1958-06-16

THE BUDGET


Hon. Donald M. Fleming (Minister of Finance):: Mr. Speaker, I have tabled the budget papers in connection with the budget which I hope to present tomorrow evening. In keeping with past practice and for the convenience of the house and that of subscribers to Hansard, may I move that the budget papers be published as an appendix to today's Votes and Proceedings and as an appendix to tomorrow's Hansard.


Mr. Speaker:: Is it the pleasure of the house to agree to this proposal?


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to.

Hon. Alvin Hamilton (Minister of Northern Affairs and National Resources):: As this is the first occasion that I have to table the report under the Atlantic Provinces Power Development Act I think I should mention it in the house, because there have been a number of questions asking when this report would be available. I am now tabling the report along with two agreements signed with the provinces of Nova Scotia and New Brunswick. These agreements are attached to the annual report now tabled.



SAINT JOHN, N.B.-REPORTED STATEMENT RESPECTING THERMAL PLANT

[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
['that the first report of the standing committee on external affairs, presented to the house on June 12, 1958, be now concurred in.']
Mr. H. J. Robichaud (Gloucester):: Mr. Speaker, I wish to direct a question to the Minister of Northern Affairs and National Resources. In view of the fact that the power agreements with New Brunswick and Nova Scotia have now been tabled, would the minister comment on the statement made in Fredericton on June 11, and reported by the Canadian Press on June 12, by the chairman of the New Brunswick Electric Power Commission, which reads as follows:
No agreement has yet been completed with the federal government with regard to the Saint John thermal plant. The agreement is still under study and being prepared.


Francis Alvin George Hamilton: I shall have to ask the hon. member to send me a copy of the statement and I will make a comment on it later.



Mr. H. O. White (Middlesex East) moved: that the first report of the standing committee on external affairs, presented to the house on June 12, 1958, be now concurred in.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to.


Donald Methuen Fleming: for leave to introduce Bill No. C-28, to implement a convention between Canada and Belgium for the avoidance of double taxation with respect to income taxes.


Some hon. Members:: Explain.


Donald Methuen Fleming: This bill follows the form which has become quite customary in recent years, and confirms an agreement recently reached with Belgium for the avoidance of double taxation with respect to income tax. The agreement follows the form which has been used with respect to a number of countries.
Motion agreed to and bill read the first time.



AGREEMENT BETWEEN CANADA AND BELGIUM FOR THE AVOIDANCE OF DOUBLE TAXATION IN BELGIAN CONGO AND RUANDA-URUNDI

Donald Methuen Fleming: for leave to introduce Bill No. C-29, to implement a convention between Canada and Belgium for the purpose of extending to the Belgian Congo and the territory of Ruanda-Urundi under trusteeship the convention between Canada and Belgium for the avoidance of double taxation with respect to income taxes.
He said: The explanation of this agreement and bill is the same as I gave with respect to the previous bill. The first agreement applied
1156	HOUSE OF
Inquiries of the Ministry to Belgium. This second agreement applies to the Belgian Congo and to one other Belgian territory.
Motion agreed to and bill read the first time.



MOTIONS FOR PAPERS

[Stage Direction]
"CANADIAN ECONOMIC OUTLOOK FOR 1958" Motion No. 6-Mr. Pickersgill:
For a copy of "The Canadian Economic Outlook for 1958" as prepared by the Department of Trade and Commerce.
Some hon. Members:: Stand.


Mr. Chevrier:: The hon. member for Bona-vista-Twillingate proceeds with the motion.


Mr. Green:: Could we ask that this stand?


Mr. Pickersgill:: This has been stood for some time. Could the leader of the house indicate when he expects to proceed with it.


Howard Charles Green: We hope to be able to go ahead with it on the next occasion when it comes up in the house.
Motion stands.



HEALTH INSURANCE


[Stage Direction]
Motion No. 13-Mr. Martin (Essex East):
For a copy of the agreement signed by the federal government and the province of Ontario in the matter of the Hospital Insurance and Diagnostic Services Act on February 25, 1958.
Motion agreed to.

[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Hon. L. B. Pearson (Leader of the Opposition):: Mr. Speaker, I should like to ask the Prime Minister whether he is in a position to report to the house on the conferences which he and members of his government had with the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom last week.


Right Hon. J. G. Diefenbaker (Prime Minister):: Mr. Speaker, I hope to be able to do that tomorrow. There are some details that have to be filled in before a full report can be made. I could give a general report at the moment, but I feel if the question were left for a day or so I would be in a position to give a rather more ample report than I could give at this time.


Lester Bowles Pearson: Mr. Speaker, related to these conferences may I ask the Prime Minister if he will comment on the accuracy of press reports to the effect that during the United Kingdom Prime Minister's visit our Prime


Minister intervened to prevent a Canadian Broadcasting Corporation commentator from asking Prime Minister Macmillan a question about the United Kingdom free trade offer?


John George Diefenbaker: Mr. Speaker, I would be very happy to do that. As a matter of fact what actually took place was this. Following a press conference at which matters were very fully discussed there was a meeting between the Prime Minister and myself. We discussed various matters, it being understood that thereafter there would be a joint conference before the C.B.C. When we came out we met with the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation representatives and just before the interview commenced the Prime Minister asked what the questions were. As I recall it the first question on the list of two was as to whether or not the representations or the so-called proposal advanced last September regarding free trade with the United Kingdom would be on the agenda of the trade conference this fall. I said, "No, no," and then that terminated it as far as I was concerned. Naturally, thereafter I was surprised to find the comment that was made respecting what took place. In point of fact a mountain was made out of a molehill.
I can only say in so far as this government is concerned at no time has there ever been, directly or indirectly, any interference with the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation; and the nature of the observations made from time to time by commentators regarding this government and its undertakings since it came into power would be an effective answer to anyone who would suggest the contrary. In other words, there has not been and will not be any interference of this kind on the part of this government, either directly or indirectly, and there was no suggestion of that in any way the other day nor will there be at any other time. After all, while we may disagree with what is said about us, and while criticism of those in public life is sometimes not factual, the essence of democracy is the preservation of the right to make such criticism.
In so far as this question is concerned, I can only say that there was nothing whatsoever to justify the conclusions that were arrived at in various quarters. There is nothing to conceal about the offer. Questions concerning this matter had been fully asked at the press conference, and my information is that last evening full and complete discussions took place by the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom regarding this offer or proposal, so-called.
No attempt in any way was made to interfere nor will there ever be, which is something

different from what happened when the last government was in power.


Lester Bowles Pearson: Mr. Speaker, arising out of the Prime Minister's answer, am I to understand that the statement attributed to him, not by one but by a number of reputable newspaper correspondents, "No, no, you cannot ask that question", then had nothing whatever to do with the question that Mr. Macmillan might have been asked by the C.B.C. reporter regarding free trade?


John George Diefenbaker: I have nothing really to
add to what I have already said. Any question that arose was in consequence of his request as to the nature of the questions that were to be asked. In other words, he wanted to know in advance. As far as any other matter is concerned, I can only say this: that there is no ground for any lamentation over this as being an invasion in any way of the right of the C.B.C. to express its views, or of anyone to express his or her views regardless of whether it is critical of the government or not, as is apparent to every person in this country since this government came into power.



INQUIRY AS TO STATUS IN NATO


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Lester Bowles Pearson: Arising out of the gravity of the situation which now unhappily prevails on Cyprus, may I ask the Secretary of State for External Affairs whether the permanent council of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization is seized of this urgent matter?


Hon. Sidney E. Smith (Secretary of Slate for External Affairs):: In reply to that question, my answer is yes.



BRITISH COLUMBIA


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. H. W. Herridge (Kootenay West):: Mr. Speaker, I should like to address a question to the Minister of Agriculture. I sincerely hope it will not be an exercise in "futilitari-anism". In view of the very great anxiety with which the members of the British Columbia fruit growers' association anticipate the outcome of their application to the agricultural stabilization board for price support for the 1957 crop of apples, apricots, crab apples, peaches and prunes, can the minister inform the house when a decision with respect to this application can be expected?
Inquiries of the Ministry


Hon. D. S. Harkness (Minister of Agriculture):: Mr. Speaker, this question by the hon. member is an exercise in expectation. However, I can tell him this. We have had two officials in British Columbia during the past week looking into this matter of the fruit situation as it was, and the returns received in British Columbia for their 1957 fruit crop year. I might say also that only this morning did we receive from the British Columbia fruit association a report on what their operations have been; therefore we have not as yet, as can readily be seen, had any time whatever to give consideration to the matter.



NORTHERN AFFAIRS


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. Harold E. Winch (Vancouver East):: Mr. Speaker, I should like to address a question to the Minister of Northern Affairs and National Resources. Will the minister explain to the house the basis of his information, given to the committee on mines, forests and waters last week, as reported in the Vancouver Province on June 11 to the effect, and I quote:
The federal government has reached complete agreement in substance with British Columbia and Saskatchewan on joint financing of access roads to new resources.
I ask this question, sir, because a day later, as reported in the Vancouver Province of June 12, the premier of British Columbia is reported to have said, and I quote:
-that the minister's statement was mere propaganda, news to him, and that the provincial government was still awaiting details.


Mr. Speaker:: Do I understand that the hon. member is asking a question about what the minister said in a committee of the house?


Harold Edward Winch: No, sir. I am asking for information concerning the report in the press and the denial made by the premier of British Columbia.


Mr. Speaker:: I understand the hon. member is asking a question about a statement made before the committee on mines, forests and waters.


Harold Edward Winch: It is based on the statement made by the minister as reported in the Vancouver Province of June 11, which statement has been denied by the premier of British Columbia.


Mr. Speaker:: If the basis of the report is a statement made in the committee it seems to
1158	HOUSE OF
Inquiries of the Ministry me it is not proper for the house to inquire into what is going on in the committee before it has reported.


Harold Edward Winch: Is it not completely in order, sir, for a member to ask a question based on a report in a newspaper? I gave the name of the newspaper, the Vancouver Province of June 11, which contains the report of the statement made by the minister, and that statement was denied a day later by the premier of British Columbia, as appears in the Vancouver Province of June 12. Is that not a matter of urgency justifying a question on the orders of the day in order to get an explanation?


Mr. Speaker:: Well, I do not know whether-


Francis Alvin George Hamilton: Mr. Speaker, I can simplify the matter very easily by saying that for at least a year operations on the roads have been under way. I think that is the import of the statement I made, that we are in agreement on the substance of the matter.


Harold Edward Winch: Can the minister inform the house whether the statement made by the premier of British Columbia to the effect there is no such agreement is incorrect?


Francis Alvin George Hamilton: There is no agreement signed but there is agreement in substance between the two governments. That is evidenced by the fact that work on the roads has been proceeding for a year.



FINANCE


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. Samuel Boulanger (Drummond-Artha-baska):: Mr. Speaker, I should like to direct a question to the Minister of Finance. First, has the government completed its study of the recommendations made by the tariff board relative to the wool fabrics industry? Second, if such study has been completed, what action does the government propose to take concerning this matter?


Mr. Speaker:: I think the hon. member's question is one that he might keep until Wednesday, because it seems to me that it relates to budget matters.


Samuel Boulanger: I understand that the
Minister of Finance said recently that he was going to make a statement on the tariff on wool fabrics. That is why I wanted to ask whether he had any information.


Mr. Speaker:: Of course if the Minister of Finance does not regard this matter as being


associated with the budget there is no reason why the house should do so, but it seems to me that the question does involve a subject matter of the budget announced to be introduced on Tuesday.


Lionel Chevrier: I understand that the minister is going to reply to the question.
Hon. Donald M. Fleming (Minister of
Finance): No, the minister has no intention at this stage of the session of replying to questions that are not proper.


Lionel Chevrier: I object to that kind of interpretation by the Minister of Finance. I do not think it is up to the minister to determine whether or not a question is proper. I think that is for the Speaker to determine. If I may, sir-


Some hon. Members:: Order.


Lionel Chevrier: -I submit respectfully that the minister has not said that this matter is associated with the discussion of the budget, and for that reason the question should perhaps be allowed.


Mr. Speaker:: If the hon. member wants to address himself to the question of the propriety of asking about this matter at this time I will hear him, because I have not finally ruled the question out of order.


Mr. Mcllrailh:: Mr. Speaker, I wonder if I might be heard briefly on the point of order. As I recall the matter, when the Minister of Finance tabled the tariff board report on wool fabrics he said he was going to make a study of the report. The reference has been turned up for me. As found at page 854 of Hansard of June 5, the minister said:
I should like to assure the house, Mr. Speaker, that the foregoing recommendations made by the tariff board will be very carefully studied by the government.
Then there was some further discussion. If I heard the first part of the question correctly the hon. member asked if the minister had completed such study. Surely that part of the question is in order, because it is a question of fact. As to the other part, there may be some question whether or not it involves the budget.


Mr. Speaker:: I think the hon. member for Ottawa West is correct. The first part of the question is unobjectionable, but the part which asks what action is to be taken I would consider to be a budget matter.


Donald Methuen Fleming: I have nothing to add to what I said in the house on the occasion to which reference was made.

St. Lawrence Seaway-Tolls
AGRICULTURE	NATIONAL DEFENCE



SOYBEANS


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Hon. Paul Martin (Essex East):: I should like to ask the Minister of Agriculture if his attention has been directed to a statement made to the soybean growers by the chairman of the agricultural prices stabilization board as to the way in which the floor price for soybeans is intended to operate. If the minister has not seen that statement, would he be prepared to look at it and advise the house as to whether or not that is a correct statement of the application of this floor price policy?


Douglas Scott Harkness: Not only have I not seen the statement, I have not heard of it to date. I shall be glad to look into the matter.



IMMIGRATION


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. R. J. McCleave (Halifax):: I should like to direct a question to the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration. Has she anything further to report on the Dutch family and its troubles in Halifax?


Hon. Ellen L. Fairclough (Minisler of Citizenship and Immigration):: I am glad to report to the house, to the hon. member for Halifax and the hon. member for Bonavista-Twillingate, who also brought the matter up the other day, that the family is now on its way to the west coast. In fact, at the moment I think they are travelling across northern Ontario. I should like to mention at this time that we are indebted to the press for their co-operation in this regard.



DOMINION-PROVINCIAL RELATIONS SASKATCHEWAN    INQUIRY AS TO SHARING OF TAX REVENUES

[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
John Whitney Pickersgill: I should like to ask the Prime Minister if he is now in a position to table the letter to the premier of Saskatchewan and any reply there may be to it, to which I referred the other day?
Righl Hon. J. G. Diefenbaker (Prime Minisler): Yes, sir, I will see that that is done at once.



STATEMENT ON REPORTED U.K. USE OF U.S. ATOMIC WEAPONS

[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Hon. G. R. Pearkes (Minisler of National Defence):: On Friday the Leader of the Opposition asked a question arising out of a report from Washington to the effect that an arrangement had been made between the United States and the United Kingdom governments by which the United Kingdom forces may now use atomic weapons made in the United States. His question was: Are there any such arrangements covering Canadian forces?
The answer is in the negative.


Donald Methuen Fleming: that the house go into committee of supply.



TOLLS CHARGED ON ST. LAWRENCE SEAWAY

Mr. W. H. McMillan (Welland):: I thought at this particular time I should like to bring up a matter that is vital to the economy of Canada, namely the proposed tolls on the St. Lawrence seaway and the Welland ship canal. Not since the early 1900's has any toll been charged on any canals or locks from lake Erie to the sea-


Mr. Speaker:: I am sorry to interrupt the hon. member, but may I ask the members if they will kindly settle themselves and moderate their conversations so the hon. member can be heard.


William Hector McMillan: I was going on, Mr. Speaker, to say that not since early in the 1900's have any tolls been charged on any canals or locks between lake Erie and the sea.
According to the statement which the Minister of Transport made in this house not long ago, the proposed tolls are to be announced around July 1 and at that time shipping and other interests would have an opportunity to make representations in connection therewith. According to reports emanating from Washington, and more recently from Ottawa, it is estimated that the average tonnage passing through the St. Lawrence seaway over the first four or five years will be in the neighbourhood of 41.5 million tons each year; and Mr. Reese Harill, the chairman of the United States tolls committee, has made a statement as follows:
We will not be too far oft from the target of $1.25 per ton for general cargo and 50 cents per ton for bulk.
I have also seen statements from Washington indicating that observers in that city

St. Lawrence Seaway-Tolls believed that the toll charges would be greater than these amounts and I was wondering if the Canadian members of the toll committee thought they could go along with the toll of $1.25 and 50 cents, in view of this feeling in Washington. I would like to know from the minister if the Canadian members were insisting on these last mentioned rates.
The locks on the Welland canal conform in size with those presently being constructed on the St. Lawrence seaway, and the only work being done on the Welland canal is the deepening of the sailing levels at a cost of something under $30 million. As members of parliament we should be interested in the costs of vessel operation in so far as they relate to the cost of moving cargo. We should consider what effect this cost may have on industry generally, on agriculture and commerce. We should be interested in the shipping industry because of the thousands of men who are engaged as seamen and because of the shipbuilders and suppliers, in the same way that we should be interested in the welfare of Canada generally.
I have often read that 40 per cent of our workmen depend for their livelihood upon our foreign trade, and I believe that if we are to have a continuing prosperity in this country we must have an expanding trade. The St. Lawrence river and the great lakes basin, which extends to the very heart of our continent, a distance of 2,900 miles from the sea, are Canada's greatest single outlet to the markets of Europe, the western coast of the United States and South America. Much of the trade between Canada and the United States goes across this route. The water transportation in this area is called the most economical transportation system in the world and, because of its economy, it has helped to build up our country. It has helped our farmers to market their wheat in highly competitive markets, even though that wheat is grown thousands of miles from the seaports. It has also helped our industry to assemble raw materials, to manufacture products and to enter competitive markets. Today this water transportation system is becoming even more important to the economy of Canada because of the prospective shipping of large tonnages of iron ore from Quebec and Labrador to steel centres along the great lakes in both Canada and the United States.
I read over the bill authorizing the setting up of the St. Lawrence seaway authority to charge tolls. Those tolls charges are to cover the operation of the canals plus the amortization charges, which are to be retired in 50 years. The bill received the support of


all parties in this house when it was passed in 1951. There was no division on any reading of the bill, and the only opposition I could find in reading over the debates was that this St. Lawrence seaway was being built as window dressing for the Ontario hydro-electric power commission, which at that time particularly needed power.
In order to meet United States legislative requirements the tolls must pay off the United States' contribution of $140 million which, because of higher cost of construction, is today around $165 million. We must pay this amount off in 50 years as well as operate the canal itself. If the same applies to the Canadian contribution, something in the nature of $30 million per year will be required to be raised by means of tolls. It will be well, therefore, to examine the volume of trade now making use of the canals and the increased tonnages of iron ore likely to move up through those canals from Quebec and Labrador to the Canadian and United States steel centres.
First of all, in the year 1956, which is the last year for which figures are available, traffic through the Welland canal amounted to 23.1 million tons and that through the St. Lawrence canals to 13.5 million tons. In that year Canadian coastal shipping accounted for one-third of the traffic through the Welland canal and one-half of the traffic through the St. Lawrence canals, while United States coastal shipping accounted for only 6 per cent of the traffic through the Welland canal and less than one-half of one per cent of the traffic through the St. Lawrence canals. Most of the international trade is made up of imports of soft coal to lake Ontario ports and to Montreal, petroleum and other oils and paper, and last year 2.8 million tons of iron ore from Seven Islands were shipped to the United States steel industry.
Direct overseas shipping is increasing, but last year it accounted for only about 6 per cent of the tonnage going through the St. Lawrence river. It is difficult to arrive at a figure, but it would seem that Canada makes use of about 90 per cent of these lower canals and that the United States makes use of something less than 10 per cent. It is therefore only reasonable that tolls should be set to encourage United States shipping and to at least ensure that our tonnages of iron ore will pass through these lower canals-that is to say, the St. Lawrence and Welland canals-to help us pay for the cost of operating them plus the amortization charges.
I said earlier that the Welland canal was being deepened at a cost of something under $30 million and that the tonnages going through amounted to 23.1 million tons in

