1958-06-24

EXTERNAL AFFAIRS


Right Hon. J. G. Diefenbaker (Prime Minister):: Mr. Speaker, last Friday I said that a note of protest would be sent to the Hungarian government expressing the strong disapproval of the Canadian government and the Canadian people of the execution of former Premier Nagy of Hungary and his associates. I now wish to inform the house that today a note was delivered to the Hungarian representative at the United Nations, the material portions of which are as follows:
The revulsion and shock manifest throughout the world at the news of the execution of Imre Nagy, former premier of Hungary and his associates, is shared by the government and the people of Canada. The fact that the victims were taken into custody after assurances were given by the Hungarian government that no sanctions would be taken against them and that they could proceed freely to their homes makes their execution the more reprehensible.
It is greatly to be regretted that the Hungarian government has seen fit to carry out these harsh reprisals which flout the principles of justice and worsen the international climate. In 1956 and in 1957 world opinion expressed itself unmistakably on the tragic events in Hungary through debates in the United Nations and in the report of the special United Nations committee of investigation. These executions are therefore considered by the Canadian government as part of an unjustifiable terrorist policy which is abhorrent to the people of Canada and which makes it difficult to maintain the hope that the Hungarian government, along with other governments of eastern Europe, will be able to move forward towards a more liberal dispensation for their peoples.


Hon. L. B. Pearson (Leader of ihe Opposition):: Mr. Speaker, I merely wish to associate the official opposition with the protest which the Prime Minister has made in such fitting terms on behalf of the government in respect of this horrible deed.


Mr. H. W. Herridge (Kootenay West):: Mr. Speaker, this group wishes to associate itself with the protest made on behalf of the Canadian people by the Prime Minister and to express our total lack of comprehension for this unnecessary cruelty and foolishness.


NOVA SCOTIA
[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Lester Bowles Pearson: I wish to direct a question to the Prime Minister, based upon a communication I have received from local 4527, United Mine Workers of America, and upon press reports indicating further cutbacks and mine closures in Nova Scotia. Would the Prime Minister state what action is proposed by the government to restore employment in the coal industry?


John George Diefenbaker: Mr. Speaker, in so far as the situation in Nova Scotia is concerned, there has been such an overproduction of coal that it has required action on the part of the coal producing companies. The suggestion was made that the federal government might place itself in the position of a guarantor in respect of certain advances to be made to the coal companies, thereby providing a continuance of production until such time as the accumulation of more than 1 million tons of coal has been sold.
This represents the situation at the present time, but consideration has been given to the representations which have been made. As yet, however, I am not in a position to say whether it would be appropriate from a constitutional point of view for the national government to take the action suggested. In addition, the whole situation is being canvassed with a view to ameliorating to the greatest possible degree the discomfort caused to the workers and their families through the temporary discontinuance of production.


UNEMPLOYMENT INSURANCE
[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. Hazen Argue (Assiniboia):: Mr. Speaker, I wonder if I could ask the Prime Minister whether it is the intention of the government to ask parliament to extend the seasonal benefits under the Unemployment Insurance Act, or whether he is taking any other steps

Inquiries of the Ministry to maintain or provide incomes tor unemployed persons in this country?


John George Diefenbaker: In so far as the earlier portion of the question is concerned, it is not the intention to extend still further the already extended period of seasonal benefit payments. In so far as the balance of the question is concerned, I would say that the question of unemployment generally is one which is receiving constant consideration, and when further measures are to be introduced parliament will be made aware of the government's intentions.



LABOUR CONDITIONS


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Hon. Paul Marlin (Essex East):: I should like to ask the Minister of Labour whether, in connection with the statistics given out this morning by the dominion bureau of statistics regarding the level of unemployment in Canada, the minister can say whether or not it is the case that there was a delay in making the survey on which these figures are based and, if there was such a delay, can the minister explain why the delay was possibly as long as 10 days?


Hon. Ellen L. Fairclough (Acting Minister of Labour):: Mr. Speaker, I have no knowledge with regard to the assumption made by the hon. member. I will look into it. I thought the figures came through at the regular time.



PUBLIC SERVICE


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Herbert Wilfred Herridge: Mr. Speaker, I wish to address a question to the Secretary of State for External Affairs based on the growing irritation of a number of prominent and well known Canadians at the intrusion of a form of American commercialism into the public life of this country.
Is it the policy of the government to permit United States controlled magazines published in Canada to exploit the good looks of members of the cabinet and the intelligence and knowledge of senior civil servants by the publication of photographs of and messages from any of these persons, in what is obviously a form of overt advertising on the part of the magazines concerned?


Hon. Sidney E. Smiih (Secretary of State for External Affairs):: In so far as this question relates to the Department of External Affairs, I would make the observation that pulchritude


is very frequently an effective medium in international affairs. I am wondering whether the hon. member is suggesting that less attractive pictures of the class to which he refers should be published.



INQUIRY AS TO PROCLAMATION OF ANNUAL VACATIONS ACT

[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Hazen Robert Argue: I have a question for the Acting Minister of Labour. In view of the desirability of having guaranteed holidays as provided by the Annual Vacations Act available to employees during the present holiday season, can the Acting Minister of Labour say when the government will proclaim the Annual Vacations Act which was passed by parliament during the last session and given royal assent on January 31?


Ellen Louks Fairclough: Mr. Speaker, the actual date has not been set yet for the proclamation. My hon. friend will realize that this is a rather complicated act. The regulations are still being reviewed, but I can assure him that an announcement will be made within a relatively short space of time, a week or 10 days.



URANIUM


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Lester Bowles Pearson: Mr. Speaker, I should like to ask a question of the Minister of Trade and Commerce arising out of the signing on June 6 of an agreement between the United States and Japan for the supply of 2,700 kilograms of uranium by the United States to Japan over a period of 10 years. My question is, does this agreement mean that Canada will not be called upon to supply uranium in commercial quantities to Japan during that period?


Hon. Gordon Churchill (Minister of Trade and Commerce):: I would have to look into this and see what quantities of uranium Japan is likely to require over that period-what their program is with regard to the development of power plants. I have not that information with me at the moment.



AUTOMOBILES


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Paul Joseph James Martin: Mr. Speaker, I wonder whether the Minister of Trade and Commerce is in a position now to give the results of an investigation which was to be

made into the sale of Canadian-manufactured automobiles which were destined for export to China, and were precluded because of action taken by another friendly country.


Gordon Minto Churchill: Mr. Speaker, this problem has exercised my hon. friend for some considerable time-


Paul Joseph James Martin: It has exercised my community.


Gordon Minto Churchill: -and I hope I can give him a satisfactory answer. I cannot say that there is any direct proof that the order was placed or that it was cancelled by action of another government. There is a law in the United States supported by regulations which prohibit subsidiary companies trading with communist China, and that law and the regulations have apparently acted as a restraint to trade on the part of Canadian subsidiaries.
With regard to what can be done about it, we are looking into the matter very carefully and we hope by negotiation to have some relaxation of this restraint in so far as Canadian companies are concerned.


Paul Joseph James Martin: May I ask a supplementary question. Can my hon. friend say whether or not representations were made by this government to the government of the United States?


Gordon Minto Churchill: Some preliminary conversations have been held. The question of official representations from government to government is a matter to be considered.



PIPE LINES


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. M. W. Marlin (Timmins):: Mr. Speaker, I should like to direct a question to the Prime Minister arising out of a news report in this morning's Globe and Mail.
In view of the support of the principle of public ownership of the trans-Canada pipe line expressed both by the present members of the cabinet while in opposition and by Premier Frost of Ontario, and in view of the resolution of the association of Ontario mayors and reeves convention opening in Stratford tomorrow, backed by the municipalities of St. Thomas, Owen Sound, Stratford, Welland-


Some hon. Members:: Order.


Murdo William Martin: -Woodstock, Peterborough, Simcoe, Paris, Ingersoll, Barton and Waterford, could the Prime Minister now
Inquiries of the Ministry assure the house and the Canadian people that the government still supports the principle of public ownership for the trans-Canada pipe line and so encourage these Ontario municipalities in their efforts?


Mr. Speaker:: That question poses a number of problems, including a problem for the Speaker. In so far as it deals with munici-cipalities and their mayors and reeves it is obviously a matter of provincial jurisdiction. In so far as it asks whether the government supports legislation which is on the statute books, it seems to me an unnecessary question to ask.



TRANSPORT


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Sidney Earle Smith: Yesterday, Mr. Speaker, the hon. member for Fort Arthur addressed a question to me which I took as notice. This question concerned representations that had been made by the Canadian government to the United States state department in connection with certain pilotage legislation now being considered by a congressional committee. I would interpolate here, Mr. Speaker, that there was no opposition to the principle of the bill expressed by the Canadian government. With the permission of the house I desire to table the text of the aide-memoire on this matter that was delivered to the state department by the Canadian ambassador in Washington on March 20, 1958.
I should like for a moment to comment on the nature of this representation. The aim of the legislation now before congress is to provide a means of ensuring the safety of navigation on the great lakes. The Canadian government strongly supports this objective. It is the view of the Canadian government, however, that for the attainment of that objective it is not essential for vessels to carry an accredited pilot or qualified officers during the passage through of the open waters of the great lakes, but that the interests of safety would be served by requiring vessels to carry pilots in certain designated areas.
May I have permission to table this aide-memoire?


Mr. D. M. Fisher (Port Arthur):: I gather from reading the transcript of the proceedings at the recent committee hearings that Senators Bricker and Lausche expressed the view that they were agreeable to a joint commission to
1560	HOUSE OF
Inquiries of the Ministry study this problem. Has the Canadian government at any time suggested that there should be a joint commission to study this particular problem?


Sidney Earle Smith: Not to my
knowledge, and the Minister of Transport concurs in that answer.


Hon. Lionel Chevrier (Laurier):: May I ask
a supplementary question. Is it not a fact that in order to put this legislation into effect on the portion of the St. Lawrence which is international, similar legislation will be required in Canada? Does the minister know whether or not such legislation will be forthcoming?


Hon. George H. Hees (Minister of Transport):: Yes, I would think it probably would be necessary, Mr. Speaker; and when we find out what the United States government does intend to do in this regard, then we will give this matter very serious study.


Lester Bowles Pearson: May I ask a supplementary question. Is this not a matter about which there should be agreement between the two countries before legislation is passed in either country?


George Harris Hees: We are not aware as yet exactly what the United States government does propose.
Yesterday, Mr. Speaker, the hon. member for Port Arthur inquired if my department had received any proposals from the shipping federation of Canada asking us to intervene to delay legislation proposed by the United States coastguard and now before the United States congress. Assuming that this question had reference to the matter of pilotage on the great lakes, I answered it in the negative.
I realized later, however, that while this answer was literally true it may have been misleading to the hon. member. In fact, while no recent representations have been received from the shipping federation we did receive representations from them several months ago. Those representations were not so much a request for us to seek to delay the United States legislation as an expression of opinion with regard to great lakes pilotage to the effect that pilotage, while necessary in restricted waters, was not essential on all the open waters of the great lakes. These representations coincided with our own views, and accordingly they have been brought to the attention of the appropriate United States authorities.


Douglas Mason Fisher: As a supplementary question to the Minister of Transport on the information he gave, I understood him to say that when the Americans complete their plans or


their ideas in this regard the Canadian government will consider them. At the present time a bill has passed through the House of Representatives and is due to be reported out of the Senate today. Since this legislation does provide for pilotage in areas that the Canadian government would consider unrestricted, what protests are planned to be sent?


George Harris Hees: I am not clear on the last part of the hon. member's question.


Douglas Mason Fisher: What protest is Canada planning to make to follow up the aide-memoire mentioned by the Secretary of State for External Affairs, since the effect of the bill that is about to be reported out of the Senate is to have unrestricted pilotage?


George Harris Hees: Mr. Speaker, after we have examined the American position I will be in a better position to advise the house of what our action will be.



WATER POLLUTION


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
George Harris Hees: Mr. Speaker, the hon. member for Richelieu-Vercheres referred yesterday to the reported dumping of oil by ships sailing below Montreal, and asked if any action has been taken by the department.
The Canada Shipping Act was amended in 1956 to deal with the oil pollution problem, and the oil pollution prevention regulations were made pursuant to the new provisions of the act. These regulations forbid the dumping of fuel oil from ships' tanks into the domestic waters of Canada. Notices bringing the requirements of these regulations to the attention of ships' masters are distributed on board ship by our pilots during the course of their duties.
The department is presently arranging for a boat to carry out patrols on the St. Lawrence river in the Sorel area. This boat should be in operation July 1, and it is the intention to institute proceedings against the owners of any ship involved in contravention of these regulations.



BROADCASTING


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
George Harris Hees: Mr. Speaker, yesterday the hon.
member for Skeena inquired regarding the

recommendation of the C.B.C. board of governors made at its December meeting for the granting of a private radio station at Kitimat. Fina^ action on this application has been delayed pending a clarification of matters which one of the owners concerned has before the department and the C.B.C. board of governors relating to another radio station.



NORTHERN AFFAIRS


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. Erik Nielsen (Yukon):: Mr. Speaker, I should like to direct a question to the Minister of Northern Affairs and National Resources. I am sorry I have not had the opportunity to give him notice of this question; he may wish to take this as notice. Can the minister inform the house of the action, if any, being or to be taken by his department to alleviate the very serious threat of extensive damage to private and public property and natural resources arising from four serious forest fires burning in the areas of Whitehorse, Liard, North Stewart and Takhini hot springs in the Yukon?


Hon. Alvin Hamilton (Minister of Northern Affairs and National Resources):: Mr. Speaker, all I can do is inform the house that we have been in conversation with the commissioner of the Yukon, who has informed us that the firefighting crews in these four areas are doing a fairly good job. He has also asked for extra assistance, which we are attempting to provide him by flying in four people from the parks department who have experience in fighting fires in mountainous areas, particularly where coniferous forests are involved. They will be leaving Edmonton this afternoon at 4.45 p.m. I have not had time nor has the department, I believe, to consider the question of damage to the sawmill on the Stewart, I think it is, or any damage that may have occurred in the neighbourhood of Whitehorse itself. I think the house will be relieved to know that the fire is checked within two and a half miles of Whitehorse. I have no information on the others beyond what I have just told the house.


Erik Nielsen: Where are these engineers or forestry people coming from who are being dispatched to the Yukon?


Francis Alvin George Hamilton: I think we are taking two from the park at Banff, one from Yoho and one from Jasper. They are being brought together today in Edmonton and will be flown to Whitehorse this afternoon.
Inquiries of the Ministry (Translation):



PRIVILEGE


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Lionel Chevrier: Mr. Speaker, on a question of privilege, I want to draw your attention and that of hon. members to the fact that today is the feast of the patron saint of French Canadians and that, in various centres of this country, celebrations are taking place to commemorate the anniversary of our national patron saint.
(Text):


John George Diefenbaker: Mr. Speaker, I followed what my hon. friend had to say, and while I cannot express myself in the French language I do want to associate myself with his remarks and to say on behalf of the government and the people of Canada that this is indeed a great day in Canada's history.



FINANCE


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. Harold E. Winch (Vancouver East):: wish to direct a question to the Minister of Finance. In view of the statement made by the Minister of Finance on the reduction or removal of taxation on certain goods, can the Minister of Finance explain the situation in his department if, when he announces in the budget speech the removal of a tax, we find the next day that suppliers of goods increase their prices to the same extent as the reduction of tax? Will he explain any action to be taken by his department?


Hon. Donald M. Fleming (Minister of Finance):: Mr. Speaker, the effective date of any changes in commodity taxes is normally midnight following the introduction of the budget. That is standard practice. The bills to follow have the effect, and this year will have the effect, of making the changes effective from midnight following the introduction of the budget proposals. If my hon. friend has any knowledge or any information concerning any particular changes that have been made in prices I should be glad if he would communicate that information, because he is aware that no increases were made in these commodity taxes. Decreases were made.


Harold Edward Winch: I have a supplementary question. When the Minister of Finance spoke on Tuesday he announced a reduction or removal of the tax on cut flowers. On the next day-
1562	HOUSE OF
Inquiries of the Ministry


Some hon. Members:: Question.


Harold Edward Winch: I am asking a question. As I say, on the next day in British Columbia cut flowers supplied by retailers did not have the tax, but the price of cut flowers was increased by the amount of the reduction in tax. Can the minister take any action in that regard?


Donald Methuen Fleming: Obviously that increase had nothing to do with the budget. I can assure my hon. friend that in many other places one can point to evidence where the price of cut flowers was reduced on the morning following the introduction of the budget.


Harold Edward Winch: I am asking the minister this question. If in the morning the price of cut flowers was increased by the amount of the reduction in tax, can he not take action in the matter?


Donald Methuen Fleming: I am not aware at the moment of any action to be taken. I would have to know a great deal more about the circumstances surrounding the alleged increase. But certainly the alleged increase has nothing whatever to do with the budget, because the effect of the budget was contrary to the action which the hon. member says was taken by the florists to whom he referred.



INCOME TAX


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. E. J. Broome (Vancouver South):: Mr. Speaker, I should like to direct a question to the Minister of National Revenue with reference to the death of 18 men, 16 of whom 1 understand were married, in the recent bridge collapse at Vancouver. Considering that workmen's compensation pensions will, I understand, allow only $75 a month pension for the widow, plus $25 for each child under 16, and in view of the fact that a Vancouver newspaper has started a fund for the benefit of these families, will the minister give consideration to all contributions to this fund being allowed as charitable contributions deductible for income tax purposes?


Hon. George C. Nowlan (Minister of National Revenue):: Mr. Speaker, the hon. member spoke to me about this matter earlier in the day. I have not had an opportunity to review the situation. As the house well knows, donations to charity which are deductible for income tax purposes-and there seems to be a host of them these days for which such deductions are sought-must first comply with the law with respect to charities
[Mr. Winch.)

as defined by the English common law and our law, and also must meet the requirements of the regulations of the Department of National Revenue. I certainly will take this matter under consideration, I hope later today or at the latest by tomorrow, and be able to give a definite answer to the hon. member with respect to this matter.



