower mainland of British Columbia who have been writing to members of parliament in recent weeks protesting the increased oil prices they have been obliged to pay in the last few weeks. Section 43 reads as follows:
All tolls shall be just and reasonable, and shall always, under substantially similar circumstances

and conditions with respect to all traffic of the same description carried over the same route, be charged equally to all persons at the same rate.
I think the oil consumers of British Columbia will be particularly interested in the phrase "just and reasonable" in that section, and they will wonder whether it can be possible for the rates charged by the Trans Mountain Oil Pipe Line Company to really be considered just and reasonable when oil prices have been increased since the development of this pipe line-this modern, efficient method of transportation-over the older and more expensive method of bringing oil into the port of Vancouver by tanker.
I believe section 41 of the Pipe Lines Act will also be of interest to the oil consumers of my province. It reads as follows:
(1) Subject to such exceptions, conditions or regulations as the board may prescribe or approve, a common carrier shall, according to its powers, without delay and with due care and diligence, receive, transport and deliver all oil offered for transportation by means of its company pipe line.
That section has great significance in this instance, because we have it on the evidence of the company's officers that a large part of the shares of this company are held by oil companies in the province of Alberta. In fact it is not too much to say that certain oil companies in the province of Alberta control this company, and that therefore it would be very doubtful if other oil companies wishing to get their oil onto the markets of the lower mainland would be given free access to the facilities of the Trans Mountain Oil Pipe Line Company, as they would if that company were declared to be a common carrier under the Pipe Lines Act.
I submit to you, sir, that it is fear of such a development that causes this company to come before parliament now to seek power to divide its shares by five. It is not, on the basis of the evidence the company offers us, any need or desire to raise more funds from the public by means of the sale of shares, because if that were the case they would have put on the market some of the three and a half million shares still held in the company's treasury. It can only be fear of the public reaction when the mounting profits are expressed, as they will have to be, in terms of so many dollars per outstanding share. When the company has outstanding only some million and a half shares, then the profits they are making at the present time will represent to the public something very much greater than just and reasonable rates could provide.
Private Bills
If, however, in its wisdom parliament were to permit this company to divide its shares by five, then they would be in a position to present to the public a picture of a very modest net return per issued share, a return of about $1.35 in the year 1957 as opposed to $6.60 if the shares are not divided. I suggest to you, sir, that this is the reason the Trans Mountain Oil Pipe Line Company is coming before us at the present time to ask for authority to divide its shares in this manner.
I also submit to you, sir, that it is not a part of the duties of parliament to legislate in such a way as to enable any group in the community to deceive the general public as to the real volume of net earnings they are making from a public service such as this the transportation of an essential fuel to the Pacific coast of Canada. For that reason hon. members of this group have protested the passage of this bill ever since it was first brought before the house.
I have not heard the sponsor of this bill present any argument to refute the suggestion I have just made, that it is not any honest or sincere need for further investment of funds in this company that causes them to take this action. It is purely a desire to deceive the public as to the real nature of their net earnings.
May I call it six o'clock, sir?
Progress reported.



BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE

Walter Edward Harris: Mr. Speaker, on Monday we shall take the resolution in the name of the Minister of National Health and Welfare with respect to hospital insurance.


Stanley Howard Knowles: Hear, hear. I have lived to see the day.


Walter Edward Harris: If you live long enough you will see a great many other things this government will continue to do.


Stanley Howard Knowles: How long, O Lord, how long!


An hon. Member:: The best is yet to come.


Walter Edward Harris: Then we shall take the prairie grain producers interim financing bill and any other legislation on the order paper.


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

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

Mr. Goode: What has been the cost to the federal government. from 1949 to 1957, on rock work on the main channel of the Fraser river in Richmond municipality?
Answer by: Hon. Robert H. of Public Works):	Winters (Minister
1948-49 		..$ 68,000
1949-50 		.. 34,000
1950-51 		.. 17,000
1951-52 		.. 3,000
1952-53 		.. 62,000
1953-54 		.. 103,000
1954-55 		.. 21,000
1955-56 		.. 160,000
1956-57 		.. 250,000

Monday, March 25, 1957