1956. It is therefore easy to see that the cost of the current deepening of that canal could be retired over a period of 50 years by a charge of just a few cents per ton. It would appear to me to be unreasonable and unfair to charge the Welland canal with more than this $30 million figure because you would then, for example, be charging the importers in Toronto or in Hamilton-and they make a great deal of use of the canal-tolls in excess of what they should pay.
If this were done it would be asking them to pay some of the cost of the St. Lawrence seaway although they would not be making any use of the seaway. After all, tonnage moving through the Welland canal is about twice that moving through the lower canal, the St. Lawrence seaway. For this reason I have always thought it wrong to include the Welland canal as part of the St. Lawrence seaway, because nearly half the tonnage through the Welland canal never reaches the St. Lawrence river.
There are certain basic concepts which our government should keep in mind before reaching an agreement with the United States on the amount of tolls to be charged. First, it should be remembered that lake Ontario and the Welland canal are the sites of the major part of Ontario industry making use of water shipping. Lake Ontario will be the only lake of all the great lakes that will be toll-locked, requiring tolls at both ends before ships are allowed either to enter or leave.
The shores of lake Ontario are the source of little raw material for industry. Therefore most of our Ontario industry bringing in raw material by boat for processing will have to pay a toll charge on it, no matter what the source. This is not true of most of the competitive American plants. The Steel Company of Canada Limited at Hamilton, for example, would be required to bring in three and a half tons of raw material through a toll area to make one ton of steel, while steel companies at Buffalo and Cleveland would have no tolls to pay on any of their raw materials.
Second, it should also be borne in mind that the St. Lawrence seaway is not such a major factor in the economy of the United States. If the tolls on the seaway are too high the United States has alternative water and other routes to carry its heavy commerce, while Canada, because of its geography has not.
Certainly the United States makes comparatively little use of the canals at the present time. In the Chicago area and the American mid-west much of their commerce goes down the Mississippi, while the eastern railways in the United States can deliver Quebec and Labrador ore to such American steel 57071-3-74
St. Lawrence Seaway-Tolls centres in central and southern Ohio from 'special docks at Baltimore cheaper than by ship through the St. Lawrence seaway even at the present time. If we are not successful in collecting tolls on a very large part of our own iron ore from Labrador and Quebec destined for American mills, then the toll charges on our own shipping will be increased. If we had double the shipping we would have half the toll charge.
The eastern railways always opposed the St. Lawrence seaway construction, and it is only natural for them to lobby to get the tolls as high as possible to increase their own business in the movement of this ore. The United States government spent $150 million for construction of a canal at Baltimore. I understand that six ships having a capacity of 40,000 to 60,000 tons each are now being constructed to carry this Canadian ore to Baltimore, while only two new 25,000 ton ships are being made ready to transport ore through the seaway, and I also know that some canal boats now operating through the Welland canal will be able to operate through the St. Lawrence canal and carry this iron ore.
The higher the tolls the more the United States shipping and our own ore will be diverted to other routes, and the more our Canadian shipping will be left holding the bag. I saw a statement not long ago, originating in Washington, which suggested there should be a maximum charge over the first four or five years to pay all charges, after which these charges might be lowered as the tonnage increased. I hope that such a high toll will not be set in the early years of transition from small canallers to large carriers, because it will take a few years to replace the smaller boats, and consequently shipping charges per ton in the earlier period of use will remain high. Mr. Harrill, chairman of the United States toll committee, said the job of the joint committee is to reconcile the United States legislative necessity of paying off the cost of the seaway in 50 years with having tolls low enough to attract traffic.
Surely this statement allows our members on the joint committee to bargain for low toll charges until maximum tonnages have been established. The United States government did the deepening and the building of two locks in the international part of the St. Lawrence river. This comprises rather a small share of the total cost of St. Lawrence seaway project, the rest of it being in the province of Quebec, and the Welland canal lying wholly within Canadian territory in the Niagara district.
I do not like the lever that the smaller expenditure of $140 million seems to give the

St. Lawrence Seaway-Tolls United States over the tolls, because almost every dispatch from Washington seems to emphasize their legislative monetary requirements for the next 50 years. There are reports of many pressure groups in the United States wanting the tolls as high as possible in order to gain tonnages for their own transport systems.
I agree that there should be a joint tolls committee to deal with the international part of the seaway, and to correlate it with the other major part which is wholly within Canada. However, I cannot help but resent a foreign power being given any direction or say over the operation of any canals within our own country. To me it is akin to surrendering some part of our sovereignty by giving them some direct voice in our economy for the next 50-years; and this over the years, could lead to ill-will and distrust among the peoples of two friendly nations.
Hon. members will all recall the difficulty in getting the seaway and power project underway. The Ontario government was badly in need of more power; and while public opinion in Canada would have supported Canada doing the whole project alone, it could not be done without the acquiescence of the United States as it involved flooding some of that country's sovereign land. The principle of tolls was accepted, but our government reserved the right to build her own two locks at Cornwall and then have an all-Canadian waterway.
It is interesting to note that the shipping tonnage through Sault Ste. Marie canals is nearly five times the tonnage through the Welland canal and over eight times that through the St. Lawrence canals; and that the United States coastal shipping is over eight times that of the Canadian through those canals.
The United States government is deepening the channel from the Detroit river up to lake Superior at very high cost-a cost comparable to that of the St. Lawrence seaway itself-and this waterway is to be toll free. It so happens that where United States tonnage is heavy on the whole waterway the tolls are free, and where our tonnage is heavier tolls are to be levied. I am not an economist, but I would expect this will produce an unbalanced economy to Canada's disadvantage in our great lakes system.
Thus far I have assumed that the Canadian government has decided on tolls. I am personally against tolls, particularly on the Welland canal, but in saying this I know I am in the minority in this house. There are so many implications in connection with the imposition of tolls that I proposed that the Canadian government should have an economic 
survey made before tolls are applied. I thought such a survey might come up with findings on the impact tolls might have on our economy and provide a better answer than a tolls committee, which would have little time for such a survey and which might be primarily interested in seeing what the traffic could bear.
Many plants have settled in the Toronto and Hamilton area and along the Welland canal. They established in those areas never expecting tolls, and their operations are geared to a toll free economy. I will take the paper industry for example. We have several paper mills in the Niagara district, and much of their pulpwood comes from the province of Quebec. The enlarged and deepened canal cannot help but result in their having to pay large sums of money for tolls without adding in any way to the economy of their operations. They must still continue to use small draught canal boats to gather up their pulpwood at the mouth of rivers of streams down which the pulpwood has been floated. The pulpwood is waterlogged and heavy, and no doubt they would be expected to pay tolls on the weight of wood containing nearly 50 per cent water.
A cord of wet wood weighs 5,000 pounds, and assuming a toll of 50 cents for bulk cargo this would mean paying a toll of $1.17 per cord, without taking into consideration the fact that in most cases a toll would be charged the ship when light on the return journey. Loads both ways cannot be carried by most ships, as the downbound or downstream tonnage is three and one half times the volume of the upbound or upstream tonnage.
I should like to go into some detail in *connection with the Ontario Paper Company at Thorold. This company has 1,200 employees and an annual payroll of $8 million. They have wood preparing plants and research facilities in Ontario. In addition the company owns a plant at Baie Comeau in Quebec on the north shore of the St. Lawrence river where it has its own power and wood preparing plants. The company also owns a fleet of 11 ships engaged in transporting not only its own products but general commerce as well. Altogether this company has 7,910 permanent and seasonal employees, with a total annual payroll of $25,700,000. Its total production amounts to over $60 million, of which $58 million was exported to the United States; and this is equivalent to 2.3 per cent of Canada's total exports to that country.
The Ontario Paper Company has always treated labour most fairly. I think this company's contribution and that of its top

executives is a fine example of responsible Canadian industry. The company presented a brief to the tolls committee of the St. Lawrence seaway authority not long ago, and I wish to quote part of that brief, as follows:
The locational advantage of proximity to its power source is now being threatened if the Ontario hydroelectric power commission carries out its policy of applying power rates on a system-wide basis rather than based on cost of transmission of power from close sources. If. in addition, a burden of $800,000 per year for tolls upon its traffic is superimposed upon it, it could be the means of forcing the location into an untenable position, thus forcing consideration of either abandonment or relocating its manufacturing equipment to a location where we have our own power facilities and avoiding the burden of tolls.
Based on press reports from Washington and Ottawa concerning tolls, the company is now of the opinion that the tolls could result in an additional expenditure of more than $1 million a year on their part. If the Ontario Paper Company finds it necessary to relocate because of these extra burdens- that is, their higher cost of power and the proposed seaway tolls-it will be a tremendous loss to the Niagara district and to the province of Ontario. I cannot think that this government or any tolls committee would want to see this happen. The building of the waterway will not in any way add to the economy of this company's operations.
I am of the opinion that the Welland canal should not be put in the same category as the St. Lawrence seaway. We should all strive for a closer-knit economy in Canada. Last year when the Minister of Transport was in Hamilton he was reported in the press as having assured the people there that they would be able to purchase coal shipped from Nova Scotia. If high toll charges are placed on the St. Lawrence seaway it will be difficult for Nova Scotia coal to compete with United States coal in the cities of Hamilton and Toronto.
There is one other important point. I have often heard reports to the effect that the operation of the canals is to be under a joint committee of Canada and the United States. *The canals have been very well operated under the Department of Transport, and I would like to see their operation continue on this basis and not placed under any other supervision.


Mr. W. L. Houck (Niagara Falls):: Mr. Speaker, representing as I do a riding that does not actually border the Welland canal but is in close proximity to it, I feel duty bound to say a word on this important question. Before doing so I wish to congratulate the hon. member for Welland on his very fine presentation of the question, 57071-3-74i
St. Lawrence Seaway-Tolls and to state categorically that I am in full and complete agreement with what he said.
In my opinion the question of tolls for the Welland canal is one of the most important questions facing not only the people of the Niagara district but the people of Canada. It is one that must be answered by the government of Canada in the very near future. Without doubt there will be a lot of public opinion both pro and con on this important subject. If tolls are imposed on the Welland canal they will work a hardship on industry, and especially those long-established industries which have done so much in the past to protect our national economy and to preserve our independence and freedom. These industries will indeed be placed at an economic disadvantage.
Tolls are imposed only for the use of facilities constructed for special purposes, such as locks built in various places for the floating of logs on isolated inland streams. I admit this is more true in the United States than in Canada, but I feel that tolls should not be charged for the use of improvements in Canada that are generally available for navigation and commerce. Some stretches of the connecting channels between the great lakes in both the United States and Canada have been improved by our engineers, and this has been going on for over 50 years without any suggestion of tolls. Over the years it has been absolutely shown that the canal free of tolls is a stimulus to commerce and generates new business for forms of transportation other than those directly using the canal. Herbert Hoover once said:
New waterways are not competitive but complementary to our great and efficient railways. It is the history of transportation that an increase of facilities and a cheapening of transportation increases the volume of traffic.
One must agree that ultimately tolls are always paid by the consumer, whether he knows it or not. They are included in the cost of transportation and eventually wind up in the price charged for the product. In the case of our basic materials the added cost of transportation through tolls increases in proportion to the number of processes through which the material passes before it finally goes off the dealer's shelves. It is thus cheaper, to say nothing of less painful, for all of us to pay for waterway improvements just once through taxes rather than repeatedly through the higher prices which would result from tolls on the Welland canal.
We must never forget that our improved canal, free of tolls, will play an important role in the defence of our nation. Opening up the great lakes by means of the St. Lawrence seaway and the Welland canal
1164	HOUSE OF
St. Lawrence Seaway-Tolls means opening up ship-building facilities around the lakes for the construction of seagoing vessels in time of emergency. It also means a safe lane a thousand miles long for the shipment of war materials, thus shortening the hazardous voyage across the Atlantic by nearly one-third.
Surely no one will argue that you should expect tolls to pay for this defence measure. It requires no stretch of the imagination to picture the hullabaloo that would be raised if tolls were proposed, say for instance, in New York harbour. Surely one must have his tongue in his cheek if he goes out and actually campaigns for tools on the Welland canal. To me they certainly are vulnerable, and I hope it will not start a landslide which will clog our canal and spill over into avenues of commerce which have contributed so much to the growth and economic welfare of our nation.
To my way of thinking those fighting for high tolls overlook two important facts. The first is the expansion in foreign trade which the canal will generate, and the other is the tremendous growth of population not only in our own province and dominion but in the United States as well.
I understand, Mr. Speaker, from engineers who have made an estimate of the Welland canal and the St. Lawrence seaway that the traffic to be expected through the Welland canal and the St. Lawrence seaway would be somewhere in the vicinity of 35 million to 37 million tons. Other engineers and businessmen tell us that the estimate for 1965 would be well over 52 million tons. Perhaps the more pessimistic observers and engineers say that it will increase to only 40 million tons.
I contend that it is not possible to charge a toll in the Niagara district without causing drastic harm to the economy of our nation. One cannot help but submit that the St. Lawrence seaway is faced with a dilemma, and certainly the only solution is a low toll which will not be injurious to industry but will be helpful to industry in the Niagara district.
I realize that the St. Lawrence Seaway Authority Act provides that if tolls are imposed they may be charged in two ways; either by a toll system set up by the St. Lawrence seaway authority alone for the Canadian section of the canal, or by a joint toll system set up by the St. Lawrence seaway authority together with the American seaway development corporation, which the Minister of Transport tells us will be meeting about July 1. Naturally their findings would have to be approved by the governments of


Canada and the United States, and would constitute an international agreement binding upon both countries.
Many organizations, chambers of commerce, the Hamilton council and the Toronto council and various councils in the Niagara district have at times recommended to the Minister of Transport that the Welland canal be maintained as a toll free system. I submit, Mr. Speaker, that any toll system reduces the potential of the Welland canal to provide maximum benefits not only for all the people of the Niagara district but of Canada as well. The collection of even a minimum toll would work hardship in many cases, and affect the ability of industry and agriculture to expand.
Back in 1934, Mr. Speaker, there was a full debate in this house on the motion that all goods shipped through canals owned and operated by the government of Canada be subject to taxation. In speaking against this motion Hon. R. J. Manion, at that time minister of railways and canals, stated in part:
In regard to the Panama, Suez and Manchester canals, it is true that they collect tolls. We must realize, however, that the conditions under which these canals are operated are altogether different from those existing in connection with Canadian canals. The Manchester canal is a private commercial enterprise, whereas in Canada our canals are national. Then the Suez canal is operated by a privately owned company. True, the Panama canal is publicly owned and operated, but we must remember this important point; the difference between the Suez, the Panama and our Canadian canals is that no vessel-owner is forced to use either the Suez or the Panama.
On the other hand, in Canada we have no alternative water route from the western grain fields, unless one wishes to use the railways from the head of the lakes. As has already been pointed out, however, the railroad would be so much higher that it would not be possible in the marketing of grain. It is important that we should have the lowest possible rates in order that we may compete with countries whose grain fields are closer to the seaboards than are the fields of Canada.
To me, Mr. Speaker, those words are as true today as they were in 1934, and perhaps more so, and I think today they even assume a broader aspect since this nation is more truly a trading nation, with its prosperity depending in large measure upon sound competitive business in our world trade.
Let me say this, Mr. Speaker. When the United States agreed to join with Canada in the construction of the St. Lawrence seaway they did so only on the understanding that tolls were to be collected to cover the cost of construction, maintenance and operation of what Washington certainly regarded as the seaway proper, that is the section of the St. Lawrence river lying between Iroquois, Ontario and Montreal. I do not believe there was ever in Washington's mind any idea that

the heretofore toll free Welland ship canal, completed in 1932 at a cost of well over $130 million, would be included in the St. Lawrence seaway for toll purposes. I certainly hope that Washington is still under that impression, and that it is their disposition that the matter of tolls on the existing Welland ship canal is one for Canada alone to decide.
I believe they gained this attitude owing partly to the fact that the Welland ship canal has always been under the control of the Minister of Transport. I can only repeat with emphasis that it should remain under the control of the Minister of Transport rather than the St. Lawrence seaway authority. The Toronto board of trade, the Hamilton chamber of commerce, and several other bodies representing the whole public community are very anxious that no change be made in the present set-up. I agree with them just as strongly as possible that the Welland ship canal should stay under the control of the Minister of Transport, and should continue to be toll free.
We cannot forget that the Canadian and United States users of the Welland ship canal started their shipping through that canal on a toll free basis nearly a quarter of a century before a start was made on the present St. Lawrence seaway. Certainly the present users of the Welland ship canal did not ask that it be deepened to 27 feet to conform to the seaway standard. They have been and are still quite content with the existing 25-foot depth. They have all built their ships to conform to this depth. It is hard to conceive, at least in my estimation, why they should now be expected to bear the cost of a deeper channel for which they did not ask and which will not be of any service to them.
I cannot help but wonder whether Windsor and Detroit would like to pay tolls on iron ore, limestone, scrap and other cargoes which move through the Sault canal and the St. Clair and St. Marys rivers. One only has to think how much worse off Toronto, Hamilton, Welland and the Niagara district generally would be and, indeed, our neighbouring and satellite communities, in the event of tolls on the Sault canal, tolls on the three connecting rivers and tolls on the Welland ship canal. You can well appreciate why we in the Niagara-Toronto area are so exercised about the evil potentialities, not only for ourselves who reside in the district but for all those in Ontario who will be so seriously affected by such a move.
Certainly cargo tolls on the Sault canal and the Detroit, St. Clair and St. Marys rivers would constitute double jeopardy for those Canadian industries, including the prairie
St. Lawrence Seaway-Tolls wheat grower, forced to use those facilities as well as the Welland ship canal. In my estimation the only way we can avoid the numerous troubles that seem to be ahead of us is for Ottawa to understand fully the many and serious implications of imposing tolls on cargoes passing through the Welland ship canal.
May I sum up by saying first, Mr. Speaker, that to establish tolls on the Welland ship canal would create a dangerous precedent which would hamper the future development of the great lakes area and place undue restrictions on Canada's economic growth. Second, tolls would divert trade from the water route, resulting in removing the stabilizing influence of water transport on other forms of transportation. Above everything else, Mr. Speaker, we should not lose sight of the point that any agreement with the United States pertaining to tolls would take control of the canal out of Canadian hands, as it would be subject to joint control.
Many of our existing industries have invested huge sums of money in the region of the Welland canal based upon free water transportation, and certainly this investment would be confiscated by oppressive tolls. I think we here in Canada should take the stand, and it should be a firm one indeed, that the purpose of the seaway is to attract industries, not to destroy them or drive them away. Our country can advance in wealth and power at a wonderful rate but it would be tragic indeed if this generation, possessing economic resources never before equalled, were to have such tolls imposed upon them.
May I make this statement, and I make it with no feeling of ill will whatsoever toward the United States. I say that the United States is looking after the interests of the United States and not those of Canada. I say they realize that if we suddenly start charging tolls on the Welland ship canal certainly United States cities such as Baltimore, Maryland, and others will get the business rather than Toronto, Hamilton, Windsor or the Niagara area, because freight would naturally move by an alternative allAmerican route. It is all right to argue that tolls are charged on the Panama and Suez canals, but we cannot lose sight of the fact that ships actually make money by paying these tolls.
I think, Mr. Speaker, that as members of the House of Commons we should stand squarely on our own feet with regard to the toll question, because we need the western and the great lakes business. It is my sincere hope that the Minister of Transport will be able to bring a favourable reply to the house indicating that tolls will not

St. Lawrence Seaway-Tolls be charged on the Welland canal. We are looking to him to that end. I say with emphasis, Mr. Speaker, that to charge tolls on the Welland ship canal would be a step backward so far as the future of this country is concerned.