THE BUDGET


[Stage Direction]
The house resumed, from Monday, June 23, consideration of the motion of Hon. Donald M. Fleming (Minister of Finance) that Mr. Speaker do now leave the chair for the house to go into committee of ways and means, and the amendment thereto of Mr. Benidickson, and the amendment to the amendment of Mr. Argue.
Ernest James Broome: Mr. Speaker, yesterday the hon. member for Burnaby-Coquitlam took exception to the stand taken by the Minister of Finance with regard to his request that all sections of the Canadian economy try to hold the price and wage line, and that increases should be based upon increased productivity. As the hon. member must have known, because it is detailed in the budget speech, the minister expects a drop in revenue of $387 million, of which more than half or some $200 million is due to tax reductions made by this government, but almost all the remainder is due to a falling off in corporation profits.
Today I received a bulletin which gave the results of a survey of 1,069 manufacturing companies employing more than 441,000 people in 1957. It shows that profits dropped from 5.8 cents on each dollar of sales in 1956 to 5.2 cents last year, that is 1957. Of this 1957 profit, 2.3 cents went to shareholders and 2.9 cents were plowed back into the business with, of course, a resulting increase in employment opportunities. Over the last ten years, according to this survey which has been made, the average profits have been 5.72 cents on each dollar of sales, so the profits in 1957 were 10 per cent below the ten-year average.
Mr. Speaker, this government has turned this nation into a world trading nation, as compared with the inclinations of the previous government to limit us to a hemispheric trading nation. For instance, in 1957 we had the highest exports on record in Canadian history, and these include the highest exports ever known to the United States. This year, in the first five months the total exports achieved an even greater height than in 1957. In fact this year our total exports for the

first five months are $1,952.9 million as compared with $1,936.4 million in the first five months last year. This year United Kingdom and commonwealth figures are up from $378 million to $420 million and the United States figure is slightly down, by 1.8 per cent. But imports from the United States are down by $300 million and imports from the United Kingdom are up by $5 million. The effect of this will be corrective to a limited degree on our balance of payments deficit, which amounted to $1.4 billion last year.
The minister has pointed out that the chronic nature of our massive trade imbalance with the United States requires energetic corrective measures. These huge trade deficits, accompanied as they are by heavy increases in our long-term indebtedness to the United States, carry serious implications for the future health and economic independence of our country. The heavy concentration of our foreign trade on the United States means that the Canadian economy is extremely vulnerable to the United States economic and political climate, and to shifts in its trading policy.
I believe the minister pointed out that the proposed European free trade area represents a market which is equivalent in population to the United States. In that regard we must do our best to maintain our trade position with that area as it comes into being. I believe the government is doing a job which will have lasting and beneficial effects on our Canadian economy, as we will be less subject to the sudden fluctuations in the United States, although they will always remain our best customer, the customer who buys most of our goods and from whom we buy most of our goods.
We will, however, develop a very large trade with the rest of the world which will act as a balance wheel for this rather overwhelming north-south trade pattern as it exists today.
The Budget-Mr. Broome
I would like to say a few words with respect to the increases in pensions brought forward by the government, and also with respect to the indication that the civil service pensions are to be reviewed. It has been mentioned that some time during this parliamentary session some such measures will be introduced to this house. The condition of the superannuated civil servant who retired in 1948, or any time prior to that year, is rather unenviable, because the previous government did not keep the wage scale of the civil servants anywhere in line with that of industry. For instance, in 1946 a letter carrier received a salary of $150 a month whereas in 1957, ten years later, he received $300 a month. In 1948 a clerk grade 2 in the customs department received $1,860 a year, whereas in 1958 he will receive $3,150 a year. Because pensions are tied to earnings, the resulting pensions are proportionately low for those earlier years. With the consent of the house I would now like to place on record a table which I have prepared indicating the differences between 1946 and 1958.


Mr. Benidickson:: What is the source of this material?


Ernest James Broome: The official record.


William Moore Benidickson: From whom?


Mr. Speaker:: If the hon. member submits a table which he has personally prepared from official records, would he please indicate the extent of the table?


Ernest James Broome: About 15 lines, Mr. Speaker.


Mr. Speaker:: Is it agreed that this be inserted at this point in Hansard?


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


Ernest James Broome: The table is as follows:
FIGURES COMPILED FROM OFFICIAL RECORDS Customs Department
The amount of pension shown is based on the employee having been at his maximum salary for the last ten years of his contributory service and on the maximum 35 years of contributory service.
Classification	Salary 1948	Pension	Salary 1958	Pension	Increaset	t	$	$	Clerk	960.00	2400.00	1680.00	73.9Clerk, grade 2	1302.00	3150.00	2205.00	69 4Clerk, grade 3	1470.00	3600.00	2520.00	71 4Customs, excise supervisor, grade 1	
2880.00	2016.00	4350.00	3045.00	51 0Customs guard	1554.00	3360.00	2352.00	51.4Customs truckman	
2220.00	1554.00	3360.00	2352.00	51 4Customs warehouse foreman	
2580.00	1806.00	3900.00	2730.00	51.2Messenger	1134.00	2310.00	1617.00	42.6Packer and helper	1218.00	2910.00	2037.00	67.2Customs watchman	
1740.00	1218.00	2910.00	2037.00	67.2Customs excise officer, grade 2	
2880.00	2016.00	3900.00	2730.00	35.4
The Budget-Mr. Broome



POST OFFICE DEPARTMENT

[Stage Direction]
Monthly salaries and pensions, based on the same conditions as above.
		1946	1957	
Classification	Salary	Pension	Salary	Pension%	s	$	$150.00	105.00	300.00	210.00105.09	325.00 now grade 4	
grade 3	278.25180.00	126.00	397.50	
In regard to our trade pattern, the fact that our population increase was the highest on record, partly as a result of natural increase and partly as a result of the heavy immigration program, has tended to make our unemployment problems more acute, but at the same time is building up the domestic market which will in turn have a levelling and balancing effect on our internal economy. Because of our rapidly increasing population we should endeavour to have more manufacturing done in Canada. In 1957 the total production of passenger cars in this country was 340,016, while in 1937 the figure was 153,046.
In the 1930's the tariff schedule allowed the importation of parts from the United States on the basis that if total car production was 10,000 units or less and had a commonwealth content of 40 per cent, then the imported parts would be duty free. If it was 20,000 units or less the commonwealth content would have to be 50 per cent, and if it was over 20,000 units then the commonwealth content would have to be 60 per cent.
I would suggest that a review of the importation of parts used in automobile manufacture might very well show that there is room for a greatly expanded operation by the automobile companies on this side of the border, if they so desire, with a consequent increase in employment opportunities in this country. It may be that the content requirement might be increased, at least by some percentage; but in any event I feel some study of this question should be undertaken to see just what is involved and what can be done to increase manufacturing in Canada.
The hon. member for Essex East has bitterly complained time after time about the importation of United Kingdom cars and the fact that opportunities for employment in this country have been thereby decreased. I have checked into this matter, and I find that the importation of complete passenger and truck units during last year from the United States totalled about $75 million and the importation of European cars totalled around $54 million. There was a total of

15,298 passenger car units worth $46 million imported from the United States.
The sum and substance of this is that as we increase manufacturing in Canada we promote jobs; and because of the control of our manufacturing set-up-54 per cent of control being outside of Canada, mainly within the United States-there is a tendency on the part of the companies to concentrate their manufacturing operations in their parent plants, leaving the Canadian companies as assembly operations and distribution and sales organizations. This tendency to treat the Canadian company as a branch plant takes away from it the opportunity to develop foreign trade. It also minimizes the possibilities of expansion within this country. In other words, it is being operated in many cases for the benefit of the parent company, not only with respect to sales and how they should be carried on but also with respect to employment opportunities.
I am rather familiar with the field of engineering, and have been most distressed to find that wherever one goes one finds that many Canadian companies, besides a great number of the foreign-owned subsidiary companies and also some municipalities, seem to feel that Canadian engineers and architects do not have what they require and that they must go to the United States to secure these services. I believe that in all government contracts a clause should be inserted to the effect that such services shall be supplied from within Canada. We should take the lead, thereby influencing our junior levels of government to follow along the same lines.
I have in my hand a clipping from the Toronto Telegram of April 15, 1958, in which it is stated that individual engineers, who insist on remaining unnamed, are being replaced by United States engineers. It also mentions that the contract for the improvement of the city approaches to the skyway just outside Hamilton was let to engineers from outside the country. There are undoubtedly many engineering problems which require specialized skills not available in Canada, but in general the Canadian engineering and architectural professions can take care of the great bulk of our requirements.

I could not close without making at least one or two references to the benefits which I believe will ensue from the appointment of the Borden commission on energy. I attended several of the hearings in western Canada, and I can assure the house that the commission is doing a tremendous job. This is a job which needed to be done and will, I am sure, result in a much healthier atmosphere in the oil and gas industries. The problems of commercial preference, of markets in the northwest, of the Montreal market, are all being investigated to the end that there should be greater markets for Canadian oil and a greater utilization of petroleum resources through manufacturing carried on in our country.
Mr. Speaker, I believe the Minister of Finance has done a job which was incomparably more difficult than that which faced any of his predecessors, and that he deserves the thanks of this nation for having brought forth a budget which I feel is so clearly tailored to meet the needs of this country.
Mr. H. J. Michaud (Kent, N.B.):: Mr. Speaker, the budget is the instrument by which the commitments made by the party forming the government are translated into concrete form. Envisaged in this aspect, never has a budget sounded more paradoxical than that presented by the Minister of Finance on June 17. Indeed, we all have vividly in our minds those broad and glowing commitments which were made by the present government during the recent political campaign.
Here are a few of those commitments: the lowering of the general level of taxation; a special public works program; increased assistance to municipalities; guaranteed prices to fishermen for their fish; full employment to all; reduction of the gross national debt; a balanced budget and the stimulating of trade.
Just how many of these commitments are to be implemented following the forecast made in the context of the budget now before this house? Very few and scanty budgetary items are there toward the fulfilment of those countless promises. To the average wage earner of the country, to the Canadian taxpayer, to the industrialist and the businessman, to the farmer, the fisherman, the miner, to the hundreds of thousands of unemployed, visions of yesterday have become the delusions of today; dreams of the past have dissipated, to make room for anxiety and concern in the future.
Mr. Speaker, it has been said that too much time has been taken by the individual members of this house to speak of the needs of their respective constituencies. Little
The Budget-Mr. Michaud wonder, in the light of the economic conditions prevailing in every section of the country, that individual members feel it their duty to voice to the responsible legislative body of the country, that is the government, the wants of their constituents. As the representative in this house of the people of Kent county, I feel I would be remiss in my duty if I failed to tell this government of the uncertainty, in some cases of the distress, of my constituents at the present time.
While the government lays great claim to its so-called huge public works program to create employment, I respectfully submit that the sources of employment in my own province of New Brunswick have drastically declined as compared with immediate past years. Hundreds of workers who secured employment at Camp Gagetown during the last four or five years are idle, unable to secure further work on that project. Hundreds of workers who in the past were employed on government projects at Labrador are tediously waiting for recalls which are not forthcoming. Hundreds of woodsmen who found gainful employment in the flourishing pulp and lumber industry in the immediate past stand idle in the face of this sudden stagnation in that industry.
While the Minister of Public Works loudly proclaims that thousands and thousands of people have been put to work under a special works program, the number of unemployed workers in our province remains at unusual heights. I ask the government to give immediate attention to this crucial situation before a full-scale depression such as we have already had in this country again fully develops.
I do not hesitate to state what has already been stated often in this house; that if it were not for the various social measures brought in by the preceding Liberal administration, such as old age pensions, family allowances, unemployment insurance and so on, we would now be living in economic conditions as depressed as those of the early thirties. It is all very well for the government to maintain its attitude of self-contentment when these critical situations are called to its attention. The people are no longer content with this display of inertia and indifference on the part of the government, and with its failure to act as promised to remedy this depressed state of affairs.
Surely there are projects to be initiated in the maritime provinces which could provide employment at the present time. I indicated one which, I submit, is of major importance, in the course of my speech during the debate on the address in reply to the speech from the throne, namely the

The Budget-Mr. Michaud Chignecto canal. If this project was important enough to warrant the Prime Minister's attention during election time, surely it should warrant that same attention as a means of relieving unemployment. There are many other useful projects of a similar nature, and with the same usefulness of purpose, that should command the attention of this government in the present circumstances. What our working class expects is nothing less than what it has a right to expect and what was solemnly promised to it by this government-work which will permit them to sustain themselves and their families. I urge the government to act now.
I should like to take advantage of this budget debate to deal specifically with one of the most important sectors of our economy, agriculture. During the last two election campaigns our farmers have been led to believe by the Conservative spokesmen, and particularly by the Prime Minister, that they can expect a completely new deal from the present government and a solution to all their many problems. It is still too early to judge the record of the present government in this regard, but I want to say to the hon. ministers opposite that we will be watching their activities very closely and will do our utmost to see that they live up to their election promises. In addition, anything we can do to force the hand of the government in this matter we shall certainly do.
Representatives of all parties agree that the situation in which the Canadian farmer finds himself today is not satisfactory. In many parts of the country our farm economy has not kept pace with the progress and development of some other aspects of our economy. Many of the problems with which farmers are faced today are extremely complicated; and some of them, such as the marketing of surplus products, have international complications.
In the area which I represent, the problem which concerns us most is the preservation of the family farm. The family farm is the very basis of our society in New Brunswick, and indeed in most parts of Canada. But today the family farm is in danger of being wiped out in the face of competition from large scale industrial methods applied to agriculture. Let me give you but one example. In many parts of Canada today, broiler chickens are being produced in vast numbers by commercial organizations under conditions and in quantities with which our farmers cannot compete. There is a tendency on behalf of these large commercial companies to get

control of all phases of agricultural production and marketing. This is a real danger for our farmers, and that is why I feel everything possible must be done to assist the family farm to survive.
All those who are sincerely interested in the welfare of the Canadian farmer are aware of the many steps taken by the Liberal government in recent years to assist the farmer. I think we have reason to be proud of the system of price supports, credit facilities through the Canadian farm loan board, the freight rate assistance on feed grain and the assistance through the maritime marshland rehabilitation administration, and so on. These measures, and the efficient administration of our economy which brought it to such a level of prosperity, are amongst the main reasons why Canadian farmers, helped by the Liberal government, were able to pull themselves out of the depressed conditions which existed under the last Conservative government from 1930 to 1935.
During the last campaign our Liberal leader, the hon. member for Algoma East, outlined further steps which the Liberal party would strive to take on behalf of the Canadian farmer. This program included a system of deficiency payments to supplement our price support system under wheat, oats, barley, flax and rye. The hon. member for Algoma East also outlined his plan to create a farm loan bank which would take over the whole matter of farm credit financing on the federal level. This farm loan bank would make available at reasonable rates longterm, medium-term and short-term credit to assist the farmers in purchasing the necessary equipment or land to establish healthy economic units. It would have as one of its principal functions the assistance of young farmers in getting established on their own, just as the Veterans' Land Act did, which was established by the Liberal administration in 1945 and which made credit available to ex-servicemen returning to the land.
I think most hon. members with any knowledge of farming will realize that this is one of the most important steps that could be taken to keep our family farms intact, and to assist young Canadians who want to remain on the land. It is also one of the most efficient ways of enabling the farmer to produce at prices which will enable him to compete both on the home market and abroad.
Another item in the Liberal program toward which we are working is legislation to make it easier to improve farm homes. Under the National Housing Act much has been done to assist Canadians to build or purchase adequate housing, but unfortunately

for the farmers most of this housing has been constructed in our towns and cities. It is for this reason we feel it is very important now to take specific steps for the purpose of assisting our farmers to improve their homes or to build new ones if they desire. I am not suggesting specifically how it could be done, but I think either the National Housing Act or a farm loan bank, such as I have outlined, could undertake this task.
Of course one of the most important things a government can do for the farmer is to maintain and expand our markets abroad. I am convinced that the free trade policies outlined by my leader are more likely to assist the farmer in this regard than the return to high tariffs and protection, which is obviously the policy of the Conservative government. We all know that our Canadian farmers-


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


Hervé J. Michaud: After I am through, if you do not mind. We all know that our Canadian farmers can only survive and prosper under conditions of the freest possible international trade. If the present government is going to lead us into a war of restrictions and counterrestrictions with our United States neighbours and other good customers, then it will be our farmers who will suffer. In the maritime provinces assistance should be provided to promote and facilitate the establishment of vegetable canning factories to meet our maritime needs, thus helping to keep for our local farmers an industry which properly belongs to them.
During the 1957 campaign the present Prime Minister proclaimed from one end of the country to the other that he was going to introduce a bill of rights for the Canadian farmer, and that he was going to assure to Canadian farmers a level of income comparable to that of other Canadians. Of course this is an ideal we all want to realize, but I suspect that the Prime Minister is already finding it is easier to make a statement like that on the election platform than to back it up by action. While the Agricultural Stabilization Act introduced at the last session of parliament has not been in force long enough to assess its true value, we do know that it is not meeting the needs of the Minister of Agriculture or doing what the Prime Minister said it would. There have been many complaints from both farm organization and farmers about it. The recent announcements of support prices under certain agricultural products indicate that the government intends to do nothing more than put a distress price under a few agricultural products, and
The Budget-Mr. Michaud that these distress-price supports are likely to be of little value in the face of rising costs.
I was rather surprised when I read that the Prime Minister, speaking in Summerside on February 27, during the last election campaign, said according to a report in the Toronto Daily Star of February 28, 1958, that there is a distress price in Canada below which all agricultural prices cannot fall. Of course all hon. members who have read the Agricultural Stabilization Act will realize that only nine agricultural products receive this support. Producers who want other products protected must convince the government of the need to do so. One such product which is not adequately protected is potatoes. If the Prime Minister believes that this act covers all agricultural products I invite him to announce a price for this year's potato crop which will assure the farmers of New Brunswick a fair price in relation to other products. I would apply these remarks to the potato growers of other provinces, such as Prince Edward Island.
As was said in an editorial in the Charlottetown Guardian on June 7, when the price supports on soya beans were announced:
Surely, no one would claim that soya beans, which have been given protection, mean more to the Canadian economy than potatoes.
In view of the constant fluctuations in the market price of potatoes it is particularly important for producers of this important crop to have some assurance that they will receive a fair price for their crop each year. The Minister of Agriculture is quoted as saying he wanted to be sure that a potato surplus did in fact exist before giving his approval to a floor price. The editorial in the Charlottetown Guardian, to which I referred, concludes:
That ought not to be a difficult thing to ascertain. Our understanding is that the officials who went from here to Ottawa to discuss the problem, told officials that there is a surplus. What need is there for further inquiry?
Earlier this month a delegation from Prince Edward Island, headed by agriculture minister Eugene Cullen, came to Ottawa to urge the government to have potatoes placed under this act. I hope the Minister of Agriculture and his colleagues will soon meet this request. While I am on the subject of price supports I should like to draw the attention of the house to a quotation from the Prime Minister's speech of February 26 last in Rimouski concerning price support for pulpwood. I quote from the Toronto Daily Star of February 27, 1958:

The Budget-Mr. Michaud "I hope (Mr. Diefenbaker said) that the advisory committee and the stabilization board (which administer the price support act) will give consideration to including farm produced woods, so that they will know the lowest price they will receive in a year, in advance."
I am sure all farmers who cut pulpwood on their farms during the winter months will look forward to an early announcement by the government on this subject, especially since the Prime Minister stated in his speech at Rimouski that representations had already been made by the producers to have such price support established.
It is because of the professed interest of the Conservative spokesmen during the election campaign in the welfare of our farmers that we have awaited with interest the government's pronouncements on policy. We were surprised and disappointed to find a contrast between the great promises made on the election platform and the very brief references to the farm economy in the speech from the throne and in the budget address last week. As a matter of fact, the Canadian farmer is certainly the forgotten man as far as this budget is concerned. All this budget means to him is higher prices through protectionist policies, and because the government is doing nothing to fight rising costs.
We had hoped that the government would announce a plan to put into effect its promises concerning the extension of credit to farmers. It is true that there is a bill before the house for the purpose of increasing the resources of the Canadian farm loan board by some $2 million. Is this the completely new deal Canadian farmers have been promised to assist them in obtaining long-term, medium-term and short-term credit? This step is all the more surprising in view of the fact that Conservative candidates throughout the country stated during the campaign that the farm loan board was not the answer to the farm credit problem, and that new steps would be taken.
The Canadian Federation of Agriculture must be very disappointed as well. In their brief of June 2 to the government they urged that loans under the farm loan board should be increased to $20,000, and the loan period increased to 40 years. They also urged that the percentage of appraised value of real estate available as a loan be increased, and they urged a reduction in the rate of interest charged. Another recommendation was on a specific system of supervised loans for young farmers and marginal farmers. They also urged that farm improvement loans be made available at a lower interest rate, namely 4J per cent, and that longer periods for repayment of loans on farm machinery should be provided.

