1957-12-18

[Stage Direction]
Sixth report of standing committee on miscellaneous private bills.-Mr. Rea.


Mr. Knowles (Winnipeg: North Centre):
1.	Has the government, at any time since June 21, 1957, reviewed the income tax file of United Distillers Limited in the light of discussions in the House of Commons, as recorded at pages 65956597 of Hansard for June 23, 1954, and at pages 17381739 of Hansard for March 4, 1955?
2.	If so, what is the result of such review? Have any facts been brought out (a) which can be made public; (b) which cannot be made public because of the secrecy provision in section 133 of the Income Tax Act?
3.	If the answer to question one is no, is such a review under consideration?


Hon. G. C. Nowlan (Minister of National Revenue):: The answer to the first part of the question, Mr. Speaker, is no. The second part of the question is not applicable in view of the answer to the first part. As to the third part, in view of the fact that the matter has been raised I am prepared to consider with the officers of the department what review, if any, should be made of this matter.


PRINCE EDWARD ISLAND CAUSEWAY
Mr. Kirk: What have been the results to date of the investigation being made into the feasibility and practicability of the proposed causeway to Prince Edward Island?


Hon. Howard C. Green (Minister of Public Works):: The Department of Public Works has undertaken a drilling program to examine the type of rock which could be obtained from Cape Tormentine close to the existing ferry terminal. A second investigation has been made to determine the cost of providing the present ferry transportation between Borden, Prince Edward Island, and Cape Tormentine, New Brunswick. The department is not in a position as yet to make any definite announcement with regard to the result of these investigations.


FISHERMEN'S UNEMPLOYMENT INSURANCE BENEFITS
Mr. Kirk: 1.	For each province, how many fishermen (a) have applied for fishermen's unemployment insurance benefits; (b) are in receipt of such benefits?
2.	For each province, what is the minimum, maximum, and average weekly benefit?


Hon. Michael Siarr (Minister of Labour):: The answer to the first part of the question is that any information regarding fishermen's benefits will not be available until after the close of the month of December. The answer to the second part is the same as that to the first part.



QUESTIONS PASSED AS ORDERS FOR RETURNS


Mr. Fisher: 1.	What is the practice in hiring men for C.G.S. ships each season?
2.	Have members of parliament, from whose constituencies the ships sail, given those in charge of hiring any lists of eligible employee possibilities?
3.	If so, what members of parliament?


MOTOR VEHICLE CHASSIS PURCHASES IN CANADA
Mr. Thrasher: 1.	Is the government giving consideration to the purchase in Canada of the following vehicle parts: chassis for fire trucks, chassis for snow-removal trucks, chassis for refueling trucks?
2.	If so, how many such chassis have been purchased in Canada between June 21, 1957, and December 1, 1957?



BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE


Mr. W. M. Benidickson (Kenora-Rainy River):: Mr. Speaker, with the consent of the house I should like to have permission to drop question No. 205 on the order paper.


Mr. Speaker:: Dropped.
Question dropped.



AGRICULTURE


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Hon. D. S. Harkness (Minister of Agriculture):: Mr. Speaker, yesterday the hon. member for Bellechasse asked me the following question:
Could the minister tell the house if the important special committee of the Senate on land use established by the former government will continue to function?

Inquiries of the Ministry
The government leader in the other place informs me that the special committee of the Senate on land use has been re-established under the chairmanship of Senator C. G. Power, under whom it has already had several sittings during the present session.



PRICE STABILIZATION LEGISLATION


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. Victor Quelch (Acadia):: I wish to address a question to the Minister of Agriculture. Has the minister received any communication from the farmers' union of Alberta regarding the bill to stabilize the price of farm products? If so, what was their reaction?


Mr. Speaker:: Order. This question is of a kind that we have had before anticipating a matter which is on the order paper, and which I believe is to be discussed today if it is reached. It seems to me that questions of that kind should be deferred until the matter comes before the house rather than be asked during the question period.


Victor Quelch: It will not ibe reached this week, Mr. Speaker.


Mr. E. G. McCullough (Moose Mountain):: might say that I do not believe Bill No. 237 is on the order for today's business. I should like to ask the Minister of Agriculture, as a last ditch effort, if he will give consideration to the withdrawal of Bill No. 237 and the introduction of a bill providing for price stabilization based on parity for agricultural products?


Mr. Speaker:: Order. I must rule this question out of order, in view of the pending discussion before the house of this matter.


Mr. Solon E. Low (Peace River):: I should like to direct a question to the house leader. Can the house leader say now whether or not he expects to call Bill No. 237 for second reading this week? Bill No. 237 is the bill sponsored by the Minister of Agriculture for the stabilization of prices.


Howard Charles Green: Yes, Mr. Speaker, we hope to be able to do so.



INQUIRY AS TO INTRODUCTION OF FURTHER LEGISLATION THIS SESSION

[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. A. M. Campbell (The Battlefords):: should like to direct a question to the Acting Prime Minister. Is it the intention of the government to propose any new legislation during the present session which will give a shot in the arm to the agricultural industry?
[Mr. Harkness.l


Howard Charles Green: I am passing that one to the Minister of Agriculture.


Douglas Scott Harkness: Mr. Speaker, in reply to that question-


Mr. Speaker:: Order. That question is in the same category as the others. We had a last ditch stand down there, and I do not think we ought to cross that ditch.



FINANCE


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. G. H. Aiken (Parry Sound-Muskoka):: I wish to direct a question to the Minister of Finance and in his absence to his parliamentary assistant. Has an official request been made by the United Kingdom for a waiver of the interest payment on her post-war loans from Canada?


Mr. Richard A. Bell (Parliamentary Assistant to the Minister of Finance):: Mr. Speaker, under an act passed at the spring session of the last parliament amending the United Kingdom Financial Agreement Act, 1946, the government of the United Kingdom has the right to defer payment of the annual instalment of principal and interest for the year, provided that no more than seven instalments may be so deferred.
Last week the Minister of Finance was advised by the high commissioner of the United Kingdom in Canada that his government would avail themselves of this right to deferment in this year. I believe yesterday an official announcement to this effect was made in the House of Commons at Westminster. The house will perhaps be interested in knowing that the amount involved for principal is $15,777,822.67 and for interest $21,932,432.33 or a total of $37,710,255. I understand, sir, that similar deferment action has been taken in respect of the United States loan.



ADMINISTRATION OF JUSTICE


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Hon. Lionel Chevrier (Laurier):: May I
direct a question to the Minister of Justice. In view of the statement in this morning's press by the premier of Quebec that a revised bill establishing a new intermediate court of appeal will be presented to the legislature to set up a seven man court of review, whose judges would be appointed by

the federal government, may I ask the minister whether there has been any consultation with him in connection with this bill, and whether a decision has been reached to introduce concurrent legislation in the house?


Hon. E. D. Fulton (Minister of Justice):: I thank the hon. gentleman for giving me notice of his intention to ask this question. In reply I can advise that ten days or two weeks ago we received a copy of the bill introduced in the Quebec legislature. We have had the matter before us for consideration, but before any decision could be reached my attention was drawn to the statement appearing in this morning's press to which the hon. gentleman has referred; and under the circumstances, as the government of Quebec proposes to revise the bill, we are simply leaving the matter open for decision when the Quebec legislature will have finally dealt with it.


EXTERNAL AFFAIRS
[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. J. R. Garland (Nipissing):: I should like to direct a question to the Acting Prime Minister in his dual capacity as Acting Prime Minister and Minister of Public Works. Will he consider deferring any commitments on the rental of space in Canada house, New York, until the external affairs committee has had an opportunity of hearing witnesses and perhaps having the Secretary of State for External Affairs explain the decision of the present government to reverse the decision of the former government concerning the rental of this space?


Howard Charles Green: I think that question contains some facts which are not facts, but I will be very glad to look into the situation.



HIGHWAYS


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Solon Earl Low: I should like to direct a question to the Minister of Public Works. Has the government determined what its highway policy is to be, particularly with regard to sharing in the cost of highways leading from provinces into federal territories?


Howard Charles Green: This question is being given very
Inquiries of the Ministry careful consideration, but at the moment I am not in a position to announce any policy.



LEAD AND ZINC


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Hon. J. M. Macdonnell (Acting Minister of Trade and Commerce):: Yesterday the hon. member for Kootenay West asked a question from which I read the following:
In view of the serious threat to the economy of the base metals industry in the proposed increase in the tariff on lead and zinc entering the United States . . . will the minister inform the house of the definitive steps being taken by the government to protect Canadian interests?
I was asked this question some days ago, and explained that there was constant contact with the United States government. I think all I can add to what I have previously said is that our embassy in Washington has this matter constantly in mind and is constantly in touch. As a matter of fact, the Department of Trade and Commerce had their last communication with the embassy this morning. I think I can assure the house that every effort is being made to omit nothing that can assist this situation.


Mr. F. G. J. Hahn (New Wesfminsler):: Might I ask a supplementary question of the Acting Minister of Trade and Commerce. I regret I did not have time to give him notice, so perhaps he may wish to take this question as notice. In view of the widespread interest in the problems facing the base metals industry would the minister consider making a statement regarding the present position in which the industry finds itself?


James MacKerras Macdonnell: After having heard the question of my hon. friend I think I had better take it as notice.



AUTOMOBILES


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
James MacKerras Macdonnell: While I am on my
feet may I answer two other questions, one from the hon. member for Essex West, who asked:
Is any consent of the government of the United States required for the export of automobiles from Canada to communist China?
The answer is that the consent of the United States is not required before an export permit is granted for the shipment of automobiles to communist China.

Inquiries of the Ministry



U.S. RESTRICTIONS ON CANADIAN EXPORTS TO COMMUNIST CHINA

[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
James MacKerras Macdonnell: Mr. Speaker, on the same day the hon. member for Kootenay East asked this question:
Under the existing Canadian-American defence agreements, could a United States company prevent one of its Canadian subsidiaries from accepting orders for non-strategic materials-for example, automobiles-from the republic of China?
The answer to that question is that the United States government has no legal or formal power of control over the activities of subsidiaries of United States companies in Canada and there is no agreement between the two governments to that effect. The only way in which it could affect the exports of these subsidiaries is through its influence with parent companies. Since the Canadian government would not be a party to any arrangement of this kind if it were made, I cannot give any answer on that subject.


Mr. D. F. Brown (Essex West):: May I
submit a supplementary question. Would it be appropriate, therefore, for a large United States company having an affiliate in Canada to prohibit a Canadian exporter from exporting to communist China on the ground that it, the company, is not in a position to furnish a quotation because of policies of the United States government?


An hon. Member:: Order paper.


Donald Ferguson Brown: This is because of regulations issued by the treasury department-


Mr. Speaker:: Order. I think the hon. member has completed his question.


Donald Ferguson Brown: Not quite, Mr. Speaker. I have just about done so. If you will permit me to complete it, I shall be glad.


Some hon. Members:: Order.


Mr. Speaker:: It seems to me that the hon. member has completed his question and is now proceeding to give facts which are not necessary to the answering of the question.


Donald Ferguson Brown: No, I am not, Mr. Speaker. You may rule on the matter.


Mr. Speaker:: I will hear the remainder of it.


Donald Ferguson Brown: This is because regulations issued by the treasury department, foreign assets control department, had placed an embargo on shipments by United States companies and their affiliates, and further because these regulations are applicable to transactions involving the United

States parent company as well as the affiliate company in Canada. I hold a copy of the letter in my hand.


Mr. Speaker:: Perhaps I should leave the matter to the minister, but it seems to me the answer the minister gave, to the effect that the action of the United States government with respect to United States companies was beyond the jurisdiction of this government and not a proper subject of question to this government because it has no responsibility in the matter, applies also to the further question, and that such question should not be asked of this government.


Donald Ferguson Brown: I quite agree with you, Mr. Speaker, that as far as United States companies are concerned the United States government has control over such United States companies. What I am asking is this. Is it appropriate for a large United States company having an affiliate in Canada-this is an affiliate, not a subsidiary-to prohibit a Canadian exporter from exporting to communist China, and so on?


Howard Charles Green: Mr. Speaker, if this question is a proper question under any circumstances, surely there can be no doubt that it should be placed on the order paper rather than be asked on the orders of the day.


Mr. Speaker:: I cannot see that it is a proper question and I must rule accordingly.



PROVISION OF CREDIT FOR POLAND

[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. H. R. Argue (Assiniboia):: Might I ask a question of the Acting Minister of Trade and Commerce based on a press report in the Regina Leader-Post of December 13, wherein the Polish charge d'affaires in Ottawa is quoted as saying that if better Canadian credit were forthcoming, Poland could afford to buy even more wheat this year. Would the government consider extending credit beyond the three-year term, so that Poland and other countries that have shown interest in this matter may purchase substantially increased quantities of wheat?


James MacKerras Macdonnell: Mr. Speaker, as I said before, the government is considering the question of extending credit to a whole series of European countries and, as I have also said, I do not think it is in the public interest to give details of these matters while discussions are going forward.


Hazen Robert Argue: Then may I ask a supplementary question. Are the reports received correct, that the Canadian government is refusing and has refused to grant credit in excess of three years?


James MacKerras Macdonnell: Mr. Speaker, I am not going to answer that question. I have previously made it clear that I think the people who are negotiating should be left free, and I think I would be doing a disservice to the whole cause of selling wheat if I allowed myself to be drawn into giving this detail and that detail. It could only embarrass those who have the responsibility of making deals.
We have, however, every hope that as a result of negotiations substantial sales of wheat will take place. I am going to stick to the position, therefore, that I think to be drawn into giving this and that detail would be harmful to those who are carrying on the business.


Hazen Robert Argue: I wonder if the minister would care to answer this question, then. Is it not a fact that no person or no organization in this country is opposed to credit extensions beyond the three-year period?


Mr. Speaker:: Order. The hon. member has had two replies, and I think he is pushing this matter beyond where it should go.



DISCUSSION OF BRITISH AND CANADIAN PROPOSALS

[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Hon. Paul Marlin (Essex East):: Mr. Speaker, I should like to ask the Acting Minister of Trade and Commerce, for whom we all have deep respect and who has displayed a great knowledge of trade matters-and I say that very sincerely-if we are to conclude that the presence of the Minister of Finance in Paris at the moment indicates the government's intention that members of the delegation now in Paris will discuss with their opposite numbers in the British government the free trade proposal and the proposal of the Prime Minister of Canada for the transfer of purchases from one friendly country to another, and if advantage will be taken of the presence of Canadian ministers to pursue these discussions?


James MacKerras Macdonnell: Mr. Speaker, the Minister of Finance will be back in a day or so, and it seems to me he would be the best person to answer this question if he should wish to do so.
Inquiries of the Ministry POWER



NOVA SCOTIA


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Hon. Alvin Hamilton (Minister of Northern Affairs and National Resources):: Mr. Speaker, the hon. member for Comox-Alberni asked a question yesterday along these lines:
. . . Were the Inverness coal fields overlooked in a survey of potential sites for maritime thermal power development? . . .
In answer to the question I can give him the assurance that the Inverness coal fields were not overlooked by this government as a source of power in the maritime area. It is for that reason, among others, that this government has agreed to pay a subvention on any coal produced in the maritime area and used in the production of thermal electric power in the maritimes.
In regard to the choice of sites in the Montreal Engineering report, which did look into the position in respect to pit-mouth sites, the engineers concluded that such a central station is not considered practical at the present time and recommended that steam plants be built reasonably close to load centres, and be on tidewater.



PUBLIC SERVICE


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. Stanley Knowles (Winnipeg North Centre):: Mr. Speaker, may I direct a question to the Acting Prime Minister. In view of the tributes to our civil servants which were paid from all quarters of the house a couple of days ago, will the Prime Minister state the government's position with respect to the charges which are still being made by the hon. member for Victoria, British Columbia (Mr. McPhillips) that many senior civil servants and even deputy ministers are Liberal partisans doing wilful damage to the government? Does the government doubt the loyalty of any senior civil servant or any deputy minister?


Howard Charles Green: Mr. Speaker, I have already expressed my views with regard to the service rendered by the senior civil servants to the present government when I closed the debate on the motion for the address in reply. In addition, I have taken the same stand on several occasions outside the house and today again I say on behalf of the government that we have had splendid co-operation from the senior civil servants and that in our opinion Canada has the best civil service in the world.

National Housing Act
It would have been quite impossible for a new government to have taken over the leadership of this country without great upset had it not been for the loyal co-operation given to us by the senior civil servants, and members of the government believe that this same loyalty and this same co-operation would have been given to any new government, no matter what party might have been elected to power.
These men and women have chosen the civil service as a lifetime career; all their energies are devoted toward making that service efficient, and improving it, and we feel they are doing a splendid job for Canada.



LABOUR CONDITIONS


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. Erhart Regier (Burnaby-Coquitlam):: Mr. Speaker, I should like to address this question to the hon. member for Vancouver-Burrard, but in his absence I will address it to the Minister of Labour.
In the light of the statistics supplied us yesterday by the dominion bureau of statistics with regard to the serious unemployment situation could the minister indicate the nature of the reply of the government to the excellent proposals which the hon. member for Vancouver-Burrard has made with regard to this urgent matter?


Howard Charles Green: Mr. Speaker, perhaps I might answer that question. Members of the government are very glad to receive representations from the hon. member for Vancouver-Burrard or from the hon. member for Burnaby-Coquitlam or from any other hon. member. These representations, as they come in, are given very careful and serious consideration, and the results appear from time to time in announcements of government policy.



NATIONAL HOUSING ACT


Howard Charles Green: the second reading of Bill No. 238, to amend the National Housing Act, 1954.
He said: As the house knows, I dealt with this matter on December 4 in introducing the resolution and again last evening, and I have nothing further to add.


Mr. H. J. Robichaud (Gloucester):: Mr. Speaker, I wish to express my appreciation, though not without certain reservations, of

Bill No. 238 now before the house, amending the National Housing Act to increase from $250 million to $400 million the aggregate amount that may be paid out of the consolidated revenue fund under this act and also to provide for a reduction in the down payment.


Mr. Speaker:: Order. Will the house settle down as quickly as possible so we can hear the hon. member for Gloucester.


Hédard-J. Robichaud: National Housing Act
valuable market for our oversupply of lumber and labour such as we have today in the Atlantic provinces.
The changes suggested in the act, such as to permit a borrower to commit up to 27 per cent of his income instead of the present 23 per cent in mortgage payments, cannot be considered as a service rendered to the wage earners of the country notwithstanding their urgent need for new homes. The interest should be reduced and the amortization period extended in order to facilitate the application of the act by making it possible for average members of the low income group to qualify for loans.
The government may have made a step in the right direction, but the proposed legislation does not go far enough and is not quite practicable. No man earning less than $4,000 a year can tie up 27 per cent of his income in mortgage payments and at the same time provide for his family. Any man earning less than $4,000 a year should be given at least 40 years to repay and his interest should not exceed 5 per cent.
The type of home referred to by the minister as low cost housing or cheaper homes could almost be considered small palaces or luxury homes for the average wage earner of the Atlantic provinces. If the present government is consistent with regard to its so-called new policy enunciated recently by the Prime Minister with respect to the Atlantic provinces, then the minister in charge of the National Housing Act should find out to what extent the people of the Atlantic provinces can take full advantage of the act even after the amendments proposed in the bill are passed by the house.
It may be permissible for the minister to tell the prospective home owners of New Brunswick or Nova Scotia that the money is there and is available, and that if applications are not made the responsibility rests with the people of the Atlantic provinces. But, Mr. Speaker, how can our maritime people take advantage of these loans if the regulations are enacted in such a way as to make it almost impossible for them to qualify? Unless our workers earning from $45 to $60 per week can qualify for loans of $4,000 to $5,000, then the statement made earlier by the minister to the effect that the changes have been introduced to help maritime residents to take advantage of the scheme will not be applicable or at least practicable.
In conclusion, I again urge the minister to give very serious consideration to the possibility of amending the regulations and the standard requirements of the act in order to make it possible for the class of

wage earners I have mentioned to qualify for loans. Only then will the act be of real advantage to the Atlantic provinces and more particularly to the low income bracket working class, which is so common in the provinces concerned. More new homes in the Atlantic provinces will mean more work for our unemployed, a better standard of living for our workers, additional markets for our lumber and better living conditions for all.


Mr. W. G. Beech (York South):: 
Mr. Louis Lewry (Moose Jaw-Lake Centre):: Mr. Speaker, I suggest to the minister that the changes proposed in the National Housing Act will only add to the ability of persons to go deeper and deeper into debt. The changes will mean actually that while the down payment will be less, the loan will be greater and the interest will be greater.
Nothing is being proposed and nothing has been done in the past to get at the crux of the housing problem in Canada. The need is not to provide housing that people cannot afford, but to provide low cost housing for the large number of Canadians who cannot afford these homes which are above their income levels. In the last three years the average cost of a dwelling in Canada has increased by $2,000. There are 62 per cent of Canadians who earn less than $3,000, and they are the people who cannot afford adequate housing. They are also the people who are being forced to pay rents far above their earning capacity.
The National Housing Act provides now, and has provided in the past, assistance to those whose incomes are in the better than


Mr. Ambrose Holowach (Edmonton East):: Mr. Speaker, I should like to say a few words on the matter which is presently before us. The order paper states that we are discussing a measure to amend the National Housing Act of 1954, which has as its purpose increasing from $250 million to $400 million the aggregate amount that may be paid out of the consolidated revenue fund under section 22 of the act, and also to provide for a reduction in down payments. Last evening we listened to the affable Minister of Public Works as he explained the purpose of this measure. During his remarks he showed considerable confidence with respect to the achievements these amendments would bring about. He painted a very rosy picture.
Sir, there are serious shortcomings in this bill which would indicate otherwise. Any consideration of the bill and the implications of its text necessitates, I think, a consideration of several broader aspects of the housing problem in this country. In doing this it will become obvious that there are serious and embarrassing facts which we must face squarely. Perhaps the advantage of doing that is that it may spur us on to more equitable legislation with respect to housing.
An illustration of what I have in mind is seen in a clipping from the Financial Post of December 14, where on the first page there appear a few figures of some considerable interest to all those who are interested in seeing the national housing problem solved. I read:
National Housing Act
You pay a high price for slums. They bring in only 6 per cent of total city tax revenues (reports Montreal's planning director C. E. Campeau), but they account for 33 per cent of total population, 45 per cent of major crimes, 60 per cent of tuberculosis victims, 35 per cent of fires and 45 per cent of total city service costs.
The measure itself is positive proof that previous government appropriations and policies have been quite inadequate to meet the needs of the people in the matter of their housing requirements. In my opinion we have never had really vigorous action in this field. I think we have been far too slow and ineffective in handling this problem. There is definite room for improvement. I believe we should profit to a greater extent by our past mistakes. In contrast to what has been accomplished thus far I honestly believe that the Twenty-Third parliament of Canada has a splendid opportunity to demonstrate that Canadian democracy can be made a dynamic process, and that we can do big things for all classes in our society who may be in need of better housing.
The bill proposes amendments which deal with only two aspects of the problem; first, an increase of $150 million in the aggregate amount and second, some reduction in the down payments. I must say that these are two worth-while purposes. As indicated by the hon. member for New Westminster last evening, these are forward steps and we in our group will support them. We hope they will make a contribution to the stepping up of the housing construction program in our country.
However, I cannot escape the feeling that to the extent that this is all that is being proposed, we have here nothing more than a few patches placed on already out-dated legislation which is inadequate and not in keeping with the requirements of our time. One of the obvious shortcomings in the proposal is that it does not make any provision for reducing the present excessive interest charges on loans, and for longer terms for amortization. These possibly would contribute to a more equitable solution of the housing problem. What our economy needs most at this time is bold government action against high interest rates, which have contributed to inflation more perhaps than any other factor.
Another tragic aspect of the existing housing program is the fact that there is too little provision for people who need help most. We are supposed to be interested in the common man, but there is no equality of opportunity for small income groups-elderly citizens, veterans, labouring men with large families-if they are unable to take advantage of available legislation providing assistance in home ownership. If we really believe in equality of opportunity I believe their

National Housing Act
special problems deserve our special attention at this particular time.
May I point out that the old age pensioners, the people on low incomes, are least able to take on any additional financial burdens at this time. Hence the reduced down payments proposed will not, in my opinion, help them very much. It is true that the down payments are proposed to be reduced, but at the same time the carrying charges and the required monthly payments have been considerably increased right across the board.
I mentioned equality of opportunity. May I say that equality of opportunity to these people in the low income groups can only come through amendments which (1) provide reasonable interest rates; (2) extend the terms of repayment of loans; (3) provide income tax exemptions on interest payments made in connection with home ownership; (4) substantially reduce required down payments; (5) provide government policies which aim at a program of minimum rent public housing projects designed for those on the lowest rung of the economic ladder, and in this category a housing program suited to the comforts and needs of our elderly people in the country; (6) permit a complete re-examination of taxing laws, sales and other tax reductions on essential building material, these with a view to reducing the high cost of construction. An example of what happens when prices come down is seen in a report in the latest edition of the Financial Times, that one real estate firm in the city of Toronto reported the sale of 70 houses in one subdivision in four days when the builder dropped his prices; (7) bring an energetic program for slum clearance as well as one to produce better and more functional homes for the rural population.
I feel that these are basic requirements which deserve attention in considering amendments to the housing act. I believe we must recognize that there is a shortage of purchasing power in the hands of the people, and that it is time our taxation and fiscal policies took this fact into account. Until we recognize this situation as the principal consideration in formulating a program, decent homes and stability for Canadians will be difficult to achieve.
Continuation of policies that plainly place our people deeper and deeper into debt is not the solution. As an example of the trend which has developed in that connection I should like to point out that to a question I asked a few days ago with respect to the gross national debt I received an astonishing answer. The question was:
In terms of dollars, what is the present position of the federal government of Canada respecting (a) gross national debt including all liabilities; (b) public debt in terms of per capita liability?