Lionel Chevrier: Mr. Speaker, I have listened with keen interest to the two speeches just made by the hon. members for Welland and Niagara Falls. Both have indicated clearly that while they are in favour of the principle of tolls on the St. Lawrence seaway they do not favour the application of tolls on the Welland canal. It is easy for any member of the house to understand why these two and perhaps other members representing areas in the Niagara peninsula are fearful of the effects which tolls may have on established industries in those areas.
The reason I rise is to discuss the problem generally and also to regret the fact, first, that the Minister of Transport is not in his seat-he is detained, I am sure, by other important business-and, second, to complain about the fact that the minister and the government have not seen fit to alleviate some of the fears and anxieties of those groups in the country which will be affected by the imposition of tolls. In fact there has been very little said either by the minister or the government on the question of tolls since they took office following the election of June 10 last year.
It is unfortunate that that should be the case, because while I know that in the earlier period after assumption of office by the government it was difficult to deal with a problem of this nature. Nevertheless as time went on, and particularly in the last few months, it has in my opinion become much easier for a statement to be made either by the minister or the government in this respect.
As I understand it, sir, there are two groups agitating with reference to the question of tolls. First of all there is a group which would have no tolls at all on the seaway. They argue that tolls were imposed years ago on Canadian canals and were afterwards withdrawn, arguing therefrom that they were not a success and that on this occasion, following the opening of the seaway or shortly before, a toll system should not be instituted. Then there is another group, congregated mostly in the United States, agitating in favour of tolls which would be so prohibitive as to discourage traffic up and down the seaway.
It would appear to me, sir, that the attitude adopted by the St. Lawrence seaway authority, namely that of proceeding through a


committee in Canada and an opposite committee in the United States to establish a toll which is fair and reasonable, is the attitude which is commendable on this occasion. I should like to preface what I have to say now by stating that by international agreement, by legislation in this house and by pronouncements made both in this house and outside, the intention has been clear all along, that tolls should be charged on the St. Lawrence seaway.
The toll problem, of course, is a difficult and complicated one. It is made more difficult because of legislative requirements both in Canada and the United States that the project shall be self-liquidating. The operating costs, interest and amortization charges must be recovered from the tolls to be charged the users of these facilities. In other words the seaway is to be not only a self-liquidating project but a self-liquidating public utility.
As I said earlier and as was also said by the two hon. members who have just spoken, tolls were charged on canals in Canada in 1903. Those tolls were suspended for a time as an experiment, and afterwards were completely removed. They were completely removed because the United States decided to build the Erie canal and thereby take traffic from the upper regions of the great lakes down through that canal to the port of New York. Canada, finding itself losing traffic because of that canal, decided to remove tolls on its own canals entirely, and that proved to be successful. These tolls were finally abolished in 1905.
Now may I say a word about the basis for the establishment of tolls. The basis is briefly this. Capital expenditures are being incurred by both Canada and the United States in building the seaway. When the project is completed there will be an aggregate amount representing the capital cost of the seaway. It is on this amount that interest will accrue, and which must be amortized over a period of 50 years. Ift addition there will be the annual operating costs, including maintenance, but by far the greater part of the total costs will be the interest and amortization. Once the annual costs to be charged against the seaway have been determined there is another step which is of importance, and it is the consideration of the actual tariff of tolls.
What is the toll which is to be charged on the seaway? Before establishing a toll on the seaway I think one has to look at what is being done elsewhere, on the Panama canal and the Suez canal, for instance. It is only natural that one should compare the operations of these two canals. The Panama canal, for instance, can be easily bypassed. In other

words a ship going through the Panama canal need not come back by the same route. As a result the authorities operating the Panama canal see to it that light vessels are charged only 80 per cent of the toll on loaded vessels. The situation is not the same with respect to the St. Lawrence seaway. It cannot be bypassed. Once a ship enters the St. Lawrence seaway it must go through and must come back. It cannot go by another route. It need not, of course, go through the whole route up to the head of the lakes and back, but it must retrace its route after it has entered the seaway at the St. Lambert lock at Montreal in order to come out of the seaway.
Then again, in the case of the St. Lawrence seaway there is another factor which does not operate in either the Panama or the Suez canals. In Canada there are other paralleling transportation facilities along the seaway route; there are here parallel highway and railway facilities offering competition to the water route. Canada agreed to the imposition of tolls by international understanding. Until the month of March, 1947, I do not believe there had been any thought in Canada of imposing tolls on the seaway; but when it became clear that Canada was able, willing and anxious to go ahead with the building of the seaway the United States became apprehensive lest it would have no voice in a seaway which would be used by a large proportion of United States shipping. A statement by the secretary of state for external affairs was made at the time in the House of Commons on that subject. His statement, on April 24, 1947, is recorded at page 2354 of Hansard as follows:
The Canadian government has now concurred in principle with the proposal to make the St. Lawrence seaway self-liquidating by means of toll charges subject to the conclusion of arrangements satisfactory to both governments for the implementation of this principle.
This statement was repeated to the United States government in 1951 by an exchange of notes, I believe, and if not certainly by other correspondence, which pointed out particularly that Canada merely approved the principle of tolls. I emphasize this because of what I intend to say a little later. Canada merely approved the principle of tolls, without making any reference to the extent of the work to be amortized, the division of expenditures between the two countries, or to the allocation of costs as between power and navigation.
Then again the same idea is contained in certain sections of the seaway authority act. From the legislation it is clear that if tolls are to be established by agreement between Canada and the United States, directions pertaining to such tolls must be given by the
St. Lawrence Seaway-Tolls governor in council. Then the seaway authority act clearly sets out the purpose of the tolls. The tolls must, first of all, be fair and reasonable. Tolls must be high enough to recover the capital costs of the seaway, and they must be low enough to encourage traffic along the seaway. It would be ridiculous to make tolls so high that the cost of moving ships through the seaway would be prohibitive.
As I have said, in accordance with the act the tolls must be fair and reasonable. Furthermore, they must be non-discriminatory. Tolls must encourage increased utilization of the navigation facilities; for it would be anathema, as I have said, to spend $300 million or more to improve these facilities between Montreal and lake Erie only to impose prohibitive tolls.
Now, the point which I am sure interests the two hon. members who have just taken their seats, and the house in general, is this. What are to be the amounts of the tolls? This is a very difficult and complicated decision to make. A careful study would seem to indicate that there should be, first of all, a low toll on the net registered tonnage of the vessel applicable to all loaded or unloaded ships, and next a toll on the cargo itself. For example, if one were to encounter a ship having a net registered tonnage of 10,000 tons, and if there were say a toll of 10 cents per ton on that net registered tonnage, the ship would pay $1,000. If, over and above that, the ship had a cargo of 20,000 tons, assuming a toll of 50 cents per ton the ship would pay an additional $10,000, and hence on a 20,000-ton cargo a toll of $11,000 would be imposed. This is a simple method of assessing tolls. It should not be complicated like railway freight tariffs, because if it were then it would become extremely difficult of application and in case of appeal on complaints by shippers.
However, as I said earlier and as I repeat now, this is a matter for the tolls committees of both Canada and the United States to determine. It is, as I said at the outset, unfortunate that the minister has given the house little or no information on this extremely important matter. The house is entitled to know something about these tolls, as well as the shippers and ship operators who will be affected. I am sorry to say that the minister has not made very many pronouncements on the subject. I believe I am accurate in stating that on one occasion he went to a dominion marine association convention, not far from here, and made a statement on the subject, and that was quite some time ago. Apart from that there has been no statement on the subject at all. On the contrary, there has been a considerable

St. Lawrence Seaway-Tolls amount of information emanating from the United States, to which I think this house and the country were entitled. For instance, on May 14 there was a statement emanating from the chairman of the St. Lawrence Seaway Development Corporation, the United States entity, that tolls would be made public on July 1.
On the same day the hon. member for Welland asked the Minister of Transport, although he did not know about the statement from Washington, what the decision was with reference to the Canada-United States tolls committee. The hon. member was told that no decision had yet been reached, and that a public announcement would be made when such decision was reached.
The next day the minister was asked if he had seen the statement made on that same day by the president of the St. Lawrence seaway development corporation, or whether he was aware of that statement. His reply was that he had nothing to add, that no decision had been arrived at.
Meanwhile, on May 17, the chairman of the United States tolls committee, Mr. Reese Harill, who has already been referred to in this debate, announced in effect the amount the tolls would be, and I would like to give his statement to the house again because it does bear on this subject. I quote from the Financial Post of May 17, 1958, bearing the dateline Washington, D.C., as follows:
In so far as the actual tolls are concerned the United States toll committee chairman still says, "We'll not be too far off from the target of $1.25 per ton for general cargo and .50 cents per ton for bulk."
Then, ten days later, there is a statement emanating from Ottawa confirming everything which has come out of Washington thus far, both the statement made by the chairman of the St. Lawrence seaway development corporation and the United States chairman of the tolls committee, to the effect that this is what is under discussion, that this is what is being considered, and that a statement would be made on the matter about July 1. My grievance at this time is first of all, that these statements, instead of emanating from Washington, should have emanated from Ottawa concurrently. My complaint is that there are many questions in respect of this matter which should not have been left unanswered. For instance, how will the tolls affect different commodities? Will certain commodities or certain classes of traffic receive more favourable rates than others? Will there be any discrimination in tolls as between Canadian and United States traffic or between local
[Mr. Chevrier.l
and overseas traffic? What are the latest estimates of traffic on the seaway?
There have been several estimates given as to traffic. In 1954 the United States estimates gave a figure of around 36J million tons. They were revised afterwards to somewhere between 30 and 35 million tons. Then there are the estimates made by the Department of Trade and Commerce away back in 1940 or 1944 which indicated the traffic potential at that time to be about 44J million tons and there are also the estimates made by the economists of the St. Lawrence seaway authority. But all these estimates may well be obsolete by now. These are estimates which were announced months ago, as a matter of fact, several years ago, and I think it would be well if this house and the country were told what are the latest estimates of traffic on the seaway and particularly what are the latest estimates of the cost of the seaway, because it is clear that no toll policy can be established unless the costs and the anticipated traffic are correlated, unless the costs and the traffic can be gauged as closely to the actual as is possible to gauge them.
Then there is the all-important question of how and where tolls are to be collected. Should they be collected separately from the United States or jointly with the United States? There is no provision covering this point in the St. Lawrence Seaway Authority Act and it would seem to me that it would be a mistake to have two agencies collecting tolls, one a Canadian agency and the other a United States agency, because not only would that be a nuisance to the shipper but it would be a difficult thing from the point of view of accounting. It would be far simpler, since Canada is paying two-thirds of the cost of the seaway and since ships must of necessity enter the soaway in Canada through the St. Lambert canal at Montreal, that one agency and one agency alone be entrusted with the collection of tolls. I hope it will be found that that agency will be the St. Lawrence seaway authority. I am sure that they could make some sort of agreement, and I hope that they will if it has not already been done, with the St. Lawrence development corporation, the United States entity, that they would on behalf of both groups collect the tolls and then turn over the United States portion to the St. Lawrence seaway development corporation.
As to the points of collection, St. Lambert in the Lachine section and Welland in the upper section seem to be the logical locations for collection of tolls and when the volume of traffic reaches the point where navigational facilities become necessary at Cornwall, then

it would seem that Cornwall should be an additional point for collection of tolls. That is why I repeat that it is unfortunate that the minister has not seen fit to enlighten the house or the country on these matters and I hope he will take the first opportunity to do so.
Two hon. members who have just spoken have touched on a very important question, namely that of whether or not tolls should be charged on the Welland canal. Certainly from what I have said thus far and from the understanding made by the two governments, it would appear that in the year 1951, when the legislation was passed, the intention at that time was to cover the Welland canal. However, there was information which I am sure the seaway authority did not have and could not possibly have envisaged when the house was considering the over-all picture. Here again I must say that while the house gave unanimous consent to this legislation back in those years I am sure there are many members of parliament who would not have approved the project if they had not been assured by the government of the day that this was to be a self-liquidating project.
I return to the question of the Welland canal. When the legislation was passed, and for quite a long time afterwards, it was envisaged that the Welland canal would involve an expenditure of only $2 million. That was the estimate as it was tabled in the house at that time; in other words, in order to deepen Welland from 25 to 27 feet the estimate of cost was $2 million. That certainly could not be considered by any stretch of the imagination as being a large amount having regard to the total cost of $300 million which was being voted at the time. So that even at that time the amount of tolls with reference to the Welland canal, having regard to the total amount of the expenditure, could only have been a very small amount. It now turns out, unfortunately, that the cost-and I am sure that is nobody's fault-of the work in the Welland canal will be somewhere in the neighbourhood of $30 million. That could not have been envisaged at the time because it was only when the contractors and engineers got into the field at Welland that they discovered a large portion of the work in connection with dredging would have to be done in rock. The dredging in rock will be far more costly, and I am informed will be in the neighbourhood of $15 to $16 per cubic yard as compared with $2 or $2.50 per cubic yard for ordinary earth or clay dredging. I stand to be corrected on these amounts for I am speaking from memory only.
St. Lawrence Seaway-Tolls
The point I am trying to make is that it was not envisaged at the time that this additional amount of $28 million would be expended at Welland, and now that it has to be expended this may well make the difference in support of, and in substantiation of the claim made by the hon. member for Welland (Mr. McMillan) and the hon. member for Niagara Falls (Mr. Houck) that the operation of that canal should be exempted from the imposition of tolls.
There is another factor. Section 15 of the St. Lawrence Seaway Authority Act provided,
I believe, for a situation such as this. Section 15 states, in subsection 3, that every such tariff-that is, tariff of tolls-or amendment thereto shall be filed with the board of transport commissioners and shall become operative from the date of such filing. Then subsection 4, which I think is extremely important, says:
Any person interested may at any time file a complaint with the board of transport commissioners that there is unjust discrimination in an existing tariff and the board shall thereupon consider such complaint and make a finding thereon which shall be reported to the authority.
The point I am trying to make is this: that if an industry on the Welland canal feels itself aggrieved by the imposition of these tolls, high or low though they may be, it may make application to the board of transport commissioners by way of complaint and be heard under that section of the act. That section envisages that where there is unjust discrimination in a tariff the board would thereupon act to remove such discrimination. While I have no time or desire to go into the reasons which may impell the board to act in cases such as this, I think the board of transport commissioners would apply to these rates the same arguments as they apply with reference to unjust discrimination in so far as other rates that are considered under the Railway Act. There is much jurisprudence on this subject-many legal cases-and, in fact, a number of recommendations were made in the report of Mr. Justice Turgeon on freight rates which was tabled in the house some years ago and which dealt with this question of unjust discrimination.
Thus I say that while the position on the Welland canal may be different from that of other areas along the seaway route in that there were no industries along the other canals in the beginning; it was built either in the existing waters or alongside the shores or inland on farm territory where no industry was then in existence; though since then, in certain areas, industries have sprung up. The position with reference to Welland, is that the industries along the Welland canal have been established there for many years and it may well be that they would have a case in

St. Lawrence Seaway-Tolls arguing that the toll which the seaway authorities would establish would be one that is discriminatory with regard to their industry.
Then again there is also the obligation of the government under the seaway authority act. After the tolls committees of both countries have agreed upon a tariff of tolls, following study and examination to recommend to their respective governments; it is then up to the governments to determine whether that toll shall apply along the whole seaway.
The government has the right, if it so desires, under the order in council which it will pass, if it so wishes, to exempt a certain portion of the route from the operation of the toll, and it would seem to me that this could hardly be done without consultation with the seaway authority and with the other government. In other words, it becomes clear from what has been said in this debate that there are two members of parliament who are apprehensive lest the industries in their area be detrimentally affected. The government, I respectfully submit, should look into this matter and give consideration to the points made by the two members that industries may be injuriously affected on the Welland canal. Should these apprehensions prove well founded, consideration should be given to whether or not sufficient relief can be given to these industries under section 15 of the St. Lawrence Seaway Authority Act. I, certainly, would have thought so when the act was introduced in the house. It may be, because of the changed conditions which I outlined a moment ago, that the position is not the same today, but that is a matter for study. Then it would seem to me that consideration should be given to whether or not the Welland canal should be exempted from the application of the tariff of tolls.
It is impossible to answer this question, in my opinion, unless a study has been made of the whole situation by the proper body to do so, the tolls committee and the seaway authority. That is why, some time ago, in an earlier debate, I recommended the establishment-and I have done so on more than one occasion-of an economic survey to consider the whole effect of the seaway on the various regions of Canada and, of course, to study this question as well.
I conclude by repeating what I said at the outset of my remarks, that the question of a tariff of toll is an extremely difficult and complicated one. It is one which I am sure will be given careful study by the St. Lawrence seaway authority and it is one which no doubt the government will wish to consider carefully before it imposes a tariff of tolls which will apply, as the law now obtains, from one end of the seaway to the other. It will, of course, be the prerogative of the


government to exempt from the operation of the tolls the seaway route or any part of it.
I am sure that in view of the international agreement and in the light of other statements I have made, the government will have sortie difficulty in arriving at that conclusion. But I am sure all of us here-and I want to emphasize this-would not want to see these tremendous sums of money spent and then see the establishment of a toll which would be prohibitive. I am sure the St. Lawrence seaway authority does not want this, and I am sure the authority is going to do its utmost and bend over backwards to see to it that the toll will be so attractive as to encourage traffic. I also feel that should the case be such that because of the high costs of the seaway as compared with the amount of traffic that will go through it tolls must of necessity be high in order to amortize the principal, then I think the government should give careful consideration to refinancing part of the indebtedness so that shipping may be encouraged to move through the route.
I have not looked at the cost figures for a long time nor have I had an opportunity to study them. In fact, I do not know what the latest figures are. I have seen the budget tabled in the house but those figures are not necessarily the figures that will be agreed upon between the two governments and therefore I am not in a position to state what the capital expenditure is at this time. But what I do say is that having regard to this great international enterprise I am confident both the seaway authority and the government will want to make sure the toll will be of such a nature that ships will move freely through the seaway.


Lester Bowles Pearson: Mr. Speaker, I am going to raise a grievance of another kind on a subject other than the one that is before us now.


Mr. Speaker:: Are there any other hon. members who wish to speak on the grievance now before the house?


Howard Charles Green: Mr. Speaker, if the Leader of the Opposition (Mr. Pearson) is going to raise another subject perhaps I should say a few words on the grievance before us. The government, of course, had no inkling that this question- of tolls on the St. Lawrence seaway would be raised this afternoon and unfortunately the Minister of Transport (Mr. Hees) under whose jurisdiction this matter comes is unable to be here. However, I can assure hon. members of the house that the officials of the St. Lawrence seaway authority and the minister and the officials of his department have been giving very careful

consideration to this question and will continue to do so in an attempt to work out a reasonable, sensible solution.
The hon. member for Laurier (Mr. Chevrier) who has had a great deal of experience because of the important post he held as president of the St. Lawrence seaway authority, has made a very interesting review this afternoon and he has pointed out just how complicated and difficult the question of tolls will be. Perhaps it is to be regretted that he did not get that problem settled before he left the seaway authority. It has not yet been settled, of course, but I can assure him and the other two hon. members who have spoken that a most careful study is being made of this subject and their suggestions will be given every consideration.



TELEVISION


Lester Bowles Pearson: Mr. Speaker, I am going to raise as the subject of a grievance the important question of what I consider to have been the interference of the Prime Minister of Canada (Mr. Diefenbaker) last Friday in connection with a television interview with the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom. By raising this matter on orders of the day I hoped the Prime Minister might give a satisfactory explanation of press and radio reports which appeared over the weekend concerning this event but as I understand the Prime Minister's explanation the best that can be said for it is that it adds to the confusion which already exists with regard to it.
This is not the first time that the Prime Minister by attempting to interpret statements which have been made previously in the press regarding remarks of his own and others with whom he was associated has created confusion of this kind. Far from clarifying the situations the Prime Minister's interpretations have made them even more difficult to understand. I am thinking of the 15 per cent trade diversion proposal and the clarification that has been attempted since. I am thinking also of the press conference of the secretary general of NATO and the interpretations that were given by the Prime Minister of the words of the secretary general of NATO and the interpretations of interpretations after that.
Last Friday we on this side of the house read with some surprise a report to the effect that the Prime Minister of Canada intervened in connection with a television interview that had been arranged between the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation and the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom. The Prime 57071-3-75i
16. 1958	1171
Television Interview-Alleged Interference Minister's reply to my question on the subject seems to me to be entirely unsatisfactory and certainly in direct divergence to the reports concerning it that have appeared not only in one newspaper but in a number of newspapers and over the air. In attempting to explain away this matter this afternoon the Prime Minister said we were attempting to make a mountain out of a molehill.


Mr. Pallell:: You are bringing forth a
mouse.