Furthermore, the Canadian Federation of Agriculture urges a specific program of emergency loans to help farmers stricken by natural disasters. Such loans should carry no interest unless unnecessary default in payment is shown. Surely this step will recommend itself to the government, because they are on record during the campaign as favouring immediate adoption of a nationwide system of crop insurance, a policy incidentally, which has also been advocated by the Liberal party.
In the same brief to which I have referred the Canadian Federation of Agriculture expresses the hope that something will soon be done to set up such a system of crop insurance. I have stated that the problems facing our farmers are complicated. It was because the former prime minister, Right Hon. Louis St. Laurent, realized this that he took the important step of having set up the Senate committee on land use. Mr. St. Laurent hoped that the recommendations of this committee would serve as the basis of a new national policy to assist in the preservation of the family farm and to assure the best possible use of our land resources. Unfortunately the Conservative government has shown little enthusiasm for this committee, which has so much to offer to the Canadian farmer. At the last session of parliament I believe it was set up very late in the session and met only a few times. I urge the government to do everything in its power to assist this committee to arrive at its conclusions as early as possible.
In conclusion, I remind the government that it has a solemn commitment to the Canadian farmers, and it is our intention to see that they live up to that commitment.


Frank Charles McGee: Will the hon. member permit a question now? When he was reading his speech-I think he will find it about at page 8-he mentioned Liberal free trade policies of his party. I was wondering whether he would like to elaborate on this and tell us what they were?


Mr. Habel:: It is no use; the hon. member would not understand it.


Donald Methuen Fleming: Where were they expounded? Is there no answer?


Mr. Harris Rogers (Red Deer):: Mr. Speaker, as I rise today to make my first contribution in this House of Commons I do so with a deep sense of humility, pride and respons-iblity. Responsibility goes with the appointment. That is what I like to call legal authority, without which one's representation would be passive rather than active.

Today as I stand here, Mr. Speaker, I am thinking of a different type of authority, something that is achieved by hard work, built up brick by brick, day by day, the mutual confidence between my constituents, this assembly and myself. This is what I like to call earned authority. It is something we have earned; it cannot be taken away from us. By the same token, you can take it with you as recompense for service performed.
Now, inasmuch as this is my first effort, I would like to take this opportunity to add my warm congratulations to Mr. Speaker on his appointment. I would also like to add my congratulations to the Deputy Speaker and, moreover, to the two gentlemen who moved and seconded the address in reply to the speech from the throne. They did so with dignity and substance, and I think set a standard which has been somewhat difficult to follow.
Now, Mr. Speaker, I look upon this effort of mine today as a sort of prelude to something more at a later date. Since I have been in the House of Commons I have got the impression that a member of parliament coming from a constituency must adopt a different outlook, a national outlook, a broader outlook. I agree, sir, in principle because the heart of parliament is right here in Ottawa. However, we cannot forget the fact that a heart must have arteries, and those arteries must be kept open. If people are to have a say in the government of the day they certainly must be kept in contact.
As a little background, I come from a province which made a clean sweep in the last election. I think it might be of interest to make some deductions on just how the people were thinking and how that achievement came about. Primarily I think we westerners decided that the time had arrived when we must try to keep in tune with the rest of Canada. I think, too, that the Prime Minister had a lot to do with it. His sincerity and ability certainly made the election easier. On top of that, I think the people decided that we must have a strong government nationally and internationally.
To add a little more to the background, I should like to say a few words about my constituency. Red Deer is a city whose growth has been accelerating and continues to do so. It is the centre of one of the most progressive and productive mixed farming districts in Alberta. The constituency encompasses such towns as Innisfail which, incidentally, got a post office last year; Olds, where the school of agriculture is located; Didsbury, which needs a post office; Three Hills, which also got a post office last year;
The Budget-Mr. Rogers Sundre, the gateway to the west where there are fishing, lumbering and oil interests; Rocky Mountain House, farther west again, the gateway to a lumbering region; and Sylvan Lake, a well known summer resort. In passing may I say that I am very happy that the Department of Public Works is spending $40,000 on the pier at Sylvan Lake.
I said that the constituency of Red Deer is a productive and progressive mixed farming district. We are quite proud of some of our breeders who are well known right across the dominion and certainly take their share of honours at the Royal every year. The economy of the constituency is definitely dependent upon agriculture. It is supplemented, it is true, by some oil, lumbering and tourist activities, but basically we are only as prosperous as is agriculture.
Agriculture is the foundation of our country. Western Canada has the distinction of not only growing the highest quality wheat in the world but of being able to produce it at the lowest cost. On the other hand, the wheat growers find that they are dependent on the export market, and in that market they have to compete with countries where the growing of wheat is subsidized. Unfortunately the export market sets the domestic price as	well.	Today	the wheat
growers are selling wheat at away below the cost of production, and something certainly has to be done by way of deficiency payments.
The agricultural	game is so	mixed	up
that it is very difficult to explain. Our farmers are versatile, and when they cannot get a fair price for wheat they go into the raising of stock. But the situation boils down to this fact, that if we do not do something for the wheat grower we will have to do something for the beef producer, and certainly we will have to do something for the dairy producer immediately.
The government	has	moved	rapidly	tomeet the problems of agriculture by providing advances on farm-stored grain and setting up the price stabilization board. These are steps in the right direction but, as I said before, they are not enough and some consideration must be given to the wheat grower. I submit,	Mr.	Speaker, that	the
western wheat growers are the only group who have made any contribution toward meeting inflation. It has been forced, it is true; nevertheless that is a fact.
Apart from the wheat problem, dairying, which plays a very important part in our constituency, would appear to be in for some trouble. Unless additional markets are developed or subsidization is provided, the industry is going to be in serious trouble. There are

The Budget-Mr. Rogers some bright spots such as the beef and swine situations. This is due mainly to the United States market for beef; but with the exception of a group of well to do and more strongly established mixed farmers, agriculture is experiencing one of the most difficult periods in its history. The rural population is urban bound. New, young farmers, caught in the price squeeze before becoming firmly established, are either hanging on by their boot tops or giving up the struggle. Furthermore, older farmers who should retire are unable to do so, and their sons are adding to the difficulties of the unemployment situation.
I submit, Mr. Speaker, that measures such as that outlined by the government to provide long term credit, with a minimum ceiling of at least $20,000, would serve a dual purpose. It would give a number of young farmers an opportunity to become firmly established and would put them back on the farms on a fulltime basis instead of being in urban centres looking for employment. Long-term credit would give the older farmer enough cash to move into a town or city and permit his son to carry on the farm.
In this connection I contemplate supervised credit and, if I may be so bold as to say so, in the interests of economy and sound administration I suggest that such credit facilities should be administered by the director of the Veterans' Land Act administration. I have a reason for making this suggestion. I worked with the Veterans' Land Act administration for a number of years, and I can say first of all that they have field men strategically located across our great dominion. A second factor is that the work under the Veterans' Land Act has reached its peak. I think it will go down from now on, and there is no reason why the staff should not be maintained.
No better job could be given to them than that of supervising such credit. The important factor about such a move is that these field men are experienced. They are accredited appraisers, but above all they are willing and anxious to work as a team with the borrower and his family. They are not merely men interested in routine. They give everything they have to their job. They are interested in citizenship and not simply the farm. I could not be stronger in my recommendation that when a supervised long-term credit scheme is established it should be administered by the Veterans' Land Act officials.
I was amazed at the preceding speaker expounding what the former Liberal administration had done for the farmers. I think this government can take a lot of credit for what has been done. I should like to read a few extracts from The Organized Farmer, the monthly publication of the farmers' union

of Alberta. This is the organ or the mouthpiece of the Farmers' Union of Alberta, a non-political organization, an organization that likes to think it represents the farmers and in the main does so. I quote:
About one year ago now the farm union sent a large and representative farm delegation to Ottawa to press for government action to help solve the farm problem. The welcome mat was not noticeable when we arrived. The then Prime Minister was too busy to see us. I think that when we left Ottawa it was the opinion of most that we had convinced members of parliament that there was a farm problem, but few of us believed that we would see much done about our program in the near future.
What does this say? This is speaking of the Conservative government:
Yes, it has been a year of solid accomplishments. Those who took part in the delegation, those who served as information officers in Ottawa, those members of parliament and of government who supported our program, those local people who helped design the program, and those who have canvassed year after year and worked hard to keep our organization going, and the plain ordinary member who contributed only money-all these deserve credit for the job that has been done-
Despite long hours in the house, in cabinet meetings, and in the administration of their departments, we have always had an opportunity to present our case. Sometimes it has been late at night and other unorthodox hours, but always we have had a hearing. It would have been easy for them to have avoided these sessions but they did not choose to do so-*
It is in such an environment that farm problems can be solved. If government and farmer continue to work hard, and work together, as they are learning to do, then the great problems of agriculture can be solved and we can have the kind of agriculture that we farmers have been working for these many years.
I submit that that is a different attitude from that of the previous administration. It is not the whole answer. The trend is there. There is a definite indication that this government is preparing to work with the farmers, the backbone of this country. I may say they saved us in two wars and will probably save us in another one. That is why we must look after this industry.
There is another problem that is facing this country. I refer to the burden of taxation on our municipalities. I believe that the municipalities in the province of Alberta have the second largest per capita debt in the Dominion of Canada. With the accelerated growth in certain cities the burden of replacing and extending facilities has reached a point where something must be done to equalize the tax structure. I am pleased to note that the budget offers some relief in this regard. However, I am sure that the ordinary land owner and the ordinary taxpayer are looking to the proposed conference of the municipalities with the federal government in September when it is hoped that,

after a full analysis has been made, a way will be found for a fairer and sounder equalization of taxes.
Since I have been in this House of Commons unemployment has been the key subject of discussion. I submit that this is a problem that affects us all. However, I do not know whether talking about it is going to do much good. The funny thing about unemployment is that it seems to create a fear in people who have work. They want more work. I think this is not only a problem of the government and of the opposition parties but of every Canadian as long as one fellow Canadian is without work. It will not do much good to tell the government about the unemployment situation. This is the responsibility of every Canadian in Canada and I am not so sure that every Canadian in Canada is doing too much about it.
For instance, I know of certain Canadians who have three jobs and whose earnings are increased to the extent that they are earning more than their boss, in the amount of $8,500. There seems to be a grabbing fear that strikes Canadians when unemployment hits and they seem to say: "Let's get all the money we can get". I maintain that if we can provide one job for one household we shall be doing a fairly good job. If we have any feeling at all for our fellow Canadians, I think that is what we should try to do.
Public works are going to set a pattern to help out the unemployment situation. But I think it is up to the leaders of industry and the leaders of labour to make a survey in order to find out just how people are working; and if they have three jobs or two jobs when one is sufficient, I think we shall have to take a stand somewhere and say, "One job for one".
Certain things can be done by the government. In Red Deer our number of unemployed was the largest in history last year; at that time some 2,100 were unemployed. The situation has improved considerably since that time and I am told that it is expected that the situation will be rectified. However, as far as my constituency is concerned, I am not so much disturbed about this summer because I believe most people will be put to work. On the other hand, we are all worried about the recurrence of unemployment next fall.
As I said before, our economy is dependent upon agriculture. If agriculture goes down, then the rest go down with it. If it is prosperous, we prosper as well. In other words, we farm the farmer. We need secondary industries. We have growing suspicions that many of these small industries coming to this country are sidestepped to
The Budget-Mr. Rogers the east when in fact they should be sent out west where, in respect of living conditions, they would have much more in common with the place they left. I know that we must have secondary industry. No matter how we get it we shall have to get it. That would help.
The second factor is this. The government, through their public works, could be of assistance. This has been put up to me by construction contractors because I made a survey before I came down here. They say that if public works would let their contracts in the fall for spring contracts it would mean employing a number of men because these same contractors would have something firm on which to work. They could hold more of their staff, get their machinery in shape and do certain things such as brushing, moving rocks and so on. In any case they have staff there which they are reluctant to let go and if they have any excuse at all they would hang on to them and give them something to do whereas, under the present plan, where they have not a contract and do not know if they are ever going to get one, the work does not start until about the end of June. There are many measures which could be taken to improve this situation.
The unemployment situation has caused great concern to the people of Canada and this problem is not going to be settled merely by talk. We have to do something about it and if we face the facts I think we must do something about it.
So much for local problems, and now I would like to commend the Minister of Finance (Mr. Fleming) on his presentation of the budget. The minister's ability to formulate and present facts in proper sequence was indeed a revelation to me. No thinking Canadian expected much tax relief and it was therefore refreshing to witness the courage and wisdom of the minister in bringing down a realistic budget well suited to the difficult problems which exist in our country today. One of the most important functions of government is the bringing down of the budget and I believe that the minister, in bringing down his budget as quickly as he did, has provided a much needed stimulant for our economy.
It was simply not possible to provide more relief by way of tax reduction, but it is only human nature to hold back from making purchases in the hope of such tax relief being afforded. The budget does, however, offer some relief to the ordinary Canadian in respect of assistance to municipalities and to farmers and has provided an incentive for exploration and development to be carried

The Budget-Mr. Rogers out by the oil industry. There are many other smaller concessions and some measures which should appeal to all Canadians. I particularly have in mind the estate tax replacing the present succession duty. This measure will provide great relief to widows, allowing them an exemption up to $60,000 with an additional amount for each of three children. Estate duty has been a matter of great concern to many of our countrymen and as a matter of fact before the budget was brought down I had received five letters on this subject.
The proposed amendment to section 35 of the Customs Act in order to stop unfair dumping of foreign goods will also relieve much hardship. Of course it is true that our industry must stand up to reasonable competition. Competition is the lifeblood of trade but to allow dumping is an entirely different question and is certainly unfair to industry and labour in Canada.
The amendment to the Income Tax Act in order to allow corporations to make gifts of up to 10 per cent of income, the intention being to increase the flow of money from these sources to higher education, will I know considerably help the universities. Their need is most apparent and this will provide an overdue boost for them.
As a new member of the house I must say the criticism advanced thus far by the opposition has been totally unreasonable and is just a smoke screen to hide the facts. Opposition members condemn the deficit budget but imply, on the other hand, that the budget does not go far enough in order to get industry in motion and thus relieve our unemployment situation. Of course you cannot have it both ways. It would not be courteous or, for that matter, prudent for me to say too much with respect to this criticism but so far as I am concerned nothing can beat democracy. However, to judge from the proceedings in this house democracy is certainly a slow grinding process. I suppose one gets accustomed to it and I hope I will. We have reached the point in our history where we must decide whether we will continue to be a producer of raw materials or whether we shall process those raw materials.
This is no time for complacency; there are vital problems to be solved and an appropriate part must be played not only by the government but by the opposition parties and the leaders of industry and labour in the solving of these problems and in the advancement of our culture. I submit that anything less is a betrayal of our fellow Canadians.


Mr. Frank Howard (Skeena):: Mr. Speaker, I have listened to the various presentations in this debate and I think the greatest commendation of the proposals advanced by the C.C.F. group, outlined in our subamendment, came from those sitting on the government benches. There was one slight exception, but as I have listened to the speeches and have read Hansard I have not found one instance of any government member opposing the subject matter contained in that subamendment. The exception, of course, was when the Minister without Portfolio (Mr. Macdonnell) in a very gracious way made reference to the speech of the leader of the C.C.F. as free-wheeling, gassy and windy. However, he did not go into any detail with respect to his remarks.
It is therefore obvious at least from the silence of hon. members opposite, that there is plenty of support for the subamendment which we placed before this house. I predict, of course, that if and when a vote is taken the government will not dare to allow a free vote on it. In fact, following the lead of the present Minister of Finance (Mr. Fleming) when he was in opposition, I would go so far as to challenge the government to undertake that there will be such a free vote, and if that is done, it should not be considered a motion of want of confidence. I make this request just as the Minister of Finance used to do when he sat on this side of the house, but I am sure that neither he nor the government will undertake to accept this particular challenge, for they know just as well as I do the surprise that would be experienced when the result of the vote was made known.
Before we get into too much detail on the budget itself, there is one subject I should like to mention; one that may be considered rather a delicate topic for a member to raise publicly, especially so soon after an election. But I understand from reading newspaper reports that some of the newly elected members of this house, members who were elected under the auspices of the Conservative party, have expressed some ideas and opinions on this matter, though so far in this house I have not heard much about it. I refer to the indemnity structure provided for members of parliament. While this may be considered an impractical thing to discuss, and while it may also be a politically unwise subject to discuss, because certainly we are one of the few groups in society which could be accused of increasing its own salaries, I should like to pursue this matter a little further.
I am not dealing with this question of increasing the indemnity. I should like to

deal with the inequalities which at present exist in the structure of the indemnity as it relates to members from urban areas as against members from rural areas. As any hon. member knows who represents a rural constituency-one which covers many, many square miles; in some cases, thousands of square miles-great cost is involved in attempting to get around such extensive areas and in keeping in touch with the various organizations in the small communities throughout the constituency either personally or by telephone. Skeena, for instance, has an area of about 127,000 square miles, which constitutes almost one-third of the entire area of the province of British Columbia. In fact you could put the whole three maritime provinces twice over into the constituency of Skeena and still have room for a fairly large area for an hon. member to represent.


Mr. McCleave:: Is that what the Gordon commission meant by deportation?


Frank Howard: What did you say?


Robert Jardine McCleave: I asked the hon. member somewhat frivolously if that was what was meant in the Gordon report by deportation?


Frank Howard: If you ask frivolous questions you will get frivolous answers.


Robert Jardine McCleave: Right. Let's have the
frivolous answer.