The answer to the question was that at March 31, 1957, the total gross national debt of the nation was $18,326,200,000. The second portion of the question read:
Since its inception, what is the total amount of interest that has been paid on the nation's debt?
The answer to the question was to March 31, 1957, $9,924,493,432. That is an example of a trend and situation existing in other fields, for instance in personal, small business, municipal and provincial debt. I suppose the aggregate debt of all those agencies and fields must be staggering. It has always seemed strange to me that in a country such as Canada, housing and shortage of accommodation should ever have been allowed to become a persistent national problem. It is difficult to understand, considering that Canada is probably the largest and certainly the finest lumber producing country in the world. Our unemployment situation is worsening. There are many skilled hands to do the job of building. Many of our people are living in substandard dwellings and under overcrowded conditions. Hence it cannot be said that there is a lessening of demand for homes.
Clearly the problem is not what it would be if we had tens of millions of people. Our population is only 16 million. In relation to area the population density per square mile is approximately 4. Compare this figure with a country like Great Britain whose population is approximately 52 million, with a density of some 542 to the square mile. What about the situation in a country such as the Republic of West Germany? Their population is 52 million; yet in relation to the area, some 528 people are crowded into every square mile of that country.
What are they doing about their housing problems? Well, if we review the history of the remarkable recovery in those countries it is plain to see what can be done when money is not the limiting factor, and the only limiting factor is the physical capacity to do things. In a small book published by the press and information office of the federal West German government I was surprised to read that the turnover in the whole home construction industry in 1955 was over $4 billion. In our country in the 12 years of the activities of Central Mortgage and Housing Corporation they have approved some $3 billion worth of mortgage loans. In the official report published by the West German government, I see this interesting comment. In 1955 alone the number of newly constructed apartments totalled 541,000. Since 1950 a total of $9.8 billion has been expended in erecting apartment buildings and further, in 1955, nearly 49 per cent of the total expenditure on housing was accounted for in the

capital market, approximately $2.4 billion. These broad figures relate to the amount of capital invested in home construction.
Housing is centred on government aided social housing projects, as in the erection of apartments for which rent or other charges are kept at a low level by the means of loans at low rates of interest and with long-term amortization, within the reach of the broad masses of the population.
Their first housing act provided that a total of 2 million apartments of this kind should be built between 1951 and 1956. For the years 1957 to 1962 provision is made for a further 1.8 million apartments of' the same kind. At first the majority of apartments completed contained few rooms, but larger apartments are now being constructed in a much greater ratio. In 1955 more than half the new apartments had four or more rooms including the kitchen.
Well, now, that is a small nation with limited material resources and possessing a special problem of meeting the requirements of some 11 million refugees and expellees. That that country is able to make such an impressive housing program presents, it seems to me, a sharp contrast to our own slowness. It also indicates how much more we in Canada could accomplish.
Let us look at what has happened in a country closer to our own. In its 24 years of operation the United States federal housing administration has insured over $40 billion of home mortgages and property improvements. Translated into the number of families affected this means that one out of every three families in the United States has benefited. These are outstanding accomplishments, and suggest that in the field of housing similar potentialities exist in our own country. One fact is clear, that of all the problems we face in this great country of ours the housing problem is, to say the least, the most embarrassing.
Who is to blame for all this? To be honest about it, I believe it is the horse and buggy thinking at the government level. The real story would show that money trusts have been operating against the best interests of our people. Government publicity keeps telling us of the tremendous progress we are making. That is not so. I am not suggesting we have not made progress, but I am saying that our progress in terms of what could be done has been quite unsatisfactory.
Let us look at these facts. It cannot be said that housing shortages in our country are of recent origin; the problem has been with us for the past 25 years, irrespective of who was in power, both in depression years and in times of relative prosperity. The
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question of providing adequate housing for our people has just never been resolved. The unhappy fact is that we have never made a proper effort to develop a comprehensive broad scale attack to eliminate substandard dwellings. Consequently today the greatest unmet need of our people is still in the field of providing homes on a fair basis.
What is the situation today? The minister in speaking recently somewhat played this down, but it is a fact that for two years now residential construction has been substantially dropping. This year starts were considerably lower than last year. I have in my hand daily bulletins from the dominion bureau of statistics, one dated Monday, May 6, 1957, which has this to say:
Starts on the construction of new residential units were sharply lower in this year's first quarter, dropping to 7,769 units from 14,473 in the first three months of 1956.
A further bulletin dated Tuesday, July 9, 1957, has this to say:
Fewer new dwelling units were started or completed in the first five months of this year than last, D.B.S. reports in an advance statement. Number of units in various stages of construction at the end of May was also smaller than a year earlier.
Then as recently as December 6 we have this information.
Starts on the construction of new dwelling units in the January-Oetober period this year numbered 102,197 units, some 11.3 per cent fewer than 1956's comparable total of 115,188, according to an advance D.B.S. statement.
Further on it says:
Completions in the 10 months totalled 94,868 units, down 13.1 per cent from the year-earlier total of 109,160 units.
In many cities of Canada the sag in the home building program has become a very serious problem. In my own city of Eamonton this has been especially so. May I point out to the minister that in 1956 only 3,800 dwelling units were built in that city, while during that year we had a population increase of over 14,000 persons. The difficulties experienced with our growth have been compounded by the tight money policies prevailing. Mortgage restrictions have hit our city harder than any other area in Canada. We made repeated submissions to the previous government; nothing happened. It is true that many of their candidates said something would happen after June 10 when they were back in power, but I would sincerely hope that the new Minister of Public Works, in facing the situation, will take heed of Edmonton's interest by making substantial increases in the number of N.H.A. credits available for that area.
I would also ask that we look at the history of this national problem in order that we

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may know what to do in the future. During the depression years we had a period of decline in residential building. That was a period of paradox. The only thing that was short was money; there were plenty of materials and manpower available. There was no decline in the volume of homes needed then, but in spite of these factors it was a period in which everything sagged because of the shortage of money. There were the demands and the physical facilities at our disposal, but the money just was not there.
In 1939 Canada was involved in a war. Suddenly and mysteriously money was no problem. Our capacity to do things in a big way was demonstrated to the world. People were prepared to forgo satisfying their personal needs and convenience and comforts in order to meet the drastic requirements of that great war.
Immediately after the termination of the war the tremendous housing requirement and public opinion forced the government to make one notable change. They enacted the National Housing Act in 1946 and we had a short period of boom in building. Then suddenly they turned on the tight money policy again. The government allowed tight money policies to be forced on the people of Canada, which resulted in interest rates being raised seven times in the course of one and a half years.
The country was told that these policies were necessary in order to stop inflation. The actual consequences were the highest cost of living ever, the restriction of building, higher cost of building for prospective home buyers, and a drastically reduced amount of credit for home construction.
It is a very significant fact that the building going on of late is limited almost entirely to families of middle or higher incomes. I believe the minister is aware of this, because in the first statement he made he pointed out that the average income of the borrower was $5,829. Perhaps I had better quote this statement as made by the minister at page 1878 of Hansard, where he says:
I was very much surprised to find that the qualifying income for the average National Housing Act loan made by approved lenders in the month of September of this year was $5,350. The average income for borrowers under the National Housing Act was $5,829.
I just wonder how many of our people qualify under those terms, or have salaries of that kind. The fact that the answer to inflation is production does not seem to have entered into the consideration of the government. This government and the previous government in sustaining tight money policies kept telling us they were necessary in order to stop inflation. Well, sir, there never was inflation

in the first place, certainly not in the sense of the term which means, properly speaking, too much money chasing too few goods. It is true that we have had cost and price increases, but they were a direct consequence of the present taxation policies, and these increases were aggravated by the tight money policies being applied. There was a marked decline in residential construction, yet the proponents of tight money just went their own way.
I wish now to say a word about present interest rates. In this connection we regretted very much to hear the minister state that the government has no present intention of reducing the 6 per cent interest rate on N.H.A. loans. This denial of intention to lower interest rates is serious, and nullifies whatever advantage is proposed in the reduction of down payments.
I have never been able to figure out government thinking with respect to high interest rates and tight money. On the one hand they claim that this policy keeps housing costs down, but in fact the very opposite is the case, because as capital becomes scarce it becomes dearer to acquire, interest rates rise, and high interest rates result in less construction. Less construction, in turn, encourages higher, rents and a very vicious discount practice which is being carried on in this country at the moment.
Instead of operating in the interests of people the existing policies seem to be operating in the best interests of lending institutions. Instead of homes being built, bigger profits are being allowed for a few. Instead of contributing to stability in the lumbering and construction industries the administration's tight money policies have depressed those industries. Tight money has contributed to promotional schemes and giantism in business.
What about the future? At the fourteenth annual convention of the national house builders' association, which met in Montreal on January 9, 1957, an important message was given by the association's president. I quote from the Ottawa Citizen of January 19, 1957:
He told the 500 convention delegates that home construction cannot be allowed to lag if the "truly colossal" growth of Canada continues far into the future, as many economists predict.
"It has been predicted that we will require 4 milhon new homes in the next 20 years, necessitating a mortgage credit of $20 billion. If this is correct, and I think it is, the situation could become serious in my opinion if the production of houses is allowed to slip below the 1956 level", he said.
Well, it has slipped. Now, in bringing these facts to the attention of the house I do so because they illustrate how unsatisfactory the situation is, and how seriously the present government and the previous government have failed to solve the problem of housing

on a long-term basis. We Social Crediters believe it is high time the government did something about this situation and made sure that public moneys are deployed for the benefit of the people and not for the sake of the profits of lending institutions. We want to see the finance costs of housing lowered in order that the small income man may benefit first. We want to see mortgage credits forthcoming in sufficient quantities and on a steady basis, not on a stop and go basis. We want to see interest rates lowered.
In this respect it is sheer nonsence to insist that an iron-clad government-backed guarantee would require an interest rate of 6 per cent. Our people are excellent credit risks, and this has been proven by the low percentage of losses on approved loans. The rate of interest return offered recently on the No. 12 series of Canada savings bonds was
4.46	per cent, which was advertised as the highest yield ever offered by the dominion government, and as being a very good investment. I agree that this is a good investment and a good yield, but if a government-backed bond produces interest at the rate of
4.46	per cent, then these housing loans, made through lending agencies and guaranteed by the government, should not require more than
4.46	per cent interest. In fact the loan should be issued at cost.
Finally, in our view there is no greater responsibility of government at this time than that of instituting a brand new approach, a far-reaching housing program designed to make home ownership possible for every Canadian family, not just for a select few. Toward this end we are prepared to give full co-operation.
I might point out that we had an election on June 10. The Liberals lost the confidence of the public. Temporarily the Conservatives are in power. It seems to me that the moral of this story is that no government in Canada remains long in power which does not give the people the type of management they desire. This government and all governments will have to recognize that a new period is dawning in which people are thinking of a better life and, consequently, a new and more dynamic concept of government is necessary. Our policies on housing must reflect this concept.


Mr. H. Russell MacEwan (Pictou):: Mr. Speaker, I should like at this time to make a few remarks regarding the changes in the National Housing Act. One speaker who preceded me this morning, the hon. member for Gloucester, has already dealt with what in his view will be the effect of these changes as far as the Atlantic provinces are concerned.
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Perhaps I agree with him in some respects, but I certainly do not agree with him in all respects.
I would heartily commend the Minister of Public Works for the proposed amendment which would allow extra money to be allotted for home building. Certainly this extra money in my area of Nova Scotia and in New Brunswick will mean that our small contractors will have a better chance of carrying out work during the winter period, work which will employ men in the mills providing the lumber, give work to a number of other tradesmen, and certainly provide a great stimulus to the building industry.
In line with the remarks made by the minister yesterday to the hon. member for New Westminster, in which he stated that he was ready to receive suggestions as to any possible changes which might help, I will just say, as I have already stated, that I believe this extra money will be of great assistance in our area.
However, I would mention one matter which will be a further help at a later time. I refer to the matter set out in the brief of the national retail lumbermen's council, namely that owner labour be considered as part of the down payment. In my area, and in the maritimes generally, the Veterans' Land Act has been a good means of providing impetus and help in the construction of houses.
Three friends of mine undertook to build new houses outside the town under the Veterans' Land Act. I watched them with a good deal of interest. They did much of the 'work themselves. They called in skilled tradesmen at different times to do the necessary important work, but a great deal of the construction was done by their own labour. I know this because at one time I was almost conscripted into the labour gang, but I got away from that.
However, I would point out that in my area, and in the province of Nova Scotia generally, there are a number of co-operative groups which have built houses. Young married couples who work in stores, in the local car works or in various places of business, whose incomes are certainly not in the high brackets, have, by means of the Nova Scotia housing commission and in other ways, undertaken co-operative efforts. These young couples, by the use of their own labour, were able to cut down the cost of the houses, and it has proved to be a very successful effort.
To my knowledge, what has happened in the past is that contractors have been actually engaged in the building of houses under the National Housing Act. I recommend that owner labour be made a permanent and

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integral part of this act so that men can do much more of their own work, thus cutting down the cost and helping in the down payment. Perhaps they could hire a contractor to look over the whole project and employ the various skilled tradesmen, as is done now. I submit that this is a matter which could perhaps be studied by the Central Mortgage and Housing Corporation and be included in the act.
The hon. member for St. Antoine-West-mount, I believe, yesterday stated something to the effect that we should not discourage other lenders from taking part in lending in Canada. I agree with that, but I would point out that so far as the province of Nova Scotia is concerned a young man, or anyone, building a house is limited by legislation in the amount he can borrow from other lenders. In most instances he can get a loan of only 60 per cent of the appraised value of a house. Some companies limit the borrowers to 50 per cent of the amount. This makes it quite difficult for a young couple to raise the amount of the down payment in the first instance. As I have said, in the first instance it is 40 per cent of the appraised value of a new house and in the second instance, 50 per cent.


Mr. Marler:: The hon. member is not referring to loans under the National Housing Act?


Howard Russell MacEwan: No; I am referring to private mortgage companies. I believe the change to 90 per cent of the first $12,000 of the lending value or any part thereof will help a great deal in our area but, as I have said, I believe there should be an amendment to the act in future to give builders a chance to have their own labour included as part of the down payment. I have received letters from various people in the area in this regard, and I have taken this opportunity to place the matter before the house.
Finally, one object of the amendment was to provide lower rental houses and smaller houses throughout Canada. I would close with a short quotation from a learned Englishman who said:
The nations of the world dwell in the cottage, and unless the excellence of your statesmanship and the beauty of your legislation is reflected there on the minds and the hearts of the people, rely upon it, you have yet to learn the duties of government.
I submit, Mr. Speaker, this government has learned those duties.


Mr. Stanley Haidasz (Trinity):: Mr. Speaker, I would like to speak briefly with reference to the bill before the house, which proposes to amend the 1954 National Housing Act by increasing by $150 million the original amount

of $250 million which was provided by the Liberal government, and also to provide for the reduction of down payments.
I am grateful to the Minister of Public Works for allowing us to speak today with as much latitude as possible concerning the National Housing Act. As a new member, speaking for the first time on the subject of national housing, I feel obligated to express my acknowledgment and admiration for the wisdom, courageous solicitude and initiative that the Liberal administration in the past demonstrated for Canadians by enacting federal legislation to more easily provide low cost houses in which our people may raise their families in comfort, intimacy and security.
The Liberal legislation expanding the scope of the housing act in 1956 by assisting the redevelopment of substandard housing and slum areas gave further proof of the active interest of the Liberal government in co-operating with municipalities and provinces in vital social problems involving the security of the Canadian family. Such legislation has promoted the morals, health and good citizenship of the Canadian family more than any other legislation in the history of Canadian parliaments.
Among the principal goals of our society are both the continual striving to overcome the housing shortage which still exists in Canada and the vigorous quest for higher standards of housing. This quest finds its expression not only in individual pride in being a home owner but also in the collective concern for the proper housing of all members of the Canadian community, be they young, old, poor or of moderate means.
However, durability of housing, its conservation and eventual replacement, must be considered important factors in the maintenance of the nation's housing resources. Moreover, I do not have to emphasize the fact that the construction and maintenance of homes is in itself a major industry, using the products of our forests and mines and putting into action the manufacturing industries producing building materials and domestic equipment and employing numerous skilled and unskilled labourers.
For all these reasons the minister of the federal government in charge of the national housing program has most serious obligations to fulfil. The introduction of piecemeal legislation, the curtailing of discussions and the refusal of necessary amendments to these fundamental matters will not solve the existing housing problems, as stated by previous speakers. In the long run it might even harm our national economy.
During the last federal election campaign Canadians were promised that the needs and



IS, 1S57

[Stage Direction]
desires of the Canadian people would be met and that good government would be provided. Alas, the numerous bits of legislation which have been actually forced through the present session of the 23rd parliament testify to the lack of sound planning on the part of the present administration. The argument that they have had only a short time in which to consider legislation is a very poor reason for very poor legislation, as there is no immediate deadline that must be met. The Canadian voters did not restrict the government only to six months in which to plan and introduce specific legislation in order to meet the needs of the Canadian people and the requirement to continue a sound economy in Canada.
The mere provision of just $150 million for housing and the small reduction in down payments are at best only a mediocre attempt to help the ailing housing industry, and certainly do not solve the housing problems of the Canadian family in the low income bracket. In September the government released $150 million from the federal treasury for the construction of small homes, particularly with the hope of reducing the number of unemployed in Canada. But we see that this $150 million did not improve substantially the amount of homes being built, nor did it improve the unemployment situation. We learned from the statisticians a few days ago that there are 100,000 more people unemployed today than there were in September of this year. The statisticians have also reported that 70 per cent of Canadians earn less than $3,400 a year.
According to the proposed changes in the legislation it will be possible for a man to obtain a loan of $12,200 on a $14,000 home only if his income is around $4,360. Even for a $9,000 loan the prospective home owner must earn at least $3,400 annually. If such low priced homes should be available, only 30 per cent of Canadians will be able to avail themselves of this privilege, leaving 70 per cent of Canadians out in the cold because they will not be able to benefit from the new legislation. The people who need low cost homes the most are being ignored by the government, even though the avowed intention of the national housing plan was to provide low cost homes for people in the low income brackets.
I do not mean to blame the affable Minister of Public Works entirely for failing to provide adequate help for the low wage earner, because on December 4, 1957, as found at page 1880 of Hansard, he made this confession:
Quite frankly, I should like to be able to help an income group even lower than those who will be helped by this legislation.
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This leads us to believe that many other factors, circumstances and perhaps persons in the present government have dissuaded the minister from presenting more generous and just legislation. Therefore the greatest blame once again falls upon the Conservative government as a whole for failing to assist adequately those in dire need. It would have been more just had the minister proposed more liberal changes by introducing greater reductions in down payments, a substantial reduction in the interest rate on loans and perhaps by reducing-[DOT]
Mr. Rea:: Will the hon. member for
Trinity permit a question? Is the hon. member going to vote for the bill?


Stanley Haidasz: I will let the hon. member for Spadina know at the conclusion of my address.


Mr. Pickersgill:: He voted to support the chairman the other night.


Stanley Haidasz: I was about to mention also that the abolition or reduction of the insurance fee on loans would be of help to the low income group. I cannot understand why the government could not have allowed the buyer to borrow 90 per cent of the full lending value. On a $16,000 house, the average price for a new, six-room, comfortable dwelling in the Toronto area from which I come, the down payment would only be $1,600 and the mortgage $14,400, with a monthly payment of $112 plus $20 for taxes. If the government had lowered the interest rate the monthly burden would have been lighter and the amortization period could then be extended more easily to 35 years or more. If the 2 per cent insurance fee were abolished this would save the prospective buyer another $228. These indeed would have been very liberal amendments, and would have really helped the poor workingman who is in need of a home.
However, there would still be thousands of Canadians who, being in the very lowest income brackets or because of their employment or for other reasons, would not find it practical to buy or own a home. For these people the solution is more low rental housing accommodation. There rests a definite responsibility upon the present government through its crown agency, Central Mortgage and Housing Corporation, to provide more effective leadership in working with provincial and municipal authorities to set up and approve without delay greater numbers of more adequate low rental housing projects.
The National Housing Act amendments introduced by the past Liberal administration, which provided for substantial federal

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assistance to municipalities to clear up slum areas, are to be highly commended. Toronto in particular has taken advantage of this legislation and has succeeded in developing modern low rental dwelling units in the Regent park area. There are other areas in Toronto that need clearing and redeveloping, such as Alexandra park and Moss park. Proposals have been made by the Toronto planning board in this regard, but the mayor of the peculiar creature called the metro, created by the Frost government, is repeatedly postponing these and many other worth-while projects in Toronto. Since Mr. Gardiner's boss espoused the Tory leader, it is difficult to understand why there should be such opposition from the metro level.
Furthermore, Mr. Speaker, an urban renewal study for Toronto recently suggested that the National Housing Act provisions be altered to include financial aid to the city for improvement projects intended to remove the threat of blight, to enable long-range planning to prevent slums, and to build well planned areas in our cities. The present government would indeed be very helpful and wise if it would agree to provide such assistance to municipalities.
I have been informed that on October 1, 1957, representations were made by the association of Ontario mayors and reeves to the government requesting federal aid of up to 75 per cent of the cost of acquiring and clearing blighted and substandard areas in any municipality, and asking that the municipality's share of such cost be repayable by the municipality without interest over a period of 40 years. I suppose these representatives were also told that the government had considered the proposal, and the problem was swept under the carpet.
A more urgent need for Canada is to make available more low cost serviced land in and around our municipalities. There is no doubt that many cities missed the opportunity provided years ago under the National Housing Act to embark upon municipally initiated land assembly schemes. The federal government should take the leadership once again in this matter. The 2 per cent insurance fee charged to home buyers to protect the lender has already, we know, accumulated a surplus of $27 million. Could this money not be used to buy land and sell it at cost to municipalities for building really low cost housing areas, completely serviced?
The biggest beneficiaries in Toronto are the subdividers who had land for sale. With the return to the industry of many builders who had gone out of business previously, the subdividers have been able to unload their land holdings. This occurred at a time

when market conditions had begun to force land prices down. It would appear that if there has been any benefit to the subdividers, there has been very little benefit to the potential home purchasers.
Moreover, Mr. Speaker, in the Toronto metropolitan area the price of serviced land is too high to permit the construction of very small houses. It does not make sense to build a $12,000 house on a lot costing $5,000. A sharp distinction, therefore, has to be drawn between very small housing units, which is what the government is providing, and low cost housing which it was their avowed intention to provide.
Any experienced builder will tell you that the size of a small home may be increased by 10 per cent beyond the 1,050 square feet limit imposed by the government at an increase in cost of perhaps only 4 per cent. This extra size is the really low cost part of the house, and at the present time it is lost to potential home purchasers because of the existing legislation. It seems to me much more sensible to build the basic structure a little larger, to provide more adequate and durable accommodation to which the home purchaser can add extra features as his income allows, than to limit him to a very small, cheap structure which cannot be expanded nor be expected to last very long.
Another drawback of the present system is the fact that too many houses will be built in the same size range, and consequently the potential purchaser does not have the variety to which he is accustomed in a free market. The design is also limited, because it is most difficult to achieve good design and balance when the floor areas are so rigidly controlled. Just a few weeks ago the regional awards of the national design council were presented, and one could not help but be impressed with the giant strides that have been made in the design of small homes. It seems to be a bit inconsistent for the design council to encourage variety and beauty while, on the other hand, the government forces uniformity, drabness and that regimented appearance of those box-like structures of which we see so many and which we all deplore.
The big problem of the building industry seems to be one of cost, and it is a real problem which seems to be receiving little or no attention. The builders claim that over a number of years they have held down, within reason, the cost of the house itself in spite of tremendously increased wages and the rising prices of construction materials. The price of serviced land, however, has skyrocketed beyond their control out of all

proportion. It is in this field that the federal and provincial governments will have to make a real contribution. But if, on the other hand, nothing is done and land prices, wages and the cost of construction materials continue to rise, then even the advantage of the reduced down payment to the potential home buyer will be lost.
In conclusion, Mr. Speaker, I should like to say that the proposed amendments can only be regarded as a short-term emergency measure, a meagre palliative. I say that unless the regulations are changed as the result of much more thought than they appear to have been given, the results, rather than being beneficial, will remain inadequate to the building industry, to the home buying public and to the taxpayers of Canada who are underwriting the whole scheme.


Mr. Barnett:: May I call it one o'clock,
Mr. Speaker?
At one o'clock the house took recess.