Lester Bowles Pearson: Well, we will see about that. The Prime Minister said that last Friday he and the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom met representatives of the C.B.C. following their conference. Just before the arranged interview commenced the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, according to the Prime Minister of Canada, asked what would be the questions in this interview. The Prime Minister said this afternoon that as he recalled it the first of the two questions-and these were questions to be addressed not to the Prime Minister of Canada but to the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

was whether or not the free trade proposal advanced last September would be on the agenda of the trade conference this fall. Our Prime Minister said this afternoon-and I think I am quoting accurately what he said- "I then said, 'No, no.' " That terminated the matter so far as he was concerned, the Prime Minister said today.
That may have terminated the matter so far as the Canadian Prime Minister was concerned but that explanation does not terminate the matter so far as we on this side of the house are concerned, it does not remove our strong feeling on the question of intervention or interference with the affairs of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation by members of the government. We feel the Prime Minister should regard this in the same light we do in view of a debate which took place in this house only a year or so ago and which I will mention in more detail in a few minutes relating to intervention or interference with the affairs of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation on the part of members of the government. "No, no", said the Prime Minister.
What was the result of this "no, no"? Well, in this interview with Mr. Macmillan no question regarding the free trade offer was in fact asked. The matter was not brought up although it was one of the two questions, apparently, that the C.B.C. representative had in his mind and he had mentioned them to the man whom he was going to interview. Then when the Prime Minister gave his explanation this afternoon I, in order to give him another opportunity to clear up the

Television Interview-Alleged Interference matter, repeated my earlier question in somewhat different form. I said:
Arising out of the Prime Minister's answer, am 1 to understand that the statement attributed to him, not by one but by a number of reputable newspaper correspondents, "No, no, you cannot ask that question'-
And that was a quotation from the report in the press.
-then had nothing whatever to do with the question that Mr. Macmillan might have been asked by the C.B.C. reporter regarding free trade.
The Prime Minister said:
I have nothing really to add to what I have already said. Any question that arose was in consequence of his request as to the nature of the questions that were to be asked. In other words, he wanted to know in advance.
And when he was told in advance as to what one of the questions would be the Prime Minister himself admits that he intervened and said, "No, no." That seems to me to constitute interference in the affairs of the C.B.C. by the Prime Minister of this country, especially in view of the fact that in the subsequent interview no mention was made of this very important subject. May I just read what the Canadian Press had to say about this matter. This is the report which appeared throughout the country and it is substantiated by reports from other newspaper correspondents who were here on this occasion. This is the Canadian Press report of the incident as it appeared in the five o'clock edition of the Ottawa Journal of June 13, 1958:
Prime Minister Diefenbaker today intervened to prevent a C.B.C. interviewer from asking Prime Minister Macmillan of Britain a question about Britain's proposal for an Anglo-Canadian free trade area.
The C.B.C. asked Mr. Macmillan for a brief recorded television interview after he and Mr. Diefenbaker concluded a 45-minute discussion in the Canadian Prime Minister's office.
The interviewer explained to Mr. Macmillan before the actual recording began, that his first question would concern the British free trade proposal made last fall. He said-
That is the interviewer.
-the question would be: "Will Britain's free trade scheme be discussed at the commonwealth economic conference?"
Mr. Diefenbaker. standing beside Mr. Macmillan, said, "No, no," and a whispered conversation among the two prime ministers and the C.B.C. interviewer ensued.
When the recording began, the first and only question asked by the C.B.C. was what Mr. Macmillan considered the main achievements of his visit to Canada and the United States.
With great respect I suggest that nothing the Prime Minister said this afternoon in his ambiguous, cloudy and uncertain explanation relieves him from the responsibility of having intervened between the representative of the C.B.C. and the Prime Minister of

the United Kingdom in the way which determined, at least to some extent, the nature of the interview and the questions that would be asked. I claim that that is certainly interference in the affairs of the C.B.C.
Was there any justification for the Prime Minister in intervening in any way, shape or form in regard to a question addressed to the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom about a free trade offer of his government made to the Canadian government last autumn? We on this side of the house have been trying to secure information on this matter for months in the place where that information should be secured, namely in the House of Commons, and we have not been successful. But we have read in accounts, in reports outside the house, in newspapers, that this offer of free trade still stands. That statement was made by the president of the board of trade some weeks ago when he was in Montreal. That statement was made by the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom himself only the other day when he is reported as saying that the United Kingdom stands by her suggestion for an Anglo-Canadian free trade area. Mr. Macmillan emphasized that the proposal for free trade had been laid on the table by the United Kingdom and it was still there; the offer remained to be taken up in whole or in part. Therefore, Mr. Speaker, surely it was the natural thing for a C.B.C. television interviewer to do, to suggest to the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom that that was to be one of the questions he would ask him, the most natural and reasonable thing in the world.
It seems to me there was no cause for the Prime Minister intervening in this question in any way, shape or form or for saying, "No, no" or, "no, no, no" whatever he might have had in mind in using this double negative. It was a perfectly proper question for an interviewer to ask the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, a question which deals with the matter of the greatest possible importance, a matter which has aroused the interest of the people of this country.
I suggest that quite apart from the reasonableness of the question itself, whatever the question may have been that was suggested to the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, the Prime Minister of Canada had no right whatever to interfere in any way in this matter. I suggest that in the intervention which he made last Friday he was exercising a form of direct censorship over the C.B.C. interviewer carrying out his job. The Prime Minister, of all people, should have been the very first to appreciate the impropriety of this. We on this side of the house

recall how last March 29 he and other members of his party in the house at that time so bitterly criticized the prime minister of that day for writing, not to a C.B.C. interviewer or a C.B.C. correspondent but to the chairman of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation that he did not think very much of a particular program which had appeared. This was after the program had appeared, not before someone was going to ask somebody whether he could put a question on the air. At that time the Prime Minister said that this constituted very serious interference with the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation.
If a complaint made in writing to the chairman of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, complaining about a program that had been delivered, constituted very serious interference with the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, how can you describe the intervention of the Prime Minister on this occasion when a question was addressed by a C.B.C. interviewer to the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom concerning a matter which is of very considerable interest and great importance to this country and which in fact that interviewer wished to ask and which in fact, as it happens, he did not ask because of this intervention? Perhaps I might read from the Prime Minister's own statement at that earlier time. The Prime Minister, in attacking the prime minister of the day because he wrote the letter I have mentioned, had this to say as found on page 2830 of Hansard of March 29, 1957:
This seems to me-
He is referring to Mr. St. Laurent's letter to the chairman of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation.
-an example of supercilious censoriousness that is not in keeping with the maintenance of freedom of speech within this country.
Then he went on to say:
To say that the Prime Minister has the right, or, indeed, that he can defend the right to communicate with the chairman of the C.B.C., with all the vast authority and prestige which the position of Prime Minister carries, is one of the most outrageous propositions that have ever been advanced in this house. It denies freedom of speech. It denies that the C.B.C. may broadcast programs which are not agreeable to the susceptibilities of the Prime Minister.
If the present Prime Minister felt that way a little over a year ago about a letter of complaint addressed to the chairman of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation by the prime minister of that day, I wonder what he would say if he were on this side of the house if the prime minister of that day had interfered between an interviewer and the prime minister of the United Kingdom in an effort at least to direct what he would or
16. 1958	1173
Television Interview-Alleged Interference would not be asked. The Minister of Finance (Mr. Fleming) had some even harsher things to say at that time and the Postmaster General (Mr. Hamilton) also contributed his bit to this debate, the result of which', as some hon. members will recall, was a whole series of questions put on the order paper to be answered orally by every cabinet minister of that day asking each cabinet minister to get up and say whether he had ever intervened in any way, by letter or orally, with the C.B.C. to influence any of their programs.
My hon. friends opposite will remember that we stood up one after another and answered that question and the opposition of that day got a good deal of pleasure out of that procedure. Later in the same debate to which I have referred the Postmaster General, in making his contribution to the attack on the government of that day for what they called interference, interference after the event not before, had this to say as found at page 2838 of Hansard of March 29, 1957:
-it is the . . . duty of the Prime Minister to keep away from intervention in the affairs of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation.
I quite agree that it is the duty of the Prime Minister to keep away from intervention in the affairs of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. I can imagine no more gratuitous or dangerous form of intervention than to suggest to an interviewer of that corporation what he may or may not ask the prime minister of the United Kingdom in an interview which had been arranged with the prime minister of that country. Again, Mr. Speaker, with very great respect, the ambiguous explanation of the Prime Minister this afternoon, and that is putting it mildly, does not remove in any way, shape or form our grievance or our strong feeling that such intervention has taken place. That is why I venture to bring this grievance to the attention of the house. If the Prime Minister is tempted in the future to dictate who shall say what over the air I suggest that he might hesitate and repeat to himself words which he used on a less happy occasion last Friday, "No, no, no."


John George Diefenbaker: Mr. Speaker, with regard to the statements I made last year I believe them to be as implicitly correct today as they were then. I am going to recall the circumstances in connection with the actions of my hon. friend's associates and the government of that day which brought about the words which I used on that occasion, words which were in keeping with the occasion. The first occasion when there was interference, and it was interference, was when Professor Ostry was to be given the opportunity to speak
1174	HOUSE OF
Television Interview-Alleged. Interference over the C.B.C. on the life and times of Mr. Mackenzie King. It was advertised that he would do so and that revelation was received with anticipation by the people of Canada as a whole. But for some reason that broadcast was never proceeded with. Indeed, it was withdrawn.
When we brought the matter of interference with the C.B.C. before the government of the day there was not one member of that government, including the Leader of the Opposition (Mr. Pearson), who was able to stand up and say that the government of that day had not interfered directly in order to prevent a broadcast which would have hurt the susceptibilities of some of my hon. friends opposite. They did not dare stand up and say they had not made impossible the carrying out of the broadcast in question.


John Whitney Pickersgill: That statement is not
correct.


Lester Bowles Pearson: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker-


John George Diefenbaker: Mr. Speaker-


Lester Bowles Pearson: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker-


George Randolph Pearkes: Sit down.


Mr. Speaker:: Order. Is the hon. member rising on a point of order?


Lester Bowles Pearson: Yes, Mr. Speaker, I am rising on a point of order to point out that what the Prime Minister has stated with regard to this particular incident is totally inaccurate.


Mr. Speaker:: May I say to the hon. member that that is scarcely a point of order. If the hon. member wishes to take exception to what is being said by the speaker who has the floor and the floor is not yielded he should refrain until the speaker is finished.


Paul Joseph James Martin: Mr. Speaker-


John George Diefenbaker: I have the floor. There is no point of order if it is similar to the last one.


John Whitney Pickersgill: Who is the Speaker here?


Paul Joseph James Martin: Mr. Speaker,
speaking to the point of order-


Howard Charles Green: There is no point of order.


Paul Joseph James Martin: Mr. Speaker, you had ruled-


Mr. Speaker:: I have already made my ruling and it is not open to the hon. member to discuss that point.


Paul Joseph James Martin: It is quite right that you made a ruling but under the practice


of the house it is open to representatives of political groups to rise and, with respect, seek to indicate to the Speaker that possibly he has overlooked something in the ruling he has made.


Mr. Speaker:: That is true-


John Whitney Pickersgill: There are distinguished precedents.


Mr. Speaker:: -if it is done before the ruling is made.


Paul Joseph James Martin: I rose, Mr. Speaker.


Mr. Speaker:: I am sorry I did not see the hon. member but I must consider the incident closed.


Paul Joseph James Martin: Mr. Speaker-


Some hon. Members:: Order.


Paul Joseph James Martin: May I address myself to the Speaker for whom, of course, I have the greatest respect, as he knows. Surely this group or any hon. member of the house will not be denied the opportunity of having at least one member make representations with regard to a ruling which the Speaker has made. I am not going to persist with the point because of my respect for Your Honour but I suggest, Mr. Speaker, that you will want to give consideration to my right in these circumstances to comment on your ruling.


Mr. Speaker:: May I say to the hon. member, and I think he is an experienced member of the house who will recognize the practice, that the Speaker does, if he feels it necessary, hear members to assist him in coming to a conclusion. Now in this case I had no doubt about the point of order, which was really not a point of order but a question of contradicting something that had been said. I did not see the hon. member for Essex East (Mr. Martin), or I would have been glad to hear him. After I have concluded my ruling I hope he will not seek to contradict the Speaker.


John George Diefenbaker: It is no surprise to me, Mr. Speaker, that as I speak and refer to those things in the past within the sorrowful memory of my hon. friends it causes them to rise on questions of privilege.
I had pointed out that they did, in fact, interfere with the C.B.C. in connection with the broadcast to which I made reference earlier, an anticipated one, an advertised one by Mr. Ostry-


John Whitney Pickersgill: Would the Prime Minister permit a question?


John George Diefenbaker: Yes.


John Whitney Pickersgill: Would the Prime Minister indicate to the house the evidence on which he makes those statements?


John George Diefenbaker: The evidence is very clear, and when the evidence was brought to the attention of the house there was no denial.


John Whitney Pickersgill: It was denied.


John George Diefenbaker: A denial now.


John Whitney Pickersgill: It was denied at the time.


Paul Joseph James Martin: I rise on a point of order. The hon. gentleman has just heard the member for Bonavista-Twillingate deny the statement and the Prime Minister, under the rules of this house is obliged to accept that denial without any reservation. That is the point I had in mind a few moments ago. I submit to you with great confidence that the Prime Minister must accept at once the statement made by an hon. member in this house that a denial was made.


John George Diefenbaker: Mr. Speaker, I do not accept that.


Paul Joseph James Martin: I am speaking to a point of order.


John George Diefenbaker: My hon. friend is endeavouring to raise issues that have no-


Paul Joseph James Martin: I have raised a point of order.


Mr. Speaker:: The hon. member raised a point of order that the Prime Minister should accept a statement made by the hon. member for Bonavista-Twillingate. Would he indicate what statement it was that should be accepted?


Paul Joseph James Martin: There was a statement that there had been interference with regard to the Ostry broadcast, and the hon. member for Bonavista-Twillingate denied that statement. The Prime Minister persisted as though no denial had been made. I say that under the rules of the house it is not open to any hon. member to fail to accept a denial made by another hon. member. I am asking Your Honour to ask the Prime Minister to accept the statement of the member who has just made the denial.


Howard Charles Green: On this point of order, may I point out that the hon. member for Essex East is completely distorting the rules. If the hon. member for Bonavista-Twillingate had made some statement with regard to what he, himself, had said, then perhaps the Prime Minister should accept it. He did not speak for himself, he spoke for the former government as a whole. Now, the fact that he says
16, 1958	1175
Television Interview-Alleged Interference the former government did not do something surely does not mean we have to accept that as gospel.


Paul Joseph James Martin: The hon. member for Bonavista-Twillingate did deny that statement.


John George Diefenbaker: Deny what statement?


Paul Joseph James Martin: The statement made by the Prime Minister, who persisted in saying there was no denial; I will not accept any denial, says the Prime Minister. This is clearly contrary to the rules of the house, and is a practice in which the Prime Minister should not indulge.


John Whitney Pickersgill: Perhaps since I have been dragged in to this, I could say one word.


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh.


An hon. Member:: You jumped in, head first.


John Whitney Pickersgill: What I asserted was that there was a denial at the time, as Hansard will show. There was no interference by the government in respect of that broadcast.


Mr. Speaker:: I think that we are confusing two matters. I asked the hon. member for Essex East what words he felt should have been accepted. If it were a denial by the hon. member for Bonavista-Twillingate of a statement made by him in his place that he had not interfered with the C.B.C., then I feel sure the Prime Minister would have been bound, and would have accepted the statement. But as I recall what transpired it was not a denial of what the hon. member for Bonavista-Twillingate said about himself. I think we can proceed, and perhaps restrain our susceptibilities in a matter of this kind where obviously things will be said which are within the normal course of party conflict, and which would not be acceptable on both sides of the house.


John George Diefenbaker: To return once more to the trend of my thoughts, I was dealing with a subject, Mr. Speaker, which does lead to the wounding of the susceptibilities of my hon. friends opposite, namely the broadcast that was advertised to take place by Bernard Ostry. The people of Canada were interested in finding out what this author had to say. However, the government of that day had in its membership those who did not desire that the people of Canada should become aware of some of the things which had been dealt with in the book. At the time, there was a question raised as to who had actually brought about the cancellation of that much anticipated broadcast. We were unable to find out. The only information available was that information would not be given.
1176	HOUSE OF
Television Interview-Alleged Interference
Then came the occasion mentioned by my hon. friend on the 26th, 27th and 28th of March last, in which there was again an example of the kind of thing which should not take place. In this case the then prime minister-I am not going into the facts because he is not in this house-heard a broadcast by a young professor in Winnipeg who referred to a subject that sometimes arouses the susceptibilities of the Leader of Opposition, namely the kind of policy that Canada had at the time of Suez when Canada, through the hon. gentleman, cast a vote against Britain and France and placed them in the same position as the U.S.S.R. as countries which had departed from the course that they should have followed.
This is one subject about which my hon. friends do not like to hear. On that occasion, the then prime minister wrote a letter in which he pointed out-at least we understand this is what the letter contained because we were never able to see it-that this young man, who had only been in Canada for a few months, did not have that background of understanding education or appreciation, to be able to speak to the Canadian people through the medium of the C.B.C. In other words, the direction was clear, that he should no longer appear as a commentator on the C.B.C. Now, those were the two examples that were brought to the attention of the house as examples of interference with the rights of the people of Canada to obtain information.
I now come to the matter in question. My hon. friend really revealed the reason why he is so exercised, because he said that they have not yet found out about the free trade offer. Might I suggest that he should bring up something new. They used all that during the election campaign-bring up something new. Get a new speech.


Lester Bowles Pearson: You get a new one every day.


John George Diefenbaker: This was used over and over again during the election campaign. It was said that facts had been concealed. There was nothing concealed here. The question was asked as to whether or not this would be on the agenda. It was a joint interview and I was present on that occasion. The question of whether or not it would be discussed at the conference this fall is something which will have to be determined in due course. However, there was no concealment; members of the press gallery asked question after question regarding this matter and the prime minister answered them. There was certainly no concealment in so far as the C.B.C. keeping anything from the people was concerned. Last evening Mr. Edgar Mclnnis, the president of the council of the Canadian


institute of international affairs, interviewed the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom and that interview was quite lengthy. There was nothing kept from the Canadian people; it was indeed a full and free discussion. I say that this simply indicates how short of issues are my hon. friends opposite when they endeavour to raise such matters in order to obscure the real issues facing this country.


John Whitney Pickersgill: Rubbish.


John George Diefenbaker: My hon. friend is the
best judge in the house of rubbish.


John Whitney Pickersgill: I have listened to enough of it from the Prime Minister.


John George Diefenbaker: I have nothing to withdraw. There was no interference with the C.B.C.


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh.


John George Diefenbaker: My hon. friends have
suddenly developed an affection for the independence of that body which they did not have during their days in office, whereas we know today, as from day to day we listen to the broadcasts and the commentators, the C.B.C. is not under the same degree of control, whether by direct influence or whether it was subconscious in its effect, which brought about a situation in this country where some of the commentators did not enjoy the freedom they enjoy today, to speak fearlessly regardless of any circumstances. The former situation was made clear by the communication to the C.B.C. to the effect that a certain commentator had not spoken as he should have done and did not have a proper realization of Canadian conditions and that he had trodden on the delicate toes of the government then in power.
My hon. friend has spoken with exaggerated exuberance about this matter in his desire to leave the impression, which cannot be left with the Canadian people who have listened to the C.B.C. since June 21, 1957 and have heard day by day the broadcasts over the various channels of that body, that criticism has been restrained.
The government has at no time or in any way interfered with the C.B.C. When my hon. friend reads what I said in 1957 he will be aware of my views in this matter. I repeat my words, that as long as this government is in power-and that will be a long time if this kind of picayune criticism persists- there will be no interference, directly or indirectly, with the criticisms of commentators or others, nor will there be any interference with the right of the people of Canada to secure full information on any and every subject. I think it makes it clear that this has been the state of affairs since June 21 last,

when one remembers that the only example which could be raised by the opposition in no way indicates any interference with the C.B.C. The information in this case had already been given in detail to the press conference and had been broadcast over the C.B.C., in part or in full, and last evening the fullest possible discussion was allowed on this matter during the course of the interview of the prime minister by Mr. Mclnnis.
The only thing about it, Mr. Speaker, is that my hon. friends have harassed themselves because they do not have the information on the so-called free trade proposition which was advanced to this government, and they are adopting this method of bringing to the attention of the country that they have not been able to secure this information and so are endeavouring to hold this government responsible for interfering with the C.B.C., which is something it never has done, will not now do and does not intend to do.


Paul Joseph James Martin: Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister (Mr. Diefenbaker) has referred to this matter as being picayune and has given the impression that this is a mountain made out of a molehill. These were some of the words he used when the Leader of the Opposition (Mr. Pearson) today asked him some questions on the orders of the day. I am sure there are many precedents in speeches of the right hon. gentleman which clearly indicate that this is an important question. One is, I think, understandably surprised by the words of the Prime Minister, particularly in view of his well-known interest in matters affecting freedom in all its aspects, in that he should have regarded the raising of this particular question as not so important as is being suggested. One is certainly justified in saying that the Prime Minister is not doing himself justice, having in mind the views expressed in his capacity as a private member in other days.
The Prime Minister says this is a mountain made out of a molehill but he has gone further in the speech which he has just made. I suggest that this, as an explanation of what has already been said, only adds to the confused situation with respect to what the Prime Minister actually did say and does not clarify what he perhaps intended to convey. The Prime Minister's remarks on the orders of the day were recalled by the Leader of the Opposition but I think they deserve to be mentioned again. The Prime Minister said: "We discussed various matters, it being understood that thereafter there would be a joint conference before the C.B.C. When we came out we met the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation representatives, and just before the interview
16, 1958	1177
Television Interview-Alleged Interference commenced the Prime Minister asked what the questions were." He asked what the questions were and in this context, and in the words used by the Prime Minister that query by the British prime minister could only mean one thing, and that is: What questions are going to be put to me by those who are going to interview us? That interpretation, I say, is the only interpretation which can reasonably be made.


Mr. Bell (Saint John-Albert):: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker, may I ask the hon. gentleman what he is reading from?


Paul Joseph James Martin: I am reading the observations made by the Prime Minister during the course of this afternoon, observations already referred to by the Leader of the Opposition and commented on by the right hon. gentleman. I was saying that when the British prime minister asked what the questions were, in the context of the language used by the right hon. gentleman they could only mean that the British prime minister was thinking of only one thing, that is the questions that had been prepared, presumably by the C.B.C. for submission to the British prime minister for reply by him.


John George Diefenbaker: What does the hon. member mean, "prepared by the press"?