Frank Howard: There is no need for an answer. You gave it yourself.
In any event, it is necessary to travel these vast constituencies by all available means of transportation; automobiles, boats, planes and, as some people have facetiously said, by dogsled. This applies to the Mackenzie constituency, to Yukon and to the Cariboo and to a good many others. In my opinion the indemnity structure should be equal in its application to all hon. members and I believe an adjustment should be made based on the geography of the constituency. I have no great opinion as to the amount of the difference, one way or another, but I hope that as a result of this suggestion the government and the Minister of Finance in particular, will be encouraged to provide some more decent arrangement whereby members would be enabled to keep in touch with the large constituencies they represent.
In the course of last session we had what was classified as a baby budget in which a few changes were made in the fiscal policy of the government. I should like to deal with one of these in particular. During that session the Minister of Finance introduced an amendment to the Income Tax Act to provide for some relief for construction workers as
The Budget-Mr. Howard far as income tax is concerned. That in itself was a fair and just change to have made, but I would say that all it did was merely to aggravate what was already a discriminatory provision of the Income Tax Act and worsen it by making a change affecting one group of workmen and not others who are similarly placed. I refer, of course, to the logging section of the lumber industry on the coast of British Columbia, to loggers in other parts of the country and to other employees who are in exactly the same position as construction workers inasmuch as they have to leave their places of residence and go to some other part of the country to realize an income.
When this matter was raised last session the Minister of Finance said at that time that the only representations that had ever been made to the government for changes in this respect related to construction workers. Of course, it was brought to his attention that such was not the case and that other representations had been made to the previous Liberal administration about this matter, and the hope was expressed that the minister would look at the representations which were made to the previous administration and bring in additional changes to the act this year. That is one of the major complaints I have to make concerning the attitude of the Minister of Finance as compared with the position he took last session. I have the honour to be a member of one of the locals of the International Woodworkers of America in British Columbia which over the years has been greatly concerned about this discriminatory feature in the Income Tax Act and which has made continuous representations not only to the Minister of Finance but to members of the House of Commons in previous parliaments about the changes which were thought necessary.
As some hon. members may be aware, loggers, particularly on the coast of British Columbia, spend seven, eight, nine or ten months maybe, depending on the area in which they are working, away from their homes. Weather conditions on the coast of British Columbia necessitate at least twice during the year the loggers being laid off from their employment and having to pay the cost of transportation back to their own homes, and these homes are normally in the lower mainland. When conditions allow for the resumption of work in the logging industry they have to pay their fares back to camp in order to start work again. In the winter time heavy snow on the coast of British Columbia tends to shut down work, and in the summer, because of the hot dry weather-as is likely to be the case this year, and as was the case particularly in 1951- other shut-downs take place. So the men
1574	HOUSE OF
The Budget-Mr. Howard have to pack their bags or suitcases, pack their hard hats and caulked boots and head back to Vancouver.
In terms of the money a man has to expend out of his own pocket for fares to get to these logging camps, that varies from $1 to $2 for logging camps near Vancouver up to $100 or $125 for logging camps farther up the coast.
The board and lodging charges are also extra burdens. We have been asking for years and years to have changes made in the Income Tax Act to allow loggers to deduct the amount they spend for board and lodging charges in camps, especially when these loggers are maintaining a home and family in some other part of the province. This means they are maintaining a second home in the bunkhouse where they live while they are working. Some adjustment should be made in the income tax provisions as they apply to this type of worker. I mention loggers particularly because I know them. I have worked in the logging industry and I know the problems that they have quite intimately. The mere fact that I have not mentioned in detail other working people who are similarly situated does not mean that I do not have the same amount of sympathy for their problems as I do for the loggers. I can only hope at the moment that some time in the future the Minister of Finance will undertake to make this long overdue and very necessary change.
There is another question of discrimination which arises out of this particular budget, and which has been in effect for many years. I have often wondered if there was any connection betwen the word "Tory" and the word "discriminatory". I see by looking at this budget that it is quite easy to draw that inference, and that is probably how the pseudonym of "Tory" came about in the first place. For many years the coast of British Columbia has been discriminated against, as compared with the Atlantic coast, when it comes to assistance for shipping facilities, for passenger and freight services. I am not implying in any way that the assistance given to the Atlantic provinces for shipping facilities should not be given. I am merely pointing out the great difference in attitude that has been evidenced in past governments, and this one as well, in connection with shipping on the British Columbia coast as compared with shipping and passenger facilities on the Atlantic coast.
How many millions of dollars have been spent in years past in either acquiring or building vessels for the east coast, and in payments of subventions to shipping on that coast, I do not know. The amount could be


determined, I imagine, by totalling the figures in the various estimates during the years past. However, the amount of money that British Columbia obtains for the same type of service, passenger service and freight shipping facilities, is a mere pittance when compared to the amount which has been given to provinces along the Atlantic. This year, for instance, in direct payment from the Department of Transport for the construction and acquisition of vessels for use along the Atlantic coasts and for subventions or subsidy payments to Atlantic shipping, the Atlantic provinces are obtaining a little less than $5.25 million, compared with the amount allocated for subventions for shipping on the British Columbia coast of about $332,000. This means that about 15 times more money has been allocated to the same service on the Atlantic coast than has been allocated to services along the Pacific coast.
Passenger service by ship along the coast of British Columbia has deteriorated. Some years ago the service was not too bad. There were adequate facilities serving the small communities and logging camps. However, the attitude of the government has been to leave coastal shipping service along the coast of British Columbia in the hands of some fly-by-night, two-bit ship operators who are not concerned with providing service but merely concerned with travelling to the most lucrative areas and charging whatever rate they can get. These shipping companies in British Columbia gradually deteriorated and many of them have gone out of business because they were trying to cut corners on costs or because they did not know what they were doing which resulted in ships piling up on rocks, with loss of lives and the ships themselves ruined beyond the possibility of reconstruction. I am not referring to the strike that is now in effect against the Canadian Pacific because it only covers a small portion of the shipping lanes along the coast of British Columbia, the area between Vancouver and Vancouver island and one run up the coast. This strike is something which arises out of labour-management negotiations. However, if subsidies are necessary in order to maintain the operation of these vessels, then subsidies should be granted just as they are granted in many cases to shipping companies along the Atlantic provinces.
The only solution to this problem, and the one which we have advocated for many years now with regard to shipping on the coast of British Columbia, is operation by a crown corporation. In this way we would ensure that adequate facilities are provided and that service could be curtailed or increased when necessary. If the shipping facilities along

the coast of British Columbia were under one crown corporation, the entire operation could be co-ordinated so that the profitable runs would be able, to some degree if not completely, to offset the non-profitable runs and the runs which must necessarily be put into effect in order to provide service first. We could worry about profit and loss statements afterwards. We are asking for fair treatment in this regard.
An important deficiency in the budget, apart from the fact that the major problem throughout the nation is one of unemployment, is the failure of the budget to take any cognizance of the high personal taxation that is in existence today and which has been in existence for some time. Some of us had the privilege of hearing about unemployment today from a delegation of unemployed who appeared in the railway committee room and who came from various parts of Ontario. I refer to this high personal taxation not because it affects everyone but because it reflects the insincerity of this government. If one wishes to arrive at a decision in this regard, he only has to compare the many speeches and the pages of Hansard that hon. members opposite used to fill when they sat on this side of the house and the election promises that they made both before this last election and before the one in 1957 as to what this Tory group would do if they ever got into office when it came to reducing income taxes or increasing exemptions, and compare that with the budget. As you well know, Mr. Speaker, that is the subject matter of the subamendment now before us.
Whenever I want something amusing to read I can always find it by reading the annual presentation the Minister of Finance made when he was sitting on this side of the house. I am sure if he has a few hours to spare from his regular 18-hour day, if he would re-read some of these speeches he made when he sat over here they might prick his conscience a little bit and make him realize the necessity for making this adjustment in the personal income tax and increasing the exemptions, which course he so loudly espoused not many months ago, to $1,500 for single people and $3,000 for married people.
We know that election promises are easy to come by. We know that prior to 1957 the Conservatives had all sorts of fanciful promises to make; we also know that it is now quite obvious they had no intention of keeping them. Whether I can, I do not think I should make any reference to the integrity of the Minister of Finance because I know that even though he appears to be reading he has one ear cocked on the words that are issuing forth from this corner and would be only too quick to jump to his feet-
The Budget-Mr. Howard
Mr. Pallet!: He would not miss much if he could not hear a word the hon. member is saying.


Frank Howard: I thought there was going to be some interjection loud enough for me to hear.
Mr. Pallet!: I merely said he would not miss much if he could not hear a word the hon. member is saying.


Frank Howard: It is obvious that he would not miss very much because I am referring only to what he said two years ago. In any event, promises are easy to come by. The Minister of Finance, before he was Minister of Finance and while he was Minister of Finance during the last election campaign, made many of them, most of which were irresponsible. When it comes to looking for action arising out of those promises of tax cuts, what do we get? Nothing. There is no reference to relieving the burden that has been resting on the shoulders of the taxpayers of this country for many years, placed there originally by what he used to classify as the high tax party, the Liberal party. When we look for action we do not get it. The only action we get reminds me of the Saturday night wrestling matches that we see on television once in a while, a mixture of comedy, errors, drama, foolishness and deception.
There is a little blue book that I like to refer to once in a while. I am sure every hon. member opposite has seen it. It is called "the new national policy". It contains verbatim quotations from speeches of a fellow called John Diefenbaker. I do not intend to go into all of them today; I just want to point out-


Some hon. Members:: Go ahead.


Frank Howard: What I would do would be
once again to point out the deliberate deception that has been perpetrated upon this country by that party-


Mr. Bigg:: Read from it and you will be
reading some sense.


Frank Howard: There is lots of sense in
here, Mr. Speaker. This is an example:
The government seems to think that it is good for the souls of the Canadian people to overtax them and to have honest Canadians pushed around and pilloried by income tax snoopers.
Furthermore, we believe that a major reason for the serious trade situation is that we are being taxed out of the markets of the world by unnecessarily high taxation.
The same Prime Minister who made these sensible comments made this sensible comment when he spoke to the Canadian Congress of Labour convention recently in Winnipeg. He told them that we were pricing ourselves out of the trade markets of the world because
1576	HOUSE OF
The Budget-Mr. Howard the working man was getting too much in wages. You cannot be sensible in two ways. If you are going to be progressive and if you are going to use one of those words "Progressive Conservative" and try to be a party that goes ahead by going backwards or going backwards by going ahead or whatever "Progressive Conservative" means, then we have an example of it today. But it is absolutely necessary to make those adjustments in taxes just as was advocated by hon. members opposite, obviously in an insincere way because they did not believe it or do not adopt now the same type of attitude they adopted when they were in opposition.
We have heard comments or questions or interjections occasionally on this question of tax adjustments or reductions in personal income tax from the other side as to where we are to get the money from. I have heard that on two or three occasions. It seems to me the only obvious way to attempt to get out from under an embarrassing position is to attempt to ask embarrassing questions such as, where are we to get the extra money from? If you raise income tax exemption obviously you are going to cut down on the income of the federal treasury. We have to find the money somewhere to provide those social services. Well, of course, I thought that is what a Minister of Finance was employed for, to find answers to those questions; but if you want the answers from the opposition we are more than willing to give you the benefit of our knowledge, knowing full well that one of these days the party opposite will become as desirous of pilfering sections from the program of some other parties as the Liberals were when they were in office. When that time comes we shall be pleased to give you more suggestions and pleased to see you accept them.
But there are one or two inequities which exist in the taxation legislation of this country which have been brought to the attention of the Minister of Finance on many occasions. It would not do any harm to have them brought to his attention again today. In the first place, this is the most iniquitous one. It relates to the portion of our income tax which goes into the old age security fund for the payment of old age pensions, the so-called 2-2-2 formula. The two per cent personal income tax has a ceiling of $60 placed on it. This is one place where we suggest the minister could get the additional income. He should connect the all-inclusive payment of old age pensions, which means that they are received without any means test, with payment without any means test and remove the ceiling of $60 payments to the old age 

security fund. Based on the 1955 taxation statistics this would probably mean an additional $20 million.
If we were to return to the percentage of corporation tax that was charged a few years ago we could realize an additional $112 million to $115 million of income based on 1955 statistics. The 20 per cent tax dividend which gives a legal tax dodge to some people who get their income in a certain way should be done away with and it would give us even more. So far as the capital gains tax is concerned I know the minister opposes it if he has not changed his mind since he was in opposition. He has changed it on a great many other things, but I doubt whether he has changed it on this. How much money we could receive in income from a capital gains tax is more than I know. There are no statistics available. There is no breakdown in the taxation statistics or anywhere else, at least that I have been able to find, as to the amount of income available from a capital gains tax.
One of the most perplexing things that I have tried to do is to attempt to classify this budget and what terms we could apply to it.


An hon. Member:: Glowing.


Frank Howard: I have not used the word
glowing in this anagram that I have drawn up, but I have picked another word starting with "g" that makes it even more acceptable. But there is a better way to immortalize the name of the father of the budget and that is by using the initials of his last name in drawing up a number of adjectives to apply to the budget. Let us run down the letters which make up his last name. We find that we can very easily define it as "fleecing", "limp",-


An hon. Member:: Lovely.


Frank Howard: "Empty", "mean", "mercenary", "insincere", "nauseating" and the last one is "greedy"; "iniquitous" is another one for you. Fleecing, because it continues to exact a heavy toll from individual taxpayers and still robs the man in the lower income group; limp, because the natural milk of human kindness, which farmers particularly need, has been left out of the recipe; empty, because it is empty of any principle or philosophy except the principle of meanness, meanness to old age pensioners, retired civil servants, retired railway employees and others in similar fixed income groups; insincere, because it obviously abandons and has no connection whatsoever with election promises or with the comments hon. gentlemen used to make when they sat over here; nauseating, because it rebuffs the legitimate request for food in the stomachs of the unemployed and their

families; greedy, because it obviously means more and more cost without any concomitant amount of services related thereto.
Incidentally, if some hon. members had attended a particular meeting held today at which a presentation was made to the cabinet by a number of people who used to be workmen but are now unemployed they might have been able to participate in a more sensible fashion instead of adding to the nausea created by the budget by making equally nauseous interjections.


Mr. G. C. Fairiield (Poriage-Neepawa):: First of all, Mr. Speaker, I should like through you to convey my best wishes, and I hope the best wishes of the house, to the Canadian nursing association for the successful convention they are holding. I should like to compliment the Minister of Finance (Mr. Fleming) on his most difficult task in explaining so clearly the economic aspects of the country resulting in the budget we have had presented to us. To inherit the very difficult mantle of the finance ministry even at the best of times assures one of some unpopularity with the taxpayers, no matter how generous the minister in question may be, but to have assumed this role during a time of economic recession makes the task even more arduous since the minister must walk the knife edge between recession and inflation.
The opposition members, particularly those who so recently occupied this side of the house, have called the budget a blue budget and they have criticized the minister for not reducing taxes more as they would have done, so they say. I would think they would be more grateful in that they now may write off their expenses for eye glasses because that party has had a reputation for shortsightedness for some time. I should like to assure the opposition that the Canadian people are not too easily fooled by these cries of distress. If there were an opportunity in the very near future the result at the polls might be even more devastating than it was on March 31.
What I wish to say now does not in any way reflect the opinions of this party or any other individual but myself. I do not think the Canadian people are cognizant of the increasing peril under which they live. I should like to forestall opposition comments by saying that it is not a political peril but one which became obvious to me when, last October, the first sputnik was successfully hurled into its orbit around the world.
Since time immemorial, whenever a tribe or a state under the domination of at least one person has felt assured of its superiority in weapons it has struck without mercy at its
57071-3-100
The Budget-Mr. Fairfield neighbours and other tribes and nations either to enslave them or to obviate any real or imagined dangers of counter-invasion. We have had instances of that in the last half century, particularly in the last two decades. Despite the opinions expressed by some people that an all-out nuclear war could not be visited on us merely because we cannot bear to contemplate it without panic is to dodge the issue rather than to face it.
In my opinion, Mr. Speaker, and I must repeat that it is mine alone, no greater danger has ever faced the Canadian people than at the present time. The target is not now Europe but North America, and again I sincerely believe that there is a very real possibility of nuclear attack within the next year. Let us not imagine that because missiles have their origin thousands of miles away their accuracy is in any great doubt. I think those of us who were in London at any time during the V-2 barrage of the last war will remember the destruction caused by those earlier and very much simpler weapons.
I had the privilege at one time of being selected, along with other Canadian doctors who were veterans, to attend a course at Washington on atomic bombs and warfare some time before the H-bomb was exploded. The effect of the A-bomb was considerable but the effect of the H-bomb is overpowering. When one considers the effect of one ton of high explosive-


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: Order. I regret to interrupt the hon. member but it being five o'clock the house will now proceed to the consideration of private and public bills, the former having precedence, pursuant to standing order 15, paragraph 3.



PRIVATE BILLS

Mr. Deputy Speaker:: As there are a number of bills standing for consideration in committee of the whole, is it agreed that all these bills be referred to the committee of the whole in one motion?


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.



CONSIDERED IN COMMITTEE-THIRD READINGS

[Stage Direction]
Bill No. SD-1, for the relief of Valija Zvirgzds Kazaks.-Mr. McCleave.
Bill No. SD-2, for the relief of Joyce Florence Taylor Larman.-Mr. McCleave.
Bill No. SD-3, for the relief of Kathleen Margaret Coffin Barre.-Mr. McCleave.
Bill No. SD-4, for the relief of Freda Bernadette Godin Headland.-Mr. McCleave.
Bill No. SD-5, for the relief of Bruno Bedard.-Mr. McCleave.
Bill No. SD-6, for the relief of Stefania Sobol Wojtowicz.-Mr. McCleave.
[Stage Direction]
Private Bills
Bill No. SD.-7, for the relief of Elizabeth Antonie Hartmann Elstermann, otherwise known as Elizabeth Antonie Hartmann Von Elstermann.-Mr. McCleave.
Bill No. SD-8, for the relief of Ruth Ellen McMullin Gosnell.-Mr. McCleave.
Bill No. SD-9, for the relief of Beatrice Bellamy Drysdale Scott.-Mr. McCleave.
Bill No. SD-10, for the relief of John Ronald MacCuaig.-Mr. McCleave.
Bill No. SD-11, for the relief of Edith Ann Van Horne Beattie, otherwise known as Beverley Ann Van Horne Beattie.-Mr. McCleave.
Bill No. SD-12, for the relief of Constance Lilias Crawford Booth.-Mr. McCleave.
Bill No. SD-13, for the relief of Henry Krupa.-Mr. McCleave.
Bill No. SD-14, for the relief of Ferenc Tamas Kalman Laczko.-Mr. McCleave.
Bill No. SD-15, for the relief of Olive-Jane Frances Piper Sinclair.-Mr. McCleave.
Bill No. SD-16, for the relief of Rhoda Carin Burack.-Mr. McCleave.
Bill No. SD-18, for the relief of Julia Switnicki Kobel.-Mr. McCleave.
Bill No. SD-19, for the relief of Eric Dun-stan Martin.-Mr. McCleave.
Bill No. SD-20, for the relief of Hazel Margaret White Jackson.-Mr. McCleave.
Bill No. SD-21, for the relief of Mary Stepko Berryman.-Mr. McCleave.
Bill No. SD-22, for the relief of Jewel Evelyn Bockus Yeo.-Mr. McCleave.
Bill No. SD-23, for the relief of Clarence Leonard Sproule.-Mr. McCleave.
Bill No. SD-24, for the relief of Geraldine Avonne Dixon McNaughton.-Mr. McCleave.
Bill No. SD-25, for the relief of Jean-Louis Ducharme.-Mr. McCleave.
Bill No. SD-26, for the relief of Emery George Nemeth.-Mr. McCleave.
Bill No. SD-27, for the relief of Alfreda Rose Celina Gigot Kyriazis.-Mr. McCleave.