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AFTER RECESS

The house resumed at 2.30 p.m.
Thomas Speakman Barnett: Mr. Speaker, last evening my colleague the hon. member for Burnaby-Coquitlam expressed his pleasure that we have a much respected fellow British Columbian as the Minister of Public Works and the member of the government who is responsible for housing activities initiated by the federal government. He also gave the minister one or two good marks for attempting to do something about the housing situation.
I should like to say that I concur very heartily in the remarks that were made last night in this respect. However, at the same time I must also say that to me it is a matter of regret that the minister's horizons as to what can and should be done in the field of housing appeared to be quite restricted. Actually, of course, the amendments he is proposing to this house in connection with the National Housing Act are, I think one could fairly say, relatively minor.
In that connection perhaps I should remind the minister that when the act we are now proposing to amend was brought into this house he felt it was such a bad act that he was completely opposed to it and that he, along with his colleagues, when the vote on second reading was taken on January 29, 1954, opposed second reading of the bill which, as I suggest, he now is apparently content to deal with only by two relatively minor amendments.
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In describing the amendments in that manner I am not attempting in any way to detract from the view that some good will be accomplished by them. However, I think the minister himself, in saying that he would like to do something more about housing, has made it clear that some of us have some justification for suggesting that his horizons on what can be done are rather limited.
I also recall that as the discussion progressed on the original bill which brought in the present housing act, some of the views which we in this corner of the house were then expressing were rather similar to some of the views we are expressing now, particularly when it comes to the matter of dealing with what should be done about interest in the provision of funds for housing. On March 8, 1954, as recorded at page 2758 of Hansard of that year, my colleague the then member for York South, the late Mr. Joseph Noseworthy, proposed an amendment on third reading of the bill. That amendment reads as follows:
That Bill No. 102 be not now read a third time but that it be referred back to the committee of the whole house for the purpose of amending it so as to provide a fixed limit as to the rate of interest to be charged on loans made under the provisions of the said act.
On that occasion the then hon. member for York South had this to say:
It is said, for example, that there will be an advantage in the lower down payment. It is true a few dollars will be saved on the down payment but the interest rate will be higher, and any benefit which might accrue from a saving on the down payment will be swallowed up in the increased rate of interest over the years.
Then Mr. Nose worthy went on to say this:
The bill does not solve our housing problem. It will be just as difficult for those in the lower income groups to get houses after this bill becomes law as it was under the old act.
The interesting thing, perhaps, about that matter, in addition to my suggestion that the views of the C.C.F. have been fairly consistent on this subject over the years, is that the present Minister of Public Works and his colleagues, after having opposed second reading of the bill, did not see fit to support that amendment for referral back to the committee, and ^hat the then leader of the Conservative party, Hon. George Drew, made it clear that he was not prepared to go along with our ideas as to what should be done to ensure that a lower interest rate should apply on loans made under the National Housing Act.
Hence, Mr. Speaker, it becomes apparent that the principal stumbling block, as far as action by the present government is concerned, is similar to that which we felt was the principal stumbling block to effective

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action as far as the legislation of the previous administration is concerned.
In discussing this aspect of the matter, Mr. Speaker, I should like to make some reference to what I consider to be a most important document, and one which in my opinion should be receiving much greater attention in this house than has been the case to date. I am referring to the annual report of the governor of the Bank of Canada, which was addressed to the minister of finance under date of February 28, 1957.
This document I feel, Mr. Speaker, sets out in very clear terms an explanation of the financial situation in which we find ourselves today, and makes it quite clear that much of the loose talk we have heard in this house and across the country about tight money and related matters is just so much nonsense. It also, I think, could make a fairly important contribution to our thinking as to what it is possible and feasible to do about providing proper housing for the Canadian citizens. I am going to read from the report of Mr. Coyne some excerpts which I feel relate themselves most closely to the problem of providing adequate housing for our citizens. At page 5 of the report Mr. Coyne has this to say:
Since the demand for loanable funds exceeded even the greatly increased supply, lending institutions have not been able to accommodate all potential borrowers in full; they have made such disposition of their funds as they chose, within the terms of any statutes governing their activities. In view of the rather frequent complaints which have recently arisen with regard to the availability of housing finance, it should, perhaps, be explicitly stated that banks, insurance companies, and all other institutions and individuals concerned with the provision of loans for this purpose are under no regulation in the nature of credit control preventing them from lending money for housing, or requiring them to reduce the scale of such lending. So-called "federal credit controls" do not exist.
Then, Mr. Speaker, on page 9 of the report following through with this discussion of this matter Mr. Coyne has this to say:
This limitation on the availability of bank credit has not apparently affected the ability of the companies concerned to obtain funds from other sources.
I am sorry; that is a reference to instalment finance, but a little further down on the same page he says:
Throughout 1956 the chartered banks continued to make substantial advances by way of insured housing loans, although commitments for new investments of this character progressively decreased. The total of new approvals of housing loans by banks in 1956 was about half as great as in 1955, and by the year-end the banks had very largely withdrawn from this field of lending.
Long-term investments made from and limited by funds accruing from the growth of savings deposits are in quite a different category from credit expansion in the form of current or demand loans to businesses and individuals, which may reach excessive proportions. As discussed later,

the financing of such credit expansion through the use of funds arising from savings deposits, both directly and from the sale of government bonds, in which savings deposits previously received had been invested, has been one of the less predictable and less stable features of monetary developments over the past two years.
Turning now to page 27 of the report in which Mr. Coyne is continuing his discussion of the banking system, I find these words:
One reason why it is not possible to predict the effects of monetary measures with accuracy is the uncertainty, which must always exist to some degree, as to the reaction of the banking system itself to such measures. In Canada this has been more noticeable perhaps than elsewhere because of the extent to which commercial banking functions and savings banking functions are intermingled in the operations of the chartered banks. Over 80 per cent of total personal savings deposits in Canada are held with the chartered banks, and the pattern of investment of such deposits has varied widely at different times.
Then at page 29 he goes on:
Housing loans and other investments have been the residual form of investment for the savings departments of the banks.
In other countries personal savings deposits are chiefly held by separate and specialized institutions, sometimes called building societies, sometimes called savings and loan associations, sometimes called savings banks or mutual savings banks, which make a practice of investing such funds in housing loans and in relatively long-term securities.
Then on page 30 Mr. Coyne continues:
In 1954 the Bank Act was amended to permit the chartered banks to make mortgage loans on new houses, loans insured under the National Housing Act. This was an important improvement in the machinery of the Canadian capital market. I believe it would be desirable if means could now be found to encourage greater stability in the rate of longterm investment by the banks in those fields where they may now operate . . .
To maintain their relative position, the chartered banks may find it desirable and necessary to operate in respect of the resources of their savings departments in much the same way as a savings bank and use such resources to provide funds for the kinds of investment naturally associated with longterm savings.
To the extent that personal savings were segregated from the commercial lending field, they could be regarded as likewise removed from the category of "money supply" . . .
Fluctuations in mortgage lending would of course be much less pronounced. The workings of monetary policy would become more predictable and more effective . . .
In any condition of an excess of physical demand over physical supply, some elements of demand must of necessity give way, lose out to others. Competition for money with higher interest rates produces fewer casualties and less social stress than unrestricted competition for goods with higher prices. Better a rise in the price of borrowed money . . . than a very great rise in the price of goods and housing, in the cost of schools and hospitals and public utilities.
I am reading that section, I might say, to indicate to the minister that I am attempting to give a fair picture of all Mr. Coyne has to say in this most important connection. He goes on:
Whenever there is an excessive demand over supply, and the competition for funds with which

to make the desired expenditures is intense, the results in terms of who gets how much at what cost will not give satisfaction to all. Those who find themselves unable to borrow as much or as cheaply as they wish, or unwilling to pay interest at the new and higher rates will naturally be dissatisfied. What is more important, the actual distribution of loanable funds may not seem to be the most desirable one from the point of view of society as a whole, or of large groups within it. This is a question of opinion, and a matter of public policy.
Well, Mr. Speaker, the governor of the Bank of Canada, I would suggest, very properly dumps this whole question right in the laps of those of us who are members of this house. He brings us his analysis of this situation and, on the basis of the facts which Mr. Coyne has so clearly set out, we should consider what action could and should be taken about the whole question of providing housing finance.
The Minister of Public Works last night, as recorded at page 2498 of Hansard, said:
. . . one of the main problems worrying me about housing. It is this. Next year, where is the money coming from to provide for the number of houses that should be built?
Well, the minister is not the only one who is worried about that, because I think all of us in this house recognize that the extra money which we are being asked to approve in this bill is not really enough to go very far toward solving the over-all need for houses across Canada. But the thing which concerns me is that the minister goes on to say that the government obviously cannot take over the business of providing mortgage money; it simply cannot be done.
Well, Mr. Speaker, I think that is where the minister and those of us who are in the C.C.F. party really part company. The minister says it cannot be done. As far as we are concerned, we say the only reason it cannot be done is that the minister does not want to do it; and if one follows through with the analysis of the situation which Mr. Coyne has made and which he has, as I suggest, dumped in our laps as members of this House of Commons representing the people of Canada, then I suggest that we are coming to the crux of the situation thas has to be debated.
Why could not the government take over responsibility for seeing that there is adequate mortgage money available for housing? Mr. Speaker, I suggest the reason this government, speaking through the Minister of Public Works says this cannot be done is exactly the same reason for which Mr. Winters, when he was minister, said it could not be done; and that is because of the fact that the Conservative party, like the Liberal party, refuses to recognize the basic fact that capital is something which is socially created.
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While it may be true that certain people legally have a large comer on certain amounts of it, nevertheless the reason we have capital which would make housing on a large scale possible, if it were devoted to that end, is that fifteen or sixteen million Canadians have created it.
We in the C.C.F. party maintain that at least a sufficient proportion of that socially created capital should be available to the people who created it in order to ensure that they shall have decent housing at a cost they can afford to pay. We maintain that it is not necessary for us to go on forever paying tribute to the moneylenders so they can continue to extract their pound of flesh over a period of 25, 30 or 40 years while a house is being paid for. That is the issue, and that is the challenge which those of us in this corner take up with the Minister of Public Works when he says this is something which cannot be done.
Mr. Speaker, we are dealing particularly in this bill with a provision to increase the direct lending activities of Central Mortgage and Housing Corporation, and we have already made it clear that as far as the measure goes we are prepared to support it. But we have also made it clear, I think, that we do not feel it is necessary that the people of Canada should continue to have to pay the present kind of interest rates over a long period of years, as they will be required to do if nothing more than this proposal is put into effect.
The main discussion has quite properly turned on the idea of the minister of making additional direct loans available to those who are building family homes, individually. But I think we have to realize that included in the direct lending activities of the corporation there are some other activities which are a matter of concern, and that in increasing the amount of money available and refusing at the same time to make provision for lowest possible interest rates, we are creating a problem for those who are attempting to provide low cost housing for senior citizens for example, in the type of community project which is becoming increasingly popular in many communities.
I have one such venture in the particular part of my constituency in which I happen to live, where a local organization formed for the purpose of attempting to provide low cost housing for senior citizens feels it is right in the bite at the present time because of this question of what is going to happen about interest rates.
They have gone to the trouble of determining what difference in the rentals will be brought about as a result of the interest increase which took place in the housing field

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recently, and according to the figures as they have had them supplied by someone competent to work out these things, on the basis of amortization over a 40-year period, they arrive at this conclusion. For a loan of $110,000 at 31 per cent the annual payment will amount to $5,352.54. With interest on the same sum at 4J per cent, the annual payment would amount to $5,977.75. This, they say, is an increase of $625 annually, or approximately $52 a month. They point out that if they had 26 people paying rent it would mean a rental increase of $2 a month merely to meet an increase in the interest rate of three quarters of one per cent.
Well, Mr. Speaker, as I said, this idea of people in communities taking action to provide housing in this particular field is arousing increasing interest. For example, in another community in my constituency at the present time a group of people is interested in forming what it proposes to call the golden age housing society. This house may be interested to know that their plan calls initially for the erection of two units, one of which they propose to name in honour of the late J. S. Woods worth, who was the first leader of the C.C.F. party, and the other which they propose to name in honour of Mr. A. W. Neill, who was for a long time the independent member for Comox-Alberni, because of the fact that both these gentlemen took a pioneer interest in the initial establishment of an old age pension in Canada.
I mention this because I know these people will be placed in exactly the same position with regard to interest rates as those of whom I was speaking a moment ago with regard to the other project.
So it seems to me that from whatever angle we tackle this question we get back to the problem raised by the pressure of the interest rates which must be paid over the period of up to 40 years, which add so much to the cost of providing these facilities whether for individual owners or as rental accommodation for senior citizens.
The minister has already made it clear in dealing with the amendment proposed by my colleague the hon. member for Regina City, at the resolution stage that we have not much hope of persuading him to do anything about changing this bill at the moment. Nevertheless, I think we would be less than kind to the minister if we in turn did not make it equally clear to him that the problems which arise in this connection are, in our opinion, going to continue, and that we in this group will continue to draw them to his attention and to the attention of the Canadian people with all the vigour of which we are capable.

We do not take the defeatist attitude toward this question that the minister takes. We do not say this is something which cannot be done. We believe in the adage "where there's a will there's a way," and we think it is becoming more and more evident all the time that the new Conservative administration just has no better solution than its predecessors had while in office.


Mr. Fraser:: No matter what they did you would not be satisfied.


Thomas Speakman Barnett: As long as they are content to bandy about such terms as "state socialism" and all the rest of it, as some of the members of the Conservative party did with regard to the suggestions we were making when this act first came in, so long are we going to find them in a sea of despond as far as housing in this country is concerned.
Therefore, Mr. Speaker, although as I said at the outset, like a great many other people in British Columbia, I have a very high personal regard for the present Minister of Public Works, nevertheless I must say I cannot share his rather gloomy outlook as to what can be done to provide the Canadian people with decent houses.


Mr. C. W. Carter (Burin-Burgeo):: Mr. Speaker, I should like to say a few words in support of this bill which proposes to make available an extra $150 million for housing and also to lower the down payments. I should also like to add my voice to those who have urged a change in the regulations under which these funds are now administered. This money is being made available by the parliament of Canada, and we therefore have a duty to see that it is used to help those who have the greatest need. That is not happening under the present legislation.
If I am to judge from past experience, the benefits to my province from this legislation will be negligible. Since the first $150 million was made available about two months ago I believe only $200,000 has been used in Newfoundland, and most of this has gone to people with high incomes. Of the $200,000, $117,300 has gone to St. John's for 11 units and the other $83,000 to the Gander area for 9 units. These were the official figures up to the end of last week. Of the first $150 million, only $2.3 million to date have gone to all the maritime provinces combined.
The reason, of course, is that the people in the maritime provinces and in Newfoundland are not able to benefit from this legislation because under the present regulations their incomes are too low to enable them to take advantage of the act. I know the minister deplores these facts as much as I do myself, but this situation is the result of regulations

which cause federal housing funds to be distributed among the provinces in proportion to the average personal income in the provinces. Consequently Ontario, with the highest income, gets the lion's share and Newfoundland, with the lowest income, gets the smallest share.
One way to correct this situation is to change the regulations so that a proportion of the funds will be allocated to provinces according to population and need. Along with that I believe there should be a change in specifications to permit cheaper houses to be built in poorer areas. Statistics prove that persons with incomes of as low as $3,000 have been able to benefit even under the present regulations. These cases should be singled out for special study to find ways and means of building more houses for people in this income bracket.
The changes introduced by the present government to promote cheaper houses are commendable as far as they go, but they have two important defects. The houses are cheaper because they are smaller, and therefore they do not represent any increased value for the money spent. In the second place, they do not take account of human needs. A man with a small income very often needs a larger house than a person with a high income.
According to statistics, the average income of people benefiting under this act is around $5,000. Now that inflation is supposed to have been checked and credit restrictions are being eased, it should be possible for people in this income bracket to provide houses for themselves in the usual way without too much assistance from government funds.
I believe the government should concentrate on providing houses for people in the $3,000 income bracket and under. Unless this is done Newfoundland can never derive much benefit from this legislation. One way to do this is to encourage co-operative housing schemes and schemes for people who can build their own houses in whole or in part. Veterans have used funds under the Veterans' Land Act in this way with outstanding success. In particular I should like to see a special scheme to provide houses for fishermen. Fishermen do not need houses as elaborate as do people who dwell in the city, and most fishermen, particularly in Newfoundland, are able to build their own houses.
A family man actually needs two houses in his lifetime. He needs a small one when he is just married and starting out in life to raise a family. After four or five years, when the family begins to grow up, he needs a larger house. Then in later years, when the family has grown up and gone, he could
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get along better with a smaller house, with one or two bedrooms. I believe these facts should be taken into account, and some scheme worked out whereby one house could be traded in on another.
This extra money will be welcomed all across Canada on account of the unemployment situation. Newfoundland itself has a very acute unemployment situation, probably just as bad as that of any other province. Our unemployment figures are double what they were at this time last year. As I pointed out before, this money will not have any effect at all in improving the unemployment situation in Newfoundland.
It is commendable on the part of the government to try to kill two birds with one stone in this way, but I think we should keep in mind that the two goals of providing low-cost housing, on the one hand, and creating employment on the other, are not entirely compatible. The use of national housing funds in the past has in some instances helped to inflate housing costs. The primary aim of this money should be to provide low-cost housing, and we should take whatever precautions are necessary to ensure that this goal is attained. If the primary aim is to provide employment, then the objective of low-cost housing is to some extent defeated. I think we should have one or the other, but I have serious doubts whether we can have both.


Mr. H. A. Olson (Medicine Hat):: Mr. Speaker, in taking part in this debate I do not wish to cover the same ground that has been covered so well already. Furthermore, two of the Social Credit members have already outlined our position on this question nationally. There are, however, one or two things I should like to say about the local situation in Medicine Hat.
There is a need today for a plan whereby homes can be built with lower down payments and lower monthly payments. We also have a very definite need in Medicine Hat for a low rental housing scheme for some of our senior citizens and those people who have reached that stage in their lives when they are not prepared to invest in a new home. In that regard may I say that a committee considered the matter in Medicine Hat not too long ago. The committee was comprised of representatives of all sections of the community, and they agreed that there was a definite need for these two things.
Furthermore, recently a group of low rental apartments in Medicine Hat were closed. I certainly think it was necessary for them to be closed, because they were in such a condition that they were not fit for human beings to live in any more. But the fact remains that those people had no place to go. A large number of

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them were old age pensioners and, as I said, they do not wish to invest in a new home. It is quite a problem right now to find some place for them to go where they can obtain accommodation within their ability to pay.
I think the bill is a step in the right direction, and for that reason we are prepared to support it. Our main objection is that there is no provision to cut interest rates, and we think that 6 per cent interest on government-backed money is simply too high.


Mr. J. W. Kucherepa (High Park):: Mr. Speaker, I rise today to speak on a subject which has concerned me for many years as a member of the city council of the city of Toronto. The bill we have before us today is designed to increase from $250 million to $400 million the aggregate amount that may be paid out of the consolidated revenue fund, and it also provides for a reduction in down payments. In addition, in the minister's remarks in the house on December 4 there is reference to a reduction in the income level with respect to which applications for loans may be made.
The hon. member for Trinity has been most critical of this legislation. I wonder whether the hon. member is aware that there has been a decline in housing construction from the maximum level of 1955? I am sure he would not disagree with me if I were to say that this was the result primarily of the tight money policy instituted by the now defeated Liberal government. This decline reached a maximum point during the first six months of 1957, and along with it came the other great evil of unemployment in the construction industry. With an increasing labour force and an increasing population, the previous government's policies were geared to a slow-down in this vital field, and the result was that the construction industry suffered a degree of depression which it has not known for many years.
I would venture to say, sir, that as a result of these Liberal policies the people gave their answer on June 10 in an unmistakable way when they returned to the House of Commons only one Liberal from the 21 ridings in the Toronto area. That lone member is the hon. member for Trinity, who came here with a majority greatly reduced from that of his predecessor in the house.
I wonder whether the hon. member for Trinity is aware of the fact that so far as section 22 of the National Housing Act is concerned, no direct loans were made for ordinary home construction purposes in the city of Toronto under the previous government, and further that under Liberal government policies funds under this section were not available to house builders in the city of

Toronto or other comparable large urban areas who were producing houses for sale or for rent. It is indeed alarming that the qualifying income for the average housing act loan was $5,350 in September of this year. This record of Liberal policy does not seem to be in keeping with the thinking of the hon. member for Trinity, who made such a strong plea for assistance to those in the lower income brackets.
The hon. member referred to the Regent park area in the city of Toronto, and was very critical about the slow progress the present government has been making in the field of housing. I should like to point out to him that since expropriation proceedings were taken by the city of Toronto on July 14, 1947, a total of 1,289 housing units were constructed over a period of 10 years. That is at the terrific rate of 128.9 or 129 units per year.
As a member of the housing committee of the Toronto city council I would have to say that there was indeed a great deal of red tape to be overcome in achieving even this figure. The contribution of the former government was $1,362,000 out of a total of $13,400,000 which the Regent park development cost the city of Toronto. We had to consult with the federal government authorities constantly to make sure that we made even this meagre progress. I should also like to point out that the Frost government, to which my hon. friend also referred, will have made a contribution of $1,289,000 on completion of the project, a sum almost equal to that granted by the previous federal government for the Regent park development.
In view of this history I cannot see how the hon. member for Trinity can lay any blame at the feet of this government. Indeed, in my opinion the government has done a great deal toward advancing the housing program in Canada.
The hon. member for Trinity also made reference to the chairman of the metropolitan Toronto council as a peculiar creature. I should like to point out that I am well acquainted with the chairman of the metropolitan Toronto council, and I can say that Frederick Gardiner is one of the finest municipal administrators this country has ever known. I do not think his record in the administration of municipal affairs will ever be equalled by any person in this house or outside it.
To paraphrase the words of the hon. member for Trinity, he also said that the present government has "swept the problem of housing under the carpet". I would say to him in reply that if that is his thinking, then in my view the former government buried the

housing problem in the ground when they invoked the tight money policy, and when they restricted under subsection 1 of section 22 of the act the lending of moneys to the city of Toronto and other large urban areas for ordinary home construction purposes.
I also noticed that he criticized the former Liberal government for the 2 per cent insurance fee they placed on loans, and he now asks that the surplus from this source be used for the purpose of subsidizing subdivisions at the expense-this follows naturally, sir-of those small home owners who are now paying on N.H.A. mortgages.
The hon. member criticized the small homes which this legislation permits, and appealed for larger structures to be built on existing land parcels. I wonder if my hon. friend is aware of the zoning by-laws of the city of Toronto or any other municipality which control the density of population in given areas, and which prohibit a certain density in residential areas.
I might point out for the information of the hon. member and this house that even Regent park, the redevelopment which covers 42.45 acres, has 33.5 acres in open space occupied by playgrounds, park areas, lawns, parking plazas and the like. That is the way we plan in the city of Toronto and I think in most other municipalities which are making progress in redevelopment.
The hon. member also made a plea for reducing interest rates on mortgages under the National Housing Act. The hon. member seems to forget, however, that it was a Liberal government and their advisers who caused the increase in interest rates during the last few years of their administration and created the havoc of unemployment which reached such alarming proportions during the first part of 1957, prior to the ousting of the Liberal government from office last June 10.
( Translation):


Mr.   Yvon@: Mr. Speaker, I would not want to miss this opportunity of taking part in the discussion about the National Housing Act of 1954. I represent, as I have said, a growing constituency which avails itself of the housing act administered by the C.M.H.C., another masterpiece of the Liberal regime. My constituency is not far from Montreal, the metropolis, and many people who have jobs in Montreal reside in these outskirts, thus enjoying the benefits of rural life on the south shore.
Several municipalities of my constituency have spent money and developed an overall plan under which public services such as
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sewers, water distribution, sidewalks, streets, etc. were provided in order to promote house building and qualify for loans under the National Housing Act. If the municipalities make sacrifices, it would seem that this legislation could be improved, particularly by lowering from 2 to 1 per cent the rate charged by the government to insure these loans. Since 1954, the government has accumulated, from this source, a profit of several million dollars. I realize that this insurance premium seemed warranted at first, but I do not think it was the intention of the government of the day to have this corporation accumulate profits at the expense of home buyers.
Experience has been favourable. The corporation has had to take back only one unit of all houses bought under this marvelous legislation, and then sold it at a profit. It would be good now to lower this rate and to have the small house owner benefit by saving the substantial amount of $125 or $150 a unit. As to those accumulated millions, the government could use them to buy off, at pro rata, the loans granted by finance companies, which would allow them to reinvest in new loans. Another suggestion which seems very appropriate would be to reduce the interest rate of 6 per cent to 5 per cent, as is being done in the United States. An interest rate of 6 per cent is prohibitive, and of no benefit either to the owner or the buyer.
It is easier for the government to borrow than it is for loan companies or institutions. It can, at no cost to itself, afford a rebate of $1,000 to $1,200 in interest over a period of 25 years, in favour of the worker or wage earner who seeks to improve his standard of living. In fact, if the government can afford to loan money without interest to western farmers, and loan several million dollars at 4 per cent interest to the Hamilton Harbour Commission, $30 million to the government of New Brunswick, etc., why should it not be able to provide loans at a reasonable interest to house buyers?
The down payment should also be lowered so that not more than $700 or $800 on a $12,000 or $13,000 house should be required, especially so when many municipalities went out of their way to provide public services to help prospective house owners. When the down payment is too high, it becomes prohibitive for workers with a family, particularly for young married couples who have a house to furnish, and other contingent expenses.

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We must put our trust in these young people who represent the future of our country. There is no greater satisfaction for a human being, whatever his status in life, than to own his home and be able to provide adequate housing for his family. I therefore urge the government to consider these suggestions with a realistic and unbiased mind. The government should not forget the promises made during the last election. This is the time to show that they meant what they said, for in a few months it will be too late.
As the price of the lot is an important factor in the cost of a house, I appeal to the government to take whatever steps are necessary to put a stop to the shameless practices of exploiters who take advantage of our farmers' good faith, take up options on farm property, make the farmer sign unfair contracts, and then resell those lands at fancy prices, which only increases the cost of houses at the expense of the buyer.
(Text):


Mr. D. M. Fisher (Port Arthur):: Mr. Speaker, on page 550 of Hansard for October 29, 1957, the parliamentary assistant to the Minister of Public Works informed us that of the 17,560 housing loans arranged from June to July of this year, 14,616 or 83.23 per cent went to centres with populations, of over 5,000 people. Over 7 million Canadian people, that is about 45 per cent of our population, live either in rural areas or in towns smaller than 5,000. Thus only 16.8 per cent of the loans this year have been given to 45 per cent of the population, and 83.2 per cent of the loans have gone to 55 per cent of the population.
The people in the small towns and rural areas, if these figures hold true as to previous years, seem to be the orphans of the storm so far as housing is concerned, the new poor of Canada. The people living in small towns or rural areas have many other inconveniences so far as the amenities of life are concerned. This house has often been informed of the lack of television services and the fact that educational standards in these areas are not as good as in other areas. Quite often there are no lending institutions or real estate agencies to push housing for you, so these people, the 45 per cent of the population, seem unable to get the advantages of this particular legislation we have before us.
It is a joy to see semi-socialistic legislation such as this introduced by anti-socialists. I would hope that before this bill is finally approved our anti-socialist sponsors of the bill will explain to us what they can do to
[Mr. L'Heureux.l

make sure that the advantages of this legislation are given to the underprivileged 45 per cent of the people. The government's own statistics show that, so far as housing is concerned, they are underprivileged. That is the only point I wanted to make at this time.
In that connection I should like to point out that on the same pages of Hansard it is indicated that the small communities in my own constituency, with a total population of over 12,000 people, have had four loans in the last 11 years under the National Housing Act. I know, as a result of visiting this constituency, that the housing is not of the kind that means they do not need these loans. I hope the minister will tell us what steps Central Mortgage and Housing Corporation, and the various officers of his department, are going to take to see that the benefits of these lending privileges are spread to this underprivileged 45 per cent.