Paul Joseph James Martin: By the C.B.C., I should say. And now that the Prime Minister has raised this, it is a matter which touches not only the C.B.C., because, after all, although the C.B.C. is representative of radio and television it does represent the press in the larger sense of the word, and this is certainly a matter which can be considered as involving not only the freedom of radio and television but also the freedom of the press itself.
The Prime Minister went on, in answer to the Leader of the Opposition, as I recall it to say: "The first question on the list of two was whether or not the representation or the so-called proposal advanced last September regarding free trade with the United Kingdom would be on the agenda of the trade conference this fall, and I said 'no, no' ". Now that answer, that observation when related to the previous sentence of the right hon. gentleman, certainly presents a picture in which it is clear what happened. Certain questions were put by the representatives of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation to the British prime minister and, for some reason, which has been made manifest not only on Friday last but for many months, the Prime Minister seemingly is reluctant to have any unnecessary mention made of this proposal which was brought forward, first of all, by the chancellor of the exchequer last
1178	HOUSE OF
Television Interview-Alleged Interference autumn and more recently, as the Leader of the Opposition pointed out, by the president of the board of trade three or four weeks ago in Montreal.
The Prime Minister may have good reasons for not wanting this opinion of the British proposal discussed. After all, the Prime Minister has access as leader of the government to information not open to those of us on this side of the house. But he could at least give reasons for minimizing the number of occasions when this question could be discussed. But in the absence of a satisfactory explanation, it is the duty of the opposition to ascertain from the government and from the Prime Minister what its attitude with regard to this proposal is.
The Prime Minister obviously minimizes the importance of the British proposal. Today he does not even call it a proposal; he says it is "a so-called proposal". That is not what the chancellor of the exchequer said. That is not what Sir David Eccles, president of the board of trade said; that is not what Mr. Harold Macmillan said in the press conference he gave the other day. We mean business with this proposal put forward by Her Majesty's government, said the British prime minister. It is not a so-called proposal. I know the right hon. gentleman is seeking to minimize his own proposal of last July with regard to diversion by saying it was not a proposal at all, that in fact it was a statement of objective. But the fact is that we have had from the Prime Minister for the first time, in the limited context in which he used it, a mention of the phrase "British free trade proposal". I think this afternoon was the first time he has even mentioned the phrase in this house.
In spite of repeated questions directed to him-and the Prime Minister will recall that I put some of them to him myself last fall- it has not been possible to get from the right hon. gentleman any reaction whatsoever regarding what the government as a whole thinks about this proposal. And not only are we denied this opportunity in the house, but the Prime Minister apparently took the opportunity, when he was with the British prime minister, of precluding the latter from amplifying details which we on this side of the house have been trying to get from this administration for many months both before and after the election. And if we have not been able to succeed, should those who represent the agencies of communication of this country be denied the opportunity of conveying to the people of Canada the views of the British government in respect of a matter which they regard as so important not only for the United Kingdom but for Canada and


which in the light of the need for interdependence, as the British prime minister said, could mean so much to the world at large in these difficult days of international tension.
I am sure the Prime Minister has not succeeded this afternoon in satisfying this house that he did not by his manner and speech preclude the British prime minister from making a comment in answer to a question submitted to him by the C.B.C., a question which is of the greatest interest to this house and to this country. That is an unwarranted interference with one of the agencies of communication in Canada which it is our duty, just as it was the Prime Minister's duty when he was in opposition and thought there was interference on another occasion, to bring to the attention of the house.
The Prime Minister said in answer to the Leader of the Opposition that he meant what he is reported to have said last year at page 2830 of Hansard, and repeated today. Of course, the Prime Minister is a master in the art of diversion. I do not mean trade diversion; I mean in the art of diversion in debate and in the debate last year he undertook to give a full answer to the comparable though justified allegations made today by the Leader of the Opposition.
Assuming, for argument sake, that the course taken by the Minister of Finance and by the Prime Minister last year with regard to the letter by the former prime minister was valid. That does not in any circumstance justify the action which the Prime Minister took on Friday last. I say: if that course was right a year ago-and I am not saying that it was; I say it was not-that was no reason for the Prime Minister doing what he did on Friday last. As a matter of fact and again assuming for purpose of argument- and I will come to that point later-that there was validity in the position taken last year by the right hon. gentleman and those of his colleagues who sit with him now, compare the difference in the situation; in the one case it was a letter directed in terms apparent for everyone to see and understand-


John George Diefenbaker: And unproduced.


Paul Joseph James Martin: The hon. gentleman, apparently, saw it.


John George Diefenbaker: Have you got it?


Paul Joseph James Martin: He apparently saw it, because he told us all about its terms. It was a letter directed to the president of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, and the former prime minister denied that it involved the kind of intervention about which the right hon. gentleman complains. But compare that situation with the situation of

last Friday. Here are the British prime minister and the Prime Minister of Canada. Who seeks to put the question? Is it the president of the C.B.C. or the general manager? No. It is a reporter of ordinary status though, I suspect, of great ability. He obviously would be awed by an intervention by the Prime Minister of Canada.
I suggest to the Prime Minister that a comparison of these two situations puts the Prime Minister exactly in the position-only with more reasons attached to him in which he sought to put the former prime minister and whatever the hon. gentleman may say about the incident of last year the fact is there was a denial by the prime minister of that day that he had in any way interfered with the operations of the C.B.C. What is more, any one who knows the character of that right hon. gentleman who formerly sat in the treasury benches knows that any denial made by him is one that would be accepted by any hon. member of this house.
The Prime Minister, again resorted to the capacity he has for diversion and of introducing a red herring-a talent which I as a fellow lawyer certainly cannot help but admire-


Howard Charles Green: You are good at it yourself.


Paul Joseph James Martin: I thank my hon. friend for that compliment. The fact is, however, that the Prime Minister on this occasion resorted to another red herring. He introduced the Ostry matter. That, too, was denied. There is no evidence-and I challenge the Prime Minister now to produce it-to support his contention that there was any interference. The only evidence he could produce is a statement by the then minister of national revenue who reported on matters having to do with the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation that the C.B.C. had advised him in an answer which they prepared and which he presented in this house for reasons of nonadaptability they had cancelled the program. The Prime Minister did not refer to that and so, when he introduces the Ostry matter, he introduces a matter which like the previous one is not in fact a precedent at all and in no way helps to justify the course which the Prime Minister used when he appeared with the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom last Friday during the television interview regarding questions being put by the representative of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation.
By introducing this technique of red herring the Prime Minister said there was no interference in the discussion of these matters. "Why, the president of the Canadian institute of international affairs spoke about this matter on Sunday," said the Prime Minister.
Television Interview-Alleged Interference No one has suggested that this interference by the Prime Minister extends to all programs of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. We realize there are limitations in the mobility of the Prime Minister; there are circumstances beyond the physical control of any man. I heard that broadcast by Professor Mclnnis and I do not recall him saying anything about the British free trade proposal but in any event if he did that does not justify the Prime Minister in precluding a representative of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation from asking a question on the very same subject of the British prime minister.
As a matter of fact, the Prime Minister introduced a fourth red herring this afternoon. He mentioned an important incident involving the nations of the world in the matter of Suez. He forgets that that particular incident recalls the very technique which he apparently used on Friday last. I well recall reading in the paper that after the Secretary of State for External Affairs (Mr. Smith) had been sworn in he was asked by the newspaper men of this country what he thought about Canada's foreign policy and what he thought about Suez. The Secretary of States for External Affairs replied and said that he agreed fully with the policy of the present Leader of the Opposition, the former secretary of state for external affairs. At that very point my right hon. and genial friend the Prime Minister said, "No, no, no. The policy of this government is exactly as stated by me in parliament." This left the clear implication that anything said by the Secretary of State for External Affairs that is contrary to anything the Prime Minister has ever said must not be uttered and must not be communicated to the press and not even reported by the press. The views of the Secretary of State for External Affairs on important matters of that kind apparently must not run counter to what my right hon. friend as leader of the Conservative party and Prime Minister of Canada thinks and says. And so the technique of "No, no, no" used on Friday last was on one occasion used on the steps of the building that houses the Supreme Court of Canada after the distinguished Secretary of State for External Affairs had been sworn in as a member of Her Majesty's privy council.
We all realize that the Prime Minister has heavy responsibilities, that he is a busy man. We can very well understand that there are occasions when his over-all consuming interest in the problems of the nation and of the world are such that he might do things which as the private hon. member for Prince Albert he certainly would not do and which he certainly has alleged should

Television Interview-Alleged Interference not be done. But it is our duty-and I am sure the Prime Minister recognizes it is our duty-to remind him of these excursions into the realm of violation of the kind of freedom which we cherish in this country and which I know he along with every other hon. member of this house would want to see us perpetuate.
The hon. gentleman would do well to remember his own words which the Leader of the Opposition quoted. But if the words quoted by the Leader of the Opposition are effective and bear repetition so, too, do the words of the distinguished Minister of Finance who sits with him. Here is what the Minister of Finance said on March 29, 1957, as recorded at page 2824 of volume 3 of Hansard:
As long as I am a member of parliament I certainly intend to defend Mr. Dunton's right to support the policies and defend the programming activities of the corporation even when I disagree with them. But when there is disagreement, sir, let it be in the proper place, let it be in the houses of parliament. Parliament is supreme; parliament is the body to which the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation is responsible. And in this particular if, as appears from the statement made by the Prime Minister yesterday, Mr. Dunton resisted the attempt of the Prime Minister to influence the programming activities of the C.B.C., then I say-
And I ask the present Prime Minister to pay special attention to these words:
-then I say this parliament owes a debt of gratitude to Mr. Dunton for having stood firmly for a principle that the Prime Minister ought to have been the first to uphold and which at that time he evidently was discarding and repudiating.
The Prime Minister might well recall other words of his when at the conclusion of his remarks last year as recorded at page 2831 of Hansard he said:
I say to the Prime Minister,-
This is the present Prime Minister speaking-
-and I do not wish to carry the matter any further, but I hope this will be a lesson to the members of this government that interference, indirectly or directly, direct or subtle,-
"No, no, no" might be subtle.
-will not be condoned. Interference of this kind can only destroy the independence of the C.B.C. and dry up the wells of information to which the Canadian people are entitled.
As I have said, we all appreciate that the Prime Minister has heavy responsibilities. They may have been responsible for the statement he made in this house about the press interview given by the secretary general of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization which remarks, incidentally, Mr. Spaak repeated in Halifax after he left Ottawa. We can understand the Prime Minister's concern about the remarks he made about trade diversion with the United Kingdom. We now have

this further incident when the prime minister of the United Kingdom was precluded in his presence from saying to a representative of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation what he thought about a proposal to which this government obviously has not yet given the full and final consideration this question is entitled to receive. I say to the Prime Minister, then, in his own words, "Let this particular occasion be a reminder of the undesirability of this kind of action, and let it not happen again, and let it now be remembered as a result of this debate."
I say to the Prime Minister, too, why does he not take the country into his confidence and tell us what the British prime minister wanted to say about the proposal? It certainly deserves at least from this government a statement that it is prepared to give this question of British free trade the kind of sympathetic attention that one would expect this government to give to a friendly government like Her Majesty's government in the United Kingdom. That, surely, is not asking too much of the Prime Minister and we all trust he will not make this mistake again.


John Whitney Pickersgill: Mr. Speaker, I am rising because after the Prime Minister (Mr. Diefenbaker) spoke I confirmed my recollection by consulting Hansard and I would like to make clear from the record itself, from the answers that were given by the then minister who answered in this house for the C.B.C. what the facts were about this Ostry affair. The first time that I can find it was brought up was at page 881 of Hansard of February 6, 1956. A question was asked by the then member for Humboldt-Melfort, Mr. Bryson, as follows:
I should like to direct a question to the minister of national revenue. Why was the discussion on the book "The Age of Mackenzie King" cancelled by the C.B.C.?
To which Mr. McCann replied:
Mr. Speaker, I have asked the C.B.C. about this matter and I am informed that it was not a case of cancelling a program. The C.B.C. reports that, while some consideration was given to the book as a possible subject for a national television network discussion, on consideration it was not thought to be a good basis for such a discussion.
Now, there were a number of other references to this at various times which I think it would be trespassing on the time of the house to refer to, although I would be quite happy to give the page references to anyone who wished to have them, but it was finally brought up by the then member for Eglinton, now the Minister of Finance, (Mr. Fleming), at page 1462 of Hansard of February 23, 1956, as follows:
Is the Minister of National Revenue now in a position to answer the question I asked him on

February 15 as to who it was within the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation who made the decision that the program on "The Age of Mackenzie King" by Ferns and Ostry should not proceed? The question is to be found at page 1198 of Hansard.
Mr. McCann replied as follows:
Mr. Speaker, the answer is that the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation takes full responsibility for their attitude.
I may say that on examination of the other references I find that there is not the faintest suggestion of any evidence at any point anywhere that any member of the former government ever discussed this matter with the C.B.C., and I happen to know of my own personal knowledge that this matter had been fully determined by the C.B.C. before the members of the government, with one exception and that exception happened to be myself, had ever heard about it, or any proposal of that kind. I know this because I mentioned the matter to Mr. Dunton, and he told me when I first mentioned it to him that the C.B.C. had already decided that it was not a suitable program-these are the facts -and that he had discussed it with no member of the government.


John Cameron Pallett: Except with you.


Thomas Miller Bell: He discussed it with you.


John Whitney Pickersgill: If the hon. gentleman had been listening attentively he would have heard what I said. I asked Mr. Dunton the question and he told me the decision had already been reached.


John George Diefenbaker: Was the hon. member a member of the government at that time?


John Whitney Pickersgill: Yes, I was a member of the government in 1956; I was a member of the government from 1953, and I had no discussion whatsoever on this matter with Mr. Dunton; I just asked him the question.


Mr. Brooks:: Why?


John Whitney Pickersgill: And he told me there was going to be no such program. I asked the question out of curiosity that I think was proper curiosity. I had the assurance from Mr. Dunton at that time, as I say, that no member of the government had discussed the matter with him, no member at all.


John Cameron Pallett: Except you.


Mr. Cardiff:: The hon. member just told us that he discussed it with him and he was a member of the government.


John Whitney Pickersgill: No. Mr. Speaker, perhaps I might repeat what I said for the benefit of the hon. gentleman. I said that I met Mr. Dunton and I asked him about this program about which I had read in the press.
16, 1958	1181
Television Interview-Alleged. Interference


Lewis Elston Cardiff: Why?


John Whitney Pickersgill: About this proposed program, and he told me then there was going to be no such program and that is all that happened.


John Cameron Pallett: What was the question? There is going to be no program, is there?


John Whitney Pickersgill: As to the letter that Mr. St. Laurent wrote to Mr. Dunton about which the Prime Minister seemed to know so much, we all know, of course, that the Prime Minister is a great authority on letters he has never seen. He admitted he had never seen this letter and yet he presumed to tell us what he believed was in it, as he presumed to go back and forth across the country and talk about other letters at a time when he had never seen them. I notice the Prime Minister has said very little about them since he has had an opportunity to see them.


John George Diefenbaker: What letters are they?


John Whitney Pickersgill: The Prime Minister remembers very well certain correspondence between prime ministers.


John George Diefenbaker: Which prime ministers?


John Whitney Pickersgill: Mr. St. Laurent and Sir Anthony Eden. The Prime Minister discussed the correspondence frequently on the platform before he became Prime Minister but I notice he has had nothing to say about it since he became Prime Minister.


John George Diefenbaker: I have had no reason to say anything.


John Whitney Pickersgill: There never was any
reason. I say that the Prime Minister has become quite an authority on letters he has never seen. These are just two examples. The Prime Minister, of course, as the hon. member for Essex East (Mr. Martin) pointed out a few minutes ago, is a past master, and I am not in his league at all, and I do not pretend to be. He is a past master at the art of diversion, and one of the most extraordinary of his diversions today, I think, was to bring up this old question of that famous vote at the United Nations. I thought we would not hear any more about that after the occasion at Geneva only a few weeks ago when the high commissioner for Canada, no doubt on instructions from the Prime Minister, voted with Russia against Great Britain, France and the United States as well.


John George Diefenbaker: Was it condemning
Britain as an aggressor?


John Whitney Pickersgill: No, neither was the other vote. There, Mr. Speaker, is the best possible example of the Prime Minister's diversion of

Unemployment Insurance the facts because that vote at the United Nations, as the Prime Minister ought to know, had nothing to do with condemning anybody. It was the question of putting an item on the agenda. In those days, of course, the items on the agenda were known. Now they are unknown.
I find myself disturbed about what the Prime Minister had to say. The most disturbing thing this afternoon was the very serious reflection that the Prime Minister made upon the management of the C.B.C. The Prime Minister implied, and in fact, almost said, that since June 21, 1957, the C.B.C. had been free to broadcast criticism of the government and that it had not been free before. I do not know what the Prime Minister did about listening to the C.B.C. before June 21, but some of us on this side of the house thought there were a good many programs on the C.B.C. which were at least somewhat critical of the then occupants of the treasury benches, and I think I have heard nothing on the C.B.C. since June 21 any more critical than a fair amount of the criticism that we heard on the C.B.C. before June 21.


Mr. McDonald (Hamilton South):: Because we are doing so well.


John Whitney Pickersgill: I believe it is a very good thing that there should be criticism of the government on the C.B.C. I think it was a good thing when we were in office, I think it is a good thing still and I hate to see anything whatever done that will in any way jeopardize the independence of the C.B.C. If we need a bill of rights in so far as matters affecting parliament are concerned, surely the first right we need to safeguard is the right of free expression on the air. It does seem to me that it is very odd indeed, when this appears to have been called into question by the Prime Minister himself with his famous "no, no, no," that the Prime Minister should then suggest that those who raise the question in the house are raising a question that is picayune. Surely freedom of speech in parliament and outside it is the most fundamental question of all.



UNEMPLOYMENT INSURANCE


Harold Edward Winch: Mr. Speaker, I do not think we got very far with the last grievance but I hope we can get a little farther with this one. It is a matter involving some hundreds of people in the city of Vancouver, including a considerable number in my own constituency of Vancouver East. I have always found it very difficult to understand why the government has not seen fit to alter the federal regulations pertaining
[Mr. Pickersgill.)
to eligibility for unemployment insurance whereby they now deny the opportunity and right to people drawing unemployment insurance benefits to try to obtain employment in the longshoring trade even if only for a few hours. I do not know the reasons for the regulation because to the best of my knowledge it applies only to the longshoring trade.
If a person is eligible for unemployment insurance benefits and in order to help himself gets a few hours work in any other trade and earns a few dollars, he does not become ineligible to continue drawing his unemployment insurance benefits, but if he gets even as little as two and a half hours work as a longshoreman he is immediately denied the right to draw unemployment insurance in the two week period that is involved. To me this is a most iniquitous regulation. I could give a great number of examples but I will refer only to one in order to prove my contention.
This case came to my attention recently. It concerns one of my constituents who by occupation is a logger. He has been unemployed and has been drawing unemployment insurance since December 14, 1957. Recently he decided he would try to get employment somewhere and he sought work as a longshoreman. To get work as a longshoreman you have to obtain what is known as a stevedore's registration number. He did so and he worked for two and a half hours on Tuesday, May 27. He earned $6.50. On the following day, which happened to be the day for payment of his unemployment insurance benefit, he received his unemployment insurance cheque for $30. He made out a statutory declaration as required by law advising the unemployment insurance commission office in Vancouver that he had worked two and a half hours as a longshoreman and had earned $6.50. He was immediately told that because he had worked two and a half hours as a longshoreman he was not eligible to draw his $30 and would have to wait for two weeks until the payroll statement of the company employing the longshoremen had been checked.
He was denied payment although he had only worked two and a half hours as a longshoreman. This man is married and has two children, a young girl of seven and a half and a boy two years and three months old. There was no food at all for the family and he was not eligible for any other assistance. It was just by the grace of God that we were able to have the Salvation Army provide him with temporary relief.
When the case was appealed to the unemployment insurance commission in Vancouver the officials were most co-operative and helpful but they said there was nothing they could do about it because of the regulation

of the commission in Ottawa and that they had to abide by it. Here is a rather amazing situation. The chief claims agent-I forget his exact title but I think that is correct- in the unemployment insurance office in Vancouver told this man that if he would give up his stevedoring registration number he could immediately pay him his unemployment insurance. This man was trying to obtain a little bit of work in order to get some money to help his family but because he did so in the longshoring field and although he only worked for two and a half hours his endeavours to become a useful and productive member of society were curtailed and hampered. The only way he can draw his unemployment insurance benefits is by giving up his stevedoring permit number.
As I said, the employees in the office in Vancouver were most co-operative and helpful but they said they could not do anything about it because of the Ottawa regulations. I have only cited one case but I could refer the minister to hundreds of a similar nature. This is an absolutely vicious and iniquitous practice. It is a vicious, iniquitous regulation. I felt that I should draw this grievance to the attention of the government because it should be correced immediately.
The matter probably comes under the Minister of Labour (Mr. Starr) but unfortunately he has been away for a great many days. However, I note the evident interest of the Minister of Public Works (Mr. Green) who also comes from Vancouver and who knows something about the longshoring trade and the unemployment situation there. If he cannot give the matter personal consideration I trust that he will see that it is drawn to the attention of the proper officials to see if the situation cannot be corrected.
Although I am not going to go into details at the moment I hope the government will also look into the situation in the city of Vancouver as far as the payment of unemployment insurance benefits to longshoremen is concerned. To the best of my knowledge they are the only group who in respect of unemployment insurance are classified as second class Canadians in that different regulations apply to them from those that apply to people engaged in any other occupation, regulations of such a nature that these men pay more and receive less when it comes to benefits.
I know that in the past a brief was presented to the government and I was informed only this morning that a new brief is being prepared for presentation. I am not going into this matter at the moment except to draw it to the attention of the government.
In so far as this other matter is concerned, this major grievance where a casual worker
Pipe Lines-Labour Conditions for only 2J hours was cut off unemployment insurance, I hope for speedy action by the government.