[Stage Direction]
The house in committee on Bill No. SD-17, for the relief of Evelyn Grace Blakely Mullins -Mr. McCleave-Mr. Rea in the chair.
On clause 1-Marriage dissolved.
Robert Jardine McCleave: Mr. Chairman, before the committee considers these divorce bills I should like to point out a matter which was raised in the standing committee with reference to Bill No. SD-17. According to the evidence presented to the committee of the other house or rather from a transcript of

the evidence as it appears before us, the age of a child was given as five years. In that particular case this would have meant that the child had been born after the petitioner had been deserted by her husband. On investigation I find that this "five" was a misprint and that the child's age is actually eleven years. This would have meant that the child was born before the couple separated. I thought the house should have that information because one of the members of the committee, namely the hon. member for Brantford, had raised the matter in the committee.


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


Lionel Chevrier: On division.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Rea):: Is it agreed that all the divorce bills be passed in one motion?


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


Lionel Chevrier: On division.


Robert Jardine McCleave: the third reading of Bills Nos. SD-1 to SD-27 inclusive.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Rea):: By unanimous consent Mr. McCleave, seconded by Mr. MacEwan, moves that bills numbered SD-1 to SD-27 inclusive, being divorce bills appearing on today's order paper as items Nos. 34 to 60 respectively, be now read a third time and do pass. Is it the pleasure of the house to adopt the motion?


Lionel Chevrier: On division.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Rea):: On division.
Motion agreed to on division and bills read the third time and passed.



CONSIDERED IN COMMITTEE


[Stage Direction]
Bill No. S-2, respecting the Protective Association of Canada.-Mr. Boivin.
Bill No. S-3, respecting the Mercantile and General Reinsurance Company of Canada Limited.-Mr. Morton.


Mr. Noel Dorion (Bellechasse) moved: the second reading of Bill No. C-20, to amend the Juvenile Delinquents Act.

He said: As stated in the explanatory notes, the purpose of the amendment suggested by this bill is to provide for the absolute secrecy of reports, files and records in connection with the trial of juvenile delinquents and to provide further that such records and files be destroyed after a period of five years from the date of such trial. I do submit, Mr. Speaker, that this amendment meets a social need and, in addition, is in accordance with the spirit of the Juvenile Delinquents Act. Indeed, subsection 2 of section 3 is enacted in the following terms:
When a child is adjudged to have committed a delinquency he shall be dealt with, not as an offender, but as one in a condition of deliquency and therefore requiring help and guidance and proper supervision.
Section 38 underlines still more the legislature's intent in the following terms:
This act shall be liberally construed to the end that its purpose may be carried out, namely that the care and custody and discipline of a juvenile delinquent shall approximate as nearly as may be that which should be given by its parents, and that as far as practicable every juvenile delinquent shall be treated, not as a criminal, but as a misdirected and misguided child, and one needing aid, encouragement, help and assistance.
These two sections are all the more important as they are inspired by the factors and conditions which contribute to juvenile delinquency.
Obviously these factors are numerous and manifold. But one of the most important is surely the family's conditions. In a work entitled "The Juvenile Offender", published some years ago, Professor Clyde B. Vedder, of the University of Florida, stresses the influence of home and family in the following terms:
It cannot be overemphasized that a child's family is the most important influence in shaping his personality and character. In this profound primary group the child acquires his basic ideals and a sense of right and wrong. Here he first experiences social interaction and becomes conscious of standards, goals, values and the formulation of judgments. Here he is a member of the allunit of society, the first stage upon which he learns to imitate his elders as he begins his awakening into a fuller knowledge of the world about him.
The general purpose of the Juvenile Delinquents Act is precisely to give to the child who is the victim of his environment the help and guidance and the proper supervision which he did not find within his own family. In his very interesting work entitled, "Belief and Action", Viscount Samuel recalls the psychological fact that:
Among the ordinary supports of morals in everyday life we may see that habit is of the first importance. The normal person is not constantly reflecting whether he shall be honest or not; he is honest by habit and as a matter of course.
In order to root this habit in his conscience, the juvenile delinquent should be treated not 57071-3-I00J
Juvenile Delinquents Act as a criminal but as a misdirected and misguided child. In its summary of recommendations, the committee appointed to inquire into the remission service of the Department of Justice of Canada recalls this fundamental rule with respect to the administration of justice:
Some means should be found whereby the courts, at all levels, may be made more conscious that the purpose of punishment is the correction of the offender and not mere retribution by society.
This truth is especially to the point when the offender is a youth and, generally speaking, is not truly the only one responsible for his conduct. It follows that society has no right to give him harmful publicity and still less to make him carry a police record through his life like a millstone around his neck.
In my professional practice I have sometimes had the opportunity to note how unscrupulous are certain organizations. I have in mind particularly those companies whose business it is to make investigations for the benefit of certain finance or insurance corporations. Even in the army it does happen that an old record of a former juvenile delinquent is a handicap to his promotion in spite of the fact that his present conduct and qualifications are excellent.
Twelve years ago in the district of Quebec there was formed a social service to work for the rehabilitation of juvenile delinquents. Since that time this organization has rendered great services to our society and in October of 1956 at the conclusion of a symposium, many resolutions were passed, two of which I would like to quote as follows:
(Translation):
3. This meeting wonders whether an adult considered as rehabilitated, who has given proof of good behaviour during a period recognized as long enough to dispel any fear of relapse, should benefit from a privilege on the part of the authorities, concerning the existence of a police record.
And then, number 7:
7. Dr. Gauthier suggests that the records of young delinquents do not constitute in any way for them a true police record and that they should not be revealed to any individual nor any society.
(Text):
My suggestion to this house was in fact inspired by those resolutions. As a result of the proposed amendment anyone not engaged in the administration of justice or in the rehabilitation of juvenile delinquents will be denied access to existing records. Moreover, after a period of five years from the date of the trial of any juvenile delinquent his or her records and files would be destroyed so that he or she will really feel a normal citizen who henceforth has the

Juvenile Delinquents Act right to a free and complete existence in society, rather than being considered as some sort of untouchable.


Mr. G. H. Aiken (Parry Sound-Muskoka):: Mr. Speaker, I feel I have some justification in rising to speak to this bill because I have spent some five years in juvenile and family court work. I am entirely in favour of the principle of the bill which would make the records of juveniles inaccessible to the general public, to the magistrates' courts or indeed to any persons other than to officials of the juvenile courts themselves.
There are two principles involved in this bill, as a matter of fact, firstly with respect to the availability of the records to other authorities and, secondly, with respect to the destruction of those records when they have completed their usefulness to court authorities.
Many juveniles appear before juvenile courts today who would not formerly have done so. Many offences brought before juvenile and family courts are of a very minor character and the authorities take this course in order to draw the attention of parents, teachers and the juveniles themselves to the fact that these children have got slightly out of line with the accepted practices in the adult world.
As the member who introduced the bill has stated, the juvenile delinquent is no longer treated as a criminal but is now treated as a person having need of special care and assistance in the hope that he or she will eventually become a useful citizen.
Before the Juvenile Delinquents Act came into effect juveniles who got into difficulties were brought before magistrates, with some very undesirable results. In the first place the provisions of the Criminal Code stated that juvenile cases must be heard last and that the court must be cleared. This resulted in many instances of juveniles, brought to court for minor offences, having to sit in court for at least part of an afternoon listening to the sordid stories told in magistrates' courts. This may have resulted in the juvenile's education having been widened but I believe the knowledge of adult delinquencies would be harmful to these children.
Since the Juvenile Delinquents Act has been in force and its application has become more widespread throughout the country, it has been proclaimed throughout the different jurisdictions and people are now becoming more familiar with the procedure in bringing children before juvenile and family courts. The jurisdiction of the magistrate was very limited before the introduction of this
[Mr. Dorion.l
legislation. He was limited to dismissing the charge against the child or placing him on suspended sentence or fining him. In these circumstances, a large number of very minor offences were never brought to the attention of the authorities and as a result the juvenile felt he had got away with whatever he was doing and was left with some disposition to try it again. Perhaps on the second occasion it became a much more serious affair and the very benefit of what he might have received in the first instance was gone.
I would turn up, if I may, section 20 of the Juvenile Delinquents Act as it now stands to indicate the type of punishment, if it can be called that, which a juvenile court can now impose on a juvenile. First, it can suspend final disposition. This type of disposal of a case is most often used where a juvenile has become involved in some very minor offence. Suspending final disposition shelves a matter as effectively, in fact as it is sometimes shelved in this house by sending questions to committees or some other place. Suspension of final disposition is used quite often, but there is nevertheless a record that a particular juvenile has been brought before a court and found guilty of some offence even though that offence may be minor in character-it might be nothing more serious than riding a bicycle on a sidewalk contrary to some local by-law although it could also be something more serious in connection with the transgression of a provincial or federal statute. But regardless of these distinctions it must be a minor matter, and the whole affair is passed over, and as far as the courts are concerned, forgotten.
This, I think, is the main type of case which the hon. member who introduced the bill is trying to protect. These are the children who have stepped out of line once, as all of us have done at some time before reaching maturity and becoming acquainted with the standards which the people of this country expect from adult persons. In these circumstances I think it would be most unfair for a record of such a juvenile to be kept and held against him as what one might call a criminal record.
These children are brought before the juvenile courts nowadays at any age after they have reached the age of understanding. I have known them to be brought before the courts at the age of eight or nine years where there has been a serious infraction of the law. The law would not normally expect these children to understand the seriousness of their acts, nevertheless it has been something sufficiently serious to make it necessary for some action to be taken. In this particular type of case I think it is only fair that two things should happen: first, that the record should

eventually be destroyed and, secondly, that the juvenile involved should know that the record is being destroyed.
One of the things which cause second offences as far as many of the authorities are concerned is the fact that when a person has been found guilty and convicted of some offence he feels that that is against him for the rest of his life, and for that reason he may not find it very difficult to go out and commit another offence. But if he could feel that though he had transgressed to some extent the laws of the country while he was small, he had been forgiven by the public; if he could feel that there was that much understanding among the authorities of this country, and that his slip would never be held against him when he had reached maturity, then I think there would be a much greater incentive for that juvenile to try to forget his little slip completely, having in mind that it is not engraved permanently on the court records.
Another thing. Quite often I have found that these juvenile court records were being improperly used by police, magistrates and other persons concerned with the administration of justice. The basic idea behind the Juvenile Delinquents Act is that these juveniles shall be considered as persons in need of help. There are very strict rules governing juvenile courts which say that no names shall be published in the newspapers and that no publicity shall be given to juvenile cases. This is all intended to serve one end, namely that a juvenile who has committed a minor offence shall be allowed to recover without the stigma of a record. Yet there have been many instances where police have gained access to these records in some way or another and have immediately become prejudiced against a particular child, even though he might have been only 11 or 12 years old at the time he committed the offence.
Likewise, as the law presently stands, there is nothing to prevent a record being passed from a juvenile court to an adult court and there held against a defendent. This, again, is not what was intended by the Juvenile Delinquents Act. In some provinces magistrates are men with legal training, but in many provinces they are not, and these records are very important as far as the security of cases is concerned. I am not sure, offhand, that there is any province which requires that a magistrate should be a man with legal training, but in any case, having before him the record of a juvenile who has been in trouble before might give a magistrate the feeling that perhaps the boy has a predisposition for
Juvenile Delinquents Act getting into trouble and that therefore he should be taught a good lesson. I say that these records should not pass into the hands of an adult authority once a boy has reached the age of 16, at least in the province of Ontario-it is 18 in some other provinces- the age when he becomes an adult in the eyes of the law.
There are several other dispensations that juvenile and family court judges may make of a juvenile court case. They may adjourn the hearing for an indefinite period. So far as the criminal law is concerned this is a definite departure from previous well-established principle which states that no criminal case can be adjourned sine die. Under the Juvenile Delinquents Act this can be done, and in many cases an adjournment without a further date being specified is a form of suspended sentence.
Then, thirdly, the judge of the juvenik court may impose a fine not exceeding $25 which may be paid in periodical amounts or otherwise. The use of a fine is quite common. In some cases it is found to be quite useful punishment if a child is made to pay for some damage he has done, that is malicious damage to property such as breaking windows or even knocking the glass insulators off telephone and telegraph poles. They do not realize that these things cost money. However, if there is a fine imposed and the child is ordered to pay that fine himself within a stated period he can often be persuaded, with the co-operation of his parents, to do a certain amount of extra work and by the time he has paid off a fine of $25 for breaking windows he may not find that a suitable occupation in the future.
However, Mr. Speaker, these are things that all of us have done, but we have not all been caught. All of us during our youth I think, have been involved in some such things as breaking windows, and even more serious vandalism, when involved with a group of people or a gang that is bent on making trouble. Yet the Juvenile Delinquents Act recognizes that these boys are not basically bad and that when they have reached the age of maturity they will learn better. It is with that in mind that the limitations have been placed on what can be done with children.
There is another penalty that the juvenile courts can impose, and that is to commit the child to the care of a probation officer. This practice is becoming more and more prevalent in the provinces of Canada. I can speak mainly for the province of Ontario because that is the province in which I was involved. This province is building up a very effective probation service, both for juveniles and adults. It has come into being within the last

Juvenile Delinquents Act seven or eight years. I believe that the person most responsible for it was the Reverend Dan Coughlan, who was taken into the department of the attorney general and given a job to do. He has done that job. The probation service in Ontario is now at its peak. Probation is provided for both adults and juveniles, but at the moment we are concerned with juveniles. If a judge believes a child is running into difficulty because of the neglect of his parents, he can place him directly under the control of a probation officer. In most such cases the probation officer requires reporting and so forth, and keeps an eye on the boy to see that he does not get into any trouble.
In most cases, these children are left in their homes and they are ordered to report to the Children's Aid Society or to a probation officer. The court can also place such children in foster homes, if these children are not being properly looked after at home. They may be placed in the care of the Children's Aid Society.
Again in this case the court is recognizing the fact that it is not the child's fault but the fault of the parents when he is taken from his own home and placed with some one else or with the Children's Aid Society. It has often been said that there are more delinquent parents than there are delinquent children, and I think there is a lot of truth in the statement. A good many children find themselves in difficulty before they reach an age of understanding because the parents have merely neglected to give them any assistance, rather than by reason of the fact the parents have led them into any path of misdoing. Regardless of whether it is the result of neglect or malicious bad example on the part of the parents, it is recognized that it is not the child's fault. In such a case, again, we come back to the same principle that when the child reaches an age of understanding he should not have all these childhood things to cope with and have prejudice created in the mind of the public.
In closing on this question of penalty, I might say there are some cases of a very serious nature. There are cases of boys, of the age of 15, who have not reached adult age, but who have become involved in armed violence. There have been a few involved in cases of murder. In these cases, no matter how serious the offence, they are still within the jurisdiction of the juvenile court. If the juvenile court feels that these cases should be dealt with in the adult court, then the judge has authority to send the case on. Having sent it on to the adult court, it then becomes a matter of record in such adult court. In that case there is no particular reason for

holding back the records. This particular section of the Juvenile Delinquents Act would not apply.
With that background, Mr. Speaker, I would just take a couple of minutes to deal with the two principles involved. The amendment to section 12 of the act provides in general terms that no one who has had the custody or control of a juvenile delinquent, and no one who has charge of the records, shall communicate the contents of those records to any other person not a judge, magistrate, probation officer, superintendent or other officer connected with the administration of justice. I think, to a large extent, this practice is now followed in most of the courts, but that is purely an administrative matter. In other words, those people who have had experience in juvenile work are well acquainted with the fact that some agencies would use these records to the disadvantage of the individual, particularly in so far as employment is concerned. If a young lad were to apply for employment and his employers were permitted to go into the juvenile court record and find he was involved in something serious,-at the moment it is up to the judge to decide whether or not that information should be released. Under this amendment there would be no such jurisdiction and the records would remain private.
Then there is the other principle involved in the later destruction of the records. Again, I feel that is a good provision. The child who has been misled or who has got into difficulty must have the feeling that he did it when he was a boy, that he has been forgiven and that he may now go ahead and live a normal adult life, without the stigma of a childhood prank being held over him for the rest of his life. For all of these reasons, Mr. Speaker, I am very much in favour of this bill.


Mr. Paul Mariineau (Poniiac-Timiskaming):: Mr. Speaker, like the hon. member who has preceded me, the member for Parry Sound-Muskoka (Mr. Aiken), I have had some experience in dealing with juvenile delinquents in my capacity as crown attorney for the county of Pontiac, which position I held for eight years. As crown attorney, juvenile delinquents were a constant problem and decisions had to be reached concerning those persons. I find that among police officials there is always-and rightly so-a very great reluctance to initiate any kind of proceeding against a juvenile. By that I mean should a complaint be received against a juvenile and that juvenile had never been the object of a complaint before, the police will in most instances, unless the charge is extremely serious, go to the home of the young person involved and question him and his parents.

If the offence is not serious, and if there seems to be satisfactory evidence that such an offence will not be committed again, then the police officer, the social welfare officer or the juvenile delinquent's court officer will simply shelve the complaint and recommend to the parents that closer supervision be kept of the youngster concerned and also the youngster himself in most instances will be reprimanded. Unless the youngster has a long background of delinquent tendencies he will have learned his lesson and never again will he be the object of police investigation.
In other cases the police must proceed to lodge a complaint under the Juvenile Delinquents Act, or even under the Criminal Code, if the offence is more serious. There are two types of juveniles who appear before the courts and they may perhaps be classified in three broad categories. The first are offences of violence, 1 might say, such as assaults, lights, damage to property. The second category is the juvenile who indulges in petty thievery, and the third type deals mostly with delinquents who have been guilty of some sexual perversion.
In the first type of delinquent we find more or less a complex of violence; it is a matter of a young bully who wishes to impose his will by violence upon other youngsters or even in rising against established order and destroying property.
In the case of petty thieves, they are mostly drawn from a background of underprivileged families whose parents may be drunkards or may have separated and who have domestic difficulties and who have developed a resentment against society. They have come to the point where they cannot distinguish between right and wrong, in that they believe that they should have the same share of the good things which their school companions and others enjoy.
The third type, the sexual pervert, develops from some type of maladjustment which cannot be clearly defined and it is a matter that should be referred for proper psychiatric treatment.
When these youngsters, most of whom are simply misguided, appear before a juvenile court judge and the other court officials, they are always, at least in my experience, treated with the greatest consideration. First of all, the law provides that the hearings shall always be secret and in chambers. The youngsters are accompanied by their parents, by their guardians or by other social workers. It is not a court at all in any traditional sense of the word; rather it is simply a heart to heart talk between the judge, who adopts a very fatherly attitude, and the youngster who has diverted from the straight and narrow path. Most of those youngsters appear
Juvenile Delinquents Act before the courts very bewildered and a few questions will soon dissipate the camouflage of self-assurance which they may have and they will generally answer docilely the questions that are put to them by the judge and the judge will truly discover what is the thing that has led them astray. In most instances a few words by the judge, the placing of the youngster on probation for a definite period, either to his own parents, to a court official, or even to a police officer, with definite dates upon which the youngster should report, have the desired effect of changing the youngster's attitude and preventing perhaps the criminal tendencies, which are more or less inherent in all people, from being developed and those youngsters do become very good citizens later on.
I am absolutely in accord with the spirit of the bill presented this afternoon. I approve it, mostly for the same reasons that have been expressed by the previous speaker. There is no doubt at all that even if the greatest precaution is taken to assure that the court records do not fall into hands that should not have them, they will do so and as a matter of fact they often do, and they may be used in much later years, perhaps 10 years or even 20 years later, by unscrupulous blackmailers or other persons against the youngsters who for many years have become respectable citizens of the community.
Even under the present law, although records are secret, although none of the names in the proceedings may be divulged, the record of a juvenile may be used later if that same person, now grown to adulthood, is again before the courts. I believe that is most iniquitous, because surely the youngster when he was a juvenile could not distinguish between right and wrong to the extent that he could do it later when he is no longer in that category and yet, despite that, in certain instances those records are used.
More important perhaps than any other reason is the fact that these records may be destroyed, after five years, as suggested by the bill, gives to the former juvenile a feeling of absolute security and that feeling of security is most necessary to complete his rehabilitation.
For all these reasons I endorse the bill. I believe it is another step forward in the rehabilitation of juveniles and it serves a very useful purpose.