John Richard Garland: Mr. Speaker, I do not wish to detain the house but I should like to say just a word on behalf of the communities of Canada under 50,000 population. In doing so I hope I will not be accused of being regional or sectional in my thinking. I should like to draw the minister's attention to one small but, in my opinion, important aspect of the availability of mortgage funds for house building.
One of the greatest problems of the smaller communities is the continual siphoning off of investment money to the larger centres. I am not suggesting that this is anything new or anything of a special problem that has arisen since this government has been in charge of affairs. It is not in that sense that I am raising this question.
It is not my intention to name companies today, but how often have we heard the explanation given that this company or that company are not lending money for housing in this or that community. I am sure that most hon. members on all sides of the house who come from the smaller cities and towns in this country have heard this same complaint. I believe the lending institutions have a responsibility to make more of their funds available for home building. In the second place I believe they have a responsibility to lend more money for this purpose in the communities in which they are doing business.
I recognize the fact that the lending institutions have the right to invest their funds to the best advantage of their respective companies and I naturally am not suggesting any government interference or compulsion. However, by permitting this trend of ignoring the mortgage needs of the smaller centres to

continue, a great disservice is being done to the over-all development of this country. Unless this trend can be arrested or unless the government is prepared to supply substantially larger sums, home builders in the future may be forced to deal with private lenders to a greater degree at ridiculously high interest rates. Such a development will eliminate any hope of low cost housing which all of us, on all sides of the house, recognize is badly needed.
I hope the minister will not be annoyed at what I am going to say now. I am sure he will agree that there has been a considerable levelling off in the Canadian economy during the past few months. The proof of this is the present legislation. It now seems desirable-and I am not opposing this action-to pump more funds into the economy. However, in view of these changing circumstances, it is quite conceivable that the lending institutions may well become more selective in their lending in the small centres, with those areas suffering accordingly.
As I said earlier, I am not suggesting in any sense that there be government interference or compulsion of any kind. But if a way could be found of bringing this matter to the attention of the lending institutions I think we could well tap a substantial amount of money that could be used for home building in the smaller cities across this country, thereby eliminating to a degree the need for the kind of legislation that seems necessary here today.


Mr. John Smith (Lincoln):: Mr. Speaker, I did not expect to speak on this bill because, in my opinion, it seems to do all that it is intended to do at this time. I look upon it more or less as an emergency measure. It provides a substantial sum of money for the building of new homes, something which will be a big stimulant to the building industry. With the lowering of the down payments it will also make it possible for many more people with less capital to purchase a new home for themselves.
This new bill is going to create jobs throughout the country not only in the building trade but also in industry, the manufacturing of plumbing goods, electrical supplies, heating equipment and a great many other industries allied to the construction trade. However, the bill does not provide complete methods to solve our housing problem, especially in the large cities. During the past five years home building has been on a stop and go basis. Each year substantial sums of money were provided. Then the boom was on until the money was spent. Then there was a lull until a further appropriation was made and the boom was on again, always on
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a higher mortgage interest rate. I am pleased that at this time there is going to be no increase in the rate.
There is no doubt, Mr. Speaker, that Central Mortgage and Housing Corporation have done a big job in providing homes but now we find that a large group of Canadians have not been able to keep up with the steady climb in the cost of building and high interest rates. This amendment to the act cannot do much for them other than if many new homes are built, more of the older homes will be available for those in the lower income brackets.
The gap seems to have widened considerably during the past five years between those people who can afford to build and those who cannot afford to do so, with the result that there is a very large group of people now earning about $3,000 who cannot hope to own a home of their own or to be able to rent a good house under existing conditions. I therefore feel that Central Mortgage and Housing Corporation have a job to do in ways and means to solve the housing problem of those people in the low income brackets, because those people are entitled to much better housing than they have at the present time, especially in the larger cities.
A condition of this kind developed just prior to the beginning of the last war and with the co-operation of Central Mortgage and Housing Corporation and the builders a house was developed to sell for $3,000, with a small down payment, something which helped greatly at that time. I feel that something like that could be done again, of course on the basis of probably a $6,000 to $7,000 house. A very popular house some years ago was one with a story and a half, finished downstairs and the upstairs unfinished. Something was said today about the owners or the buyers and that if they could just put more of their own time into the house, they could bring the cost down. That was one of the reasons why this house to which I made reference was developed. Such houses provided a home for a great many people who otherwise would not have been able to get it. A house like that will comply with the N.H.A. regulations on a 40 foot lot. I know that some of our town planners probably will not agree to that, but a house of that type on a 40 foot lot would provide a six foot side yard and a ten foot drive. Using dry wall construction and other lower cost materials, and on lots with a narrow fronting, I am confident that it can be done again.
Central Mortgage and Housing Corporation seems to be promoting the wide frontage house today which requires a wide front lot,

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entailing greater cost, higher taxes and more local improvement costs. I would suggest, Mr. Minister, that consideration be given to a low cost home along the lines I have suggested.
Another department of housing that I think should be encouraged is the building of low rental housing units for those in the low income brackets. In almost every city there are areas-some of them large and some of them small-which, while not slum areas, are blighted areas which could be redeveloped for new housing. Generous assistance and encouragement should be given to municipalities who wish to enter into this type of municipal housing. I might say that we are a little behind in municipal housing in this country. In Great Britain you will find that practically 50 per cent of the houses over there are owned by the municipalities who are able to rent them at very reasonable rents.
Land assembly schemes should be encouraged as that type of land development eliminates the high profits in serviced lots and makes such lots available to builders and home owners at reasonable prices.
Mr. Speaker, I heartily endorse the passing of this bill. I have heard very favourable comments on it from builders and from people who wish to buy a home, but it is not the final answer to this housing problem in Canada. I am sure that Central Mortgage and Housing Corporation will be able in the near future to provide new ideas and better leadership in the housebuilding industry under the direction of this government.


Mr.   Alex. B. Macdonald@Vancouver-Kingsway: May I take five minutes of the time of the house, Mr. Speaker, to refer to the amendments proposed by the minister as they affect my own city of Vancouver. I think Vancouver can be proud of its home ownership. I say this from observation and not from a knowledge of statistics but I would say that there is a higher percentage of home ownership in Vancouver than in any other big city in Canada. The homes are neat, clean and attractive, with gardens suited to the balmy climate to which the minister referred the other night. And yet, in the heart of Vancouver as in many other big cities, there are blighted areas, areas that are not in any way the fault of the people who live there but areas of squalid, decrepit, crowded housing which inevitably infect the health and civic life of the whole city. One such area in the city of Vancouver, probably the principal blighted area, is east of Main and north of False creek. You

could probably say that area totalled one square mile and could be called a blighted area crying out for slum clearance, land acquisition, demolition and rebuilding to take care of the inhabitants.
It seems to me that if the city of Vancouver would see that the health and building by-laws were applied rigorously many of these buildings would be condemned now as unfit for habitation. But that would still be no solution. That would not give to the people who live there dwellings into which they could move.
The houses themselves are often firetraps, many of them a menace not only to the lives of the people who live in them but also a threat to the lives of the firefighters who from time to time are called upon to rescue lives in time of fire. The whole of such an area contributes to the social toll which we pay in disease, crime, delinquency and vice.
Now to what extent would the amendments proposed help people who live in such an area? I would reply, to a very little extent. For instance, how many of these people would be able to borrow say $10,000; I would not imagine that any less would be required to build in such an area and they would also have to pay interest at 6 per cent on that loan. Interest alone would start at the rate of $50 a month. How many of them would be able to raise the down payment in cash; I would think it would require at least $1,200 as a down payment and probably, in view of land values there, the figure would be very much greater.
How many could acquire land in such an area? How many could afford to devote, not 23 per cent as formerly, but 27 per cent of their family budget to housing needs? This would inevitably mean cutting down on other family necessities. How many of these people have an income of $3,450 a year, bearing in mind that although many of them are making good wages, not too many of them are able to work 52 weeks of the year.
The answer to all these questions is summed up in the fact that these amendments simply do not begin to approach the problem of an area such as that. Yet the problem should be approached now; now is the time of labour surplus, the time when many of our skilled building workers are condemned to enforced idleness; the time when particularly in British Columbia we have ample supplies of good building materials. Never was there a better time to approach such a problem and it has to be approached as a slum clearance project. It has to be approached, in my opinion, under sections 23 and 36 of the National Housing Act.

I do not think all the blame for lack of initiative rests either with this government or the former government. I think the city fathers of Vancouver have shown a lack of foresight; I think they have shown procrastination and timidity and even callousness in the face of this problem. This is evidenced by the very limited extent to which Vancouver has even taken advantage of the limited dividend sections of the National Housing Act, let alone the land acquisition and slum clearance sections.
So I say if we are to bring life, and health, and laughter and good living into the kind of blighted area I have been describing, the time to start is now and the sections that the government must invoke, publicize and proclaim are sections 23 and 36 of the National Housing Act. If they will, in co-operation with the provincial and municipal governments, undertake a bold and imaginative scheme under those sections in the city of Vancouver I am sure the people of that city would applaud that kind of action.
(Translation):


Mr. Gerard Loiselle (St. Ann):: Mr. Speaker, this is the first time I have the honour of taking part in the debates of this house and, as do all new members, I beg your indulgence.
Allow me, Mr. Speaker, to offer you my congratulations upon your appointment to your high office.
Allow me in particular to tell you how happy I am, as Liberal member of the constituency of St. Ann, to have served and to continue to serve the electors of my riding under the direction of our great leader, the Right Hon. Louis St. Laurent. He has always been to me a source of inspiration and, in spite of the decision he has taken, he will forever remain one of the greatest figures of Canadian history.
Now, Mr. Speaker, inasmuch as we are required to stick to the subject matter of this bill, I must say that our economy was so upset by world war II that no field of finance, federal, provincial or municipal, escaped the effects of the war.
Because of restricted house building, people are forced to live in crowded quarters. As a consequence, we find that delinquency and discord in the homes are on the increase, that the standards of health are lowered, and so on. Those evils have been felt for about twenty years. We must therefore continue and even intensify the campaign launched by the previous government to meet the continuing seriousness of that problem.
On account of the restrictions which were extended into the post-war period, some
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dwellings have now become so outmoded that very many of them are now but slums, and a disgrace to our cities. Cities cannot rigorously enforce their regulations without evicting a certain number of families or without aggravating conditions which have become a social evil.
It is a good thing that certain changes introduced by the Liberal government should have opened up numerous horizons. Some municipalities started to carry out vast projects, in keeping with the requirements, with results which did not encourage others to do likewise. Were such projects really practicable in altogether different environments, both from the standpoint of population, family formation and of other particular social problems?
The legislation favoured the building of multiple dwellings where families of two, three or four persons could easily find accommodation. But the children of working families or of low income families have an equal right to such welfare. It is our duty to preserve these men of tomorrow, who are our greatest asset. It is our duty to provide them with an environment where life will be agreeable and where their vitality will develop normally. If we neglect them, we will only have helpless and unfit men and women to save the honour of the country when danger comes. Can this be called foresight?
Representing as I do the constituency of St. Ann, with a labour population, I know of the difficulties faced by those humble people who have entrusted me with the mandate of representing them in this house. That is why I ask that the government, in co-operation with the provincial government and the various municipalities involved, take such steps as are necessary to bring about the disappearance of these old ramshackle buildings, with no modern conveniences whatever, having neither bathroom nor shower, often having only a single combined entrance and exit, which makes these dwellings real fire-traps. In proof of this, may I recall, Mr. Speaker, what happened last spring in that part of Montreal which is being rebuilt at this time. When one of those shacks burned down, one or two children perished in the flames because this dwelling provided no means of escape for its occupants.
The committee entrusted with a survey of slum conditions in Montreal classified as slum areas four well-defined sections of my constituency alone. That is why I urge the government to do all it can to make the amendments to this act, and other means available not only to Montreal authorities but to all Canadian municipalities so that all those

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cities and towns may bring about renewed life in their areas marked for future clearance. And this, of course, applies not only to the Montreal city authorities but to all Canadian municipalities.
I must congratulate the preceding Liberal government which, since 1954, has constantly improved the national housing act thereby making it possible not only for individuals but also for cities and towns to take advantage of it, to improve the lot of thousands of Canadians who are still dependent upon public authorities to help them maintain their standard of living.
Slums cost us as much as the upkeep of an army division for a whole year. In a country as young as this, we cannot remain idle in the face of this succession of daily happenings which should open our eyes to true conditions.
I would like to see all the people in my riding living in surroundings favourable to their normal development and that is why I urge this government to make credit for home building more easily available and to introduce legislation with clauses flexible enough to provide for an infinite number of particular cases.
If we manage to create happiness in a few hundred families in each of our municipalities, we will be able to say that our government has done something to help the Canadian people. When the air of slum areas is cleared of the foulness fostered by neglect or laziness, it will become wholesome, and we shall see brighter faces thanking us.
People who are happy in their homes become good citizens, and it is easy for them to deal with those degrading aspects that are unavoidable in any society. Let us keep our people strong, and to this effect, they should be comfortably and decently housed.
Mr. Speaker, the Minister of Public Works (Mr. Green) recently explained the amendments he proposes to bring to the 1954 National Housing Act for the purpose, mainly, of encouraging low cost housing and the building of low rental apartment houses.
There is no doubt that higher loans and lower down payments will make it possible for more citizens to become home owners. This action is justified. However, there are other measures which the government could have proposed and which would have had greater effects in that field. There is first the rate of interest charged on loans. Under present conditions, this rate is so exorbitant that many heads of families prefer not to
[Mr. Loiselle.l
build a house and many promoters prefer not to undertake any large project. This rate of interest should be revised and maintained at such a level that the cost of money will not be out of proportion with other costs which the small home owner must bear. There certainly is justification at this time to consider the advisability of revising section 4 of the National Housing Act. There are also local improvements namely sewage and water services, pavements and sidewalks, which impose a considerable burden upon the small home owner. There is no provision for this in the National Housing Act except in the case of a project undertaken jointly with a provincial government or a municipality. However, everywhere those local improvements constitute a basic obstacle to the building of low cost houses. It is certainly advisable to consider helping the small home owner in that regard, either by including the cost of such services in the total annual amount charged for the loan, or by advancing to the home owner the necessary credit to pay this expense and spreading the repayment over a very long period of time, at a very low rate of interest. Not only would that facilitate construction of low cost houses but it would also be an indirect help to municipalities, which could thus provide their people with more adequate services and do it faster. Many lots which are unusable at the present time would become available sooner for the construction of small houses.
The federal government should arrange with provincial and municipal governments for them to assume the cost of public services at no cost to the owners.
Finally, there is the extravagant cost of building lots. The government should consider the advisability of establishing a policy for buying and reselling land, at terms which would encourage the building of low cost single houses.
The hon. member proposes to increase the amount available under section 22 of the National Housing Act, concerning low rental housing.
This legislation seems chiefly designed to encourage housing construction by limited dividend companies. It is obvious that there is a great demand for low cost housing in most cities. However, this legislation does not tackle the real problem, the problem of the single-family dwelling, renting at a price more closely related to the income of the head of the family and the number of his children. In my opinion, it is in the field of singlefamily dwellings that the act must be

amended. Section 2, which deals with an increase of available funds, takes no account whatever of family conditions.
We are going through a difficult period and the shadow of unemployment is increasingly threatening our cities, from coast to coast. The number of families no longer able to pay an economic rent, that is a rent allowing limited dividend companies to make a reasonable profit, is increasing from day to day.
The slums, which have multiplied over the years, are more than ever inhabited by low-income families.
It is in that field that government action should be stepped up without delay. In his remarks, the hon. minister has pointed out the necessity to provide employment. Well, housing construction at this time would increase by many thousands the number of jobs available in Canada.
It is up to the federal government, when unemployment is on the increase, to encourage a greater number of slum-clearance projects and to provide comfortable and healthy dwellings at a rental price commensurate with the low income of poor families whose number is much greater than we like to admit and is constantly increasing.
I wonder then why the government seems to be delaying the implementation of a family rent housing project undertaken in the heart of the city of Montreal by the former government. This project which goes under the name of Habitations Jeanne-Mance has, among other advantages, that of bringing about the clearance of dreadful slums where large families are crowded together without any form of physical or mental hygiene whatever. This project will enable 800 families to live in conditions calculated to make the most of their social potentialities. I hope that it will be possible to eliminate delays and that the government will see to it that this project is brought to a successful conclusion as soon as possible.
I am extremely sorry that the government seems to be taking so little heed of this festering sore, slums. I know whereof I speak, representing as I do a working class district, in which industry has constantly been encroaching upon residential areas, thereby hastening the spread of blighted areas.
I feel I am entitled to request, on behalf of the people of my constituency, that public funds be used to improve housing conditions in equal if not in a higher proportion than to foster the construction of low cost housing. There is room for low cost rental housing in my constituency and I have received assurance that the authorities of the city of Montreal will co-operate with me in bringing this 96698-1614
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about, as long as the federal government provides its own co-operation unhesitatingly.
The third and sixth parts of the housing act should be amended so as to make it easier to expropriate slum dwellings and to foster construction of subsidized housing for low income families who have no hope of ever owning their own homes. It is in that regard that the government should increase the amounts made available to various housing and mortgage corporations. The sum provided by section 23 should not be $25,000,000 but $50,000,000. As far as section 26 is concerned, we would need not $50,000,000 but $100,000,000 and even more.
There is no reason why the government should contribute 75 per cent to the cost of family houses while contributing only 50 per cent of the cost of expropriation of slum areas. The federal government would be justified in raising to 75 per cent its contribution to slum clearance. This measure would encourage many municipalities to clear up their slums and substandard houses. In fact, it is as important to clear the slums which degrade our youth physically and morally as it is to provide it with healthy housing. Both measures go hand in hand, and section 23 should tie in with section 36.
The approach to the problem of slum clearance and urban rehabilitation is not easy for municipalities. To be practical, the federal government should encourage municipalities to undertake studies of urban rehabilitation and, to this end, expand the credit facilities provided by part 5 of the National Housing Act, specially for the application of subsection (h) of section 33, providing for studies of slum clearance in co-operation with provinces and municipalities. There is no reason why the federal government should not pay at least 75 per cent of the cost of such studies.
I wish at this point to congratulate the Canadian association of town-planning for its initiative in this field. That association hired a town-planner specialized in slum clearance and urban rehabilitation and has been carrying for the past year an intensive propaganda program on this matter all across this country.
There is no reason why in a country as wealthy as Canada, slums should remain the refuge of needy families. We must use all means at our disposal to enable those families to live under conditions fit for human beings and such as to help them become good citizens. So, I hope the government will consider those few suggestions, within the

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shortest possible delay, and that the required amendments to the National Housing Act will immediately follow.
(Text):


Mr. M. W. Martin (Timmins):: Mr. Speaker,
I am one of the members who decided yesterday to wait until today to take part in the debate on this bill. I find that quite a number of matters that I had intended to deal with have already been covered to some extent today by one hon. member or another. As a result, and in an effort to avoid repetition, I shall try to curtail my remarks considerably from what I originally intended to say. If perchance I should find that I am repeating some of the matters which have been dealt with today it is for the reason that I think they can bear repetition.
In addition to the normal housing needs, as they are recognized in this country, we have our rapidly increasing unemployment and increasing immigration in the last few years. The figures for this are very easy to get. All we have to do is to turn to the dominion bureau of statistics, and they give us the picture immediately of just what the need might be. But I should like to deal with another aspect of the question which is perhaps not so quickly and readily recognized in this country today. It has been touched upon by several speakers but I do not believe any of them have had the opportunity that I have had over the last number of years to realize just what a problem we have in this field. In the last seven years I have had the opportunity to work in a city fire department and, through the medium of inspections and of actually responding to fire calls, I have certainly had occasion to see just how big a problem we have in this country today in regard to slums and people living in matchboxes for houses, shacks and firetraps.
The social side of this problem was dealt with quite well by the hon. member for Van-couver-Kingsway (Mr. Macdonald). Through close association with the municipal police department, which always works closely with the firefighters, I have also been able to see that in addition to the major proportion of fire calls the major proportion of police calls are always to the same area, the same district or the same family living in the same slums. We should add up the costs involved in police protection and fire protection, jails, courts and so forth throughout the country. If we could save only part of that cost not only would we be curing a social ill but with the money we could afford to build all the houses required, clean out the slums and solve one of our biggest problems.
If hon. members over the Christmas weekend could take one day or so and go out

with one of the fire inspectors and see some of these buildings believe me, Mr. Speaker, they would get an idea of what the problem
is.	You have to see the buildings to believe
it.	It is just simply impossible for the human mind to realize the conditions under which some people exist in this country. If hon. members could undergo the absolutely unforgettable experience that I have had on different occasions of stumbling around through smoke-filled rooms and carrying out the bodies of little children burned to death in those firetraps they would realize that it is a problem that we are going to have to meet in this country.
I should now like to turn to the remarks made by the minister yesterday, as reported at page 2499 of Hansard. In dealing with the problem, he said:
If those interest rates are reduced to the extent that the lending institutions and the banks will no longer lend any money for housing, then we are in a real tailspin in so far as housing in Canada is concerned.
I believe, Mr. Speaker, he put his finger on the basic fundamental of this problem in Canada today. It is an admission that interest on money in this country is the most important factor and takes precedence over human welfare. Until we face up to the realization that this condition exists and grapple with the problem and do something about it, the housing problem in the country will never be solved by this bill or any other bill like it.


Mr. Colin Cameron (Nanaimo):: Mr. Speaker, that was a very revealing speech that the Minister of Public Works (Mr. Green) made last night, possibly inadvertently revealing but revealing nevertheless. Just what was it that he told us and indirectly the people of Canada? He told us and the people of Canada in effect that in this country, which is the second wealthiest country per capita in the world, our economy is organized in such a way that it is not possible for the people of Canada to have the housing they require. In explaining this amending bill, by which the government is increasing its direct contribution to the housing needs of the Canadian people, the minister told us that this was necessitated by the fact that the ordinary traditional lending sources of funds were drying up.
But he also expressed great concern for the future of housing in Canada because in his view it was not possible for the government to continue indefinitely playing the role that they propose to play under this new amendment. I wonder, Mr. Speaker, whether the minister is going to go further than that and tell the people of Canada just why that is so. I hope, for instance, that he is not

going to tell the people of Canada or try to tell them that it was all the fault of the previous government's tight money policy, as he suggested yesterday.
You know, Mr. Speaker, one gets a little weary of listening to this nonsense about tight money, even when it is gilded by coming from ministerial lips. I for one find it very hard to believe that my hon. friend and fellow British Columbian is really so ignorant and so silly as he tried to make out last night. I am sure he knows perfectly well that the tight money situation about which he was complaining was not the result of any government action. It was the result of the almost automatic operations of our economy, and if he is suggesting now that since his government came to office the tight money situation has relaxed, is he trying to tell us that it was due to some action on the part of his government or does he not really know that if there has been a relaxation it has been because there has been a slackening off in the level of economic activity in Canada. There has been less demand for funds and that is the reason, of course, why interest rates have been falling. Neither his government nor the previous government had anything to do with it.
It is true enough that the monetary authorities during the regime of the previous government did take some rather ineffective steps to curb the inflationary spiral which, despite the brave words of the present Minister of Finance (Mr. Fleming), is still continuing to climb. They did take some steps within their very limited means of action. I wonder whether the minister is suggesting to us that the way his government hopes to see housing financed in Canada is by another shot of inflation. I wonder whether that is his reason.
I suggest, Mr. Speaker, that the government had better face the realities of the situation in Canada today. I remember last session, Mr. Speaker, speaking on this particular issue, I believe it was, when I had occasion to quote from the words of a very eminent United States economist who was dealing with the economy of the Soviet union. He pointed out that there had been some very tragic economic mistakes made by the soviet authorities, that they had diverted such a very large proportion of their capital accumulations to industrial expansion that there was nothing left for the needs of the people, particularly housing needs.
At that time I pointed out that it was ironic that the totalitarian government of Russia and the laissez-faire government of Canada had presided over the same operation and
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had landed in the same impasse fundamentally for the same reason. In the Soviet union we have authorities making decisions with regard to the direction of investment who are not susceptible at all to any sort of public control. They make the decision and the people have to abide by it. In Canada we have a group who are making these decisions and they are equally not susceptible to public control because they have control of the accumulated savings of the Canadian people.
I think that is an important matter for us to bear in mind and I would commend to my hon. friends of the Social Credit party that they should bear in mind the fact that housing for the Canadian people can only come out of the savings of the Canadian people. There is no magic wand by which the government or the Bank of Canada can suddenly call into being funds to make house building operations possible that have no relation to real savings in the Canadian economy.


Mr. Blackmore:: Would the hon. member permit a question?


Colin Cameron: Certainly.


John Horne Blackmore: Will he tell us how the
Guernsey island government managed to build their market house around 1820 with Guernsey island notes?


Colin Cameron: Yes, I could, but I do not intend to divert myself to that just now. I knew of that case probably long before the hon. member for Lethbridge (Mr. Blackmore), I think.


John Horne Blackmore: Naturally you would not like to explain it. You cannot do it.


Colin Cameron: I read the documents about it when I was a boy, but I do not intend to be diverted to that. As a matter of fact, that particular instance underlines exactly what I am saying, if only the hon. member understood it.


John Horne Blackmore: You need to read them twice now that you have grown up.


Colin Cameron: Mr. Speaker, as I say, housing can only come from the savings of the Canadian people and those savings are found in a number of places. They are found in the savings accounts of the chartered banks, in the funds of the life insurance companies, in the trust funds of trust companies and so on, and the individuals who are in control of them have a responsibility in the investment of those funds. I for one am not going to criticize them for having adopted the policy they have in recent months and years,

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for that matter, of finding more lucrative fields of investment than housing for the funds entrusted to their care.
But there is another place in which the savings of the Canadian people can be found and it is a place where most people do not look for them. They do not consider them as savings of the Canadian people. They are found in such places as these, Mr. Speaker, in the depreciation and depletion allowances permitted Canadian corporations which in 1956 amounted to $2 billion. They are found also in the form of the undistributed profits of Canadian corporations which in 1956 amounted to some $1 billion. In those two sums alone we had nearly 10 per cent of the total wealth production of Canada, a very large proportion of the savings of the Canadian people.
I am going to suggest that if the government really intends to do something about housing in Canada it will have to stop talking nonsense about tight money, it will have to stop blaming either the Bank of Canada or the Liberal government and it will have to look to the place where those savings have accumulated and start channelling them to meet the housing needs of the Canadian people. At the present time, of course, the National Housing Act does literally nothing to aid the people in Canada who need housing most desperately. It is, of course, notorious that what the National Housing Act actually is doing is aid the more fortunate sections of our society.
One has only to examine the conditions even in the capital city of Ottawa, the capital of the second wealthiest nation in the world, to see that there are a great many Canadian citizens living in the most disgraceful conditions. There are in this city ramshackle, falling-down firetraps in which human beings are living, and they are living there because the Canadian economy cannot afford to build them houses, as the minister told us last night. We cannot afford to build them houses because we are indulging in the luxury of permitting large and powerful groups in our society to take to themselves a very large part of the savings of the Canadian people. People do not have to be even on the lower rungs of incomes in this country to be denied any benefits under the National Housing Act.
I have a young man in mind who is a high school teacher in British Columbia, drawing a good salary of over $4,000 a year and desperately in need of adequate housing for his family. It is literally impossible for him to raise the necessary down payment or the necessary funds for the purchase of a lot in

order to build a house under the National Housing Act. Of course, it is equally impossible for him to save from his salary enough money to eventually build it without a National Housing Act loan.
The National Housing Act is, I think, rather ironically named because it is not contributing anything to the desperate housing needs of the Canadian people but is, as I say, really helping those more fortunate members of our community who can afford the down payment and can afford to buy lots. I would suggest, Mr. Speaker, that while this was a very revealing speech we had from the Minister of Public Works last night, we can expect many more revealing speeches from other ministers and other spokesmen for our country within the next few years explaining just why it is that the Canadian people cannot have the things that they should have from the second wealthiest economy in the world. In fact to my mind, Mr. Speaker, this bill points out the fact that we are going to come full circle to the position in which we were some years ago.
It is up to this government, and also I would suggest to the official opposition, to make sure that they have the means to make this sort of society continue to operate. I suggest to them again that to permit nearly 10 per cent of the wealth production of the country to fall into the hands of the large corporations, not for distribution to the shareholders but in order to control the form and direction of investments, is to hang around their necks a millstone that will drag them down to destruction yet.