Mr. H. M. Batten (Humber-St. George's):: Mr. Speaker, in so far as this question of unemployment insurance is concerned, I should like to bring to the attention of the house a problem concerning young people who, being entitled to unemployment insurance benefits, try to use their spare time by attending local schools and are denied the right to draw their unemployment insurance benefits. There is something rather unfair about this particular regulation.
I have a number of people in my riding who during the summer engaged in the fishing industry and were thereby well qualified for unemployment insurance benefits during the winter. Employment was extremely difficult to get, and rather than spend the time doing nothing they decided to go back to school. The moment they entered the school their unemployment insurance benefits were cut off. In my opinion there is something wrong when a young lad qualifies himself for unemployment insurance benefits, and then is denied those benefits because he tries to use his spare time profitably.
If I may put it another way, it seems to me there is something wrong with a scheme of this kind which pays a young man to waste his time. I would say again that this is one problem which certainly needs some investigation. It is a question that needs very careful attention. At the moment, it does appear that these regulations governing unemployment insurance are a little too rigid in many cases and need the attention of the unemployment insurance commission.



NATURAL GAS DISTRIBUTION-REPORTED UNSATIS- FACTORY LABOUR CONDITIONS

Mr. M. W. Martin (Timmins):: I should like to raise another matter which appears day by day to become more important in this country. I am referring to the situation with regard to natural gas, and all its aspects across this country. No useful purpose will be served by going into past history, with which most of us are familiar. Certainly, the history should be familiar to the government because this matter had a great deal to do with the fact the government is sitting on that side of the house today. There are many references on the record also concerning the change of heart the government has had since they left this side of the house concerning the trans-Canada pipe line issue.
I should like to deal in more detail with what might be called some of the side issues that have been raised with regard to this great Canadian utility. It appears to me

Pipe Lines-Labour Conditions that this whole issue of natural gas, trans-Canada pipe lines and the distributing lines, is nothing more nor less than an evil tree which, with all its evil branches, seems to be spreading across this country. Conceived in the rape of our natural resources by people who were referred to by the Prime Minister (Mr. Diefenbaker) as those Texas buccaneers, this evil tree has grown in the west and has spread towards the east, with every one of its branches appearing to be just as troublesome and just as evil as the tree itself. We have seen nothing but labour problems all the way across the country, starting with the infamous back-door agreement which was signed with a hit-and-run union before the employees were hired. They were forced into a union which they had never seen, the stewards of which they had never seen and which could not properly serve their interests. This master contract was signed in Alberta and covered all future employees.
We have seen some of the results of this action. There was the big strike at the head of the lakes around the Hearst area which tied up the whole operation for a period of three weeks last winter. The federal Department of Labour had to step in on that occasion in an effort to settle the matter so that the company could proceed with clearing the right of way and laying the pipe. The troubles did not end there. In fact, they were just getting nicely started. On two different occasions during the month of March I had to appeal to the Minister of Labour (Mr. Starr) because clauses of this agreement, signed under the supervision of and with the assistance of the Department of Labour, were being violated. I should like to compliment the minister at this stage upon the speed with which he acted to correct the situation. On one particular occasion I sent a telegram to the minister's office one afternoon, and the following morning I received a telephone call from one of the top officials of Trans-Canada.
At six o'clock the house took recess.


[Stage Direction]
AFTER RECESS

The house resumed at eight o'clock.
Murdo William Martin: When the house adjourned at six o'clock, Mr. Speaker, I was dealing with some of the labour problems which have arisen with respect to the trans-Canada pipe line, particularly in northern Ontario. In all fairness, and in spite of the record across the country, I would like to say that a lot of the trouble has not been the fault of the pipe line company-that is to say the parent company-but has been the fault

of some of the contractors, subcontractors and sub-subcontractors. It appears that quite a spider's web of subcontracting is going on up there, and how things can be split so many times with everybody showing a profit is something which I cannot understand or explain to this house. However, it does involve difficulties when one tries to iron out any of these grievances; it is something like being in the middle of a northern swamp in the month of June when the mosquitoes are at their worst, not knowing just which mosquito is doing the biting.
Another convenient arrangement, and this of course applies to the period after the base rate was established following the strike in January, when there was an increase of a matter of 20 cents per hour to bring the base rate fairly close to the local rate, is where we get a group of employees, many of whom unfortunately may not be too well educated, being told "the rate here is $1.40 per hour but you don't want to work for as low a rate as that, you should do it on a piecework basis." After a good sales job they are convinced they can make themselves a fortune in a very short time, so they go in on a contract basis but find at the end of three or four weeks that all they are making is about 90 cents an hour instead of $1.40.
We have received many other complaints about how part of their pay has been held back for various reasons and now there is apparently a brand new gimmick altogether. In place of hiring local men who by this time are quite familiar with the agreement signed following the strike, they seem to be giving preference to people from outside the province and, indeed, in many cases from outside the country altogether. Such new men are not familiar with the agreement covering the projects and they make certain that these men do not stay on the job long enough to become familiar with it. After a few days' work they are laid off and others hired in their places. As recently as June 4 last I received a communication listing some of the problems I have raised and asking advice as to what could be done about them.
Another aspect of the matter which has affected this project right across the country has to do with the rights of way across farm properties. I am reminded, Mr. Speaker, of nothing so much as a wolf pack after the moose in winter; they pick off the moose one by one. Every known device in the selling field is used to have these men sign agreements, often without reading the small print and so on and so forth. The majority of them perhaps feel they could not afford legal advice to interpret the fine print in any event. As a result, they are picked off one by one. It might be wise to give a word of advice to

the farmers who will become affected from now on. I might suggest that they might take an example from the moose and that if they, like the moose, keep together they will find they can protect themselves against the wolf pack.
This leads me to another aspect, probably the most important aspect of this whole question; that is the newspaper headlines which follow this project across Canada. I am speaking particularly of the scandal associated with municipal and provincial authorities right up to cabinet rank. We have seen some evidence of this in the province of Ontario and I believe there are one or two investigations going on in regard to this matter at the present time. The most significant thing about it is that while there are relatively few men who have abused the privileges and trust placed in them by the electorate, the fact nevertheless remains that the innocent are smeared along with the guilty, and it has now reached the stage where it is quite conceivable that the respect and trust in elected officials across Canada will be severely shaken. We have seen what has happened in the province of Ontario and, in the last few days, we have seen that this malignant tree has spread its roots into the province of Quebec-


Mr. McPhillips:: On a point of order.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: These grievances, I must inform the hon. member, must be of a federal nature. It is out of order to discuss in this house questions which are of a strictly provincial nature and which have no bearing on the affairs of this house. I must therefore ask the hon. member to confine his remarks to matters of a federal nature.


Murdo William Martin: I thank the Speaker for the ruling and I would assure the house that it is my intention to show that this matter has very much to do with the federal government. If you will recall, sir, this matter had its start in the federal house during a debate which not only rocked the house but rocked it so that it upset and spilled one side on to the other. It has developed right across the country with other implications of provincial and municipal import which situation, I submit, has very much to do with this house.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: I wish to refer the hon. member to article 234, section (1) of Beauchesne's fourth edition at page 198, which reads in part as follows:
When such motion is proposed, it shall be permissible to discuss any public matter within the powers of the federal parliament-
Actually the redress of grievances which are of a municipal or provincial nature does
Pipe Lines-Labour Conditions not fall within the jurisdiction of this parliament and I must therefore ask the hon. member to refrain from discussing them.


Murdo William Martin: I would submit, sir, that this matter has been, is now and can always be under the jurisdiction of this federal house.


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh.


Murdo William Martin: Had the proper action been taken by this federal government originally none of these things which I have mentioned would have come to pass or, at least, only in a very limited degree. The best thing of all would have been for the house to have taken the proper action in the first place and operated this transmission line for natural gas as a public utility. The second best thing would have been for this present government to have taken advantage of its opportunity to bring the line under public control. The third best thing would be for this government to take the proper and necessary action even at this late date. I would remind hon. members of some words; quoted I believe by Sir Winston Churchill, about sowing the wind and reaping the whirlwind. This parliament has an inescapable responsibility to take action even at this late date to try to restore some of the respect and trust placed in public officials.


Mr. Arnold Peters (Timiskaming):: Mr. Speaker, I should like to say something on this particular grievance.


An hon. Member:: Why?


William Arnold Peters: For the very simple reason that I think a lot of Conservatives now sitting on that side do not believe that this transmission line should and will eventually be a public utility in this country. It is quite natural that some hon. member should ask why. Unfortunately in my part of the country we have been concerned with some of the problems surrounding the construction of the pipe line in the past few months.
The pipe line as it passes through northern Ontario is owned partly by the federal government and partly by the provincial government, and I think that many of the responsibilities which should have been accepted in connection wtih its construction have been ignored both by the federal government and by the provincial government of Ontario. Some hon. members may wonder why we wish to discuss this question of the pipe line, but I am certain that many other constituencies both in Ontario and in Quebec will soon be facing the type of difficulty I am about to describe.
When the federal government passed the pipe lines act they included in it a great many

Pipe Lines-Labour Conditions clauses granting privileges to the private companies building the lines, including the right of expropriation. They were granted the right to use a farmer's land with or without his agreement, but in my opinion adequate provision was never made for the rights and interests of those who were forced to give up their land. In my own riding of Timiskaming, when the officials of the company applied for easements they went to the farmers and said: this is only an option, we would like to pay you $5; we would also like to buy four acres of your 160-acre farm, having in mind the fact that the land required was only 66 feet wide and the rest was a linear measurement. At the same time they implied that whatever the farmer might decide; the federal government had already given them the right of expropriation.
I have looked into this question of expropriation to some extent, and I find that the company has been given that right. I have also found that very little protection has been given to the farmer who is faced with expropriation. In this case, although the farmers were inclined to stick together and deal collectively with the officials the pipe line company said they could not do this and that they had no intention of dealing with the farmers in this way. They played one farmer off against another. I think that having given the pipe line company the right to apply for expropriation, the right to easements, we should have given the farmers some protection by setting up an impartial board which would evaluate farm land.
I should like to call attention to a case which happened a few weeks ago in the riding of Timiskaming where a young couple, a veteran and his wife had applied to the Department of Veterans Affairs for money with which to start a tourist camp to be installed on a nice piece of land near a very suitable lake. They had applied to the department and were waiting to hear whether they could get money to start this motel. In the meantime the pipe line company came along with a crew on a Sunday night when people were not normally on that property, cut down the trees, brought in their bulldozers and cleared a stretch 60 feet wide. When the people concerned complained to the officials-the provincial police and other authorities-they were told that there was no redress and that if they wished to start an action for trespass they would have to go to proper legal channels. In this particular case the people had asked the Department of Veterans Affairs to send an evaluator and this official had set a valuation on this property in accordance with the plans which had been prepared 
for its development many months before, and his valuation of the land, and of the detrimental effect that this pipe line would have on it, was three times what the owners of the property were offered by the company.
I think that when we gave the Trans-Canada Pipe Lines Limited the right to construct this public utility we should have given greater protection to those with whom the company has to deal. It is all very well to tell a farmer that he can take the company to court, but it is my understanding that in the riding of Timiskaming there is not one lawyer who is willing to conduct such cases against the Trans-Canada Pipe Lines Limited. I know for a fact that the attorney general's department is not too willing to press trespass charges against the company, because I have made inquiries and have been informed that they are not willing to do so. The farmers in my part of the country are not sufficiently well off to spend thousands of dollars fighting against something they did not ask for in the first place.
The government of Canada has the responsibility for protecting these people. While I agree that we must allow this public utility to expropriate the land required we must also see to it that the people who are affected receive an adequate amount of money in return. It was accepted by some of the farmers at their meetings that they would be quite happy to settle for a basic sum of $50 an acre. They pointed out that if the company had to pay $200 to clear the land, then if the land had already been cleared, surely it would be worth at least that amount; the amount it would have cost, in any case, to clear. I believe the payment of $50 plus $200, making a total payment of $250, is a fair and reasonable price.
The contract set out certain things that would be done on behalf of a man who sold property. They undertook to close in the trenches and do clean-up work. They went so far as to state that they would seed the ground, grade it and place grass on it thereby making it very nice for the farmer. I understand that has not been done in most cases in western Ontario where the pipe line passed through. I do not think it will be done in Timiskaming because the people agreed to an over-all sum which would include damages and signed away or waived all rights to court procedure with respect to damage. I believe we have an obligation to look at the matter not only for the present pipeline but in order to set a precedent for the future. There is a popular rumour to the effect that it will not be long until a second and third line are put in.

Another problem with which it is difficult to deal is that of labour. We have no objection to United States companies and it is true that many have a large investment, perhaps $3 million worth of equipment. While it is true they should be allowed to bring in from the United States their overseers, foremen and employees above that rank I do not think it is necessary or desirable to allow them to bring in shovel operators, backline operators and workers of that type. In Ontario we have many competent shovel operators and other workers with many years of experience on construction crews. They would be perfectly capable of doing the work and this would obviate the necessity of bringing in men from other countries.
There has been a question raised as to whether this is a matter of federal concern. Certainly the question of bringing in United States workers to work on Canadian pipe lines comes under federal jurisdiction. We are faced with an odd situation when we cannot find out from the Department of Citizenship and Immigration how many United States workers were employed on a particular spread. In the contract governing the employment of workers for the section of the pipe line that is operated by the crown corporation all United States workers must be hired only with the consent of the Minister of Labour (Mr. Starr) but the bulk of the people who have been brought in to work on the pipe line are from the United States. I must admit that we in Timiskaming refer to them as "you-all's". I suppose that is because many of them come from Texas and speak with a southern drawl: "How are you all?" These people do not enter Canada under a work permit. They come as landed immigrants and have no citizenship papers. They can move freely from place to place and stay as long as they wish. When a job is finished they can return to the United States to pursue their occupation elsewhere.
It is interesting to note how those charged with the responsibility of hiring employees to work on the pipe line avoid the use of the unemployment insurance offices. I believe that people seeking employment on construction jobs should not be required to line up in front of a construction shack at six o'clock in the morning while the boss comes out, strolls up and down, and says, "You and you and you work today; the rest of you be back here at six o'clock tomorrow morning." I can remember occasions like that when I went to work in the mines of northern Ontario at the end of the thirties and the beginning of the forties. Management thought it was wonderful to have 300 men lined up at the gate seeking to fill two vacancies. I thought those days had passed for all time.
Pipe Lines-Labour Conditions
One of the failings of the unemployment insurance commission is that it cannot guarantee that a man sent to a job as a shovel operator, for instance, is fully qualified in his occupation. We have no system in Canada under which we can determine who is and who is not qualified for a particular job. It frequently happens that a man sent to a job who has five or six years experience in his occupation is told by management at the end of half an hour that he is not qualified to do the work or has insufficient experience and someone is brought in to replace him who might have been employed by the company on a previous occasion, perhaps in western Canada. The unions are unable to do much in this regard because they are not in close contact with the situation. In most cases they have hiring clauses in their contracts but they are not in a position to say that a man is qualified for a particular assignment and when a company says he is not qualified that is usually the end of the matter.
It has been said there are not sufficient trained welders in Canada, and that this accounts for their working double shifts. If we have not a sufficient number of qualified welders in Canada I say it is a disgrace to the people of this country that we should not be capable of suitably training people to do this type of work.
I would like to discuss the common labourer for a moment. Surely no one would contend we have an insufficient number of these men or that they are required to work double shifts. Many of these men who earn $1.25 an hour are working 70 or more hours each week. In view of the serious unemployment situation that exists in northern Ontario we should be able to enforce a 40-hour week for common labourers and thus employ two people on a job where we are now employing only one. This would not mean delaying the pipe-line contractors. Indeed this would be undesirable as they have a short season and must accomplish as much as possible during good weather. However, a swing shift system would offer employment to many people who are seeking it and each common labourer could do a reasonable amount of work and we could perhaps employ two or three men where we are now employing only one.
The matter of working on Sunday has become a great problem deserving the attention of the federal government. We have piously enacted the Lord's Day Act which sets out that no work should be done on Sunday if the operation is not continuous but we do not see fit to enforce the provisions of this legislation. I am pleased to state, however, that the townspeople in my area have taken matters into their own hands. They went out

Pipe Lines-Labour Conditions on Sundays when they did not have very much to do themselves and made such a fuss about it with the contractors that the contractors have now shut down except for maintenance work on Sundays.
These are questions we as Canadians are going to have to face. If transmission lines are to be built across Canada then we should have regulations to protect the Canadian people. My colleague, the hon. member for Timmins (Mr. Martin) mentioned the fact that this line would have been more satisfactorily handled if it had been entirely done through a crown corporation. I believe this truth will be borne out in time based on the success we had in putting through the line in the northern Ontario section which is now owned jointly by the federal and provincial governments. The work progressed very rapidly and the Department of Defence Production has done an exceptionally good job in this field. The problem of stock distribution could have been prevented if we had seen fit to make the entire pipe line a public utility.
I would urge the federal government to give full consideration at least to this matter of controlling the price, setting up the board of transport commissioners to control the price of gas coming through northern Ontario. As everybody knows, northern Ontario has now progressed past the original state of development where it depended on and could live off its natural resources. We are now sorely in need of secondary industries. While in the town of Timmins a unit of gas is quoted at $2.40, yet in the city of Cornwall, which will be another 500 miles along the line, that same unit of gas is being quoted at $1.40. The board of transport commissioners could do a great service to the people of northern Ontario by making gas as readily and as cheaply available as possible to encourage the introduction of new industries. I urge that some control be exercised over pipe lines in general and the trans Canada pipe line in particular, and that before we grant a licence to another pipe-line company to build a line across Canada we insist on some protection for the workers and the farmers who will be directly affected by the line.
I would point out that this is not a radical change for the Conservative government because only a year or so ago while in opposition the members of the Conservative party were pleased to support a different policy on natural gas. I would strongly urge that they consider now the implementation of that policy.
Motion agreed to and the house went into committee, Mr. Rea in the chair.

The estimates of the following departments were first taken up and entered for consideration:



DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE

[Stage Direction]
157. Departmental administration including annual contribution of $200 to the conference of commissioners on uniformity of legislation in Canada, $592,290.
DEPARTMENT OF TRADE AND COMMERCE 391. Departmental administration, $739,086.
DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORT 414. Departmental administration, $2,144,060.

[Stage Direction]
Construction, acquisition, major repairs and improvements of, and plans and sites for, public buildings listed in the details of the estimates, provided that treasury board may increase or decrease the amount within the vote to be expended on individual listed projects-
329. Newfoundland, $3,461,474.
The Deputy Chairman:: This item will be found on page 67 of the book of estimates, the details on page 464 in the same book. Shall vote No. 329 carry?


Mr. Carter:: Last Friday while we were on this estimate I raised the question of specifications in relation to the fact that certain products may be mentioned by name and would therefore preclude other products from being used even though they may serve the purpose equally well. I wonder whether the minister has had an opportunity to look at the specifications regarding the two buildings now being constructed in St. John's? We are anxious to use as much of our local products in these buildings as we possibly can. We can supply excellent doors and interior finishes, and I wondered whether the minister would table or read into the record that section of the specifications which actually call for certain specific materials to be used. Perhaps the minister can do that at some later date; I know he cannot do it at once. If he would do that I would personally like to see how those specificatons are worded because, even though there may be an escape clause which would permit other products to be used, if one product is specifically mentioned it can be interpreted by the contractor as being the first choice, and any other substitutions would perhaps be regarded as to be used only if the former were not available.
This is a very important point as far as Newfoundland is concerned, and I do hope the minister will be able to give us all the information possible on this point. Before I sit down I would like to bring to the attention of the minister and through him to his colleagues in the government-because this will

concern the cabinet as a whole-a situation which has developed in Newfoundland due to the difference in policies in regard to public buildings before and since Newfoundland joined confederation. Before Newfoundland became a province of Canada the construction of public buildings was the responsibility of the provincial government, and they had a very simple policy which was based mainly on the size of the community, and also on the fact that in Newfoundland we had a special situation with respect to post offices and telegraph offices. These two services were combined into a single service prior to Newfoundland becoming a province of Canada and as it was not suitable for those services to be performed in private homes the provincial government built a public building in the community for those services.