Mr. Heward Grafftey (Brome-Missisquoi):: Mr. Speaker, in speaking on this bill I should simply like to say that one very relevant fact has been brought to my attention, namely that in relation to the population of Canada today there are far too many prison sentences and, in fact, far too many charges

Juvenile Delinquents Act being laid. I say that for one reason. If we compare the population of Canada with that of England we find that in Canada far more people are receiving jail sentences and far more people are being charged, be they juveniles or otherwise.
I should like to go from the general to the particular. I wonder how many hon. members realize how very serious it is for a young person not only to have been charged but sentenced to prison. First of all, when people apply for jobs most companies ask whether they have a record. If they do not ask, then in some unknown way they seem to be able to obtain that information quite easily. I do not know whether I am entirely correct but I make the suggestion that even in many government departments and agencies the question is asked whether the individual has been charged or sentenced to prison. I simply say to the house that most private companies and most government departments and agencies ask this question. But suppose they do not. Here is what usually happens.
I have had a little experience in trying to find work for ex-prisoners. A young fellow may come to your office and say, "Sir, will you help me get a job?". After you have canvassed all the companies that do not ask about a record you may finally get the man a job. But he is then under a serious handicap with respect to whether or not he should inform his employer. Invariably the lad will come to you and say, "Should I inform my employer?". Therefore, irrespective of whether the company has any rules regarding the matter there is always this Damocles sword hanging over his head.
I bring up this matter in order to convey to the house what a very serious proposition we are dealing with. I feel that the records should certainly be destroyed but on the other hand I believe there are certain parts of them that should be retained. I do not mean that part indicating that the person has been charged and sentenced to jail, but that part dealing with the case history of the individual which might have some future relevance and use for psychiatrists. I think such information contained in the records would be useful and as long as the bill guarantees that they will be kept in strict custody I think the bill should receive our approval and support.
In my opinion gross injustice has been done to many young people who have to go through life with this handicap hanging over their heads. For that reason I express my hearty approval and support of the bill. Before taking my seat I wonder whether I might have permission to ask the mover of the bill if it contemplates the destruction of the whole record. Would he inform the

house whether that part of the record that might be of future use for psychiatric purposes in helping the young person would still be retained in proper custody? May 1 put that quesiton to the mover of the bill?


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Rea):: Does the house give consent to having this question answered without the hon. member closing the debate?


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.
(Translation):


Noël Dorion: Mr. Speaker, if 1 understand my hon. friend's questions correctly, he would like the record to be divided into two parts, one of which would be retained and the other not. I must say to that that my proposal is quite simple; it would do away altogether with the juvenile delinquent's record, thereby giving him a chance to rehabilitate himself.
I must say there is nothing new in this proposal. As a matter of fact, in France and Belgium, there have long been legal provisions of this sort which have given excellent results and made it possible for juvenile delinquents to rehabilitate themselves and to become good citizens. In this country however, the existence of the record is an extremely serious handicap. I therefore remain convinced that, in those circumstances, my proposed legislation should be adopted in its present form.
(Text):
At six o'clock the house took recess.


[Stage Direction]
AFTER RECESS

The house resumed at eight o'clock.


[Stage Direction]
The house resumed consideration of the motion of Hon. Donald M. Fleming (Minister of Finance) that Mr. Speaker do now leave the chair for the house to go into committee of ways and means, and the amendment thereto of Mr. Benidickson, and the amendment to the amendment of Mr. Argue.
George Clark Fairfield: Mr. Speaker, before I was interrupted at five o'clock I was relating some of the effects of nuclear bombs and how the effect could be related to the accuracy, as some people have stated. As everyone knows, the effect of the nuclear bomb is related by its co-relation with the effect of one ton of high explosive. When one considers the effect of one ton of high explosive during world

war II, one can roughly gauge the effect of the megaton bomb which is the equivalent of one million tons of high explosive. I want to read to you, Mr. Speaker, and to this house an excerpt from the History of the Second World War, in the volume "Problems of Social Policy", page 329. This is what it says:
In general terms, one ton of high explosives delivered on the built-up areas of London and other large cities destroyed or damaged beyond repair ten houses. Another twenty-five were rendered temporarily uninhabitable, and eighty were slightly damaged. On the average, therefore, one ton affected 115 houses, made eighty people temporarily homeless and caused another thirty-five to lose their homes permanently.
In that event, where then is the need for great accuracy when one considers the effect of the megaton bomb or H-bomb which is the equivalent of one million tons of high explosive? Despite the fact that the prime targets are in the United States, the effect in Canada of short rounds, as the artillery man would say, could be devastating. What then of defence? I am not going to take part in any debate on defence tonight, Mr. Speaker, or of what role our active services or active forces would take in defending us against such a barrage. Let it suffice to say that no matter what the defence, many people will suffer unless we take steps immediately to offset the old-fashioned policy of survival set in operation by the previous administration.
I should like to give to this house and to you, Mr. Speaker, some of the history of civil defence. A planning committee was first set up in Great Britain on May 15, 1924. Its terms of reference were "to inquire into the question of air raid precautions other than naval, military or air defences". Even at that time this committee recommended that while those concerned with maintaining vital services and activities could not be evacuated from important centres such as London, those whose functions were dispensable should be asked and encouraged to leave the target areas. As a result of numerous tests and consultations, the air raid precaution act or, in other words, civil defence act was passed in November, 1937. It imposed on local authorities the duty to take precautions for the protection of persons and property from injury or damage in the event of hostile attack from the air. However, Mr. Speaker, despite the impending catastrophe presaged by Hitler's annexation of Austria, the traditional spirit of local independence vis-a-vis both the central government and other local authorities persisted. It was only after the outbreak of hostilities that great numbers of volunteers came forward to serve in the civil defence. Some 320,000 of these volunteers were paid, but 57071-3-101
The Budget-Mr. Fairfield despite this fact there was all too often dissension among the members as to the role and routine which they were asked to perform.
The Canadian civil defence division is set up under much the same plan as that barely outlined for England. This division was set up in 1948 under the auspices of the Department of National Defence. The terms of reference were to study the requirements of civil defence and make recommendations to the minister as to preparatory and other methods that should be taken to meet a possible emergency. In August, 1950, a dominion-provincial conference was held in Ottawa to determine the division of responsibilities in connection with the building up of a civil defence organization in Canada, and these are the conditions as outlined in that conference.
First of all, the federal government's responsibility was to assess and keep under continuous review the forms and scales of attack to be anticipated in the event of war, and to initiate and guide planning of appropriate civil defence measures; to organize federal services for civil defence; to co-ordinate plans and activities of the provinces and municipalities.
The provincial government was to prepare regional plans and be responsible for preparatory and other measures within their area; to co-ordinate activities of municipalities; to organize provincial services for civil defence.
Third, the municipality's responsibility was for local planning and for organizing municipal services for civil defence; to be responsible for co-ordinating all services and for implementing all civil defence measures in the municipal area.
In February, 1951, the responsibilities relating to civil defence were transferred to the Department of National Health and Welfare. Since that time, much work has been done and many plans have been developed by federal and some provincial and municipal committees, all predicated on the assumption that sufficient warning will be provided by our radar screens.
As I have stated before all this has been changed in the few short months since October of last year. No longer can we depend on warnings of even a few hours. Our warning time has been cut tremendously. Proof is flying around in the skies today that the Russians have ICBM's capable of carrying H-bomb warheads.
The civil defence division has done admirable work under the most difficult conditions of public ennui and sometimes of complete non-participation by local and provincial authorities. A policy has been announced

The Budget-Mr. Fairfield by this government that a fund will be set aside for research into this problem. However, I feel it is imperative that action of a different kind be taken immediately. I cannot impress on this house too strongly that this is no longer a question of civil defence but rather one of civilian survival.
We have at the present time throughout this country a body of men and some women who can, if given the green light, immediately go into action as the optimum means of the survival of our people in the event of a nuclear attack. I speak, of course, of the militia organization in Canada. This organization built around a hard core of veterans, whose survival during the second world war speaks well of their training, I am sure is ready and willing to undertake this task. It is a complicated task, Mr. Speaker. Not only does it require a great deal of training but there is a great basic need of discipline which is too often absent to an alarming degree in groups of civilian volunteers, as was experienced in England during the formative phase of their civilian defence organization.
By granting to the militia the responsibility of this task we would have already shortened the elementary training in discipline, liaison and leadership. Even at the present time 50 per cent of their time is being taken up by civil defence training. I know that there have been protests from some quarters with respect to the militia being relegated to this role but, so far as I know these protests are few indeed. Many militia men have stated to me that they now realize the importance of this training and are prepared to go all out to train their units for duty in the event of disaster. By widespread organization of these units we could bring into the plan those areas which thus far have ignored the appeals of the civil defence division to form active units. Incidentally, the name civil defence in itself does not carry the same weight or meaning as I think it would if it were called home defence.
There have also been objections to having the militia take over civil defence on the grounds that, in the event of war, these units would be mobilized to carry on their normal roles as infantry units, artillery units and so on. In the event of a nuclear attack there will indeed be no time to mobilize units, as the war may well be won or lost in a period of four days.
The wheel has now turned a complete circle. As in the past, the local militia must now be responsible for local survival in the case of a sneak attack. I know that this would require that responsibility for civil defence would have to be assumed by the 

Department of National Defence but this does not indicate any lack of faith in the Department of National Health and Welfare. It would, however, guarantee to a greater degree the co-operation between both active and passive lines of defence. The active training centre for civil defence could carry on the training of militia members. Those who have already been trained in certain aspects of civil defence would be urged to enrol in the militia, thus increasing the capabilities of the organizations which are at present topheavy with officers and senior non-commissioned officers. The militia must realize that this is the role they would be asked to assume and that it is a role which would compare, if not exceed, in importance, at least in the event of nuclear war, those services performed by the active forces.
I would urge the government if such a course is adopted to see that every facility is placed at the disposal of the militia and that its importance with respect to defence should be considered second to none. I realize the expense may be considerable but it would be minor compared with that involved in active defence and would be in no wise comparable to the accruing benefits. The estimated cost of civil defence and of the militia is at the present time in the neighbourhood of $25 million, which is of course a very small part of the total national defence expenditures.
May I repeat that in my opinion passive defence in this day is perhaps even more important than active defence. Certainly from the viewpoint of survival it is of far greater importance. I do not think it would cost this country a great deal more to implement the scheme outlined but even if the costs were doubled-and I am sure the Minister of Finance (Mr. Fleming) will not thank me for this suggestion-the need for reorganization and modernization of our civil defence set-up is so great that it can no longer be ignored.


Mr. W. H. McMillan (Welland):: Mr. Speaker, I would like to make a few remarks on the budget. First of all I wish to congratulate the Minister of Finance (Mr. Fleming), who has at last given us an accounting of our national affairs. His budget speech was longer than that of any previous minister of finance to whom I have listened and my first thoughts were that he would surely end the 1957-1958 budget year with a surplus. He had announced in December and also later in the last session that he would have a surplus and I have in mind the ringing words

of the minister when he was in the opposition, as recorded at page 2555 of Hansard for March 21, 1957:
We wish to see a balanced budget because we believe in a balanced budget.
I felt sure then that the minister would want to complete at least one year in the black. If he had just waited a month or two longer before meddling with the budget of his predecessor he would indeed have had a surplus. Now we have a deficit. Never again do I expect to see the Minister of Finance, or for that matter the Conservative party, come so close to a surplus. You might wonder why I should say that. It is interesting for hon. members to note that only twice since confederation has any Conservative government brought in a surplus budget of as much as $1 million. This government seems to be getting right into step.
I quite agree that we should budget for a deficit if our economy requires it. We should budget for a purpose and we should certainly budget to put our unemployed back to work. However, there is so little design or purpose in this budget that the minister has slipped into a whopping deficit through default and he has been very modest in stating the amount of that deficit. In one two-hour speech the minister was able to reveal to the people of Canada that he would collect and spend all the taxes he could this year plus everything that has been saved over the last decade for a rainy day. In one swoop he has swept us back to our debt structure of 1948. I look with apprehension toward his next budget speech in eight or nine months' time.
I listened to the budget speech finding it hard to associate the words of the minister with the words he used not long ago to the effect that the Canadian people were overtaxed by $500 million, and that each family was overtaxed by $120 per year. He said furthermore that this amount of $120 could be returned to each family and we would still have a balanced budget. I could hardly believe my ears, remembering as I did that the minister had always claimed that the people should always have their own money to spend and that it was their right to have their own money to spend. Yet I heard him state in his budget speech that if it is left with the people it is neither wholly spent nor put into productive investment. The budget indicates to me that the minister will certainly see it is wholly spent.
The minister announced with some finality last fall that the rise in the cost of living had been checked, only to have it reach a new all-time height since that time. We all know that money rates depend largely upon the old law of supply and demand, but 57071-3-10H
The Budget-Mr. McMillan if we follow the minister's own pronouncements we are led to believe that he and he alone loosened up tight money when in fact the demand for money has fallen; even now interest rates on bonds are beginning to tighten up in anticipation of the minister's insatiable desire for new money.
The Minister of Finance was always very critical of his predecessors in office because they were not more accurate in their forecasting. With about three-quarters of the 1957-58 budgetary year already elapsed, the minister estimated a surplus of $80 million, and it turned out that he had a deficit of $39 million-a difference of about $120 million in three months. What might we expect from his prediction for a whole year? Even with the budget he brought in the other night the Minister of Finance had an advantage over his predecessors to the extent that the budget year 1958-59 was already under way. His real test will come in budget No. 2, presented we hope before the next financial year begins on April 1, 1959.
The Minister of Finance should be adept at mathematics. I suggest that if he knows anything about addition and subtraction he was misled by the Prime Minister (Mr. Diefenbaker) who last year refused to face the facts of life in connection with mathematics. The Prime Minister travelled from coast to coast telling the people of Canada they were over-taxed by $500 million, that each family was over-taxed by $120 and that the government was reaching into the pockets of each man, woman and child and taking out $30. He said at that time he would give more money for pensions-


An hon. Member:: He did.


William Hector McMillan: -more	money for
municipalities-


An hon. Member:: He did.


William Hector McMillan: -more money for the provinces-


An hon. Member:: He did.


William Hector McMillan: -and that he would give more money to almost everybody else in Canada and yet have a balanced budget.


An hon. Member:: He did.


William Hector McMillan: No, he did not. If we turn to a report of a press conference given by the Prime Minister in Saskatoon, as reported in the Montreal Gazette on May 28, we find this:
John Diefenbaker stated today the Progressive Conservative government would carry out its declared policy, reduce unnecessary taxes and still do it on a balanced budget.
1588	HOUSE OF
The Budget-Mr. McMillan
Then in a radio broadcast on September 24, 1957, he said in part:
The Liberals tell you it is not possible to lower taxes and raise pensions at the same time. Give us a chance and we will show you.
The people gave them a chance, and the Minister of Finance put on the show. What a show it was! In the galleries here there was standing room only, but I heard some of the people muttering on the way out. I heard one taxpayer talking to himself. No wonder he talked to himself. I will say that in the financial papers, and in talking to business people and others, I have heard very little good said about this budget. I have heard the budget described in such terms as "insipid", "lousy" and "putrid" and in other terms, Mr. Speaker of profanity which might cause you to rule me out of order if I were to venture to use them here.
The Minister of Finance has many admirable personal qualities but I think it is right that I should give the house a little of the financial background of the author of this budget, because the author of the budget himself, speaking in a debate on a former budget on March 21, 1957-in fact, he was speaking of the budget of his predecessor-said:
And in the words of holy writ, ye shall know them by their fruits.
I think we will all agree now that the fruits of this budget are green and bitter. I have met many business men and workers from my own riding-some of them are unemployed, and some of them were here today-and they certainly find the fruits green and bitter.


An hon. Member:: And sour.


William Hector McMillan: The early fruits are lack of confidence, unemployment and insecurity. I hope the later fruits will not develop into something even worse. Now when a physician has a patient who has little or nothing wrong with him he gives him a placebo, a little sugar and water; but when the patient is really sick, he treats him vigorously. Our economy is sick but the Minister of Finance does not think so.


William Heward Grafftey: I rise on a point of order, Mr. Speaker. It seems to me that the hon. member is reading his speech. Would you make a ruling in this case in particular, and explain it to the house?


William Hector McMillan: Mr. Speaker, I am not reading my speech, I am referring to notes.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: Order. It is quite true that hon. members should not read their speeches, but they are permitted to refer to their notes. However, I believe that referring to notes should not become the reading of


speeches. Consequently, let hon. members please refer to their notes occasionally but not all the time.