Mr. Arnold Peters (Timiskaming):: Mr. Speaker, the particular area I represent is affected to a large degree by the situation that has developed in housing because part of our economy is dependent on that industry. While I feel some good is going to come out of Bill No. 238, I certainly do not think it is going to meet all the requirements of the people of my area. We have a large lumber industry, specializing in white pine and making the majority of the trim that is used in housing today, and there are many people dependent on that industry. We have also, fortunately or unfortunately, one of the largest plants in Ontario manufacturing lumber products, the Hill, Clarke and Francis plant. This plant normally employs between 500 and 700 workers. All these employees have been informed there will be a shutdown and nobody will be employed for the three weeks over the Christmas holidays. Even in the last few weeks less than one-third of the normal number of employees have been working.

Housing has, therefore, had a great deal of effect on the unemployment situation, and in turn the unemployment situation has an effect on the housing industry. I noticed that according to yesterday's Gazette the minister stated:
Mr. Green also disclosed that Central Mortgage and Housing Corporation had been advised to halt eviction proceedings against unemployed workers in Windsor-an action which might be taken with respect to other areas where required.
I would suggest that an amendment should be introduced to the effect that no unemployed person shall be evicted from a home that is financed by Central Mortgage and Housing Corporation. I believe we have some responsibility to our people. We ask them to build homes; we allow them to borrow money; we certainly want and are going to insist on the slum clearance mentioned by the hon. member for Timmins (Mr. Martin) and the hon. member for Vancouver-Kingsway (Mr. Macdonald). We are going to do something to rid ourselves of that blight, and I say we must also do something to protect the people who, through no fault of their own, are in an area where unemployment makes it necessary for the government to protect them against eviction and to protect the amount of money they have put into a home. I believe that this is a responsibility of the federal government and I, for one, would be very happy to see such a provision written into the act. Then whenever an area is declared a surplus labour area, and we have a number of those areas today, this clause could be brought into effect and people would not be faced with the possibility of losing their homes and the money they have put into them.
I believe the government must give consideration also to the problem of low cost housing. I am not going to repeat the figures given concerning the number of people who are not able to buy a home because they have not got the down payment. It is my opinion that the large down payment required has been more responsible for the slump in housing than any other factor. I do not believe it has been necessary for the government to advance money to lending institutions for housing purposes. If the government had not obliged individuals to use second mortgages and chattel mortgages in order to obtain the down payment, as many working people did, then I do not believe we would have been faced with the housing slump with which we are now faced. It is certainly impossible, in my opinion, for most of the people I know and with whom I have worked to save enough money to meet the down payment under the act as it was, and I think it is going to be equally difficult for them to do so under this amendment.
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We have another problem that has been dealt with in several ways, and that is the housing problem in mining communities in particular. I refer to those mining communities that have been built and developed in the last few years, such as Elliot Lake, the Blind River development, the Bancroft area development and many others that are taking place. We are asking people to go into these communities, as they did in my own area a number of years ago, in Matach-ewan, Cobalt and numerous other areas, to build houses and guarantee payment over a period of 20 or 30 years. No consideration is given to the fact that in the majority of cases these mining developments will not last long enough for the people to carry out this contract. There were certain people who knew this at the time, but it was not general knowledge. I feel that some consideration should be given to areas like Blind River and Elliot Lake, where people who are working for low wages are trying to build houses and yet the mining development may not last long enough for them to complete their contract. I am told that these people are only guaranteed by Central Mortgage and Housing to the end of the uranium contracts, which is 1962. I think some consideration should be given by the government to those people who have to buy housing in these areas.
One of those particular properties in Bancroft has a novel idea which I think is a good one, whereby the employee rents the house for a period of a year. During the year he is paying a nominal rent. After the year is over, he has the option either to apply the rent that he paid for the year to the down payment on the property or to continue to rent it at a much higher rate of rent. I think that some consideration along this line could be given to houses built under the National Housing Act so that our people would be able to establish this down payment much more easily than they have been able to do it in the past.
Another thing that I think should be attached to the loans that our people get under the National Housing Act is a life insurance policy so that if a person buying one of these houses, the breadwinner of the family, were to die after paying into it for a number of years, then at least the dependants of that breadwinner would be able to live in that house and have it debt free. As I am sure hon. members know, this is done in connection with automobiles. When you buy an automobile on credit, if you die, at least your family are left with a paid-up automobile. I certainly think we should at least give the same consideration to these people who buy houses.

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I believe that we in Canada should be thinking very seriously about going into a low cost rental housing development. We are finding difficulty. Certainly the fact that slums have been mentioned, and that when we walk even through the city of Ottawa we see many houses that should be torn down with decent houses being built in their place, indicates that we should be considering low cost housing where the government will put up all the money for the house and will build it. These developments are taking place at municipal levels now and they are being satisfactorily completed. They are being developed, in rare cases, by provincial authorities and I think are being satisfactorily developed in that field. The government, if it goes into this low cost rental housing, would be able to finance that housing project over a period of 40 years to 60 years and sometimes even a greater length of time. They are getting the money for the amount that they are having to pay for it and they are not having to pay high rates. I think we should give this matter great consideration. Many of the people who are existing on $1,200 and $1,400 income per year are in no way able to take advantage of this type of housing project. If they are going to have any housing benefits, they will have to receive those benefits from a low cost rental project.
Another thing which must be borne in mind-and which is not borne in mind-in connection with housing is the fact that the people who can afford housing in Canada are the people who do not need housing and will not need housing. We have many young families which are being raised with the breadwinner starting out in an occupation in which he is going to advance. He has more expense in the early days of his employment when he is raising a young family and may need four bedrooms or five bedrooms. But when finally he has raised his family and is in a position to afford the housing that our country is asking him to pay for, he no longer needs four or five bedrooms, he needs only one for his wife and himself. Hence some subsidy should be given to our young people. What we want is to see that our children are raised in comfortable fire-safe homes, not necessarily to provide a big mansion for a man and his wife in those days when his earning power has reached its peak. We want to be able to give the best possible housing to the young married couples of our country and the children who are growing up in this country. I think some subsidization consideration should be given to this problem that faces all young married couples. When their need is greatest, their resources are the smallest. If we have the welfare of our Canadian people at heart, I think we are going to give this matter some consideration.

I should like to conclude by just mentioning the fact that I believe that in the mining areas in particular special housing projects are going to have to be developed. If we are going to be fair and honest with those people whom we are asking to move into these remote areas, we are going to have to give them some consideration. If they are going to move into Blind River without the possibility of knowing how long that development is going to last because of federal government guarantees on the sale of the product, then I think we are going to have to give them greater consideration in those particular areas than we do elsewhere. I think we are going to have to give consideration to the fact that people who rent in these new housing developments should be given some assistance in the down payment, whether it be in the form of no down payment or in the form of a year's rent as down payment. Some consideration should be given to them. We should scale our payments for our housing so that the smaller payments are made at the beginning, and interest rates must be taken into consideration because otherwise obviously there is not going to be any principal payment at all. But there should be low payments for the first ten years of that loan while the children are small and growing and increased payments when the people can afford to make them.
I think that if we take a survey of the needs of the Canadian people, we can continually build houses for the people in the areas in which they are needed at a rate they can afford to pay for them and that we will supply employment for a good number of the people that are dependent entirely on the housing industry for their livelihood. The one seems to me to go hand and hand with the other because in a city where unemployment is growing every day I cannot see those people or their friends going out and buying new houses; and if they do not go out and buy new houses the unemployment situation is going to grow in pace.


Mr. H. W. Herridge (Kootenay West):: Mr. Speaker, before I left my constituency to come to Ottawa for this session of parliament I promised a number of people who are supporters of all parties in this house that I would extend to the Minister of Public Works (Mr. Green) their sincere congratulations on his appointment to his present position and would wish him well in all he undertakes to the general advantage of Canada. In addition to that, Mr. Speaker, I have to convey the particular congratulations and good wishes of all his comrades who served in the 54th battalion and who now reside in that

constituency. The hon. gentleman's uncle, the former member for Kootenay West, later served in the Senate. His mother at the present time is a constituent of mine. I had the opportunity for some years of being with the minister in the famous 54th Kootenay battalion. I think it is a very good indication that we live in a democracy when, regardless of difference in political opinions and keen differences on policies and things of that sort, we can rejoice in someone's receiving a recognition he well deserves. Having said that, Mr. Speaker, I must refer to the principle of the bill which is to do something to improve housing conditions in Canada.
I must say that I did appreciate the rather frank way in which the minister indicated that he would not for a moment suggest that this bill is a cure-all. If I heard him correctly last night, I think that was the emphasis he wished to place on his remarks and that he thought further consideration should be given to this subject in the near future, and, possibly, something more should be done about it. I am very pleased to hear that. To judge from his remarks as a whole I would say he would not for a moment contend that this is a complete remedy for our housing problems. This bill is a partial remedy, a very limited step in the right direction along a long trail over which we must yet proceed.
In my opinion, and I think this opinion is shared by the members of this group and every other thinking person in this house who has given consideration to these problems, a sound family life is essential for the development of a sound and healthy democratic nation. Furthermore, to have such sound families we must house them in adequate and satisfactory housing and all families must have the opportunity to enjoy such housing.
I think the minister will not for a moment deny that our present housing legislation does not provide for the needs of the most needy in Canada at the present time. I was very interested to read a short time ago an article in the Nelson Daily News on a talk given by Dr. Anderson, health officer for the Rossland Trail district with respect to housing and public health. I am just going to take the time of the house for a moment or two to read this because I think it places the emphasis on the subject very well.
One of the most difficult and universal public health problems of the young adult group is housing, Dr. L. S. Anderson, director of the West Kootenay health unit told Nelson Rotarians at a luncheon in the Hume Monday. The young married couples supporting families have little left over to buy houses.
He was talking about legislation making provision for securing houses under present circumstances. Dr. Anderson said:
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Next to putting milk into babies, there is no national policy that pays a better dividend to the public health than that of putting young couples into homes.
And that is the point we wish to emphasize particularly in this group-the provision for the needs of those people and for the older citizens in this country. There is no question about it, in my opinion, that with all our resources in Canada, with all our materials and with all our skill we lag far behind a number of other nations in the provision of satisfactory housing at a satisfactory price. I have done some reading in respect to housing in New Zealand and Australia and I would suggest that members might well do the same; in fact I would suggest that the minister could find ample occupation for his good looking parliamentary assistant if he more or less delegated to him this search for information as to what is being done in other countries.
Now, with regard to all these things we lag behind Sweden, we lag behind Norway and Denmark. Why should we, a virile, energetic and skilful people with ample financial resources and land, lag behind these countries who in some cases have lesser opportunities than ourselves. That is a situation that must soon, in my opinion, be corrected.
It is a funny thing-I should say in some respects it has been a rather tragic thing- that housing has been a problem peculiar to Canada for many years. I recently read that it has been a problem since 1891; just imagine that, housing in Canada has been a problem since 1891. I want to read very briefly from the Globe and Mail of November 28 in this respect as follows:
"The situation is acute", says Howard S. Rupert, Toronto welfare commissioner. "Even worse than 1913, because it is permanent", says Dr. Alvin Boyd, deputy medical officer of health. "Desperate" says Kathleen Gorrie, university settlement director. "A civic scandal", says the Reverend G. P. Parson, Anglican rector.
You can always bank on it, the Anglican rectors will dig up the scandal-


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh.


Herbert Wilfred Herridge: -with respect to housing. I quote:
It is my considered opinion the big real estate interests and land speculators plus the lack of courage of governments at all levels are solely responsible for the housing mess existing in our land. The housing problem goes back many years. In 1891, Goldwin Smith, in an article entitled Working Men's Homes, pointed out there were plenty of homes for the well-to-do. Today it would appear the same assumption is prevalent- housing provided for the well-to-do will gradually filter down to the rest of the population. Some little change in this laissez-faire attitude was seen in the Bruce report of 1934 and in the report of the parliamentary committee on housing in 1935.

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The National Construction Council of Canada among whose constituent members were the Canadian Manufacturers' Association, the unions of the building trade, the manufacturers of building material and the Architectural and Engineering Institute said: "Our investigations of housing for low-income groups show that provisions of this class of housing cannot ultimately be profitable to private enterprise. The responsibility of housing these groups is, in the final analysis, the responsibility of the state."
That is the opinion of these groups representing important segments of free enterprise in this country and we are of the same opinion, that these people are not going to obtain the housing they require unless the state accepts responsibility on a much wider basis than has been the case up to the present time.
It may interest hon. members to know that the only occasion, so far as I can find in Canadian history-and history is rather a hobby of mine on those week ends when I am not in Ottawa-when a governor general of this country has appeared before a parliamentary committee of this house was to give his view on a housing measure and to urge the necessity for improved housing for low-income groups in Canada. That was Lord Aberdeen and, if my memory serves me correctly, he appeared before a committee of this house in the railway committee room in 1898. Now the problem must have been mighty acute at that time for a governor general to appear before a committee of this house in connection with housing problems. And so it has remained ever since; we have spent a great deal of money and the previous governments have done something in this department but, to date, because we have never been able to tackle the core and to meet the essential problem, which is to provide housing for persons in the lower income groups, the problem remains unsolved.
I think it is correct to say, as has been said by members of this group speaking on the resolution preceding the bill and on the bill itself, that the majority of those who require houses most at the present time are not provided for in this legislation. I hope, therefore, that the minister will continue to go into this matter and will bring in some further amendments to the housing act to look after the present situation.
I do not want to repeat the many things that have been so well said prior to my rising; I do not wish to take up the time of the house unnecessarily, but I do want to suggest that there are other things that could be done so that we might have an adequate knowledge of the situation as it exists today. I think we should explore every avenue of information so that we have the facts when it comes to dealing with this problem from the point of view of population, of financial matters, cost

of materials, types of materials, the possibility of promoting more building of houses for the low-income groups and the possibility of utilizing some of the successful methods and procedures of the small holding section of the Veterans' Land Act. You have to explore every avenue to get the information, and on the basis of that information you must build a satisfactory national housing policy.
Strangely enough, in 1945, when this house was considering the bill to incorporate Central Mortgage and Housing Corporation-a proposal which my friends in the Social Credit group opposed most vigorously at that time- we were told by the then minister of finance, Mr. Ilsley, that we could not build houses at a satisfactory rate because there was a shortage of material in the country. Now we are told, generally, that we cannot build houses at a suitable rate because there is a shortage of money, though there are ample materials. We are a funny people, Mr. Speaker; one would think that it was Walt Disneyland as far as housing is concerned.
In this connection I should like to quote a prominent Canadian authority on this matter, the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre (Mr. Knowles) who, on November 9, 1945, made a very brilliant speech on this bill to incorporate the Central Mortgage and Housing Corporation. I do not wish to read all of it because we would not have any supper tonight in that case. But at page 2006 of unrevised Hansard he said this:
The Minister of Finance knows that onfe of my favourite quotations from him, which X have read to the house before, was made on March 3, 1943. At that time he was being criticized by certain hon. members of this house, both on his own side and to my right, for what were regarded as huge war expenditures. He was being told that these expenditures would bankrupt the country, and that we simply could not go on. As recorded at page 930 of Hansard for March 3, 1943, the minister said:
"We do not pay for the war out of some hoard of money that we have accumulated in the past. We pay for it out of the taxes and savings that we obtain from the current income of the whole nation. We shall not run short of money. Indeed, our danger is the very reverse of that, namely, that we may pile up too much money in the pockets and bank accounts of Canadians, unless we strive with every effort to promote the sale of victory bonds and war savings certificates.
If we are bankrupting the nation, is it not indeed a strange type of bankruptcy? How can we use such a term to describe the process under which this country has doubled its national income in three years, has wiped out unemployment, has multiplied its production of many things and learned many types of new skills; has expanded and diversified the production equipment, has multiplied its governmental revenues by more than four times, has enabled millions of its citizens to acquire a nest egg for the future, has mobilized its full strength as a producing machine, and has developed a sense of productive achievement not hitherto known?"

And then the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre goes on:
Then came this really telling sentence from the Minister of Finance, and I can tell him I have quoted it on the hustings wherever I have gone: "No country goes bankrupt in this way; no country goes bankrupt by increasing its production and devoting part or all, or more than all, of that increase to a supreme cause."
And then the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre quotes the minister again:
Later in the same speech the minister said:
"Let those of us who are inclined to fear the economic consequences of our war expenditures remember that these expenditures have developed and brought to light an enormous increase in our Canadian capacity to produce-an increase greater than any of us had ever before suspected."
My plea to the minister is that he launch forth upon a program of building houses for our Canadian people in the same way as he launched into a program of producing war goods. If he did so I suggest we would have the same results. Instead cf bankrupting the nation or leaving us with financial problems we could not carry, such a policy would bring about an enormous increase in our capacity to produce. It would reveal all sorts of associated fields in which people could be employed, and the total result would be a tremendous improvement in the economic position of the entire country and of all our people.
After that, the record reads:


Mr. Ilsley:: Does not my hon. friend agree that at the present time the construction of houses is in no way limited by financial considerations? Does he not agree that it is limited purely by physical considerations?


Stanley Howard Knowles: I am glad to have the minister ask that question, because he is admitting, although it is not the first time, that in his view financial considerations are not a limiting factor.


James Lorimer Ilsley: They are not limiting the construction of houses at this time at all. The limitation at the present time is physical, and is found in the present capacity of the country to produce materials.
Mr. Speaker, I have just quoted at length what was said on that occasion to illustrate that in 1945 it was suggested we could not build houses because we were short of materials. In 1957 we are told we cannot build houses because we are short of money, though we have an abundance of materials. In conclusion, Mr. Speaker, I suggest that by using in housing the methods we used during the war and mobilizing our credit behind the full resources of this country we could provide the lower income groups in Canada with all the houses they require on a very sound basis.
I just forgot this, Mr. Speaker: I had intended before sitting down* to bring to the attention of the minister the fact that there are certain people who are trying to do their best in present circumstances. Does the minister realize that there are small lumber operators in the interior of British Columbia who are working on a very small margin of profit and have been doing so for the whole of this year, although in a good number of cases these are efficient and well operated 96698-1621
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mills. Some of them, indeed, have been running at a considerable loss. At the same time there are employees in the lumber industries in the interior of British Columbia who have voted not to accept a 6 per cent increase in wages to which they were entitled under a two-year contract, in order to help keep the lumber industry going. These people have been shipping lumber to the prairies, particularly No. 1 common fir, in log lumber, two by four, two by six, two by eight and two by ten, shiplaps, sidings, boarding materials generally, at prices f.o.b. southern interior of British Columbia points-I can see the parliamentary assistant pricking his ears up as he hears me speak of this-ranging from $57.50 to $62 a thousand. I think the parliamentary assistant should be asked to find out what the lumber yards are charging to persons who wish to build homes with this same lumber after making allowance for the cost of transportation and so on.
In conclusion, Mr. Speaker, I suggest that now is the time for an examination to be made of all aspects of this problem-the need for providing an adequate fund, sound methods of financing the cost of materials, the type of materials and the services to be provided. The average man earning a low income cannot afford to pay more than $6,000 for a home. I say that from my personal experience. I think a great deal more could be done to provide the type of house necessary to a person in the low income group. Could not some further study be undertaken, particularly with respect to the possibility of the owner-building of homes and the possibility of using more of the procedures and methods which have been used so successfully under the small holding section of the Veterans Land Act.


Erhart Regier: Mr. Speaker, this problem which faces us is of such great importance to the people of our nation that I regret no more members have volunteered to speak on it. I was expecting that at least every hon. member from British Columbia would want to express the reaction of the people in their ridings to this subject.
Our people need housing very badly, our businessmen need the business which house building provides, our workers in the lumber industry need some assurance of continuing employment and, above all, our unemployed need some ray of hope at this time that this government is going to initiate a mass house building program which will supply them with a pay cheque at the end of the month.
I appreciate the fact the minister has admitted that a decline in the rate of house

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construction has taken place in Canada. I would like to underline what the hon. member for Kootenay West (Mr. Herridge) said when he referred to the minister's solution as being only a partial solution. I have before me the D.B.S. daily bulletin of December 6 last which shows the decline in completed houses for the first 10-month period to be 14,292. If we add another one-fifth of the year in order to obtain the picture for the whole year we would have, unless action were taken, a decline in house building this year over last year of 17,150 houses. The $150 million that the minister made available some months ago was most welcome indeed. However, that alone was not sufficient. The first $150 million would build only 15,000 homes. I therefore endorse the principle of the minister asking this house for authority to have a larger allocation of money.
I mentioned some statistics yesterday to show that ever since the war we have not even kept pace with the growth in our population through natural causes and immigration. We have done nothing, and the act has failed in this respect. We are today faced with a worse shortage than we had at the end of the war. During all the hard years in Canada from 1929 to 1939 house building came to a standstill, and while we had six years of war we were not able to afford either labour or the physical goods with which to build any houses; therefore, we are at least 16 years behind in our house building program, and so far I see no ray of hope that this government, like the previous government, has any intentions of overcoming this shortage.
I was very pleased this morning to see the hon. member for Edmonton East (Mr. Holo-wach) place on the record, as the hon. member for Kootenay West did what is being done in other western democracies of the world. I hold in my hand a clipping from the British Columbian of December 7, 1953, in which appears a British United Press dispatch from West Germany where, in referring to West Germany, it says:
It built 400,000 houses last year, and probably will build that many again this year.
We thought the German people were a defeated nation, yet in 1952 they were building four times as many units as we were building. I was very fortunate last month in being able to spend a few days in the German seaport of Hamburg. Half the city was laid waste as a result of the bombings during the war, and yet in the city of Ottawa today you will find more slums than you will find in Hamburg. We thought that the German nation had lost the war and that we were the victors. I did not see anywhere in that city any of the slum areas that you can find in almost any major Canadian city.
[Mr. RegierS
Our proposals are that this government must realize that much more money has to be spent on housing, and if private enterprise is not willing to supply this money at adequate rates of interest I think the managers of Canadian investment funds should consider very carefully the consequences to their might and their power if they do not meet the social needs of the Canadian people. If they fail-and they are failing, as the record shows, and the record shows they have failed ever since the end of the war-then the government will have to assume the responsibility and see to it that these financial resources are made available to meet our social needs.
I know that the previous prime minister was opposed to subsidized interest rates for housing. I believe he said so on one occasion in this house. However, may I remind the present Minister of Public Works (Mr. Green) that regardless of the attitude toward subsidized interest rates that a former prime minister may have taken, one of the reasons why the premier of the province of Quebec wins re-elections so handily is that he possibly does more than any other public figure in Canada in making investment money available for housing for low-income citizens of Canada. Much as I may disagree with Premier Duplessis on many matters, in this one aspect at least he stands head and shoulders above any other premier in our nation.
Yesterday I noted a little conversation that went on between the hon. member for New Westminster (Mr. Hahn) and the minister in regard to research. Action must be taken to reduce the price of houses. Today you can look over the whole industrial empire in Canada and in practically no case except in the field of house construction will you find us turning out either goods or services in almost the same manner as we did 30 or 40 years ago. We have made very little progress in applying the discoveries of technology to this enterprise. I should like to commend one thought to the minister, namely to attempt to subsidize some experiments in the field of low-cost housing.
I believe the files of Central Mortgage and Housing Corporation are full of ideas on how we might tackle the problem of building a house by new methods. However, it is then left to the individual little builder to risk his neck to see whether this scheme would work. I think that some of the money voted for the field of research might be devoted to taking some of those ideas off the shelf, out of the pigeon-holes, and saying to some of our more reputable building firms: "We will make an agreement with you. Let us see whether some good might not result, and if you lose we,

the people of Canada, are willing to share with you the loss in this experiment." I have seen-and the minister well knows this-a number of builders in our province of British Columbia go out on a limb and experiment. However, they have failed and they personally had to stand the loss.
I am not very happy about the proposal to reduce the size of houses. Immediately after the war we embarked upon a rather large-scale program of building little houses,- you could almost call them little shacks -which today are not very much desired because of their smallness. I do not think the Canadian economy is so hard up or so poor that we have to begin to trim down either the size or the quality of the houses that our Canadian people are supposed to live in. I do not think that therein lies the answer.
The minister has assured us that the lending value will henceforth be more realistic. I hope when he speaks of lending value the minister also thinks of the lot as a part, as being entitled to the new approach, in determining the lending value because therein have lending values most often fallen short. The valuation placed on the lot was very much more out of line than the valuation placed on the actual home itself.
I should like to endorse in principle at least what was recommended by the hon. member for Timiskaming (Mr. Peters) with regard to insurance policies on homes. I know it is not within the field of the federal government to entertain a proposal to declare a moratorium particularly for people who are unemployed. I believe that is within the field of the provincial governments. However, at the present time the insurance feature protects only the lender and does nothing for the buyer except that the buyer has to pay for the premium. In my opinion the protection provided by the insurance feature could be broadened so that the house would be paid for in case of the death of the buyer, as recommended by the hon. member for Timiskaming. I think we could also include a provision whereby the payments would be continued in case of such unemployment as might be recognized by the offices of the unemployment insurance commission. The insurance provision now is rather lopsided in that the buyer pays the premium in order to ensure that the approved lender will be able to get his money out of the house.
My main reason for rising was that I wanted to call the minister's attention to a pamphlet issued by the Department of National Health and Welfare. I had to send to Hull yesterday for a copy of it. It is called "Housing for the Aged in Canada" and was published in November, 1957. I should like
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to compliment the department for giving a little publicity to this problem. They go to some length to explain how through limited dividend companies and otherwise the people of Canada are able to supply housing for the aged, especially for the aged in the low income categories. On page 3 of the pamphlet I find the following:
Most housing projects have been built in central and western Canada, under the National Housing Act. During the period from 1946 to 1957, C.M.H.C. advanced loans of nearly $5.8 million towards the cost of 1,416 living units for the elderly.
That sounds very nice until you analyse it. There have been 1,416 living units built for the elderly in 11 years or 129 units per year. If we divide that by ten representing the number of provinces we have an average of 13 housing units for our elderly citizens in each province in each of the past 11 years. It is a shameful record, to say the least, when the figure is broken down. When you see the figure of $5.8 million it sounds like a lot of money but when you break it down you see that it is a most niggardly amount indeed.
I think that the minister might be able to do something in this respect. I know that at the present time there are various arrangements under different sections of the act. The most commonly used section is that whereby a mortgage is granted for a period up to 50 years in the case of homes built by limited dividend corporations. However, in the province of British Columbia the provincial government pays a grant towards the capital cost of such building. Their contribution amounts to one-third of the cost. The government of Saskatchewan also pays a grant to any organization building low rental homes for senior citizens in that province. Not only does it do that, but it also pays an annual grant for the maintenance of such homes thus enabling the rentals to be kept low.
In my opinion the federal government is not assuming its share of the obligation in this respect when it offers only a mortgage for 50 years which it expects to be repaid with interest. I realize that the interest rate is much lower than the rates on individual homes. However, I believe that the government should be able to match the grant of any provincial government, thereby enabling and encouraging the supply of low rental homes for senior citizens.
In other words, we recommend that a lot more money be made available, that interest rates and rentals be based on cost and that where necessary they be subsidized, that our