Mr. Browne (St. John's West):: That was
not so everywhere.


Chesley William Carter: My hon. friend can tell his story after I have finished; I am going to tell mine. After Newfoundland became a province of Canada, the maintenance and the construction of public buildings became the responsibility of the federal government. The federal government has a different policy altogether. For example, post offices are built only in communities where the revenue from the sale of stamps is around $10,000. You have to have a very large fishing community to have stamp sales of that magnitude.
The situation which I wish to bring to the minister's attention is this. In a community of about 200 or 300 families before confederation that community would have a public building of its own, a small public building for the post office department and for the telegraph office.


Mr. Browne (Si. John's West):: Can you
name some of them?


Chesley William Carter: Yes, Bay L'Argent, is one; Burgeo is another; Gaultois is a third in my riding. I could name dozens of those places. The point I want to make is that where those buildings had to be replaced they have been replaced by the federal government and have been improved upon. If my hon. friend wants an example I can give him a beautiful example which the minister himself mentioned, namely Harbour Buffett. Harbour Buffett is an example of a public building in a small community of about 500 people. The time came when that building had to be replaced, rebuilt, and now, as the minister pointed out last Friday, a very nice public building is being erected in Harbour Buffett, which is far better and a great credit to the minister, to his department and also to the federal
Supply-Public Works government which provided the funds for it prior to the general election of June 10.
We have in this community a very fine public building but the point is that in my own riding and in Newfoundland generally there are many other communities of the same size that did not happen to have public buildings prior to confederation and under the present policy of the federal government these communities cannot get a separate public building. I hope the minister will look into that situation to see what can be done so that we may have a uniform policy in Newfoundland with respect to public buildings.


Howard Charles Green: I am sure the hon. member will realize that we have no responsibility for providing accommodation for the provincial government.


Chesley William Carter: That is not my point at all.


Howard Charles Green: I understand that some of these buildings to which he has referred would accommodate provincial government offices as well as federal. We have no responsibility for that. The hon. member said that we do not accept any liability to erect a building unless there is a postal income of $10,000 a year. That is not correct either. The figure is $3,000 a year. Below $3,000 the Post Office Department makes its own arrangements. With regard to specifications, the department would be very glad to have the hon. member examine the specification forms which were used. They are much too long to read into Hansard. We do not make a practice of setting out trade-marked goods in the specifications. I agree with him that would be unfair. Specifications are supposed to be drawn in broad terms so that the product of any company can qualify and no favour is shown to one supplier over another.


Mr. Tucker:: As found on page 1145 of Hansard of June 13, the hon. member for Mackenzie River asked the Minister of Public Works this question:
On the question of local labour, is there any way in which the minister could write into the contract that a certain percentage of local labour must be used?
This was the minister's reply:
This is actually written into the contract.
I would be grateful if the minister would advise the house if this clause relating to the hiring of local labour is being strictly adhered to.


Howard Charles Green: It is supposed to be and if the
hon. member knows of any instances where it has not been adhered to I would be very grateful if he could let me know.
1190	HOUSE OF
Supply-Public Works


James Roy Tucker: I believe the hon. member for Burin-Burgeo referred to such cases a few days ago.


[Stage Direction]
Item agreed to.
592. Newfoundland, $116,000.
Charles Edward Rea: This vote is found on page 9 of the supplementary estimates and has to do with Newfoundland.


Mr. Bourget:: Mr. Chairman, when estimates have been discussed in the past the practice has been to discuss the main estimates and then to take up the supplementary estimates. Otherwise we have a lot of books on our desks and it is very hard for us to follow. Of course, we are alone. We have not got the help that the minister has in front of him. I do not mind too much but I think it would help other members.


Howard Charles Green: I understand that upon some occasions at least the present procedure has been followed of taking the estimate in the main estimate book and then the supplementary estimate covering the same appropriation. This question was raised by the hon. member for Bonavista-Twillingate on Friday and we have already dealt with the administration item on this basis. I really do not care one way or the other but I think this does give a more accurate picture of the money that is being spent, for example, on buildings in Newfoundland.


Maurice Bourget: From reading the discussion that took place last week I think the hon. member for Bonavista-Twillingate agreed in the case of the administration item but that is quite a different situation. Here we have many supplementary items and for that reason I think we should discuss them in the way I have suggested. I am not saying this to delay the passing of the estimates. I think it would help private members if we dealt first with the main estimates and then came back to the supplementaries.


Howard Charles Green: The hon. member will see that on page 464 of the main estimate book a certain number of buildings are listed under the heading "Newfoundland", and in the supplementary estimates there are three additional buildings in Newfoundland listed on page 27. I think it is a tidier way to deal with all the estimates having to do with buildings in Newfoundland at one time rather than to deal with those listed in the main estimates tonight and when the estimates come up again deal with the three buildings in the supplementary estimate.


[Stage Direction]
Item agreed to.
[Stage Direction]

332.	New Brunswick, $1,625,000.
Hédard-J. Robichaud: Mr. Chairman, I realize that the Minister of Public Works, as have other members of the cabinet, has become accustomed in the last few weeks to hearing members on this side of the house talk about the downward trend affecting most business in Canada. Fortunately or unfortunately we have an exception in Gloucester county. We have a certain kind of business where the clients have practically doubled since June 22 of last year. The clients are so numerous now that new quarters have had to be rented in the last three months. What I have in mind is the local unemployment insurance office. There is an item for a public building in Bathurst. Has the Minister of Public Works received representations to the effect that the quarters to be supplied for the unemployment insurance commission office in this new building will be too small?


Howard Charles Green: The hon. member will notice that on page 465 there is a vote of $150,000 to be spent this year for a public building at Bathurst. So far as the department is aware that building will be ample to meet the requirements. As of the end of May the building was 60 per cent completed.
On Friday the hon. member for Northum-berland-Miramichi had something to say about the federal building at Newcastle. He tried to base an argument on it that we were not really accelerating construction at all. The situation at Newcastle is this. In the first place, the mayor of that famous old town and several of the members of his council came to see me last fall and asked that the building be moved back, I think it was 10 or 15 feet. I agreed that that should be done in order to help them and to co-operate with them.
Then when the contract was let and the work commenced, it was found that there was water trouble in the excavation, and that has been the reason for the delay. There has been a great deal of difficulty in connection with water. I happened to visit Newcastle-


Mr. McWilliam:: I am aware of that, during the campaign.


Howard Charles Green: I hope the hon. member felt my presence. I had the pleasure of visiting Newcastle during the election campaign and I noticed that the building was not getting ahead as I had hoped it would. When I passed through Ottawa on my way back to the west coast I made a very strong complaint about the fact that the building in Newcastle seemed to be held up. Actually the trouble arose from the water in the excavation. We do run into difficulty of this kind, and

certainly the department is anxious to get that building completed just as quickly as possible. I understand that as of the end of last month it was about 13 per cent completed. There is a very substantial vote for the building, $100,000 in the main estimates and $130,000 in the supplementaries, a total of $230,000 which we expect will be spent in Newcastle within the present fiscal year. The hon. member, therefore, is really not doing too badly.


George Roy McWilliam: Mr. Chairman, I sort of expected the answer the minister was going to give me and that is why I prefaced my remarks by certain quotations which appear in Hansard. When he says the building is 13 per cent complete, I may say that I saw the site of the proposed construction some two weeks ago and if the building was 13 per cent complete it is going to be a very small building. It will not take very much money to construct it.
In so far as the delay is concerned, I know
that the mayor of the town was in Ottawa and spoke with the minister about moving the building back 10 feet. A question was placed on the order paper asking if this would entail any great change in plans, and the answer given by the department was no. The answer was given last fall. During the winter months there was no sign of activity at all around this building site. However, I do not wish to make an issue of this. The minister has said that they are going to proceed with the building now, and I trust that they will.
I should like to ask him one or two questions with regard to the building. Has there been any target date set for the completion of the work? I should like to know also if there is an estimate of the total cost. Another matter I wish to bring up is that when the plans were examined some representations were made concerning inadequate space for the unemployment insurance commission. I believe also there were local protests from the post office officials that the working space allotted the post office was too small. If I recall correctly, I think it was proven to the people who made the representations that the space was adequate for the moment. I have never heard any report about what took place concerning the representations- I do not even know if they reached Ottawa -made by the unemployment insurance commission that their space was too small. Perhaps the minister could advise me on these three matters.


Howard Charles Green: We expect to have the building completed by fall.


George Roy McWilliam: This fall?
Supply-Public Works


Howard Charles Green: This fall. There was a request received from the unemployment insurance commission for increased space, and a readjustment has been made of the area within the building in order to meet this request.


Hédard-J. Robichaud: Coming back to the
Bathurst public building, has the department received a complaint from the unemployment insurance commission or the Department of Labour that the space reserved for the unemployment insurance office is too small?


Howard Charles Green: The answer I gave a moment
ago had to do with Bathurst, apparently, and not Newcastle. I understand we have had no request from the unemployment insurance commission for an increase in the space allotted at Newcastle.


Hédard-J. Robichaud: You had some from
Bathurst, then?


Howard Charles Green: Yes, an additional space was
allotted.


George Roy McWilliam: Did I understand you
to say you did not have any representations from Newcastle? There was some confusion between the two.


Howard Charles Green: I will have the answer to
that in a minute.


Hédard-J. Robichaud: Out of this total amount
for vote 332 of $1,625,000 for public buildings in New Brunswick, and I understand $380,000 in the supplementaries, is it not true that the only new construction is $200,000 for Grand Falls and $75,000 for Campbellton?


Howard Charles Green: The new items are Grand
Falls, Campbellton and at Saint John, accommodation for the standards division, Department of Trade and Commerce.


Hédard-J. Robichaud: All the others are items
for projects that were started last year?


Howard Charles Green: The others are all items which were included last year, but as I pointed out the other day the construction of those has been accelerated.


[Stage Direction]
Item agreed to.
333.	Quebec, $9,477,000.
Maurice Bourget: Mr. Chairman, last week
when I spoke on the first item I said in committee that I was surprised that members from Quebec city could not see an item for the Quebec post office. I should like to ask the minister if the government, since it has taken office, has taken steps to try to get an agreement between the city of Quebec and the Canadian National?


Howard Charles Green: Before I go on to deal with that situation I now have the report with regard
1192	HOUSE OF
Supply-Public Works to the request for space for the unemployment insurance commission at Newcastle. The position there is exactly the same as in Bathurst. The commission did request additional space and a readjustment was made by the Department of Public Works in order that this space will be allocated for the commission.


Hédard-J. Robichaud: Would the minister be prepared to provide more space for next year, because it will definitely be needed?


Howard Charles Green: No, we expect the present government will be in office next year and that additional space will therefore not be required. It was only required last time because we took over from the previous government.
With regard to the building in Quebec city, this has caused great concern because we are particularly anxious to get ahead with this building. As the hon. member for Levis knows, the Department of Public Works has a site but the planning commission of the city of Quebec would not let us build a federal building on that site. Shortly after I became minister I wrote to the mayor of Quebec asking for an early decision on this aspect of the question.


Maurice Bourget: Could the minister give me the date of that letter?


Howard Charles Green: I have not the date here but it was some time last fall and I pointed out our desire to get on with the building as quickly as possible and then, on December 30, the mayor replied requesting a meeting. We met with him in Ottawa on January 27 and it appeared during that discussion that a stalemate had been reached in the negotiations between the railway and the city with respect to the exchange of land. The city wanted to have this federal building on a site owned by Canadian National Railways and we suggested that the federal government should bypass the C.N.R. property and exchange our site for a property further to the east which could be acquired by the city without involving either the Canadian National Railways station or the track. This suggestion seemed to find favour with the city officials as did our suggestion that any exchange of properties would be on a value for value basis. On February 25 we repeated these proposals and again expressed the need for early action. On March 16 the mayor advised us that no decision was possible before April and, to date, we have had no further word from the mayor of Quebec.
We have, however, had a verbal communication to the effect that the Canadian National Railways was prepared to demolish its station and to make the land available


for construction of a federal building provided the city would agree that buses could be substituted on the Quebec city-Ste. Anne de Beaupre run. My understanding is that the city of Quebec also has this information but we do not know what progress has been made with respect to reaching an agreement with Canadian National Railways. That is the way the matter stands at the moment. We are only too glad to do everything we can to facilitate the construction of the building, but we cannot force the Canadian National Railways to demolish its station and give up the land.


Maurice Bourget: Would the minister tell me whether the Canadian National Railways is still asking the same price for the site where the old station is located? I have a distinct recollection that they were asking about $540,000.


Howard Charles Green: The department has never been given information concerning the amount the Canadian National Railways was asking for the site. It is between the city and the Canadian National Railways.


Maurice Bourget: I think the minister will find the information on the file, if I remember correctly. I did, of course, take a special interest in this matter because it is near my home town and I do remember that the figure was $540,000. In any event, I would ask the minister if he would take some steps to try to get the C.N.R. and the city together. He could also obtain the help of the Minister of Transport, which I think was the policy followed by the previous government, in endeavouring to get the two parties to reach an agreement. My fear is that otherwise a generation will pass without the city of Quebec having its federal post office built.


Howard Charles Green: We cannot force the hand of the Canadian National Railways and, incidentally, we could build the building on the site on the other side of the station if the city officials were agreeable.


Maurice Bourget: I know that the minister cannot force the C.N.R. but he does know from past experience that we are paying deficits for the C.N.R. and certainly with the help of the Minister of Transport I think he could do a lot to get the two parties together. Even the Prime Minister could assist in this regard as did the previous prime minister. In this connection I know that the former prime minister in the last few months of his administration took steps to even see the president of the Canadian National Railways. The minister is well aware, as is also the Postmaster General, that this building

is very badly needed. I am not in any way blaming the minister, but I do make this suggestion because if this matter is left entirely in the hands of the city I do not think the city would have the money to pay the amount asked by the Canadian National Railways.


Howard Charles Green: We wrote to the mayor just a few days ago asking for an up to date report on the situation and we again reminded him that we would like to get this building started. As the hon. member has pointed out, the former prime minister tried to get this project under way but he was not successful, so the hon. member must not now be too hard on us.


Maurice Bourget: I am not too hard, I am just trying to make a suggestion because the minister said he was a kind of miracle man who was going to try to have all these projects started this year and he even said that 97 per cent of his estimates had been spent.


An hon. Member:: Make your suggestion.


Howard Charles Green: If the hon. member will admit that I am a miracle man I will get his post office under way.


Maurice Bourget: I did not say he was a
miracle man, I said he pretended to be one, which is quite a different thing.


John Whitney Pickersgill: The minister now has a chance to prove it.


Maurice Bourget: There is another item which I would like to mention, namely the purchase of the Marconi building in Montreal for $132,000. Might I ask the minister if an appraisal has been made in connection with the purchase of that building?


Howard Charles Green: This building was hired from a crown corporation, the Canadian Overseas Telecommunications Corporation. I have not got the information for which the hon. member is asking at the moment.


Maurice Bourget: Perhaps the minister would be good enough to tell me later if an appraisal has been made. I see an item which reads: Public building at Plessisville-to complete -$50,000. Could the minister tell me when tenders were called to complete that particular building?


Howard Charles Green: There were two tenders called. On the first call, the lowest tender was $140,970 to a firm by the name of Savard Limited. A thorough investigation of this tender was made by the department and it was found that the firm was primarily engaged in road construction and that the experience of the superintendent in charge of this project had 57071-3-76
Supply-Public Works been mostly in the field of concrete bridge construction and that his experience of building construction was extremely limited. Inspection of the buildings constructed by this firm during the last four years revealed that in each case the workmanship was of inferior quality. As a result, the department decided to reject the lower tender and issue a new call for tenders. New tenders were called the lowest of which was from a firm called J. O. Lambert Inc. of Quebec city at a figure of $137,662. It is very rarely that this has to be done but there are occasions when for one reason or another it is unwise to accept the lowest bid. In each case where the low bid is not accepted it is necessary to get the approval of the treasury board.


Maurice Bourget: When the first tenders were called, was there not another company which tendered?


Howard Charles Green: Yes, there was a tender from the firm of Poudrier and Boulet Limited of Quebec city at a figure of $149,970.


Maurice Bourget: Could I ask the minister why a contract was not awarded to that second firm which was then the lowest tenderer.


Howard Charles Green: I am getting further information.


Maurice Bourget: Can the minister give me the figure of the company that got the contract the last time the tender was asked?


Howard Charles Green: Yes, the company which was low on the second tender called bid $137,662. That is about $3,000 lower than the low tender the first time.


Joseph Pierre Albert Sévigny: Shall the item carry?


Maurice Bourget: I am awaiting an answer to my question asking why the contract was not awarded to the second low bidder in the first instance.


Howard Charles Green: I am getting that information from the officials.


Maurice Bourget: While a search is being made could I ask the minister when the tenders are going to be called for with respect to the public building at St. Georges.


Howard Charles Green: The department requires some additional information concerning the site. Plans are only about half completed, but it is hoped that the call will be made in about six weeks time.


Maurice Bourget: May I point out to the minister that this is a very bad policy on his part if he wants to reach the 100 per cent mark next year, because if the site is not settled he may find himself in a position where he cannot build.



X194 HOUSE OF COMMONS

[Stage Direction]
Supply-Public Works
Howard Charles Green: The site has been settled but there are some survey details in connection with the site which have not been settled.


Maurice Bourget: Have the plans been started on that building?


Howard Charles Green: I said the plans were about half finished. I am now informed they are about 60 per cent completed.


Maurice Bourget: May I ask the minister if the department itself is preparing a plan or if an outside architect is preparing it?


Howard Charles Green: Plans are being drawn up by the department. The reason there was a new tender called for the building at Plessisville is that it was considered that the second tender on the first call was too high. The hon. member will notice that as a result of the second call the price has been brought down by over $12,000.


[Stage Direction]
Item agreed to.
334.	Ottawa, $18,918,000.
George James McIlraith: Mr. Chairman, I wonder if the minister is now prepared to make the statement he said he would make concerning the policy of the government with respect to building on the central experimental farm. The minister will recall I raised this question the last time the estimates were before the committee.


Howard Charles Green: The policy is that no buildings will be built on the central experimental farm except buildings for the Department of Agriculture.
When the estimates were up for the first time there were some complaints from the hon. member for Port Arthur about the esthetic qualities of- the buildings being erected in Ottawa. I am sure he will be pleased to hear that in each case the Department of Public Works must obtain the consent of the federal district commission to the plans of buildings to be erected in Ottawa. We are very anxious to have buildings that will maintain the architectural standards of the city.


George James McIlraith: If I may pursue the first question a bit further, has the minister come to any conclusion as to what will be done with the land on the experimental farm now occupied by the temporary buildings when they are removed?


Howard Charles Green: I take it that the hon. member for Ottawa West refers to temporary buildings Nos. 5 and 8. For some years the policy has been that when these temporary buildings are torn down nothing will be constructed on the site.


George James McIlraith: I want to commend the minister for continuing the policy set out a

few years ago by the Liberal administration in that regard. I believe he will agree it is a very satisfactory policy.
I take it from the minister's answer to the hon. member for Port Arthur about the design of buildings that he is also continuing the policy of the Liberal administration that public buildings in Ottawa would have the' approval of the federal district commission as to exterior design?


Howard Charles Green: Yes, we have to obtain the approval of the federal district commission.
I now have an answer to the question concerning the Marconi building in Montreal. There was no appraisal by an independent appraiser. The cost of this building to the crown corporation was $275,000. We bought it for $130,000 after an appraisal by officials of our own department and it was considered that we got a very good deal on it.


Maurice Bourget: From the crown company?


Howard Charles Green: From the Canadian Overseas Telecommunications Company.


Herbert Wilfred Herridge: Mr. Chairman; I remember when the minister was in opposition he was very much concerned at that time about proposals to demolish the west block, I think because of some association his party had with that building over a long period of time. Could the minister inform the committee now whether it is the policy of his government to decimate this block, to rehabilitate it or to recreate it?


Howard Charles Green: I can assure the hon. member that as long as I am Minister of Public Works the west block will not be demolished.


George James McIlraith: Mr. Chairman, I wish to ask the minister a question concerning the Riverside drive development ancillary buildings including power plant for which there is an item in the amount of $1 million. Would he tell us what those ancillary buildings are and what ancillary work is covered in the details of this item?


Howard Charles Green: Mr. Chairman, this amount is required for the construction of a power plant, a booster pump house and a telephone building or PBX-I think that means telephone exchange-to service the buildings to be erected in the Riverside drive development.


George James McIlraith: Just two or three more questions, Mr. Chairman. What is the target date for completion of the office building for the Department of Public Works for which there is an amount of $2J million?


Howard Charles Green: October 1959. We are very anxious to get into that building as quickly as possible. The hon. member will notice

there is a supplementary vote lor this building ol $1J million. This is one building the construction of which certainly has been accelerated. It is going ahead much faster.