William Hector McMillan: I am not going to say that I did not refer to my notes occasionally, but I would add this: that the figures in the budget are so illogical that you have to refer to notes or you will never get anywhere.
Now, I said a while ago that our economy is sick, and that the Minister of Finance does not think it is sick because the other night he said, after all, this is a fairly mild recession. I think you will find those words in his budgetary speech. I suggest that the minister has given our economy a placebo pill when more vigorous treatment would have been desirable. I understand that if Mr. Harris' budget had been carried through until March 31 we would have had a surplus. It looks as though this government is costing the people a billion dollars in the first fiscal year, not counting the million lost to this country through unemployment. It is true that money rates have fallen since they got into power, but these lower rates were not given to the people buying homes. They were not given the advantage of these lower rates. I say that when the government's demand for money hits the market, the rates will rise.
The gross national product was $31.4 billion last year, an increase of 4 per cent over that of 1956. The minister is basing his revenue on $32 billion this year, a 2 per cent increase. I have heard and read accounts to the effect that the minister is taking too high a base. I hope that he is low and that our gross national product is more. However, from observations, and from seeing the number of people who are being added to the rolls of the unemployed, I would doubt this very much. I think this figure might well be high. I have no doubt the minister put forth the most optimistic figure he could obtain. The government will not make any confidential reports available to the members of the house, on anything. Even if we accept the $32 billion as the minister's base, he is admitting a bad year because we need an expanding economy to take up the number of new people coming in to the labour market. The increase last year was 4 per cent, but we still had a large number of unemployed.
I should like to ask the minister if he does not expect the number of unemployed will be greatly increased because we are only having a 2 per cent increase this year in the gross national product. I will admit that here I shall have to refer to notes a little bit in order to quote these figures accurately. The minister admits his budgetary expenditures for the year ending next March 31 will be $5,300 million, up $215 million, and

his income will be $4,660 million, down $387 million. He will have a budgetary deficit of $640 million. I was interested in the financial acrobatics utilized by the Minister of Finance to grab off $165 million from the defence equipment account in order to avoid showing a deficit of $800 million or more.
I understand that this money is just a set of figures in the government books. The amount is one of the non-budgetary accounts and will now be transferred to the budgetary account. The fact is that this money does not exist. By liquidating this account the minister spends $165 million in the budgetary accounts and borrows it from the Canadian people as money for capital account. This is like the merchant who made money last year, but lost money this year. In order to make up his losses this year, he goes to his profits of last year, but he is down. This $165 million has to be borrowed before we can use it. It is not there now. This is somewhat like a little game of pretence. A man might owe $100, but he has no money. He used to have a bank account, but there is nothing in it and there is nothing in his pocket. He is pressed for this $100, so he writes a cheque for the $100. Then, he rushes around and borrows $100 from some one which he puts in the bank before the cheque is presented. Certainly, he has paid, one account, but he still owes $100. However, that is Conservative financing.
The point is that the Canadian taxpayer will owe an extra $165 million which was not debt before, no matter whether you call it a budgetary or non-budgetary account. We get returns from most of these non-budgetary accounts such as those in crown corporations and the St. Lawrence seaway. This money will eventually be paid back, but the $165 million is just going to be heavy debt. There are other amounts to be included in this year's expenses, such as the final supplementary estimates and further statutory expenditures on which the minister does not show a very bright light. Then, there are the final payments to the provinces, and the minister himself said that those already made were only interim payments.
On page 1240 of Hansard the minister says that the house has before it the estimates and supplementary estimates amounting to $5,237 million. According to his own figures we will be paying out close to $70 million under the provisions of the Hospital Insurance and Diagnostic Services Act, plus $190 million for increased deficits in the old age security fund, plus a Canadian National deficit of at least $55 million, bringing the total expenditure to $5,552 million. It is at this point that the minister neatly subtracts
The Budget-Mr. McMillan $165 million from the national defence equipment account, bringing the amount down to $5,387 million, and calling it approximately $5,300 million-the $87 million does not amount to much. I maintain he had no right to do this.
If we take this $5,552 million, before this subtraction is made, we have yet to include in our expenditures for the year the increases to the civil service, the increased payments to the provinces and the further supplementary estimates. As the minister states in the budget, his estimate of income is $4,660 million. This only allows him $108 million for those three and other items, after which his deficit is $1 billion. To all intents and purposes, this is a billion dollar deficit budget, and I will not be surprised if it is well over this amount. The minister's baby budget turned out one year later to be a deficit. This baby is a billion dollar bouncing deficit. "Bouncing" is probably the wrong word because it is a dead weight.
The minister is very obscure about the figures in his non-budgetary operating accounts. For instance, he states that other non-budgetary costs and requirements, including the liquidation of the defence equipment account, will be of the order of $240 million. We know that the defence equipment account amounts to $165 million, so what of the other $75 million? Is $75 million so small an amount that the minister does not feel it is worth mentioning? What is it for? I heard the minister talk much about "What's a million?" I would like to ask him what is $75 million? What is it for?
After looking at all the figures one finds that the Minister of Finance depleted the cash account by $163 million last year, and he will be going to the people for $1,400 million of new money. This is the amount of money the government must borrow and this amount will be added to our public debt. This is equivalent to a debt of $80 for every man, woman and child in Canada. This amount is equal to a debt of $325 per family of four, and to this we must add the interest over the years.
I was interested in one of the government accounts, namely account No. 33, which shows a depletion of $131 million in the unemployment insurance account. I know this amount has nothing whatever to do with the budget, but it shows how the government has succeeded also in getting this account into an actuarial mess.
The minister always complained about the waste and extravagance of former governments. I remember him saying that we had too many civil servants, and he could have been right. But, according to the blue book, I notice-and I have added up the figures in

The Budget-Mr. McMillan the blue book

that in his own department, and in his own department alone, the minister has 70 more civil servants working tor him than his predecessor had last year.


Donald Methuen Fleming: That is not true.


William Hector McMillan: I am not saying they are not required but I wonder how he justifies this with his previous statement as contained in Hansard of May 3, 1955, at page 3397.
I want to say a few words on unemployment and the effective measures this budget may contain to overcome or cure it. In the Welland area there are about 3,000-or there were 3,000-unemployed. We have had official reports today and last week of the closing of the Welland Tube mills and of the Reliance Electric, so that another 500 men will be added to that 3,000 unemployed.
We have heard of many projects but I would like to ask the government whether there is one project in the Niagara district to put men back to work? I would like the government to name one man among these 3,000 people in the whole Niagara district whom they have sent back to work, or in St. Catharines or in Niagara Falls. In that area about 11,000 or 12,000 men altogether are unemployed. I would like to know from the government whether they have sent one man back to work in that area. In fact, I would have no quarrel with this deficit financing if our men were returning to work. In fact, I would be in favour of greater deficit financing if we could only put men back to work. In respect of unemployment, this budget has accomplished nothing, since the ranks of the unemployed are still growing and this is absolutely true in our area.


Mr. Charlton:: It is not true.


Mr. Batten:: Of course, it is true.


William Hector McMillan: It is rather interesting to examine a table entitled "Summary of Standard Objects of Special Expenditure and Special Categories". It is contained in a separate sheet attached to the back of the estimates book this year. Without, of course, including the supplementary estimates, the table gives the proposed expenditures of each department of government under 22 "standard objects" and "special categories". This classification makes it possible to compare and to see how the expenditures change in the different departments from year to year. Under objects 1, 2, 3 and 21, which include civil salaries and wages, civil allowances, pay and allowances, defence forces and R.C.M.P. pensions, superannuation and other benefits, we find the estimates up $108 million. This increase seems general to all departments. Item No. 4, professional and special services is up $10.2 million, but items 5 and


12 show an over-all decrease because of the reduction of expenditures in national defence; but the totals of all these items for the other departments have increased.
When we come to item 13, under the heading "Building and works, including construction and acquisition", it is here that we find all works of a capital nature to be paid out of the budgetary estimates. These latter estimates are increased from only $358.7 million last year to $380.3 million this year, an increase of $21.6 million. This seems a small increase, particularly this year, having in mind the Prime Minister's promised works program of $1,185 million for unemployment. Included in this amount-that is the increase of $21.6 million-is an increase of $8.1 million for Northern Affairs and National Resources, which is hardly in keeping with a great northern vision.
The minister lays considerable stress on the increased payments under the welfare measures initiated by the former government. Desirable as these payments are-and I agree with them-they are not productive of wealth. We must get our unemployed back to work and get them producing. They would prefer work to unemployment insurance benefits that are now running out.
This government seems to have an idea that it can spend the country out of a recession. This cannot be done without providing work for our people. This government seems to have the mental complex of a man who came to my office some time ago. He had an issue of the Toronto Globe and Mail in his pocket which carried an article on the amount of liquor that had been sold in Ontario in the previous year. It went on to tell how much had accrued to the coffers of the Ontario government through the sale of this liquor. I know the sum was considerable; I have forgotten the exact amount. This man made rather a peculiar observation. He said, "I believe we will drink ourselves out of debt yet". This is much the same type of reasoning this government uses in thinking it can spend the country out of this recession when so many of our people are unemployed and not engaged in productive industry. I feel sorry for these people. They have commitments to meet; they have payments to meet. They want to own and live in comfortable homes and Canada owes them more than just a mere living. They have hopes and aspirations as the rest of us have, and they should work and be able to have a standard of living commensurate with that of their fellow Canadians.
Let the government get back to the idea of expanding trade instead of diverting it. When the buying commission went to Britain we had much unemployment in this country while employment was fairly good in Britain.

The first order was a good-will order by the Ontario hydro consisting of some millions of dollars for the purchase of generator equipment. I was told in the house that generators were being ordered by the Ontario hydro which had never been made in Canada in that particular size; they were very large. I found out afterwards this was true but I also found out that they had never before been made in England.
I know of one industry at least in the Niagara district which was figuring on supplying some component parts of these generators. If that order had been placed in Canada there would certainly not be so many electrical workers unemployed in the Toronto, Hamilton, Niagara and Peterborough districts.
During the election campaign the Minister of Trade and Commerce (Mr. Churchill) was in Port Colborne and at that time he said that the government was going to divert more trade. Up to that time they had diverted quite a lot of trade, and I think the people of my constituency elected me because they did not want to see a lot more trade diverted. I am afraid that our government in its zeal to divert trade has taken jobs from Canadians in that British manufactured goods are coming into Canada more and more to compete with the output of our own industries.
Following the start of the trans-Canada pipe line the Welland Tubes plant was built at a cost of many millions of dollars to make large diameter pipe for trans-Canada and other companies. I would hope that the government would insist on all-Canadian pipe since the government is guaranteeing part of the cost of the trans-Canada line through northern Ontario.
Some of the unemployed in my area voted for the government because the Prime Minister and the Minister of Labour (Mr. Starr) said that unemployment would be cleared up by summer. Summer has arrived and this coming week we will have 500 more unemployed in Welland. I appeal to the government to help the unemployed get back to work. I agree with Premier Bennett of British Columbia who is reported as having said in the legislature on March 7 that it is time for the federal government to quit playing politics and to get down to the business of government.
Surely time is running out when the government can continue to blame unemployment on the former government. Never in the history of a Liberal government have we ever had so many unemployed in any corresponding month as we have had this year under the present government. Surely it is time to give more thought to a budget
The Budget-Mr. T. M. Bell than just to raise the cost of government in each department without doing something at the same time to provide work for the unemployed. I should like to see the Minister of Finance use his own imagination in drawing up a budget rather than to follow the dictates of the Prime Minister. It seems to me that he is enough of a financial wizard to do some adding and subtracting and not present us with such a deficit.
I regret that there is nothing new in the budget for higher education. I thought the Secretary of State for External Affairs (Mr. Smith) was probably giving a lead to the Conservative government when he promised students in Vancouver that there would be more money for higher education. I admire the minister's ability as an educator and I agree with his statement as reported in the press that we as a free western nation should make a concerted effort to help technological education. The Minister of Finance is just making a pretence of helping higher education by granting corporations a ten per cent exemption for educational donations instead of five per cent of their net profits. Contributions thus far have only been a fraction of the five per cent. How does the minister expect to get more by raising the exemption to ten per cent?


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: Order. It is with regret that I interrupt the hon. member but I must inform him that his time has expired.


Mr. Thomas M. Bell (Saint John-Alberi):: Mr. Speaker, this is the first time I can remember that all the clocks in the chamber have stopped at the same time. I do not suggest any particular reason why it has happened but it may be that it is creating additional difficulty in the timing of speeches. This is the first major debate for some time in which I have taken part. I want to extend congratulations to the new members who have spoken so nobly. With the great talents that many of them have, it is easy to see why the rest of us are beginning to fade away.
But I have also risen to take part in the debate because in recent years it has become traditional for maritime members to put on record some of the economic facts of life of the maritimes during the budget address. The other evening the hon. member for Bonavista-Twillingate (Mr. Pickersgill) went back into history to 1911 and 1930 for comparisons with the present budget and our economic situation. I went back a little bit farther, Mr. Speaker, to 1867. This came to my mind when I was reviewing the history of a distinguished gentleman who many years ago represented the constituency I now represent and who in the first parliament was

The Budget-Mr. T. M. Bell minister of customs and in the second parliament minister of finance. One could not help but note the comparison of economic conditions at that time and those that exist today although I admit there are similarities in the case of the other two years I have just mentioned. One thinks that at that time there was the national policy of Sir John A. Macdonald and today we have the new nationbuilding, national development policy of the present Conservative government. At that time there was a railway to be built to the west. Today it is roads to the north. There is a similarity also in that at that time and also today young men and a new government were involved. There was an expanding economy and there was need for reasonable protection.
We all realize the dangers of tariffs. They are something like the sailor's tattoo. They are easy to put on but hard to get off. But I think it is within traditional Conservative policy to have some reasonable protection. Of course, the question may be asked: What were the Liberals doing during this postconfederation period and what are they doing today? There was not much evidence of activity at that time just as there has not been any evidence of constructive criticism so far in the budget debate. However, after looking for some hours I found a reference in the Montreal Gazette from the almanac of 1891 in the form of a very interesting poem which has some application here. It is in these words:
See the faces of the Grits,
Grizzly Grits,
What a woebegon expression at present o'er them flits.
They are thinking, thinking deeply
How to run this country cheaply
And they wonder
How in thunder It is going to be done.
But the people-they who vote-of their twaddle take no note,
For they know the dismal, dreary, direful dole Of the Grits
Of the moribund, morose and melancholy Grits, Grits, Grits, Grits,
The greedy, grubby, garrulous old Grits.
I do not suggest that times have not changed a bit.


Mr. Pickersgill:: They changed at bit after 1891 too.


Thomas Miller Bell: But there is some comparison if one wants to search for it in the fact that we have here a very courageous budget that meets the circumstances of the country, and I congratulate the Minister of Finance (Mr. Fleming) on bringing it forward.


Mr. Denis:: He might have been shot. That is why it is courageous.
I Mr. Bell (Saint John-Albert).]


Thomas Miller Bell: The hon. member for St. Denis (Mr. Denis) has become extremely vociferous in these past few days. We shall be pleased to hear his long awaited contribution to this debate.


Azellus Denis: Thank you very much.


Thomas Miller Bell: To get back to recent history I want to mention matters which concern me this evening. I should like to refer optimistically-if I dare to do so in face of the opposition, the gloomsters of today-to the maritime provinces. We have recently taken on a new look of which we are extremely proud. It centres around the symbol of the APEC organization which is a body made of the four Atlantic provinces. We have opened at London for the first time in many years an office for an agent general who will be making trade contacts with the United Kingdom and Europe in an effort to increase and expand the trade of our Atlantic provinces with those countries. Recently a very distinguished banquet was held in London which did honour to this fact, and we are looking forward to the future when once again the maritime provinces will be able to get into their traditional markets, the markets that were lost to us during the 22 years in office of the dead Liberal administration.


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh.


Mr. Robichaud:: You are dreaming.


John Whitney Pickersgill: Which markets are those?


Thomas Miller Bell: We are also proud of the fact that we in the maritime provinces are realizing that we ourselves must supply more of the goods that we need. Through A.PEC we sponsored an organizational meeting in Moncton which resulted in a food show. In that way we hope we shall be able to promote the growth of agricultural and other necessary primary products for our own economy. It is a sorry sight when we must import 78 per cent of the food that we use into that region. This is another example of the unified effort of which we are so optimistic and proud.
I think also of a fine magazine which is now in publication and which is going out to the entire North American continent. It has its origin in Fredericton. It is called the "Atlantic Advocate". It deals not only with the interesting history and traditions of the maritime people but it also attempts to promote their interests and their future. We look forward optimistically also to the West Indies federation. We hope that this new branch of the commonwealth will enable us to increase our trade to traditional markets there.


Mr. Regier:: But you give our farmers only 80 per cent of what they had been getting.


Thomas Miller Bell: I think the hon. member misunderstood me. I simply said we are attempting to grow our own agricultural needs within the region because we have been obliged to import 78 per cent of them from other parts of Canada to the Atlantic provinces.
But, Mr. Speaker, I refer optimistically also, if I may be permitted to do so this evening, to Saint John and the area that I represent. It is fitting that I should mention that famous old city today because this is the anniversary of the discoveries of Champlain in North America. In fact, four years before Champlain arrived in the St. Lawrence, we had the discovery of the Saint John river by Champlain, and of course named after St. John the Baptist, on June 24, 1604. We have development in the area that I mention of over $120 million coming up in the next year or two. We have an oil refinery, a thermal plant, a new cement plant, a new pulp mill addition and we are optimistically taking part in all of the endeavours of the provincial government and the federal government in that region. I think also of the new federal works projects that are being built there, particularly the new customs building which will mean new revenues to the coffers of the federal government.


Hédard-J. Robichaud: Who started that building?


Thomas Miller Bell: -and which also will preserve the separate identity of the customs department within our framework of government. I understand that there has been a trend within the government to include this honoured branch of government in other federal buildings; but in Saint John there is being built a separate customs building which is carrying on the tradition of the ways and means of this parliament to maintain sources of revenue for the federal treasury.
In that regard I think anybody from the maritime provinces can be optimistic about their future in the development of this country. The other night the hon. member for Gloucester (Mr. Robichaud) mentioned certain matters affecting the province of New Brunswick which were well taken in many cases, but I think the speech was more noteworthy for the fact that the one important matter was left out. Everyone knows that the two historic disabilities of the Atlantic provinces have been power and transportation. On checking his speech in Hansard I find not a word about power.


Hédard-J. Robichaud: There will be another opportunity.
The Budget-Mr. T. M. Bell


Thomas Miller Bell: I will tell you why the hon. member did not mention the word "power". It was because he was a member of a government which lasted 22 years, for some strange reason,-


John Whitney Pickersgill: Because the people voted for them.


Thomas Miller Bell: -but which did absolutely nothing to correct one of the major historic disabilities of the maritime provinces.


Hédard-J. Robichaud: You will hear about power sooner than you expect.


Thomas Miller Bell: It is fitting that on June 28, this Saturday, we shall be honouring the completion of the Beech-wood project in New Brunswick. Hon. members who are new to this house may not be as familiar with the word "Beech-wood" as are some of us who have been here for the past few years. Briefly, the history is that we in New Brunswick realized that in order to take our place in the economic sun of this great nation it was necessary for us to have cheap power. Our, premier, Hugh John Flemming, in the days of the old Liberal administration, made many trips to Ottawa and was always met with the cold shoulder. His efforts to obtain some sort of financial assistance did not meet with success. In spite of a few weak-kneed promises before the election of 1957, financial assistance did not come about until the new Conservative administration took over. I am here this evening to pay testimony not only to Premier Flemming but to the new Conservative government. They made power possible in New Brunswick. The Minister of Finance also had a very important part to play in that matter.


An hon. Member:: Turn over to the next page.


Thomas Miller Bell: I have two pages of notes. If the hon. member wants to come over, he can see them. He can even take them with him and use them in his own speech.
I have mentioned the two disabilities. One is power. Nothing was done about it by the old administration. On completion date this Saturday we feel that we have sufficient power at least to be able to offer new industry some attraction in locating in New Brunswick.


Hédard-J. Robichaud: No industry.


Thomas Miller Bell: I have just mentioned the new industry which has located in my own city of Saint John. I can go all through it again if the hon. member wishes
1594	HOUSE OF
The Budget-Mr. T. M. Bell or, if he would like to visit Saint John I would be very glad to show him around.


Hédard-J. Robichaud: How many unemployed are there in Saint John. You do not wish to answer that question.


Thomas Miller Bell: If the hon. member had looked at the figures for these two days from the dominion bureau of statistics-


Hédard-J. Robichaud: 56,000.


An hon. Member:: Oh, you are a "gloom and doomer".


Thomas Miller Bell: -he would have seen that the figures for Saint John are very encouraging and are only slightly higher than the figures for last year but they compare very favourably with the dominion average.