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municipal governments be given greater encouragement and provided with more money at lower rates of interest and that the government exercise greater control.
I remember that the C.C.F. fought an election in 1945 and in their program they advocated that one million homes be built at the rate of 100,000 per year in each of the next ten years. The people of Canada likely thought we were too radical and not enough of them voted for us. However, since that time Canada has done just that. In the ten year period roughly one million new homes have been built at an approximate rate of 100,000 per year, some years more and some less. The C.C.F. party was overly modest at the time and I hope that now the minister's slogan will be that he is going to embark on a program that will build for Canada 250,000 homes in each of the next ten years. If he does that, then at the end of the ten year period I believe rents will begin to decline and we will have somewhere near an adequate number of homes.
I should like to close with this thought. As the minister knows, the late E. E. Winch, father of the hon. member for Vancouver East (Mr. Winch), possibly did more than any other man in British Columbia in his lifetime to supply housing for those on low incomes. After he had passed away a bulletin was issued in February, 1957, by the Vancouver housing association which contained an article by Laura Jamieson, president of the new vista society, in which she had this to say about the late E. E. Winch:
Of all the causes to which he gave his devotion and enthusiasm, housing for senior citizens of low income was the one where he could build and see the result; where he could see and talk to the elderly people who, by his efforts, were able to leave their hovels and cold rooms and live in simple comfort and security.
I was one who yesterday wished the new minister well and expressed some confidence that in this field at least his heart would be in the right place. When the day comes when both he and I possibly will no longer be here I hope someone may write this of him: When the late Hon. Howard Green took over as Canada's minister of public works in 1957 he found mass unemployment in the construction and lumber industries; he found that the savings of the Canadian people were at an all-time high but that too little of these savings was being devoted to housing; he found that his fellow citizens lacked over a million homes. The late member had long subscribed to the belief that government is an instrument whereby people do for themselves together those things which they cannot well do for themselves as individuals. The socialist approach, the cleansing sea breezes and rains
[Mr. Regier.l
of his province, combined with his intelligence and strength of character, caused him to embark upon a mass home building program until after a 10-year period it could be said that rents were declining and every Canadian family was supplied with an adequate home.


Stanley Howard Knowles: Mr. Speaker, I should like first of all to call the late Howard Green back to life so that I may address a few words to him, on the basis of which I hope he will take the kind of action that could result in an appropriate epitaph being written many years hence.
Mr. Speaker, because this bill does propose two amendments in the housing legislation, because the minister has at the same time indicated that one or two other improvements are to be made by a change in the regulations and by ministerial direction, we of course welcome the legislation and will give it our support. We were pleased also to hear the minister indicate in his remarks last evening that he is serious about the housing situation and that he would welcome suggestions from members of the house, indeed suggestions from any source. 1 hope that he will give very serious consideration to the many suggestions that have been made to him during the course of this debate.
Perhaps there are others, but I should like to catalogue some of them for him within a brief compass. First of all, there has been urged, particularly from this corner of the house, that there should be a reduction in the rate of interest on mortgage loans. I shall come back to that in a moment, but I list it as the first of the problems to which the government should address itself. Secondly, there has been made the suggestion from a number of quarters in the house that the amortization period should be extended perhaps to 30 years or even longer. The third suggestion is-


Howard Charles Green: May I point out that it can be 30 years rather than 25 years under this agency loan plan.


Stanley Howard Knowles: Yes, I recognize that. I would point out to the minister that I suggested 30 years or even longer. One or two members in the debate have suggested an amortization period of 40 years, which should be reasonable if we are building good homes.
The third point which has been made a number of times is that the price of the lot should be taken into consideration in arriving at the lending value of a home. The fourth suggestion has been made on other occasions, I am not sure whether it has been made

during the course of this debate but I present it for the minister's consideration now, that the cost of major appliances might also be considered as part of the cost of a home for mortgage purposes. No one doubts that the cost of heating equipment is part of the price of a home, but in this day and age some other things, particularly in the field of major appliances, are also a part of a home and we think they should be included in that cost so far as the lending value is concerned.
A fifth suggestion that has been made has to do with life insurance for the wage earner who purchases the home, and I think that, too, should be given consideration by the government. A sixth suggestion that has been pressed, particularly from this corner of the house but from other sources as well, is that of the need of low rental housing. We feel that that is one area where the government policy is seriously lacking. We would like, in the seventh place, to urge an expansion of facilities to make possible homes for the aged, and that in addition to assistance for the building of projects for housing senior citizens in one location special consideration might be given to assisting elderly people individually to have decent homes to live in, on the understanding that they are good homes and the kind on which money could be lent knowing that they will have value for some considerable time.
Perhaps there are other suggestions, such as redevelopment and slum clearance, Mr. Speaker, but I thought that it might be useful to catalogue these seven proposals and to urge that very serious consideration be given to them by the government if, as the minister said yesterday, this government is serious about the business of housing and really wants suggestions from members of parliament. I have in mind the words the minister used yesterday as recorded at page 2498 of Hansard for December 17, 1957:
We regard ourselves as being in business for the purpose of improving housing in Canada, and particularly housing for Canadians in lower income groups.
I said when I indicated the first of the seven points which I listed that I was coming back to it, and I do so because it seems to me that what the minister said yesterday regarding interest rates is an indication of the bankruptcy of the present government and the former government with regard to housing policy. Both the two major parties in this house seem to accept as an insuperable barrier the fact that interest rates cannot be reduced so that our people can have proper housing. The Minister of Public Works (Mr. Green) used certain words yesterday as recorded on page 2499 of Hansard. They have already been read back to him today
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by my colleague the hon. member for Timmins (Mr. Martin) in another connection when he made reference to the tragedy of the number of fires that take place in our country at this time of the year. One is conscious of the fact that these serious fires, in which children and others lose their lives, are for the most part fires that take place because we have far too many substandard dwellings, houses of a type that should not continue to exist in Canada in this second half of the 20th century. These were the words the minister used yesterday:
There is nothing the government would like more than to be able to reduce interest rates on housing. If those interest rates are reduced to the extent that the lending institutions and the banks will no longer lend any money for housing, then we are in a real tailspin in so far as housing in Canada is concerned. This is one reason why housing has fallen away in Canada this year.
My colleague, the hon. member for Burnaby-Coquitlam (Mr. Regier), let his imagination work a bit, and quite effectively, when he referred a few moments ago to the late Howard Green, so let me use my imagination and ask the house what would have been said if the Minister of Public Works, in making this statement yesterday, had used exactly these same words in relation to something other than housing. This is imaginary, for it deals with a field in which the federal government does not have responsibility, but just supposing this minister or a minister of any government anywhere in Canada had said this yesterday:
There is nothing the government would like more than to be able to reduce interest rates on education. If those interest rates are reduced to the extent that the lending institutions and the banks will no longer lend any money to enable parents to pay for the education of their children, then we are in a real tailspin in so far as education in Canada is concerned. This is one reason why education has fallen away in Canada this year.
Mr. Speaker, if any minister of any government in Canada had made a statement like that in this year of 1957 it would have been treated with the ridicule it deserved.
Our people would say, "Surely education does not depend upon the possibility of banks and lending institutions making a profit out of it. Education is something our people are entitled to. It is something that we can afford and that our people are going to have regardless of the incomes of our individual families." We say that for the government to claim that housing will go into a tailspin if we reduce the cost of it to our people is to admit bankruptcy in this field.
I was interested in the quotation that my colleague the hon. member for Kootenay West (Mr. Herridge) put on the record a while ago,

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in which he quoted me quoting Mr. Ilsley a number of years ago to the effect that anything we produce, anything that we provide for ourselves as a nation, we pay for out of current production, that we do not go bankrupt by increasing our production and devoting that production to a great cause. We have the materials. We have the labour power. We can produce decent housing for our people to live in. But somehow or other this insuperable barrier seems to have gotten in the way, this notion that there has to be an adequate rate of interest or in other words that profit for the banks and the lending institutions must come first, and that if that profit cannot be had, then we cannot have housing.
We would not stand for an attitude like that toward education. Just imagine what would happen if this heading in this afternoon's Ottawa Journal had read in a slightly different way than it reads. This is the story of yesterday's debate on housing and the headline on page 7 of tonight's Journal reads; "Green Worried Money for Homes May Run Out". I think that is a fair comment on the speech the minister made yesterday. Suppose instead the headline had read, "Green Worried Money for Education May Run Out". We would not accept that. We would take the position that this country has come to, namely that education is the right of all our children and that it has a prior claim over the profits that banks and private lending institutions feel they must make. We say the day will come when the country will accept housing *on the same basis and will say that our people, being the people who produce this nation's wealth, are entitled to good homes to live in and must have them rather than that profit should be made first.
As a footnote to what the minister said in that statement to which I have taken exception, he said later on, as reported in the same column on the same page 2499 of Hansard:
-I pointed out that the bulk of the money being advanced now is coming from government funds through Central Mortgage and Housing Corporation, and that is actually the case. But that situation cannot go on forever.
Why not, Mr. Speaker? If the minister admits that under the present circumstances the only way in which homes can get built for people who need them, the only way in which we can get around this insuperable barrier of high interest rates and the demand for profit, is for the government to make the money available, why should it be just a temporary means? Why should we not accept it as a basic principle that we are going to use the powers that we have as a community, as a nation, through the state to channel the

savings and the wealth that our people produce into this socially desirable aim, namely the building of homes?
I urge the minister to give serious consideration to all the points that we have brought to his attention in the course of this debate but I say to him if he really wants to do something about housing, if he is really in earnest about the matter, he must get over this notion that somehow or other the profit of the banks and lending institutions as expressed in the interest rate they must have takes priority. That notion must be got around and we have to get to the principle that the providing of homes is a socially desirable aim and that it is perfectly consistent with our way of life that we direct the savings of our people through government channels to make money available at low interest rates so that people can have decent homes in which to live.
There is just one other comment I wish to make, Mr. Speaker. We are urging improvements in our housing legislation because we believe in the provision of good homes for their own sake, for the sake of our people. But it is also true that in the building of homes there is to be found one of the most immediate ways in which to deal with the problem of unemployment. As everyone knows, house building involves a great many subsidiary types of employment. We feel that this is something to which the government should pay very close attention, particularly in view of the alarming figures which were made public yesterday by the Department of Labour and the dominion bureau of statistics. The figures which were published yesterday show that in the month from the middle of October to the middle of November this year there was an increase in the unemployment rolls of 26 per cent. Those figures also show that as at the middle of November this year compared with the middle of November a year ago there has been an increase in unemployment to the extent of 74 per cent. In the light of those figures I suggest that this minister responsible for this important field of housing should realize that he has a tremendous opportunity, not only to take steps to meet the need of better housing for our people but to make some real dent in this unemployment situation.
We welcome the statement of the minister that he is serious about the matter. We welcome his statement that he would like to have suggestions. Now that we have given them to him, we hope that he will act upon them with the least possible delay.

(Translation):


Mr. C. N. Barbes (Chapleau):: Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. I wish to make a few very brief remarks concerning the bill under discussion at this time.
The government proposes to amend the 1954 National Housing Act with a view to increasing by $150,000,000 the money made available to Canadians to further improve the housing situation in this country. The former government had set aside $250,000,000, for that purpose, and loans were being granted from these funds as late as September 1957, according to the terms of section 16 of the National Housing Act, chapter 23 of the statutes of 1953-54.
The Societe des habitations modernes incor-porees, of Amos, in the county of Chapleau, had a $372,685 loan approved on September 19, 1957 by Central Mortgage and Housing Corporation in order to promote the construction of 48 new housing units in the town of Amos. This money will be paid over to the construction company and eventually people will be put in a position to occupy the housing units built in this way, the amortization period in this case being spread over 40 years.
The monthly payments will be approximately $60.50 for single, two bedroom units. This step is altogether praiseworthy. I am happy that workers from my constituency have been able to find employment during a difficult period and that this work happens to be connected with housing. I am also happy that these houses are to be offered to workers who are in most pressing need of housing, as well as to their families.
It is fortunate also that the 1954 housing act and action taken by the former government have made this progress possible in my constituency. I am in favour of the amendments, Mr. Speaker. As one father who has himself bought a comfortable home for his family on favourable terms, I would like to see every one of my fellow citizens enjoy a higher standard of living through improved housing accommodation.
In 1956 we built close to 135,000 housing units and, as of September 1956, one million new housing units had been built over the last 12 years through federal financial assistance as well as through unassisted private enterprise.


Mr. O'Hurley:: Would the hon. member care to give more information on the figures he has just quoted?


Mr.   Barber@: 135,000 housing units in 1956 alone, and one million housing units constructed between September 1954 and September 1956.
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I know that certain minimum standards must be respected, and certain definite types of houses built according to federal legislation. I wonder though what kind of supervision is carried out as far as the building itself is concerned. The new house being the government's security, it will readily be understood that it should be built according to certain standards of soundness, also to protect the occupant who has to pay for the house, and to ensure him improved accommodation. An attempt will be made to reduce the price of homes under construction but we wonder if, as an immediate consequence, there will not be a falling off in quality of craftsmanship in proportion to the corresponding decrease in price. If the price is $2,000 less, for example, there should be a check on the quality of materials used, and especially on the soundness of the construction methods.
Central Mortgage and Housing Corporation acts through the bank and lending institutions, as well as through private organizations. But who supervises the work? Who gives approval? Who guarantees that the building is put up in accordance with the plans and specifications laid down by Central Mortgage and Housing, that is, in final analysis, by the government?
I wonder if there is adequate supervision in cases where the prospective owner cannot personally supervise the work. It might be said that the houses are checked by a local agent of the C.M.H.C., a man who is very busy and who possibly lives forty miles or more from the building site. I do not question the competence of the men who pour the concrete into the forms, or of those who put up the framework and make the windows draught-proof but, as section 18 of the act prescribes that the work be inspected while the house is being built, I believe it is wise to determine when, by whom and how the certificates are issued testifying that the work was done according to the regulations and to the plans.
I have some fears in this regard and I point out to the government the need of closer supervision during construction if the purpose of the act is to be fully achieved. If the foundation breaks down because there is not enough cement in the concrete, if the walls are not properly insulated against cold, if heating costs are too high, this legislation, meant to be so helpful, will have failed of its main purpose.
To my mind, close supervision is important if we want the poor owner to be spared the obligation of giving up his house after a few years because of too rapid a deterioration of a house which was not properly supervised when it was being built.

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A man who undertakes to make payments for 40 years has the right to demand that a house be sound enough for him to feel some pride of ownership.
Therefore, as we are about to put another $150 million into this undertaking, I believe it is advisable to call the attention of the government to the need of closer supervision of the work while the house is going up and not after the purchaser occupies it with his family. The builders, men of initiative, will receive the money so loaned, which the owner will have to pay back. So, let us lend the money but let us protect the ones who will have to pay back the cost of the building. Of course, it is important that builders make a profit but, above all, what is required is good low cost housing for Canadians and their families.
Having said this, I approve of the bill because I approve of more housing, better living conditions and I wish to facilitate the purchase of a house by the greatest possible number of young Canadians and thus encourage them to save more by becoming home owners.
(Text):


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


Howard Charles Green: After having had such a nice epitaph written about me I am not sure that it is safe for one with Irish blood in his veins to say anything at all at this time because, after all, we are a bit superstitious. However, this has been a very useful debate and I am grateful to those members who have taken part in it. Many suggestions have been advanced in addition to quite a few new ideas, all of which will be given, as I promised when speaking at the resolution stage of this measure, the most careful consideration.
It is very fitting that there is such interest shown by members of the house in this housing question, which, after all, is pre-eminently a human question. The lives of our Canadian people are so involved in the whole matter that naturally all of us are deeply concerned about working out the best possible solution to the problem.
I think it would be inappropriate if I were to deal with the questions which have been raised during last evening and again this afternoon, but there are one or two points which I would like to place before the house. The first is this: There are other schemes under the National Housing Act which bring about lower rental housing, for example, the limited dividend plan under
[Mr. Barbes.l
section 16. Hon. members will be pleased to learn that great advantage has been taken of that section during the present calendar year. In fact, during the last ten months Central Mortgage and Housing Corporation has received more applications for loans to limited dividend companies than in any previous period of comparable duration. In these 10 months there has been more than $21 million committed for loans to limited dividend corporations.
Then there have been many different schemes in which a provincial government and the federal government have shared. We are always on the lookout for a redevelopment plan and I am sure that was also the attitude of the former government.
One of the members mentioned today that the Jeanne Mance project in Montreal had been delayed by the present government. We are going right ahead with the plans for that huge project and we are hoping it can be completed at the earliest possible time. Mind you, there was some difficulty about it some weeks ago because it was all mixed up with the municipal election in the city of Montreal. One group wanted to go ahead and another group did not want it to go ahead, so until that dispute could be resolved it was rather difficult for the government to step in and show much activity.
We would be delighted to see redevelopment schemes of this kind in other cities. One, for example, has been recommended after a survey, for which we paid a large portion of the cost, in the city of Vancouver, and some reference was made to this by the hon. member for Vancouver-Kingsway (Mr. Macdonald). I am hoping that the city and provincial authorities will see fit to start moving on that project at a very early date. This type of work, I am sure, has the wholehearted support of everybody in the house.
Some hon. members have referred again today to the interest rate. I dealt with this matter last evening. It is a situation which has to be faced, and there is one further feature which I did not mention last night but which I think is material, that is, that under our small homes loan plan, commonly called the agency plan, loans have already been approved for almost $150 million, as I pointed out yesterday, involving 15,456 units. Part of the money we are now requesting is to carry on this agency plan. Hon. members will realize it would be very unfair to the people who have signed up under the plan if we were to make a change in the interest rate at the present time. It is not as though the money were not being taken up; it is being called for at a very rapid rate and I believe that with

the additional funds for which we are now asking there will be perhaps 25,000 housing units built in Canada during this winter period as a result of the plan.


Thomas Speakman Barnett: Would the hon. gentleman permit a question? I should like to ask the minister if it would not be possible to re-write the interest rate of existing contracts?


Howard Charles Green: I would suggest that that would not be a practical thing to do where you have over 12,000 loans out already and more going out every day. One of the dangerous features about these suggestions under present conditions is that we are trying to get these houses built quickly; we are trying to get men at work quickly. If we assume there are five men at work on each of these units, that would mean 75,000 men at work in Canada on this housing, and if there were some doubt as to whether the interest rate were to be reduced as a result of the suggestions being made now, the first thing that would happen would be that people would stop taking loans and building would stop. As I say, there is this time element involved. One of the main reasons why the government adopted the policy of using government funds for these loans was to help the employment situation. The policy is essentially one to meet the conditions existing in Canada at the present time, and it would be very detrimental to have changes announced now which would, or which might, have the effect of stopping employment.
This plan is going extremely well now, far beyond what my colleagues or myself dared hope. It is a great success, and I hope that nothing will be done to stop it continuing to be a great success, giving thousands of Canadians work, making thousands of new homes available for Canadians in a much lower income group than those who have been benefited hitherto under the National Housing Act and, I think, helping to build a far better Canada.
I am very grateful for the support which has been given to this particular bill from all sides of the house even if there have been a lot of "ifs" and "buts" attached to that approval.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to, bill read the second time and the house went into committee thereon, Mr. Rea in the chair.
At six o'clock the committee took recess.
[Stage Direction]
AFTER RECESS

The committee resumed at eight o'clock. On clause 1.
Mr. Ellis:: Mr. Chairman, arising out of the remarks made by the minister, I should like
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to ask for further clarification of one or two points. I note the minister said that a lowering of the interest rate would have the effect of reducing still further the amount of money which private lenders might put into the lending field. Are we to conclude from this statement that the minister does not see in the foreseeable future any reduction in the present high rate of interest? Does the minister in effect say that if we are to expect an increase in housing in Canada it is going to depend on an increase in the interest rate? The minister made a statement to the effect that by lowering the interest rate we would be putting housing starts into a tail-spin, except for the fact that the minister looks upon this as being a temporary way of dealing with the situation; that is to say, direct lending is simply an expedient, an emergency program designed to carry us over a temporary period. Can the minister indicate whether he feels that there is a likelihood of private lenders taking up the slack by increasing the amount of money which they might put into mortgages without an increase in the interest rate?


Howard Charles Green: Mr. Chairman, I am very hopeful that private money will provide the necessary funds next year for housing, and that those funds will be provided at a rate which certainly would not be any higher than the present rate of 6 per cent. No one can tell at the moment what the situation will be next year. My hon. friend will realize that the rates under the insured loans which are made by the lending institutions with their own funds would have to be kept at the same rate as is charged on these agency loans which are made with government funds. It would be chaotic to have a different rate on the two different types of loans.
I am informed by my officials that in the normal course the amount of $150 million in a year, which was what we provided under our original plan, would be only something like 10 per cent of the total amount of money required for housing. That will explain our difficulty to the hon. member. I do not say there is anything sacred about the present rate. Rates have been changed before and I would think that they would be keeping in line with what the actual conditions are across the country.


Alfred Claude Ellis: Mr. Chairman, would the minister care to give us his opinion as to why lending by private lenders has fallen off in the past year, thus necessitating an increase in direct lending by Central Mortgage and Housing Corporation? Why have conventional lenders not provided the mortgage money?
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Is it because they feel the interest rate is too low? Would the minister venture an opinion on that?


Howard Charles Green: I mentioned last night that I believed there were two main reasons. One was that the mortgage companies and the banks could get higher returns by making other investments; therefore, they put their money in other fields. The other reason was the tight money policy which was in existence at the time we took over the responsibilities of government and which had resulted in a shortage of money, a shortage of loans, for builders and for activities of that kind. In my judgment it hit the house-building industry harder than any other industry. We were faced with the position where there simply was not the money going into the house-building field and if we had not moved the picture in house building in Canada this year would have been very bad. We moved to meet this need.


Alfred Claude Ellis: Would the minister not say that next year the same situation will apply; that the approved lenders might find it more advantageous to invest their money in other types of construction work; in other words, the situation which exists this year. What reason has the minister for suggesting that the situation will be materially different next year or the year after?


Howard Charles Green: The situation has already changed considerably because money is now cheaper and the yields are not as high, for example, on bonds, and also the tight money policy is not in effect and it is easier for builders to borrow money from the banks.


Alfred Claude Ellis: If money is cheaper why can the effect of that cheaper money not be passed on to house builders?


Howard Charles Green: I think that earlier in the year the situation was out of line. Mortgage lending was not an attractive investment. The position is now getting back to normal where you do not ordinarily expect to get the same return from a bond, a provincial bond, for example, as you would get from a mortgage. That was almost the situation last spring.


George Carlyle Marler: I should like to add a few remarks to what has been said on the subject of the rate of interest. I think it is a fact that the increasing of the rate to 6 per cent during the early part of this year had the definite effect of increasing the supply of money for mortgages. I had the occasion earlier in the year, after the increase of the rate to 6 per cent had come into effect, to talk to the president of one of the large life insurance companies of Canada and he told me that as a result of the increase in the


rate his company was going to invest a larger sum of money in mortgages this year than they had originally planned to do. I think the truth of the matter is that though all of us would like to see a much lower rate of interest prevailing on mortgage loans the rate must always be set at a level which will attract not just government money but outside money.
The point I was trying to emphasize yesterday when we were at the resolution stage of the bill was that in the three years, 1954, 1955 and 1956, a period of great activity in Canada, a period of great development and a period when there was tremendous demand for investment moneys of all kinds for all kinds of purposes, more than $1,500 million was put up by the lending institutions of Canada to build, I would say, pretty close to
400,000	dwellings. Of the total, as I said yesterday, the amount put up by Central Mortgage and Housing Corporation was, I think, in the neighbourhood of $65 million. In other words, the government contribution was small and the lending institutions were satisfied with a lower rate of interest than now prevails to advance some $1,500 million. I hope, Mr. Chairman, that that situation is going to repeat itself and we are going to find that lending institutions generally will be attracted by the mortgage as a form of investment for their funds, that is to say, the funds of their policy holders and in some cases the funds of their shareholders.
But, Mr. Chairman, I should like to say a word in reply to what the minister said on the question of tight money. The fact of the matter is that you can call it tight money and try to attribute responsibility to the former government for that situation. If there is responsibility for the former government there is certainly responsibility for the present government which has done nothing whatever to change the tight money situation.


Howard Charles Green: This $150 million is helping that.


George Carlyle Marler: No, all the minister is doing by taking the $150 million and applying it to housing is to increase the amount available for housing but he is subtracting a corresponding amount from the supply that is available for other forms of endeavour.