George James McIlraith: Mr. Chairman, I will not criticize the minister for his interest in this particular building but I want to ask some questions about the Department of Trade and Commerce building. What is the expected date of completion and occupancy of that building? There was some financial difficulty on the part of the contractor. Would the minister tell the committee what was done when the department had to step in, whether or not further tenders were called and how the matter was handled?


Howard Charles Green: This is another building the construction of which has been greatly accelerated, the hon. member will be glad to hear, and we expect to have it finished by September of this year. The original contractor went into bankruptcy last fall. We called for tenders for the completion of the building on a management fee basis and it looks as though we will be able to complete it without taking any loss on the original contract price.


Maurice Bourget: Mr. Chairman, may I ask the minister when tenders are going to be called for the much delayed building for the Post Office Department in Ottawa?


Howard Charles Green: This is another project which has been accelerated. Tenders for the cafeteria are being called at once, and for the main building within six weeks.


Maurice Bourget: On that point, Mr. Chairman, may I tell the minister that at the end of May, 1957, 55 per cent of the plans were already drawn up and if the building was not started last year it was the fault of the new administration, because those who know something about drawing plans and specifications can tell the minister that when 55 per cent of the plans are ready it does not take more than two or three months to complete the plans and call for tenders.


Howard Charles Green: The hon. member has been watching the Department of Public Works from a long way off in the last year.


Maurice Bourget: I have a good memory.


Howard Charles Green: The facts are that we have had to drive the architect very hard in order to get the plans completed at the present time to call tenders.


Mr. Bourque:: I see no appropriation here for the west block. Is it the intention of the government to remodel or do anything with the west block?
57071-3-176i
Supply-Public Works


Howard Charles Green: There is no money in the estimates for the west block.


Romuald Bourque: Do I understand that nothing is to be done with the west block?


Howard Charles Green: Yes, planning is being done in connection with the changes which will be necessary.


George James McIlraith: Where is the item for the planning?


Howard Charles Green: That comes under the planning vote.


John Whitney Pickersgill: Can the minister say when he hopes to get started on the national library?


Howard Charles Green: We plan to start the national library early in the next fiscal year.


Maurice Bourget: There is $600,000 to complete the trade and commerce building. If my information is correct, the prime contractor went bankrupt. Is that right?


Howard Charles Green: I explained that.


John Cameron Pallett: You should have come in earlier.


[Stage Direction]
Item agreed to.
335.	Ontario (other than Ottawa), $13,040,000.
William Limburg Houck: I would like to ask the minister a question about the new post office at Niagara Falls which was promised in the last election campaign. I realize that the minister-perhaps I had better state his officials-has a gigantic job on his hands trying to satisfy different groups with respect to the site for that post office. Therefore, I am dividing my question into three parts. First, has a site been selected; second, is money appropriated for this new post office in the estimates; third, will it be started this year?


Howard Charles Green: Mr. Chairman, the difficulty in Niagara Falls is that there are four different groups fighting about the site for the post office.


William Limburg Houck: I said that.


Howard Charles Green: The hon. member could give considerable assistance to us, if, with his great good nature and his many friends in that city, he could arrange for those different groups to get together and agree on a site. This is a difficulty we encounter quite frequently. We do not like to go ahead and erect a building on a site to which a large number of people object, and Niagara Falls has given us one of our worst problems in this connection. If we could get agreement on a site we would get on with the building right away.

Supply-Public Works


William Limburg Houck: I would be very happy to cooperate and give some advice if I was on that side of the house.


Howard Charles Green: We would be very happy to have the hon. member here on this side.


[Stage Direction]
Item agreed to.
336.	Manitoba, $1,695,000.
Mr. Forgie:: I should like to revert to item 335, "Ontario (other than Ottawa)" just for a moment to inquire what the $50,000 allotment for Deep River refers to.


Charles Edward Rea: Has the hon. member permission to revert to item 335?


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


James Moffat Forgie: I would like to know what the item of $50,000 is for. Is it for a post office?


Howard Charles Green: This amount is required for the construction of a public building to provide improved accommodation for the postal service.


James Moffat Forgie: Has a site been chosen for the post office?


Howard Charles Green: Tenders for the building will close on July 9.


James Moffat Forgie: Has the site for this building been chosen?


Howard Charles Green: The site selected for the building is the north corner of the Deep River road and Hillcrest avenue. This property is owned by Atomic Energy of Canada Limited and will be transferred to the Department of Public Works for a nominal sum.


James Moffat Forgie: Is it an extension of the existing post office?


Howard Charles Green: No; I am instructed that it is a new building.


Mr. Smith (Calgary South):: As grateful as we are in our city for the post office promised for some nine years by the former administration but never achieved, could we have some indication as to the extent to which the $1 million will cover the entire appropriation for the completion of that post office.


Lionel Chevrier: This item has to do with Manitoba.


Howard Charles Green: Mr. Chairman, the hon. member is several items out of line.


Arthur Smith: I will reserve my question until we come to the item.


[Stage Direction]
Item agreed to.

338.	Alberta, $1,847,000.
Arthur Smith: May I now address the same question to the minister.


Lionel Chevrier: The answer is the same.


Howard Charles Green: Mr. Chairman, the plans for this building are about 98 per cent completed. The hon. member knows or should know that it was necessary to do a demolition job. The contract for the demolition was let in March and the job was to be finished late in April. The total cost of the building is to be approximately $2,900,000 and the estimated requirement for this fiscal year is $1 million.


Arthur Smith: Mr. Chairman, perhaps I can help the minister by telling him that the demolition job is completed. My question was with respect to the expected date of completion of the post office.


Howard Charles Green: The post office will be completed in one and a half to two years. I can assure the hon. member that this job will be done very much faster than it would have been done under the former government.


[Stage Direction]
Item agreed to.
Mr. Jones:: Mr. Chairman, if I may have permission I should like to refer to vote 599. It slipped through somehow.


Charles Edward Rea: Has the hon. member leave to discuss vote 599?


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


Henry Frank Jones: How long is it estimated that the construction of the post office in Saskatoon will take once tenders have been called, and when does the minister expect that tenders will be called?


Howard Charles Green: We expect that it will be about two years before the building is completed.
339.	British Columbia, $2,010,000.


Herbert Wilfred Herridge: Mr. Chairman, I have been waiting all day for this vote. About three years ago the former government purchased some property in Nelson with a view to erecting a very much needed building for the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. I understood that the building was to cost about $300,000. Can the minister inform the house whether there is any item in the estimates to provide for its construction and, if so, when will construction likely commence?


Howard Charles Green: The hon. member referred to a building for the R.C.M.P. in Nelson?


Herbert Wilfred Herridge: Yes.


Howard Charles Green: Plans are under way now and we should be able to start construction about the month of October.


Herbert Wilfred Herridge: Is there provision in these estimates for that work? I cannot find the estimate.


Howard Charles Green: This is an example of work which is being done for another department. The vote for this building will be in the R.C.M.P. estimates. The vote does not appear in the estimates of the Department of Public Works.


[Stage Direction]
Item agreed to.
340.	Yukon and Northwest Territories, $2,458,400.
Mr. Hardie:: Mr. Chairman, I should like to ask the minister about the items for Aklavik East Three. I notice that of the whole vote $1,651,400 is for housing for federal government employees and then there is a public building. Is there nothing for the hospital and school at east three or is it carried in the estimates of some other department? Is the Department of Public Works doing this job?


Howard Charles Green: The items for the hospital and school will be under national health and welfare and northern affairs.


Mervyn Arthur Hardie: But the work will be done by the minister's department?


Howard Charles Green: We do the work but the money is provided by these other two departments. One provides the money for the school and the other the money for the hospital.


Mervyn Arthur Hardie: Have tenders been called for the items shown here and for those in northern affairs and national health and welfare estimates?


Howard Charles Green: Yes, tenders have been called recently for these projects.


Mervyn Arthur Hardie: Is it the intention of the government to complete all construction this year on the east three townsite?


Howard Charles Green: I understand that all of the construction in this project will not be completed during the present fiscal year. It was understood that it would take two to three years to complete the project.


Mervyn Arthur Hardie: When travelling round my constituency a few months ago I was told that even to complete the work this year on Aklavik East Three would require the bringing in of 800 men from Edmonton and other places outside the Northwest Territories. Is this true or is it not?


Howard Charles Green: No, we do not believe that there will be that number of men brought in. We are co-operating with the Department of Northern Affairs and National Resources in order to get every possible local man who can be found to work on this project.
Supply-Public Works


Mervyn Arthur Hardie: By "local" does the minister mean from Aklavik or from the whole of the Mackenzie river district?


Howard Charles Green: Men from Aklavik will have first priority and then men from the Northwest Territories, both ahead of men from the provinces.


Mervyn Arthur Hardie: With respect to the contracts that have been let up to now, what percentage is written into them to cover local labour?


Howard Charles Green: There is no percentage written into the contract, but the terms do provide that local labour must be given a preference.


Mervyn Arthur Hardie: How does the department
have any control over how many men the contractor may bring in from outside? How does the minister or the department regulate this business of local labour as against labour from all over the province? Do you wait until they are all in there and somebody in Aklavik squawks, then ship them all back out?


Howard Charles Green: The method followed is for
the Department of Northern Affairs and National Resources to indicate how many men are available in the territory, and then any additional numbers that are required can be brought in from outside.


Mervyn Arthur Hardie: Has the Department of
Northern Affairs and National Resources given the Department of Public Works the number of men available for this job?


Howard Charles Green: The other department is working on this question at the present time.


Mervyn Arthur Hardie: At the present time-there
have been men coming in for the last month or so from Edmonton.


Howard Charles Green: The men who have been
coming in from the outside are supposed to be technical supervisors and foremen. At the present time, the main contract has not been let.


[Stage Direction]
Item agreed to.
341.	Improvements generally-not more than $25,000 to be expended on any one project without the approval of treasury board, $700,000.
John Whitney Pickersgill: I am not going to take
any time at all on this item. I want to congratulate the minister upon increasing the amount of this vote. I just want to suggest to him that if he has any difficulty finding other buildings worth less than $25,000, I would strongly recommend Hare Bay and Gambo, which I mentioned on Friday. He might also have a look at Port Blandford.


Howard Charles Green: Will the hon. member promise to show a great deal more gratitude than he did for the Wesleyville post office?

Supply-Public Works


John Whitney Pickersgill: I am most grateful to
the minister for the Wesleyville post office.


Herbert Wilfred Herridge: I should like to ask the
minister if there is any provision for smaller buildings in Kootenay West in this estimate?


James Roy Tucker: I would like to ask the
minister to give consideration to a post office at Port Rexton and Little Kettle Island?


Howard Charles Green: The small buildings do not
come under this vote. They come under vote 369.


Mervyn Arthur Hardie: I noticed that in the supplementaries under northern affairs there is an item for $3,500,000 for construction, acquisition of buildings, works and equipment. I imagine that this work would be done by public works. Can the minister give us a breakdown of that item?


Howard Charles Green: No, Mr. Chairman, this is a
vote of the other department. We are not in a position to give any breakdown or discuss that in our estimates.


Mervyn Arthur Hardie: Is this department doing
the work under this particular item?


Howard Charles Green: We do not have the details
of this vote here, so I am not in a position to say whether or not we are doing it or part of it.


Mervyn Arthur Hardie: How do we get any information if public works, the people who are doing the job, cannot give us that information now?


Howard Charles Green: That can be ascertained from
the Minister of Northern Affairs and National Resources when his estimates are under consideration.


Maurice Bourget: The minister will recall that in past years he was extremely critical of this item. I am glad that he is now putting that item of improvements generally in the estimates, and has increased the amount this year from $300,000 to $700,000. Once again this shows that he is following exactly the policy established by the previous administration. I am tempted to remind the minister that on April 13, 1956, he said that this figure was a fictitious figure and also that it was a strange procedure. Now that he is facing responsibility, he realizes that the item we put in there, and which he has retained, was a good one. He is following the good policy that was established by the previous minister. If he has any success it is the result of the fact that for four years previous ministers have established good practice in the department.


Howard Charles Green: I admit I am learning something every day. We are trying to follow the

better policies of the former government, but unfortunately there are not very many in that category.


Maurice Bourget: Can the minister give us the reason why this item has increased this year by $400,000? If he looks at the details on page 471 the actual expenditure up to January 1, 1958 amounted to $262,000, and it is estimated that for the balance of the year $37,000 will be needed, making a total of about $300,000. I know the minister has not got the figures for the present year, but will he give us a breakdown for the past year?


Howard Charles Green: I am rather surprised the hon. member would ask this question because this is one increase that was designed to give jobs to Canadians, and it has been very effective in doing that.


Maurice Bourget: The minister has not answered my question at all. I was asking for a breakdown. It is peculiar that there are so many items for which the government says they are giving jobs, nevertheless last month we had over half a million people unemployed in Canada.


Howard Charles Green: Oh, no.


Maurice Bourget: Oh, yes.


Howard Charles Green: Oh, no, you are stretching it. These are spread all over the country, as the hon. member knows, but I have some examples for this year which are as follows: St. John's, Newfoundland, public building, improvements to grounds, $7,500; Stellarton, Nova Scotia, public building, chain link fence, $1,000; Montague, P.E.I., public building, retaining wall, $1,100; Lachute, Quebec, public building, repairs, to foundation, $1,500; Stanstead, Quebec, public building reinforcement of foundation, $5,000; Three Rivers, public building, repairs to retaining wall, $12,000; Montreal, film board, air conditioning and ventilation, $10,000; Winnipeg, custom building, replacing elevator, $22,500. Those are only examples, but those are small jobs all over the country and jobs which have been very effective in bringing about employment of additional Canadians quickly.


George Roy McWilliam: Could I ask the minister if there is anything listed there for New Brunswick, in the small jobs?


Howard Charles Green: The ones I have read out are just examples. There are many of a similar type in the province of New Brunswick and in all the other provinces to which I did not refer.
Progress reported.
Resolutions adopted in committee of supply this day reported and concurred in.



TRANSPORT


Howard Charles Green: Mr. Speaker, I would like to ask leave to revert to motions in order to move that the estimates of the Department of Transport be referred to the standing committee on railways, canals and telegraph lines.


Lionel Chevrier: May I
ask the minister why the Department of Transport estimates are being referred to the committee on railways, canals and telegraph lines rather than being discussed in the House of Commons, as are his own estimates, and I presume the estimates of other departments mentioned earlier.


Howard Charles Green: As I explained on an earlier occasion, Mr. Speaker, when we were considering an amendment to the standing orders to set up a standing committee on veterans affairs and one on estimates for this year, we planned to try out referring certain of the estimates to standing committees and I instanced the referring of estimates of the Department of Northern Affairs and National Resources and Department of Mines and Technical Surveys to the committee on lands, forests and waters and the estimates of the Department of Fisheries to the standing committee on marine and fisheries; the estimates of the Department of Labour to the standing committee on industrial relations and I think I also referred to the Department of Transport estimates and suggested they would be referred to this standing committee on railways, canals and telegraph lines. In addition, of course, the estimates of the Department of External Affairs are to be referred to the standing committee on external affairs.
We are trying, in addition to having those particular estimates referred to these standing committees which I have mentioned, to have the estimates committee review several of the departments' estimates and they are now working on the estimates of the Department of National Defence. I expect one of these days they will request that the estimates of certain other departments be referred to them but we do have to keep some estimates for consideration in the house. Until tonight we only had public works and agriculture which could be considered in this committee of supply but we now also have the estimates of trade and commerce and of justice which were put in tonight.
It so happens that there is a standing committee which we think could very well deal with the estimates of the Department of Transport and we propose to try out this plan. If it does not work out satisfactorily then
16, 1958	1199
Estimates of Department of Transport next year we can follow some other course. I refer to the standing committee on railways, canals and telegraph lines and, as the hon. member for Laurier knows, this has been one of the best committees of the house. He and I have always served on it and I am sure he will find this plan will be fairly successful.


Lionel Chevrier: I am not complaining about the plan but I thank the house leader for the explanation he has given to this house. On the contrary, I would think, as the Leader of the Opposition has already stated, that in so far as the three departments which were referred to by the house leader are concerned, namely national defence, northern affairs and veterans affairs, there would be no objection from this side of the house to their being referred to their respective committees, but there has been no agreement with respect to the Department of Transport. I am taking no position at this moment other than to say it seems to me that the Deparment of Transport, being such an important and large department-as is the minister's own department-its estimates should be considered by the whole house rather than by the committee on railways, canals and telegraph lines. That is a committee, to my way of thinking, which is charged with a certain responsibility and it would seem to me that it is not the committee to which the estimates of this department should go. My suggestion would be, if my hon. friend would agree, that he might allow this motion to stand until tomorrow so that I may discuss it with the Leader of the Opposition after which we could come to some agreement.


Howard Charles Green: I have no objection to that but I would point out to the hon. member for Laurier that if the course we suggest is followed the transport estimates will be considered twice, first of all in the standing committee and then in committee of the whole house.


Lionel Chevrier: We will be perfectly satisfied if they are considered but once.


Howard Charles Green: Probably they would not be brought on for consideration in the house for some considerable time if they did not go to the committee.


Lionel Chevrier: If the motion stands, we will leave the matter there.



BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE

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


Howard Charles Green: Tomorrow we start with item No. 10 on today's order paper, which is the resolution dealing with hospital insurance; then item No. 6 on today's order paper, the

Business of the House resolution dealing with the Department of Transport Act; then item No. 8, the resolution dealing with the Cape Breton Highlands national park; item No. 11, dealing with the legislation in connection with the Yukon; and then item No. 4, second reading of an act to amend the Lake of the Woods Control Board Act. I imagine that will be enough to keep us busy-


George James McIlraith: What will we do afterwards?


Howard Charles Green: -until six o'clock but if not we will take up the question of an act to set up a harbour commission at the lakehead and
the amendment to the Penitentiary Act. At eight o'clock the budget speech is to be delivered and I understand it may take a few minutes after ten o'clock-at least the Minister of Finance (Mr. Fleming) tells me that the reply may take a few minutes after ten p.m. so we may ask the members not to watch the clock after ten p.m.


An hon. Member:: Are you suggesting he is going to talk for two hours?


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

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

Mr. Meunier: What amount was paid to (a) the province of Quebec; (b) the province of Ontario, under the Tax Rental Agreements Act (i) for the fiscal year ending March 31, 1957; (ii) for the fiscal year ending March 31, 1958?
Answer by: Hon. Donald M. Fleming (Minister of Finance):
1956-	57, the Tax Rental Agreements Act, 1952: Quebec, nil; Ontario, $160,558,129.
1957-	58, the Federal-Provincial Tax-Sharing Arrangements Act: Quebec, equalization payment only, $43,060,000; Ontario, tax rental payment for individual income tax only, $74,379,000.
These payments do not include the share of income tax of certain public utility corporations. Under section 6 of the Tax Rental Agreements Act, 1952, all provinces are entitled to 50 per cent of such payment of federal income tax.
1956-	57: Quebec, $1,186,280; Ontario, $1,428,408.
1957-	58: Quebec, $1,675,230; Ontario, $1,333,166.
Question
[The following Items were passed In committee of supply]:



DEPARTMENT OF PUBLIC WORKS

[Stage Direction]
Public buildings construction and services- Acquisition, construction	and	improvements	of
public buildings-
Construction, acquisition,	major	repairs	and	improvements of, and plans and sites for, public buildings listed in the details of the estimates, provided that treasury board may increase or decrease the amount within the vote to be expended on individual listed projects-
329.	Newfoundland, $3,461,474.
330.	Nova Scotia, $1,175,000.
331.	Prince Edward Island, $96,000.
332.	New Brunswick, $1,625,000.
333.	Quebec, $9,477,000.
334.	Ottawa, $18,918,000.
335.	Ontario (other than Ottawa), $13,040,000.
336.	Manitoba, $1,695,000.
337.	Saskatchewan, $920,000.
338.	Alberta, $1,847,000.
339.	British Columbia, $2,010,000.
340.	Yukon and Northwest Territories, $2,458,400.
Public buildings-
Construction and services-
Acquisition, construction and improvements of public buildings-
Construction, acquisition, major repairs and improvements of, and plans and sites for, public buildings listed in the details of the estimates, provided that treasury board may increase or decrease the amount within the vote to be expended on individual listed projects-further amounts required-
592.	Newfoundland, $116,000.
593.	Nova Scotia, $1.
594.	New Brunswick, $380,000.
595.	Quebec, $2,260,000.
596.	Ottawa, $5,552,040.
597.	Ontario (other than Ottawa), $689,800.
598.	Manitoba, $135,000.
599.	Saskatchewan, $130,000.
600.	Alberta, $75,000.
601.	British Columbia, $275,000.
602.	Yukon and Northwest Territories, $271,000.
1203
[Stage Direction]
Tuesday, June 17, 1958