Howard Charles Green: Oh, no.


George Carlyle Marler: I know the minister will not understand that because he has repeated the same thing too often now to be convinced. But I do want to say that the truth of the matter is that in Canada we have had a program of expansion without precedent and every form of industry which wished to

develop wanted to borrow money or wanted to obtain money by the sale of shares or in some other fashion. Personally I think we have been very fortunate in that we have succeeded in attracting some $1,500 million into the mortgage field and building as many houses as have been built in the last three years. In the year 1957 I think conditions have been more difficult because there has been a much greater demand from industry for money and those people who have some association with investors and mortgages know that a great many investors prefer the simplicity of a bond, the fact that they can go to their safety deposit boxes and clip the coupons every six months. They do not have to worry whether the taxes on the property are paid, whether the house is going to burn down, whether it is insured, whether the borrower is keeping up with his payments.
The unfortunate fact is that in comparison with other forms of investment a mortgage presents greater difficulties of administration, is less negotiable and consequently is less popular with certain investors. I think that is a disability that is very difficult to overcome and, while it may not be popular to say so, I think the rate should be at a level which will attract funds rather than discourage them. Whether or not that rate should be 6 per cent is something for the government to decide but it should always be a rate which is going to attract funds into the housing business because we certainly need to go on building houses.


Stanley Howard Knowles: Mr. Chairman, I am not quite sure which is the pot and which is the kettle in this exchange between the Minister of Public Works and the hon. member for St. Antoine-Westmount. I was not sure whether the member for St. Antoine-Westmount was trying to put up a better defence for present government policy than the minister has put up or whether he was defending the policy of the former government. But it does seem that what has been said by the minister and the member for St. Antoine-Westmount underlines the contention that we in this corner of the house sometimes make. Members of the two old parties do not like it, but it has been demonstrated again tonight that there is not really much difference between them when it comes to something fundamental.


John Whitney Pickersgill: Facts are facts.


Mr. Castleden:: And interest is interest.
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Stanley Howard Knowles: The hon. member for Bonavista-Twillingate, with whom I used to have interesting discussions in the halls of United College in Winnipeg in bygone days, says that facts are facts. Well, the fact is that both the Minister of Public Works and the hon. member for St. Antoine-Westmount talk about this matter in terms of housing being an attractive investment to those with money to lend. It is our contention that that is what is wrong, that is what is bankrupt about the policies of both the old parties.


John Whitney Pickersgill: You want to make it unattractive.


Stanley Howard Knowles: They think of housing in relation to the amount of profit that can be made by private investors. In one little sector of this housing legislation, which was put on the statute books by the Liberals and which the Conservatives are using there is a slight departure from that principle, namely in the one little sector where provision is made for public money to be used when private money will not come into the breach because not enough profit is being made. Yet even when the Minister of Public Works is taking credit for the loosening up on tight money by extending more money through agency loans, he still says that this cannot go on forever, that it is only temporary. The Minister of Public Works said that you cannot ask for the return on money invested in housing to be out of line with the return that investors can obtain in other fields. We contend that what is out of line is that the cost of homes for our people is out of line with the priority that should be given to homes, out of line with the social desirability of homes being one of the things that we produce first with the effort that our people apply to our raw materials.
If it is being demonstrated by the facts, as the hon. member for Bonavista-Twillingate put it, and by the arguments of the Minister of Public Works and the hon. member for St. Antoine-Westmount that the present system is not able to get homes built for our people, then we contend we have got to move a great deal further along the line of making public money available so that in effect we channel the savings of our people into the socially desirable purpose of building homes. We regret very greatly the slowness and delay of the present and the former government in this field but at least we welcome the fact that the picture is becoming clear that both of the old parties think in terms of housing only as an attractive investment. We think rather of housing as a social end that should

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be achieved, an end to which the resources, raw materials and the labour power of this country should be devoted.
One of the reasons we have given support to the bill is that it proposes to extend slightly the amount of money available for agency loans. However, we are just as sure as we are that we are here in the house that the day will come when we will have to move a great deal further in that direction. We think the Canadian people deserve a government that will move that way because the government believes in it rather than because it is forced into it.


Erhart Regier: Mr. Chairman, I assume that part of the $150 million allocated a few months ago and part of the additional $150 million now being asked for will be supplied to approved lenders and will reach the purchasers of homes by way of purchaser loans. Am I right in the assumption that a share of the first $150 million and of the additional $150 million for which the minister is asking will be used to supply additional insured loans to the Canadian people?


Howard Charles Green: I am not very sure that I heard the hon. member's question correctly. Agency loans are quite different from insured loans. In the latter case the money is put up by the lending institution. The agency loan is put up by Central Mortgage and Housing Corporation which in turn obtains its money from the receiver general. Agency loan money did not go into the insured loan plan.


Erhart Regier: I wish to thank the minister. In other words, I am now assuming that none of the $300 million is to be used for the purpose of supplying any of what we have been used to labelling insured loans.
Now, I must return to the question I was asking yesterday. Could the minister tell me, if I obtain one of these new loans from a bank on which I have to pay the standard 6 per cent, how much does the bank have to pay to the government for this money?


Howard Charles Green: In so far as the insured loan is concerned, the lending institution does not get money from the government at all. It advances its own money. All that is done under the National Housing Act is that repayment is insured under the insurance terms of the act.


Erhart Regier: The minister has explained that none of this money will be used for the purpose of issuing insured loans. However, I understand that if I want one of these loans I will have to apply at a lending institution, one of the approved lenders, and I must pay the approved lender 6 per cent. How much

does the approved lender have to pay in order to get this money out of the government?


Howard Charles Green: I think the hon. member's difficulty is this, that in addition to lending their own money, the lending institutions are acting as agents for Central Mortgage and Housing Corporation in putting out this $150 million which will be increased when we get the amendment through.
There are two types of loans. You may go to an approved lender and get a loan under the insured plan or you may get it under the agency loan plan. In the latter case the money is government money, but mind you the agency loan plan money is only available for these small homes. If you want to build a big house on Shaughnessy Heights you cannot get any money under the agency plan. You would have then to come under the insurance plan and take your chances with the lender.


Erhart Regier: I wish to thank the minister. However, perhaps now the minister can answer this, and this is what I have been after all along. Who gets the difference between the cost of this money to the government and the rate that the purchaser has to pay? I believe the government obtains its money at slightly under 4 per cent. Who gets the spread between the 4 per cent or whatever it is and the 6 per cent? Is it the approved lender who is acting as agent in this case or is it the Central Mortgage and Housing Corporation?


Howard Charles Green: 
Erhart Regier: 
Howard Charles Green: 
George Carlyle Marler: That is paid once, I take it?


Howard Charles Green: 
Stanley Howard Knowles: realize the hon. member for Burnaby-Co-quitlam was referring to himself just as an example and the Minister of Public Works was answering him as though he was an example, but just to have the record clear is it not a fact that by a provision of the Senate and the House of Commons Act members of parliament are barred from the advantages of the National Housing Act?


John Whitney Pickersgill: Do not give a legal opinion.


Howard Charles Green: I am afraid I do not know.


George Hugh Castleden: I had difficulty in following the minister's answer to one of the questions that came from this corner of the house. It was stated we thought the government should lower the rate of interest, and that was our amendment. The minister stated that they could not possibly lower the rate of interest being charged for these loans because that would discourage investment. I should like to ask the minister this. Is it not a fact that if he were to lower the rate there would be more houses built than if the rate were allowed to continue where it is? If you lowered the rate of interest you would lower the cost of building houses.


Howard Charles Green: I think the result would be exactly the opposite. If we lowered the rate on these agency loans, then the rate is automatically lowered on the insured loans and that would probably mean the lending institutions would stop lending their money on first mortgages and would put it into some other investment. Then, there would not be sufficient money available in Canada to build houses.


George Hugh Castleden: In other words, we are doing more good to the investors in insured loans than we are to the potential home owners.


Some hon. Members:: Nonsense.


George Hugh Castleden: Supposing we take the example of a person who was fortunate enough to obtain a serviced lot and who paid his 10 per cent down, which would be $1,000 on a $10,000 house. If he amortized the balance over a 30-year period, what would be the total of all payments which he would have to make before he finally owned that house at the end of a 30-year period?


George Carlyle Marler: He owns it to start with.
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George Hugh Castleden: I suppose we can figure that out. The balance he would owe would be $9,000 and at the end of 30 years he would have paid $18,000.


An hon. Member:: Part of it is rent.


George Hugh Castleden: Yes, part of it is rent. The reason housing is not available to the people who need it is that they cannot afford to pay that amount. If the interest rate is 6 per cent and you amortize it over a 30-year period, a person has to pay double for the house. Part of this trouble goes back a long way. It goes back to the high cost of building, and some years ago we advocated that price controls be kept on. If that had been done a house costing $10,000 to construct today could be built for $6,000. Then, people could afford to build. You are saddling these people with a load of debt from which they will not free themselves within an ordinary earning lifetime.
Let us get these things down into the realm where they can be used, where greater consideration will be given for the safety of the people, the kind of houses in which they live and the social value of good houses instead of slum houses or in other words the safety value and the health value. You are denying to the people who need it most a commodity that is essential to good standards of Canadian living. I think that has been said before in other words by other hon. members of this house. The party will go ahead and put this bill through. We have pointed out to them that they will just continue to fail to provide what should be provided, namely housing for the vast number of Canadian people who need it, such as the fellow on the small salary, people living out in the smaller communities where it is absolutely impossible for them to come under the provisions of this bill and where perhaps if the burden of interest were not left loaded on top of them they could provide themselves with houses.


Howard Charles Green: The hon. member must not overlook the fact that a great deal of money is being lent out directly by Central Mortgage and Housing Corporation in the smaller communities, quite apart from the agency loans. I have here figures for the loans under section 40 which are in that category. They amount to $57,210,071 since the act of 1954 came into effect. These are additional loans which are made directly by the corporation and they have not entered into the discussions which have taken place earlier this evening.


George Hugh Castleden: The rate of interest is the same, though?

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Howard Charles Green: Yes. The rate of interest must be kept the same on all these loans. Otherwise you would have confusion.


George Hugh Castleden: For that reason the amendment is not of any value to the people who need assistance.


Erhart Regier: May I ask the minister this question. Last night I referred to consideration of the value of our veterans housing legislation. The minister has informed us that some of his regulations are being changed. Has any consideration been given to amending the regulations in such a way that people would be able to build their own homes and take advantage of the provisions of the National Housing Act? I know that from a technical standpoint there is nothing in the way. However, I think the minister is well aware of the fact that most lending institutions, as soon as they find that the prospective home owner intends to build his own home, are no longer interested in accommodating him. The argument they use is that their experiences have not been good, that in so many cases it takes too long for the prospective home owner to complete the building, and they do not want to be bothered by that type of enterprise. Has the minister given any consideration to amending the regulations in respect thereto so that those wishing to build their own homes under the National Housing Act would be in as advantageous a position as are the veterans of today, many of whom are doing a remarkably excellent job and are obtaining a low cost home because much of the initial cost is their own labour.
Then I have another question to ask the minister. What is his estimate of the existing housing shortage at the present time? How many units does his department feel we are short? Also, what are the estimated needs for housing within the next ten year period, say, in Canada?


Howard Charles Green: Mr. Chairman, I do not pretend to be a prophet or the son of a prophet. I have no idea what the expectation is for the next ten years. In this house, as the hon. member knows, we live from day to day.


George Carlyle Marler: Truer words were never spoken.


Howard Charles Green: When the agency loan plan was adopted the officials of Central Mortgage and Housing Corporation believed that the demand for the more expensive homes had already been met. In some areas they were a drug on the market. It was estimated that the increased demand this year for the more modest homes, such as are made possible by the agency loan arrangement, would be about
15,000	homes. We have already had 15,456

units covered by loans actually completed and there is not any indication that the demand has been met. Hence apparently there is still an effective demand for these lower cost homes.
The hon. member asked me earlier whether a change could not be made in order to give more consideration to an applicant who was building his own home. That is one of the questions that is being looked into, but there is some provision for consideration of that type at the present time. The lending value established for residential property includes the value of the land and the value of the structure built on the land. If the applicant owns the land on which the house is to be built, the value of this land is considered to be part of the applicant's equity. If the applicant is able to contribute owner labour by virtue of his own skills, the value of that owner labour is discussed with him and is included as part of his equity. For the home owner applicant, the applicant's equity may include the value of the property which he owns, the value of his own labour and some cash, provided that the sum of these three equals the difference between the amount of the mortgage and the cost of the finished house.


Erhart Regier: I appreciate this reply. I am glad the minister said the matter is being looked into a little bit more. The minister will admit that if the lending institution is not interested in this type of applicant the regulation as to valuation means very little in effect. If the bank or the insurance company does not want to do business with an applicant who wants to do his own building there is not much use in saying you will assist his own efforts, if he is unable to obtain the mortgage.


Alfred Claude Ellis: I note that the minister pointed out that some 15,456 starts were made under the agency loan plan in this third quarter. In answer to a question asked the other day he pointed out that the agency loan plan was the answer to the frequent complaints that the cost of the average home was going up and getting further and further out of reach of the ordinary citizen. Would the minister care to comment on this matter and to state whether or not the department feel that the agency loan plan is the only way in which we can be guaranteed houses of lower cost and that otherwise the insured loan plan will go on producing homes of the value which he pointed out the other day.
I hope the minister can understand the point I am trying to make, that if the government is going to have to depend on the agency loan plan in order to provide low cost homes, then I suggest the $150 million of additional money

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passed over to Central Mortgage and Housing Corporation is not going to make very much impression on the housing needs of the low income groups.


Howard Charles Green: Well the agency loan plan was, of course, our main way of trying to meet the situation, but in addition to that we have been investigating every other possibility which would result in the building of cheaper homes and I think the success of the agency plan has convinced a great many builders and many of the lending institutions as well that this is a pretty good field into which they might enter. I am hoping the result will be that both the builders and the lending institutions will concentrate next year on these lower priced homes. There are indications that that is the trend at the present time.


Alfred Claude Ellis: Mr. Chairman, the minister last evening at page 2499 of Hansard pointed out that the lending institutions were not in a position to impose the type of restriction necessary to bring about a greater increase in low-cost homes. Now my question to the minister is this: is it not possible for the government to amend the legislation in order to provide that necessary authority? In other words, in the minister's own words, the situation as it now stands is that lending institutions who are engaged in insured loans apparently are not able to touch these lower priced homes, and that the only way in which these homes can be obtained is through the agency loan plan of the government.


Howard Charles Green: We will make every endeavour to get the lending institutions and the builders to stay in this lower cost home field. There is this feature about it, if the more expensive homes cannot be sold and if they are going to lie empty as they have done in some of the Canadian cities, then the higher price field becomes unattractive to the lending institutions and they are just that much more likely to put their money into loans on smaller homes. This is a problem which we will have to face if it arises and I am hoping that it will not be a problem in 1958.


Alfred Claude Ellis: One other matter. I know the
minister said last evening that he had given instructions that his officials would look into the question of lending values particularly in some of the cities where-as he pointed out- loan prices had sky-rocketed. I wonder if the minister could inform us whether this investigation is going to take place immediately and whether some decision is going to be made in the very near future. If something is not done then it simply means that persons wishing to build homes in certain cities are going to be required to pay, not merely the 10 per cent of the first $12,000 an additional
cost which will make the down payment in cash which they have to put forward completely out of line with the money they have available.


Howard Charles Green: Yes; the policy I announced last night is already being implemented.


Mr. Batten:: I would like at this time to bring to the attention of the minister a case in my own riding which came about during the past year and to ask him if he will give to the people concerned such assistance as he is able to give. About a year or so ago a company by the name of the Clouston Development Company, which is a home construction company, came into my home city of Corner Brook in Newfoundland purporting to be operating under Central Mortgage and Housing Corporation and entered into a deal with about 40 people to build homes. These people were supposed to deposit with the company certain amounts of money ranging from $3,000 to $5,000. At the end of the year, when there was no evidence of any construction beginning, people began to make enquiries and they found that although they had deposited with the company a considerable sum of money, the company had gone bankrupt and the 40 prospective home owners had lost their money.
I do not want to belabour the minister with all the details but might I give him just two or three particulars. One young married man, living in a small home not sufficiently large to accommodate his family, decided to mortgage his small home in order to purchase a bigger one under this plan. Another young man sold his home in order to get the amount of money necessary for the deposit and then found, after the company had gone bankrupt that he had actually lost his original home. Another older man-now 65 years of age and who will retire within a month or two if he has not already done so-took all his life savings to put into a new home. He in turn lost all his money.
Now this development company was, as I say, purporting to be operating through Central Mortgage and Housing Corporation and it is for that reason that I would ask the minister to look into the details of this case and to see if he could give any assistance to those people who have been involved in this most unfortunate incident.


Howard Charles Green: Mr. Chairman, if I remember correctly Central Mortgage and Housing Corporation was not in any way involved with this bankrupt company. We very much regret what has happened although the corporation is not responsible for it. We are

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trying to move in and give whatever help is possible to clean up this unfortunate situation.


Stanley Howard Knowles: have one question I would like to ask the minister, but before I do so I would like to make a very brief comment on an argument he used just before six o'clock. He said that to reduce the interest rate now would be unfair to those who have taken out mortgages at the present interest rate. I am sure that is an argument which the minister would just as soon not have on the record because that argument against the lowering of the interest rate could be applied to the lowering of the down payment which is to be the effect of the clause we are now discussing.
I am sure he does not take the position that it is unfair to those who had to put up a higher down payment that we should now be proposing to lower the down payment, and I am sure he does not take the position that for all time the interest rate on housing mortgages must either stay where it is or go up.


Howard Charles Green: I did not say that.


Stanley Howard Knowles: am glad to know that. In that connection may I ask the minister if there has been any change in the interest rate on long-term government bonds as defined in section 4, subsection 3 of the National Housing Act since the present rate of 6 per cent for loans under the act was established.


Howard Charles Green: 
Stanley Howard Knowles: On
what date was that set?


Howard Charles Green: I cannot tell the hon. member that at the moment. It is quite recent. May I point out that under the terms of the National Housing Act the maximum rate is set by the governor in council, so that 6 per cent is the maximum rate. The rate could be anything lower than that if a loan could be obtained at a lower rate.


Thomas Speakman Barnett: Mr. Chairman, I must confess that I still have not been able to get through my thick head just what the picture is on this matter of reimbursing the lending agencies. Yesterday, as recorded at page 2501 of Hansard, the minister quoted from paragraph 9 of the agency agreement for the administration of N.H.A. loans and he said paragraph 9 states:

For the making and advancing of loans the corporation will pay to the approved lender a fee of
(i) $100 for each loan made in respect of a house other than to a builder;
And corresponding amounts for certain other categories. I understood that was a flat figure for a loan paid to a lender acting as an agent of the corporation. Now the minister has been saying in reply to questions by the hon. member for Burnaby-Coquitlam that the lender acting as agent receives two-thirds of 1 per cent and one-half of 1 per cent by way of reimbursement. If I understood the minister correctly, one-half of 1 per cent refers to a recurring amount which the lender would get each year as a collection fee, but I am still at a loss to understand what the connection is between this $100 flat rate and the two-thirds of 1 per cent to which he referred.


Howard Charles Green: The two-thirds of 1 per cent is the converted charge, taking all the loans together, and it works out at that average of two-thirds of 1 per cent.


Thomas Speakman Barnett: And that is the same as the $100 to which the minister referred? The two-thirds of 1 per cent is the converted figure representing the amount paid to the agency in respect of this clause of the agreement. Is that correct?


Howard Charles Green: Yes.


[Stage Direction]
Clause agreed to.
Clause 2 agreed to.
Title agreed to.
Bill reported.
The Acting Speaker (Mr. Rea):: When shall the bill be read the third time. Now?


Stanley Howard Knowles: By
leave.


Howard Charles Green: the third reading of the bill.
Motion agreed to and bill read the third time and passed.



UNEMPLOYMENT ASSISTANCE ACT


Hon. J. W. Monteith (Minister of National Health and Welfare) moved: that the house go into committee to consider the following resolution:
That It is expedient to introduce a measure to amend the Unemployment Assistance Act so as to remove the threshold provision from the agreements that have been concluded or that may be entered into hereafter; and to make certain changes for the better administration of the act through the deletion of a number of obsolete provisions.
Motion agreed to and the house went into committee, Mr. Rea in the chair.


Jay Waldo Monteith: Mr. Chairman, the purpose of this resolution can be stated very simply. We seek authority to delete the so-called threshold from the Unemployment Assistance Act.
This threshold provision at present prevents the federal government from sharing in the cost of unemployment assistance until the number of needy persons receiving such assistance in any month rises above .45 per cent of the provincial population. The effect of abolishing this provision from the act and from the agreements with the provinces under the act will be to authorize federal assistance to the provinces and, indirectly to the municipalities, regardless of the numbers who may receive assistance in any given month.
Since the Unemployment Assistance Act has now been opened up for amendment along the lines I have mentioned it is also proposed at the same time to delete in part or entirely certain transitional provisions of the act which were necessary at the time it was passed but which are now obsolete. I refer to the reference in section 5 of the present act to the date of July 1, 1955, and also to section 8 of the present act.


Paul Joseph James Martin: Mr. Chairman, I should like by leave of the committee to make a few comments on this resolution. The hon. minister has not at this stage given us a very detailed explanation, but when the bill is before the house he will undoubtedly say more about the government's policies in this particular regard.


Jay Waldo Monteith: I will give a lot more detail.


Paul Joseph James Martin: Yes, and as he says he will give a lot more detail. But at this stage I think it is desirable that some comment should be made on the measure which the hon. gentleman recommends to our consideration by way of amendment. I think at this stage it would be well to remember the situation which caused the previous administration to recommend to parliament that the present government should share in the maintenance of a group of individuals in our country who from time to time find themselves without work, often without the means to obtain work, and also the decision of the administration to assist those classes in the community who are regarded as unemployable.
The federal government in 1940 took a very important step when it asked the provinces to give the federal government the necessary power under the British North America Act to legislate for a system of unemployment insurance, and when the federal government took over the responsibility for unemployment insurance, taking over as well the administration of local employment offices. It
Unemployment Assistance Act made a very important contribution toward assuaging the problem of unemployment as it confronts this country from time to time, and no one will deny that the decision of the government at that time, taken at a very difficult period in our history, represented a very important step in providing a form of unemployment insurance which has meant a great deal to the working force of this country.
When the legislation was introduced in 1940 it did not represent the first attempt by an administration to provide unemployment insurance. It had been tried in the latter days of the government under the leadership of the late Lord Bennett. But, as was pointed out at that time, the unemployment insurance measure introduced by that administration was clearly contrary to the provisions of the British North America Act. It was urged by opposition members of that day that the measure would not stand testing by the courts and this indeed proved to be true when the Supreme Court of Canada and the judicial committee of the privy council declared it ultra vires of the parliament of Canada.
But, notwithstanding the passage of unemployment insurance and the undoubted benefits which have flowed therefrom, many of the working force of our country, and those who are now unemployable, found themselves at the mercy of municipalities and of provinces for assistance. It is a fact that during the period from the time the Unemployment Insurance Act was passed up until recent days many municipalities did not regard it as their normal function to provide assistance for individuals out of work, certainly, for individuals who could qualify at one time or another for unemployment insurance. Even with regard to those who did not and could not qualify for unemployment insurance, a number of municipalities in a number of our provinces did not provide assistance for the unemployable group. Therefore, from year to year we were confronted in this country with the spectacle of individuals either denied assistance by the municipality or, if given assistance, in many instances given inadequate assistance.
Certain provinces refused to share in this assistance with the municipalities and, as hon. members know, that was particularly true in Ontario where, for some reason or another, there was a reluctance on the part of the provincial administration to share in the cost of assisting individuals whose unemployment insurance and seasonal benefits had run out. The argument they advanced was that this was a responsibility that did not rest with particular provincial administrations. Municipal representatives went to

Unemployment Assistance Act provincial governments and asked for moneys to assist them in bolstering up their funds to provide for these two classes of out-ofwork people. The provincial governments would say: This is not our responsibility; this is a matter that rests with the federal author-ority and you must look to them for assistance. This throwing of the responsibility back and forth undoubtedly caused much confusion and a great deal of understandable criticism on the part of municipal officers and citizens in given communities. It was because of this kind of situation that the previous government decided that it should embark upon a program of public assistance so that finally we might be able to eradicate entirely from the Canadian scene this shifting of responsibility from one government to another in respect of individuals out of work with no opportunity of receiving assistance at the hands of any of the three levels of government of this country.
When the measure was announced it was widely acclaimed. It was first of all discussed with the provinces and at the conference which I had the privilege of attending there was a unanimous expression of opinion from the provinces that this was a step in the right direction. There were some difficulties in the proposal put forward by the government of the day. For instance, there was the difficulty in the case of Nova Scotia, but generally speaking the principle of the measure was one which all of the provinces agreed was a very important and constructive step to take in the field of social welfare.
When the proposal was put forward the government, of course, indicated that the only way in which it could be implemented was by agreements entered into between the federal government on the one hand and the 10 provincial governments on the other. It is regrettable that agreements were not consummated between the governments of the two larger provinces and the federal government. Six agreements were concluded and, as a result, in these six provinces the federal government shares with the provincial governments on a fifty-fifty basis the cost of a measure of public assistance that undoubtedly has produced very satisfactory results and gives very important assistance to these two groups of individuals.
The cost of the scheme at the present time -the minister will correct me if I am wrong- perhaps in so far as the federal government is concerned is somewhere in the neighbourhood of $5 million. I have made an estimate of the proposal the minister now makes, assuming the participation of the two larger and the two smaller provinces that have not come into the scheme, and it will represent

possibly an additional $8 million or $9 million; but these are figures which I have just estimated. Undoubtedly the minister, with more accurate information at his disposal, will be able to comment on it later on.
I would remind the Minister of National Health and Welfare that it is our duty at this time to point out the significance of the step that is now being taken in the light of the problem that now confronts us in Canada, a problem that we were reminded of when this measure was introduced and when I proposed this public assistance measure. We were told that what the government should be doing was to put forward schemes that would not provide assistance to men and women but schemes that would keep men and women at work. Those were observations made by the present Prime Minister when he discussed unemployment and this particular measure. Those were observations made by the former leader of the opposition, not with regard to the particular proposal for public assistance, but when he discussed unemployment from time to time.
All of us in this house recognize the difficulties that confront any government in the matter of unemployment; but that does not free any of us from the obligation of looking at this problem squarely in the light of the facts that confront us at a given moment. The fact is that since the end of the war we have had in this country a level of employment never exceeded before. We have never had as high a working force and our working force has never been as continuously employed as during the past decade. But we must recognize that the situation today is somewhat alarming because of the volume of unemployment that is to be found throughout the nation. We were told yesterday that some
82,000	individuals are now out of work who were not out of work a month ago. I think that is the correct figure.


Michael Starr: Eighty-four thousand.


Paul Joseph James Martin: I thank the Minister of Labour. I know that the Minister of Labour is concerned about this problem as indeed we all are. There will be differences as to the number of men actually out of work. The differences between the figures supplied by two departments of government indicate that it is not easy to determine the exact number of individuals out of work. But the fact is that there are certainly double the number out of work today as were out of work at this time a year ago and the indications from government statisticians are that the increase is likely to continue for some time to come.
We will all hope that unemployment will be corrected, that more and more individuals

will be able to find work, will be able to go off the unemployment insurance rolls and will not require the necessity of seasonal benefits and the advantages of public assistance. But we have to face the fact that in the present period and for some months to come at any rate we are likely to be confronted with a serious unemployment problem. None of us can shirk our responsibility no matter what our position in the house may be, no matter where we may sit, and it will not be valid to suggest that for any hon. member to emphasize the problem is to create a lack of confidence in Canada or in the Canadian economy. When this question was raised on another occasion the then leader of the opposition, Mr. George Drew, dealt with this aspect of the problem. As found at page 2498 of Hansard for March 29, 1955, he said:
I regret that anyone would suggest that a discussion on unemployment is an attempt to undermine confidence. If there is any attempt to undermine confidence on that basis, then of course it must come from the agency of the government which gives the figures.
These agencies, of course, are the Department of Labour and the dominion bureau of statistics.
The figures that have been used are given by the dominion bureau of statistics. Surely there is no suggestion that the dominion bureau of statistics is deliberately seeking to undermine public confidence. After all, it is a statistical agency which we believe has been giving us reliable information within the pattern it has established with regard to these and other matters. The interpretation to be placed upon those figures is for the members of this house and the public of Canada.
I think that statement, admittedly made in another context, is a justification for our raising this question when the opportunity is presented as I am seeking to do tonight. It would be unfair, I believe, to charge the present administration with full responsibility for the situation and I am not doing that. But I would remind hon. members opposite that when much less unemployment existed in this country some hon. members sitting on the treasury benches, in spite of the high level of economic prosperity that Canada enjoyed, did charge the government, not with the responsibility of providing public assistance or unemployment insurance but with the obligation to provide work for people out of work. It is open to us in the light of these criticisms, all of which are recorded in Hansard, to remind hon. gentlemen opposite of what they said on these occasions and to remind them that they have a responsibility with regard to this problem in the light of the arguments they made throughout the years with respect to this particular matter.
We never took the position that it was possible for us to correct the situation fully, but the argumentation made by some hon.
Unemployment Assistance Act members opposite when they were sitting in our places clearly implied, give us the opportunity and these unfortunate situations will not arise. But they have arisen. They are now here and all over the country many thousands of men and women are out of work in every one of our cities. The Minister of Labour may say that in his city unemployment possibly is not as great as it is in my community. He is indeed very fortunate that that is the situation and I recognize that it is the case. But I am sure the Minister of Labour will be the first to agree that the city of Oshawa is perhaps the only city in Canada where there is not a very serious unemployment situation.
The daily bulletin issued by the dominion bureau of statistics for Monday, December 16, gives an indication not of the latest figures but of the situation existing in the country. It points out that the number of initial and renewal claims received at local offices of the unemployment insurance commission rose 34 per cent in October to 167,363 from the September total of 124,949, and it was 90 per cent in excess of last year's October figure of 87,929. The same daily bulletin reminds us that a total of 268,005 claimants, comprising
198.000	males and 69,951 females, had their unemployment registered in the live files on October 31, an increase of 41,475 or 18 per cent over the September 30 count of 226,530. On October 31 last year the total was 139,377 and claimants as at October 31 this year accounted for 6.8 per cent of the estimated insured population on October 1 versus 3.7 per cent a year earlier.
So one can refer to the latest bulletin and to bulletins issued subsequent to October 14 and find there a steady increase in the number of applicants for unemployment insurance reflecting, of course, the growth in unemployment itself. I am sure the minister has more recent figures available than we have at this moment. I remember that about the middle of November he gave us some figures for October and the next day, at the suggestion of the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre, he gave figures for November 7 of this year. They reflected, of course, what I have said has been a gradual increase of unemployment during last autumn.
What the final figure today is I do not know except that we do know from what the Minister of Labour has just said that there were 84,000 more men and women out of work last month than there were in the preceding month. The minister nods his head. That represents a very significant increase,
34.000	more in November than in October. What it will be in December, what it will be in January, February, March and April, I do not know. There are indications, and my

Unemployment Assistance Act authority for saying this is the statements made by government officers themselves, that we will find the figures will be considerably higher than what they are now.
If the figure reaches the suggested 700,000, and I have seen even 800,000 mentioned, undoubtedly that will represent a very dangerous point. It will represent the highest point reached at any time since 1934. As a matter of fact, this figure, for this time of year, is greater than in any other year before since 1933. I believe these facts speak for themselves. If the former administration had a responsibility in connection with the matter, so has the present administration. We have a right to ask what steps are going to be taken by the government to correct this situation.
I must, in fairness to the Minister of Labour note that at least on two occasions he has indicated to the house the steps which his department is taking to try to improve this picture. He has told us of the steps he is taking with industry and in government departments, with regard to public organizations and the like, to try to mitigate this problem somewhat. But I think we must ask him, are these steps going to correct this situation? Can the government take any steps that will correct this situation? What is the government's view with regard to that particular question on which they had strong views when in opposition? We were told unemployment insurance, seasonal benefits and public assistance was no substitute for the provision of work for men and women; that was the position taken by hon. gentlemen opposite on other occasions. Is that still their position? Is it still their position that these various social measures which I have enumerated are not enough and that what is wanted are policies that will lead to providing work for Canada's working force?
I think the position is clear. The government has the responsibility to be consistent with the criticism that it levelled at the previous administration, an administration that at no time ever took the position that unemployment insurance, seasonal benefits or public assistance were, of themselves, a substitute for work. At no time did we indicate that we were embarking on policies that would correct this situation, if and when it arose, and particularly during this difficult season period. The government has, in its departmental files I am sure, many projects which if implemented now would, in many cases, provide work for individuals.
The other day I referred in this house to the tax policy of the government with regard to the automobile industry. I am sure that the policy pursued by the Minister


of Finance in that case was not calculated to relieve the unemployment problem that exists in the automobile and related industries. Did the government consider, when it decided on that particular course, that that was the way to provide a corrective measure for a very important segment in the unemployment picture in Canada? Did the government believe that a reduction of 2J per cent was calculated to stimulate sales?


Mr. Browne (Si. John's West):: Are we going to discuss that again? I suggest that the speaker is out of order, Mr. Chairman.


Charles Edward Rea: I think the hon. member for Essex East knows we have already passed that legislation concerning excise tax. I do not believe that should be discussed again.


Paul Joseph James Martin: With great respect to you, Mr. Chairman, what I have indicated tonight is that we have this unemployment problem. I am indicating too that the administration of the day, when sitting in opposition, argued that the government should take stronger steps than the mere provision of social measures in order to find some way of providing employment for the unemployed population of our country. I am examining now the steps the government has taken in attempting to reach its objective of providing employment. What I am arguing is that these policies of this government are not following along lines which were clearly implied in the positions they took about the provision of employment when they were in opposition.
What national development schemes has the government in mind for relieving this problem? We were told by the present Prime Minister, at least on two occasions and on one occasion I recall by the former leader of the opposition speaking for those of the treasury bench party when they were on this side, about schemes which if pursued by this government could provide employment for many thousands of our workmen. We were told about a special highway scheme in addition to the national scheme that was envisaged by the previous administration. In other words, the positions taken by hon. gentlemen opposite on former occasions, and the suggestions made by them for the relief of unemployment are now applicable and open to them for adoption and certainly for consideration as as to whether or not those are the methods which if adopted, might somewhat mitigate this problem of unemployment.
There were proposals made by the hon. member for Vancouver-Burrard. We were reminded of them today. He wrote to the prime minister pointing out that in the city of Vancouver there was much unemployment.

He had gone out to see that situation himself, and as a result of his investigations he put forward a program of development. It was embodied in the letter which he addressed to the prime minister. We have a right to know, in discussing unemployment, what the government's attitude is with regard to that particular proposal. Does the government regard it as a means by which unemployment in that particular section of the country could be reduced? It will not be enough for this administration to say tonight that they are taking another step in improving legislation brought down by the previous government because that legislation, as we were reminded then, is not a means by which men and women out of work can be provided with gainful employment.
I suggest to the Minister of National Health and Welfare, who is charged with the responsibility of this particular relief or social measure, that the government as a whole is responsible for providing, in accordance with the stand it has taken on previous occasions, measures by which unemployment can be reduced in this country. It will not be open to suggestion that this is a difficult problem. We all recognize it is a difficult problem. It will not be open to them to say they are pursuing the same kind of course which the previous administration pursued. The fact is that they took a position when in opposition; and if those positions were sincere then, we have every right to ask them to implement those suggestions or now to admit that criticisms which they made on those occasions did not have the validity which they argued at that time and that these various proposals put forward by them did possess the merit they were said to possess. Have we the assurance of the Minister of National Health and Welfare that there will be agreement now by all of the provinces with regard to the measure that he is now suggesting for amendment?


Charles Edward Rea: Order. I must advise the hon. member for Essex East that his time has expired.


Colin Cameron: This resolution takes me back a great many years-20 years to be precise-when I was sitting, as it were, at the other end of the country as a member of the legislature of British Columbia. It takes me back 20 years because that was the date upon which the federal government of the day decided to appoint a royal commission to examine dominion-provincial relations; and included in their terms of reference was an examination of the respective responsibilities for the relief of unemployment.
I recall very clearly, Mr. Chairman, those rather grim years when those of us who sat
Unemployment Assistance Act in the legislature of British Columbia used to watch the flood of misery that poured into our province from the whole of Canada because the unfortunate people who came there came on the very understandable thesis that it was more comfortable to starve in a mild climate than in subzero temperatures. That flood, added to our sea of misery, presented an almost impossible burden to the legislature and the government of British Columbia. If my memory serves me rightly, the total cost to the taxpayers of British Columbia during those tragic years was in the neighbourhood of $96 million, a staggering sum for a population which at that time was very little in excess of half a million and whose provincial revenues were in the neighbourhood of $18 or $19 million a year. That was a very different proposition from the present British Columbia with a population of, I believe, If million and provincial revenues running into the neighbourhood of, I believe, $300 million.
The lapse of time since then has wiped out from my memory the strict chronology of all the various shifts and turns that were taken in the policies between the provincial government and the federal government, the various schemes that were promoted for grants in aid, for loans from the federal authorities and so on. Finally, of course, in 1937 there was the establishment of the Rowell-Sirois commission. It will be readily understandable that those of us who were dealing with those frightful problems on the coast at that time should have been keenly interested in the establishment of that royal commission and keenly interested in what would be their findings with regard to what was then the major problem of public administration in Canada.
I think it might be of interest, Mr. Chairman, if we were to recall just what were the recommendations of that commission with regard to the responsibility it suggested should be assumed by the federal government. On page 25 of the second volume of the Rowell-Sirois report we find this in their recommendations under the heading "Prevention and Relief of Unemployment". I am rather interested to find now-I had forgotten it-the use of the word "prevention" there as well. The commission says:
The assumption of responsibility by the dominion for relief or aid of unemployed employables would entail (1) complete financial responsibility; (2) full control of administration.
Then it goes on to outline the various things it considered would be necessary for efficient administration. The point I want to emphasize is that at that time the Rowell-Sirois commission recommended that the federal government should assume 100 per
2570	HOUSE OF
Unemployment Assistance Act cent responsibility for aid to the employable unemployed. At that time, the time of the establishment of the Rowell-Sirois commission, the unemployment figure stood at 411,000 or 9.08 per cent of the labour force of that date. I believe it is useful for us to consider those figures.


John Whitney Pickersgill: What was the date?


Colin Cameron: The year 1937 was the year in which the commission was established. I believe it is useful for us to consider that point now, namely that that was the unemployment situation at that time when, in the opinion of this royal commission, it was no longer possible for the provinces to assume even part of the financial responsibility for the care of the employable unemployed.


John Whitney Pickersgill: Would the hon. gentleman permit a purely factual question?


Colin Cameron: Yes.


John Whitney Pickersgill: Is it not true that the report was made in 1941, not in 1937?


Colin Cameron: Yes; it was made in 1940, as a matter of fact.


John Whitney Pickersgill: I should say 1940.


Colin Cameron: Yes. I am not pretending that it was not made in 1940. The report was made in 1940. I merely wanted to emphasize the conditions that obtained when the commission first began its hearing. In fact, I think one might say that by the time the report was made the findings with regard to unemployment assistance were largely academic because we had moved out of that situation; and it is not until the last 18 months that we have gone back to something approximating those conditions. I think that is the point which we should consider now, namely that if at that time it was considered that unemployment of 9.08 per cent of our labour force warranted a recommendation that the federal government should assume 100 per cent responsibility, we should examine our present situation to discover just what level of unemployment would have to be reached today to approximate those conditions of 1937, with this additional point, that the Rowell-Sirois commission came to the conclusion that the province was unable to assume that responsibility at that time. It is fair to admit, of course, that they were recommending changes in the distribution of tax fields but at that time the income tax and the corporation tax were still in the hands of the provincial authorities.
To reproduce the unemployment situation of 1937 today would require unemployment figures to rise to some 578,000 in order to be


9.08 per cent of the present labour force of some 5,900,000; that is the figure if my arithmetic is correct. I note that the hon. member for Bonavista-Twillingate is doing some figuring. If I have done the calculation wrongly, I hope he will tell me. However, that is what I figure it to be, that about
578.000	will reproduce those conditions that obtained in 1937 when it was considered impossible for the provinces to bear any of the load of unemployment assistance for the employable unemployed.
What .are the figures today? The latest figures I have seen are these. I agree with the hon. member for Essex East that it is extremely difficult to know what figures one accepts as there are conflicting figures produced on different bases by different government agencies. But one figure I have seen for November 15, a month ago, was
352.000	out of work. Like the hon. member for Essex East, I have seen estimates from responsible trade union officials-research men-that the figure may very well reach
800.000	before this winter is out. However, even if we discount that estimate to a great extent and even if we suggest that the figure of 800,000 is an exaggeration, I think we can hardly avoid the conclusion that a figure approximating 600,000 is certainly within the realm of possibility for the future months. That would bring the situation in 1957 not really on a level with that in 1937, it would even be slightly worse than the situation was then. This bill to amend the Unemployed Assistance Act is proposing in 1957, 20 years after the Rowell-Sirois commission was set up, to go just 50 per cent of the way along the road recommended by that commission.
I would suggest, Mr. Chairman, that the government should seriously consider what the situation may be a few months' time. I am in receipt almost every day of letters from my own and neighbouring constituencies pointing out to me the very serious and increasingly bad unemployment situation in British Columbia. I am not in a position to know whether it is worse there than it is in other parts of the country, but I do know it is extremely bad and I can very well foresee that if we do reach unemployment figures such as have been suggested by research officials of various bodies in the country, the province of British Columbia is going to find it as impossible to carry this load as was formerly the case 20 years ago, namely in 1937.
If on the other hand unemployment figures show no rise and begin to decline and they remain within manageable proportions, then I would suggest to the government that the

payment of 100 per cent as proposed by the Rowell-Sirois commission would not be a crushing burden on the federal government. If, however, they do rise to that figure then this government is going to have to do it and they are going to have to completely re-cast their whole fiscal policy in order to be able to do it.
Of even more importance is the fact that if they are going to have to do the sort of thing the hon. member for Essex East was challenging them to do just now, that is to put into practical effect the rather ambiguous suggestions made when they were in opposition, then there will be even more necessity for a complete re-casting of the fiscal policy of the federal government. I say this because, as was said earlier today, we are facing a very difficult financial problem with regard to another social need and it is perfectly obvious that if that social need is to be looked after the fiscal policies of this government are going to have to be changed.
I therefore suggest to the government that it should take the bull by the horns now and go on the assumption that before very many months are out it is going to have to assume 100 per cent of the cost of assistance to employable unemployed, and I urge it to make the necessary arrangements now and make the necessary plans for fulfilling that task which is going to be laid on their shoulders, I think, within the next six months. I can think of no better authority for making that suggestion than the highly responsible commission of 20 years ago which, in circumstances not very different from those which lie before us today, made that as their first recommendation with regard to social services and the division of the cost of such social services between the two levels of government. I would hope that the government would not rest content merely with this rather pointless and not very effective amendment to an existing and inadequate piece of legislation brought in by my friends of the Liberal administration which preceded the present Conservative government.


Mr. McLeod:: I would like to get in a few words in order to state our policies and our views with respect to this resolution. So far as we are concerned, we understand that in this resolution of a very few and concise words we are asked to consider an important matter and I can quite well appreciate the fact that there is room to open up the whole unemployment problem. I do not think, however, that this is the time or the place for such a debate.
It seems to me from the two speakers we have just heard that there has been no commitment as to whether or not they are
Unemployment Assistance Act in favour of this legislation. We know, just as well as they do, that it is not a cure-all for the serious problems facing this government but we do believe it is legislation which is necessary and, in accord with our policy ever since this session opened, we assess each resolution or each piece of legislation which is presented to us on its merits. We then plan our action accordingly and it is therefore our position in respect to this legislation that it is timely and it should be welcomed by this house.
Now having said that, of course, I am not admitting that we have no serious unemployment problem but, in face of the rising numbers of unemployment and in face of the financial problems and burdens which this is placing on the various provinces, I do believe it is necessary that we should take very prompt action to rid the provinces of all that portion of the burden which can possibly be taken off their shoulders at this time.
We are well aware that unemployment should be strictly a federal problem, because unemployment in large measure-especially at the present time-is due to the financial policies not only of this government but of the past government. We are therefore fully conscious that this legislation is not perfect; it is not placing the full responsibility where it should be placed, but even on the understanding that it is a step in the right direction and that it is going to take some of the burden off the provinces, where it should not at any time be placed, I say we welcome it and we are going to support it. We will do our best to speed it through the house and will do nothing to delay its passing.


Lionel Chevrier: Mr. Chairman, I would like to approach this resolution from a somewhat different angle than that discussed by the three hon. members who have preceded me. If I rise at this time to take part in the discussion it is not so much to deal with the unemployment situation, as has been dealt with so ably by my colleague the hon. member for Essex East, as to deal with another aspect of the subject.
It seems to me that while on the face of it the resolution seems innocent enough, nonetheless it is subject to interpretation which in my opinion makes it perhaps complex and confusing. I thought the Prime Minister stated in his letter of October 31 when he invited the provincial premiers to the dominion-provincial conference in Ottawa that at that time there would be taken up the question of financial arrangements and fiscal accords with the provinces; such was not the case.

Unemployment Assistance Act
In his speech at the conference the Prime Minister devoted but one paragraph and that paragraph was vague enough-to the subject of fiscal arrangements. In his letter he had suggested that other aspects of the dominion-provincial relations could be considered, but only incidentally. In his speech it was these special subjects which were brought to the attention of the premiers, notably the hospitalization plan, the unemployment assistance which is now before the house by way of resolution, and assistance to the Atlantic provinces.
It seems to me that the resolution which we have before us must be considered in its historical aspect, its historical perspective, to understand its nature and its implications.
It seems necessary to me, Mr. Chairman, to view this measure in its historical perspective in order to understand its nature and implications.
Traditionally, the whole field of assistance to the unemployed was considered to be a provincial responsibility. In 1941, when it was felt that a national unemployment insurance scheme, to be financed mainly through direct taxes, had become necessary in Canada the constitution was amended so as to give to the federal government complete authority in this matter. The amendment, however, applied only to the restricted sector of unemployment insurance and did not affect the constitutional responsibilities of the provinces with respect to assistance to the unemployed.
Up until recently, those responsibilities were left largely to the municipalities, which did their best, within their own limited financial ability, to meet the most evident cases of hardship and indigence through various schemes of public assistance.
Since the federal-provincial conferences of 1945 and 1946 it has become customary to make a distinction between employable and unemployable unemployed, and in recent years the federal government has offered to participate with the provinces in the cost of assistance to employable unemployed not receiving unemployment insurance benefits.
However, the previous federal government was of the view that assistance to unemployable unemployed was, and should remain, a responsibility of the provinces and the municipalities, because the nature and the forms of such assistance depended very largely on local conditions and customs.
While it was relatively easy to make a distinction in principle between employable and unemployable unemployed, it was found that it was quite impossible to apply this distinction in practice and to define clearly these two categories in legislative terms. That is

why in the present legislation a statistical device was used to maintain that distinction and to assert provincial responsibility in the field of public assistance to needy people not really belonging to the labour market.
The provincial statistics of public assistance cases showed that even during recent periods of intense prosperity and acute labour shortages, there was always a certain small proportion of the Canadian population which was unemployed, although of working age, so that it could safely be assumed that these unemployed people were, in fact, unemployable.
In discussions with provincial governments it was found that Ontario had the lowest proportion of such people and it was decided to accept its figures as a national basis to define the category of unemployable unemployed. This explains why the present legislation does not provide for federal participation in the assistance of unemployed people if the number of such people not receiving unemployment insurance benefits or mothers' allowances exceeds 0.45 per cent of the Canadian population.
In proposing to drop this threshold the present federal government is, therefore, asserting that it has a responsibility equal to that of the provinces in the field of assistance to unemployable unemployed or, more precisely, in the field of general public assistance which up to now had been considered, for good and sound reasons, as belonging exclusively to the provinces and the municipalities.
With the measure now before the committee, Mr. Chairman, the present government is thus invading one of the last sectors of social assistance which had been left, mainly, in certain provinces, to private charitable organizations and which is determined so largely by local conditions and customs. I merely want to point out, at this stage, that such a measure is quite inconsistent with the definite undertaking made by the Conservative party during the last electoral campaign to decentralize government responsibilities in our country. The provision embodied in the present resolution is a definite and important step in the direction of centralization, since the federal government assumes a new financial responsibility clearly belonging to the provinces, in the field of public assistance.
I should like also to recall briefly the amazing position taken by the Quebec government in this respect. It is reported-and I am sure that the minister will be able to confirm these reports-that when the federal government made the proposal included in this

resolution at the last federal-provincial conference this modification of the federal legislation did not appear to the Quebec premier to go far enough. In fact, the attitude taken by Mr. Duplessis was that the whole field of unemployment assistance as defined in the legislation belonged exclusively to the federal government, which should assume complete financial responsibility and, therefore, also administrative responsibility. I must confess that I am really surprised to see the Quebec government taking such an attitude, because it is evident that unemployment assistance, as defined in the federal legislation, covers the whole field of public assistance, with the exception of mothers' allowances.
It is the first time, to my knowledge that the Quebec premier criticized a measure favouring centralization by saying that it does not go far enough in that direction. Moreover, I am sure that most members in this house would be strongly opposed to the federal government taking over complete financial and administrative responsibility for unemployment assistance, as the scope of such assistance is usually defined. It would be most inappropriate and undesirable for the federal government to assume such responsibility.
There must be some confusion and misunderstanding somewhere. This is, Mr. Chairman, a very important matter, indeed, and we on this side of the house need some clarification on this issue. We want to know what is the position of the federal government in this respect. More precisely, we want to know from the minister what is his reaction to the contention of the premier of Quebec that the field of unemployment assistance, as presently defined, is an exclusive federal responsibility.
Business of the House
I see, Mr. Chairman, that it is ten o'clock.
Progress reported.



BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE

Lionel Chevrier: Mr. Speaker, may I ask the
leader of the house if he will tell us the business for tomorrow?


Howard Charles Green: Tomorrow, we will begin with item No. 1 on the day's order paper, house in committee on a bill dealing with branch lines of the Canadian National Railways; then item No. 2, an act respecting the Hamilton harbour commissioners; item No. 3, an act to amend the Canadian Vessel Construction Assistance Act; afterwards we will take item No. 17 which has just been under discussion, the resolution preceding an amendment to the Unemployment Assistance Act; item No. 7, second reading of an act to amend the Pension Act; followed by item No. 5, second reading of an act to provide for annual vacations with pay. The house would then consider the estimates of the Department of Justice.


Lionel Chevrier: Mr. Speaker, may I ask the leader of the house if he is able to indicate at this time-it is now Wednesday, and there are three days left-what the business is likely to be for the remaining days of the session.


Howard Charles Green: I think that on Friday we will be taking item No. 9, second reading of an act to provide for the stabilization of the prices of agricultural commodities. I am not yet able to say what the business will be on Saturday.


[Stage Direction]
At ten o'clock the house adjourned, without question put, pursuant to the order of the house passed on December 2, 1957.
96698-163$
[Stage Direction]
Questions

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

Mr. Michaud: Is the government giving active consideration to the recommendation of the Fowler commission respecting the establishment of a French language television station at Moncton, New Brunswick?
Answer by: Hon. G. C. Nowlan (Minister of National Revenue):
Regarding the possible establishment of a French language television station at Moncton the commission said only that "a study of the matter should be made at an early date". Under existing licensing policies an application could be made for a privately owned French language television station at Moncton to which the C.B.C. would supply national program service in French. The possibility of
a C.B.C. owned station could be studied after consideration by parliament on matters of the financing and structure of the broadcasting system arising from the report of the Fowler commission.


INTERNATIONAL SERVICE, C.B.C.  PROGRAM SCHEDULES
Mr. Barbes: 1.	Did the international service of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation publish a program schedule for December, 1957, January, 1958?
2.	If so, how many copies were distributed in Canada?
3.	What was the full cost of this program
schedule?
Answer by: Hon. G. C. Nowlan (Minister of National Revenue):
The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation advises:
1.	Yes.
2.	1,481 in Canada; 186,500 to listeners outside Canada.
3.	$3,792.73.

Thursday, December 19, 1957


MISCELLANEOUS PRIVATE BILLS
[Stage Direction]
Sixth report of standing committee on miscellaneous private bills.-Mr. Rea.