Hédard-J. Robichaud: 56,000.


An hon. Member:: Not as many as you would like.


Thomas Miller Bell: There are 56,000 unemployed in the Atlantic Provinces. I know it is a little disheartening for the Liberal party not to be able to have these high figures about which to make their gloomy speeches.
However, I would like to turn to the second disability suffered by the Atlantic provinces ever since confederation. I hope to make some constructive suggestions which might be considered in order to improve the future for the area.
Secondly, there is the problem of transportation. We had a meeting of the maritimes transportation commission in Saint John about two weeks ago and the officials of the commission said in their report that matters showed some improvement but that we need continuing vigilance due to the changing state of the transportation system, not only in the Atlantic provinces but in the whole of Canada. Transportation everywhere in this country is in a state of flux; it is in a state of transformation and in the Atlantic area particularly we have to watch every movement of transportation.
First of all with respect to road transportation I do hope that the government in their roads program will be able to find some formula to enable improvements to be carried out in the Atlantic provinces. It may be that a method can be found to make these improvements by means of tourist access roads or it may be that roads for the development of our resources can be combined with roads for the tourist industry. The tourist industry is, of course, extremely important and I can think in my own constituency of a very


definite need for a road along the coast at the bay of Fundy. We have no trail such as the Cabot trail in Nova Scotia or the Gaspe trail in Quebec. There is certainly room for a lovely Fundy trail to enable us to build up the tourist industry which means so much to us in terms of dollars. Such an undertaking is a tremendous one for a provincial government but perhaps a formula could be worked out jointly between the federal or provincial authorities. Similarly the resource development programs could be assisted by the means of new roads helping to balance out the economy of our country.
Secondly, with respect to water transportation we have been watching the movements of the St. Lawrence area, not only so far as tolls are concerned but also with respect to continued efforts to keep the seaway open further down the St. Lawrence each year. We feel that we may have to give our trade and export business during the winter months a new look. This St. Lawrence seaway program appears to be a very prosperous undertaking and perhaps it will be possible to include the development of the Chignecto canal in conjunction with the seaway, thereby further balancing out our problems as the seaway expands and as the economy of this country is concentrated further inland and our transportation disparities increase.
Thirdly, there is the matter of air transportation. In the maritimes we have a climate which creates more problems than that in many sections of this country and therefore our air transportation undoubtedly takes on a new importance. It may be that more competition is necessary with respect to air transportation in our area, even though revenues would not at first glance be so great.
Fourthly, and perhaps most important is the problem of rail transportation which is still very serious in our area. A nation as great as ours must, of course, always face great difficulties in this respect. In 1926 we received the benefit of the Maritime Freight Rates Act. These benefits have, of course, assisted us to some extent but the horizontal increases since this time have tended to cut down that assistance and today the agreed charges which at the time seemed fair have, in fact, worked out against our interest because our manufacturers are not large enough and cannot take sufficient advantage of them. I think we have only about 30 agreed charges out of the 400 which are in effect.
I have attempted to point out the disabilities under which we are living with respect to power and transportation. While we feel that a good start has been made with respect to the problem of power, our problems with respect to transportation still have

a long way to go. The hon. member lor Gloucester made the suggestion the other day that perhaps an agency should be set up as a continuing body to look after our transportation problems. While I am not sure that in these changing days a continuing agency is necessary I do feel his suggestion has a lot of merit. We must watch the movements which are taking place in a modern world, but we have an optimistic approach to the future and look forward to taking our proper place in the economy of Canada.
Someone has said, very unkindly, that as far as the maritimes are concerned, the smart fellows moved out west, and the smarter they were the quicker they moved. We who have stayed in the maritimes, however, believe that the smart guys left because they could not stand the competition. As far as we are concerned it is a fine budget and we in the maritimes look forward to a continuing development under the new administration.
(Translation):


Mr. Jean-Paul Racine (Beauce):: Mr. Speaker, my first words will naturally be directed to the hon. Minister of Finance (Mr. Fleming) with regard to his truly remarkable performance in this house on June 17 last. Now, that evening the minister revealed some hidden talent he had not displayed before and I refer to his considerable ability as a magician. The minister must surely have gone through several rehearsals before he delivered this masterpiece in the house. As it contained little substance in the way of tax deductions for the working people, we understand perfectly why he chose to unfold much emphatic eloquence to make up for this lack of substance. As far as eloquence was concerned, and solely from that angle, I associate myself with the hon. members of the government in congratulating the minister.
Mr. Speaker, I do not propose to go into the details of what the minister told us in lieu of a budget speech. I was struck by several points of which no mention at all was made in the speech of the minister, but there is one, more particularly, with which I would like to deal during the few minutes I have at my disposal.
I must say to you in all sincerity, Mr. Speaker, that, along with the great majority of my electors and of the people of this country, I was shocked by the anti-family nature of the budget. Even though Conservative candidates during the last elections in the province of Quebec had a great deal to say about a future increase in family allowances,
The Budget-Mr. Racine there is absolutely no mention made of such an increase in the so-called budget which was so eloquently brought down by the Minister of Finance. That is the matter with which I would like to deal for a few minutes, but I do feel I must say to you, Mr. Speaker, that I do so in all humility, being neither an economist nor an expert in social legislation. If I raise the subject, it is only to urge improvement of a social security measure which lies very close to my heart and to the heart of thousands of our fellow citizens.
There are several ways of increasing the purchasing power we all lack at the present time. One of the most efficient ways would certainly have been to reduce income tax collected from wage earners.
But in his masterpiece the minister totally ignored that proposition. However, along with many other people, I was expecting him to do so in some other way. An increase in family allowances would have been a very efficient way of increasing that purchasing power, but the minister ignored that also.
If he deliberately chooses to ignore the possibility of increasing family allowances, it is perhaps because he was not particularly interested in helping large families in this country whose breadwinner happens to be out of work. As I mentioned a moment ago, many fathers at this time are quite incapable of providing their wife and children with the bare necessities of life. This is a most unfortunate situation, one which should not exist in a country as rich as ours.
When I think that, in the last election campaign, the government gave the Canadian people the impression that a new era of prosperity was about to be launched throughout the country, I have no hesitation in saying that it was seriously remiss in its duty toward the Canadians in failing to cut income tax and in wilfully ignoring the numerous requests for family allowances increases.
It is certainly not because the need is not there, since family allowances were instituted in 1944, under a Liberal regime.
The text of the act may be found in chapter 40 of the Revised Statutes of Canada.
As everyone knows, that act provided for the payment of allowances for each child, as follows:
From birth to age 6, it provided for $5 a month; from 6 to 10, $6 a month; from 10 to 13, $7 a month; and from 13 to 16, $8 a month.
1598	HOUSE OF COMMONS
The Budget-Mr. Racine
That legislation also provided a decreasing rate of $1, $2 and $3 for the 5th, 6th, 7th and other children.
In 1949, the Liberal government, following numerous representations, found that this decreasing rate was detrimental to large families and decided to remove that decreasing feature from the act.
This had the happy effect of placing all children on the same basis.
I must say that the former Liberal administration deserves credit for having understood that large families are the thermometer of the living force of a nation.
The former government also understood that large families contribute to the increase in the population of our country, and that they deserve special attention on the part of its government.
In a word, it had understood that the financial budget of large families is much more difficult to balance than the budget of bachelors or married people without children.
That is why I do not hesitate to say that the 1944 Family Allowances Act can rightly be considered a measure of distributive justice, a family policy which to a large extent helped improve economic conditions for the Canadian family by providing it with a fairer share of the natural wealth of our country.
Like many others, I am convinced that the Family Allowances Act, specially in periods of economic recession to which we have grown accustomed under Conservative governments, should be flexible enough to provide for new and urgent needs of families, and so become very effective in offsetting fluctuations in the cost of living.
If the government had been bent on fulfilling its promises and its duty to the Canadian family, it would have made it its duty to consider this human and distressing problem and to find a happy solution that would have allowed large families to enjoy the necessities of life under a Conservative regime which, if things continue this way, will end up by being synonymous with a famine regime.
When family allowances came into effect on July 1, 1945, the cost of living index was much lower than it is now.
Barring the improvement of the decreasing rate of allowances in 1949 and the increase of approximately 16 per cent in 1957, we may conclude that the rate of family allowances,

in 1958, does not take into account the substantial and gradual rise in the cost of living.
When the family allowances act was passed, there were many heads of families in cities as well as in rural districts who earned hardly enough to support their family.
It can be safely stated today that the continuing rise in the cost of living is even more considerable than has been the rise in salaries since 1945. That explains why, even nowadays, many large families have not enough income to merely exist, while others are almost reduced to poverty.
In my opinion, a situation like this is shameful in a country as rich as Canada.
The present rates of family allowances, in spite of the considerable benefits they brought to large families, are now inadequate and do not meet the needs of large families in 1958. They do not even help families enjoy a decent standard of living, and that, in my opinion, constitutes a social justice problem in respect of which no enlightened society can remain indifferent.
To illustrate this statement I shall say that the mothers in our country know very well, from their own daily distressing experience that the family allowance for a child under six years of age does not even pay the daily quart of milk recommended by doctors as a minimum in order to ensure a child's normal development.
When looking up the figures of the federal bureau of statistics, it can easily be seen that the cost of living index in 1945, with regard to food, was 66.3 per cent, whereas today the F.B.S. informs us that it has gone up to 122.7 per cent.
The rent item, which was 91.4 per cent in 1945, has now reached 137.9 per cent. The same applies to clothing, the cost of which amounted to 66.9 per cent in 1945, and reached 110 per cent in 1958; in 1945, the cost of upkeep of the home was 74.9 per cent and reached 120.7 per cent in 1958; the cost of services, which represented 74.9 per cent in 1945, now represents 130.9 per cent in 1958.
I do not mention the ever-increasing school costs, as well as the cost of a great number of other living facilities.
In the light of those facts, one surely does not have to be an expert nor an economist to come to the positive conclusion that in 1958 family allowances no longer have the same purchasing power as in 1945 when they were initiated by a Liberal government.

If the Tory government had really been realistic in dealing with the economic recession it has brought on, it would certainly have had an excellent opportunity to remedy this painful situation by pegging family allowances to the cost of living.
It certainly appears that the Minister of Finance deliberately chose to ignore this important question in what we are agreed to call, in parliamentary terms, his budget. He has demonstrated the sympathy he feels for the sufferings of the Canadian family in 1958, the first anniversary of the coming into power in Ottawa of a Conservative government.
To sum up my feelings on this whole matter, I have no hesitation in saying that this 1958 budget is a true Tory budget, one directed against the family and ignoring the great number of needs of the Canadian family.
On the whole, I must admit that I am not particularly surprised by this attitude of the Conservative government with regard to family allowances. This attitude is but a continuation and a confirmation of the words spoken by certain of its leaders and members on this subject.
No further proof is needed than the statement made in the House of Commons, on July 25, 1944, by Mr. Gordon Graydon, leader of the Tory opposition of that time. In fact, as shown on page 5,342 of volume V of the 1944 session, Mr. Graydon had these sympathetic words to say about the Family Allowances Act:
It seriously endangers the setting up of minimum wage standards in Canada, and may be accepted in many instances as a substitute for better wage levels. It is a thrust at the power of collective bargaining and of minimum wage principles. Labour has always looked with a doubtful eye on such legislation as this bill envisages and not without good reason.
That is how ridiculous one can get when opposing without any valid reason an act designed to improve the standard of living of small wage earners.
A little farther down, on the same page, this same Tory leader, a great friend of the family, said this:
It adds a further strain on our national unity. There is but one province which has maintained the high birth rate and large families which were so characteristic of Canada's pioneer strains. The provinces contributions to the general revenue will be out of proportion to the heavier deflection of payments that will have to come from other provinces to pay that province's heavier share of these subsidies.
The Budget-Mr. Racine
This same Mr. Graydon was certainly not struck by the same long term vision of our Prime Minister because, 13 years later, statistical data proved that, in the last fiscal year, the province of Ontario received $136.8 million in family allowances, while the province of Quebec received $136.1 million.
We therefore have good reason to hope that, in the face of such a situation, the Prime Minister will no longer have any scruples about increasing family allowances, which at the same time would allow him to pay part of his election debt to Mr. Frost and to prove to the province of Quebec that, in the last election campaign, Conservative candidates were not misleading voters when loudly promising such increases. Even after the elections, at that time when a certain Mr. Mercier pointed out to him that the enthusiasm of the Minister of National Health and Welfare seemed somewhat lessened with regard to an increase in family allowances, the valiant member for Chicoutimi (Mr. Brassard) stated with quasi ministerial firmness:
I have not yet met anybody from the Ottawa government. In any case, if they do not want to go ahead and do something, we will tell them a thing or two.
According to the same Mr. Mercier, the same hon. gentleman stated, before as well as after the elections, that the family allowance should be $18 per child and paid up to age 18 if the child carries on his studies until that time.
Now, as far as I know, the hon. member for Chicoutimi is a not a Liberal member.
As for the hon. member for Lake St. John (Mr. Parizeau) he was no less energetic. He appears to have stated, following the elections:
We have had a meeting of all Conservative members from Quebec, and we have all agreed to stand as one for family allowances. We are with you. You may count on me. We will not let Ottawa back out on this matter.
The hon. member for Stanstead (Mr. Letour-neau) has not been less generous; he is reported to have said that we would indeed have that increase in family allowances. And, here again yesterday-and I wish to congratulate him for it-he put forward his request.
And, on top of it all, the Minister of Mines and Technical Surveys (Mr. Comtois) is reported to have said-again to that same Mr. Mercier-that he would use his influence to obtain that increase during this very session.


Mr. Comtois:: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. I do not know that Mr. Mercier and I have never met him.

The Budget-Mr. Racine


Jean-Paul Racine: I should like to point out to the hon. minister that I have here the press report in question and that I shall be pleased to table it.


Mr. Comiois:: I does not mean it is true.


Jean-Paul Racine: In any event-


Joseph-Roland Comtois: What paper?


Jean-Paul Racine: In any event, it does not seem that the hon. minister has made a great deal of use of what he calls his influence with the Minister of Finance.
However we do find some consolation in the fact that latter day Conservative members do not seem to be opposed, in principle, to family allowances.
When, for instance, their attitude is compared with that of the former member for Parkdale, Mr. H. A. Bruce, in this house, the least than can be said is that they themselves credit the Liberal party with doing a genuine service to Canadians in introducing this legislation.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear.


Jean-Paul Racine: On July 25, 1944, as can be seen on page 5363, volume five of the official record for that year, Mr. Bruce stated when discussing family allowances with regard to the province of Quebec:
That province, because of its large families will derive the greatest benefit from this measure, at the expense of the other provinces, particularly Ontario, which pays one half of the taxes in Canada.
Fortunately, the feelings of the hon. member for St. John's East (Mr. McGrath), with reference to the same paper and the same interviewer, bring a much more encouraging answer than the statements of Mr. Bruce. The hon. member for St. John's East, here in Ottawa, after the elections, is said to have stated to that same Mr. Mercier that he was in favour of pegging family allowances to the cost of living. He is even reported as adding that he could not imagine any member of the house being opposed to this.
From what I have just said, it is obvious that an increase in family allowances is imperative at this very session.
The Minister of Finance will perhaps say that it is too late, now that he has introduced his budget. After reading the official report of last year's debates, I will reply that he seems to forget that at one time he was a champion of budgeting by resolutions. There would therefore be no objection to taking advantage of that practice to announce an increase in family allowances.

I have been in my constituency recently, and most of the electors I have met have asked me to take advantage of every opportunity to ask that allowances be raised this year.
I sincerely hope that the Minister of Finance, inspired by the good intentions of the Minister of Mines and Technical Surveys and of the Minister of National Health and Welfare, without forgetting the promises of Conservative candidates in the province of Quebec, will soon grant the wishes of all Canadian families in that connection and will agree to raise family allowances in proportion with the cost of living index and will extend them up to the age of 18 as was advocated by the Liberal party. I hope that thus a greater number of our families will be in a position to live not in wealth but in decency.
(Text):


Mr. R. S. MacLellan (Inverness-Richmond):: Mr. Speaker, my constituency comprises the counties of Inverness and Richmond and one-third of Cape Breton county on the island of Cape Breton in Nova Scotia. It includes about 275 miles of coastline and encompasses almost two-thirds of the island. My constituents earn their livelihood chiefly as fishermen, farmers and lumbermen. Like a great many Atlantic coast people, their incomes are far from close to the Canadian average.
At the same time my constituency has great natural resources. In the county of Inverness there are great coal reserves for the most part lying idle. There are also substantial deposits of gypsum, so far undeveloped, which we hope will be opened up before too long, large amounts of fertile agricultural land and extensive untapped timber reserves. We have many fine harbours among them the great natural allwinter ports of Louisburg and Port Hawkes-bury. Our greatest resource is the sea. We are very close to the best deepsea fishing grounds in the world and in fact the only industrial employment in my constituency is that provided by fish processing and packaging plants at Louisburg, at Petit de Grat and at Cheticamp.
My constituents do not enjoy the standard of living and security of employment I would like them to have. It is a rather sad commentary that they do not, when such rich resources are available to them that could be developed.
Parts of my constituency have memories of the earliest days of white settlement in Canada. For example, as hon. members all

know, the fortress town of Louisburg was founded as early as 1713. It was built by France to guard the entrance to the St. Lawrence and was at one time the gate to this nation. In its day it was one of the finest fortresses in the world and its high walls were regarded as unconquerable.
This year marks the two hundredth anniversary of the siege of Louisburg in 1758. Extensive bi-centennial celebrations have been planned, and I wish to extend an invitation to all hon. members to visit one of Canada's most important historical monuments. It would be well worth the time of any person interested in the history and memories of this nation to visit Louisburg during the bi-centennial celebration this summer. There is perhaps no place else on the continent where there is such an opportunity to examine the structure of a great eighteenth century fortress and the tools and implements of the wars that marked the turbulent birth of Canada. The anniversary ceremonies are scheduled for July 26, 27 and 28, at Louisburg Old town. Again, on behalf of the mayor and the bi-centennial committee, I invite you all to join in one of Canada's most important birthdays and to be our guests at fortress Louisburg.
The Atlantic provinces are among the oldest in Canada. It is tragic to consider how little we have developed across 250 years or more. As hon. members know well, the Atlantic provinces have fared the worst of any region of Canada in the 91 years since confederation. While other regions have seen great growth in population and wealth, we of the east coast have fallen steadily behind the national development level. I do not wish to cite statistics of agricultural, manufacturing and trade decline to prove the existence of a situation already well-known to all of Canada. The royal commission on Canada's economic prospects cites our position clearly.
The per capita income of the maritimes and Newfoundland is 37 per cent below that of the other six provinces. A large percentage of our people eke out a precarious livelihood as subsistence farmers, combined with part-time fishing and logging. Great numbers of our children must leave home as they reach maturity to find work in other parts of this continent. A larger percentage of our population consists of children and older people than in any other region of Canada. Across the last 30 years over a quarter of a million maritimers have had to leave home to seek a livelihood elsewhere.
The Budget-Mr. MacLellan
As I have said, Canada has long been aware of the problem of the maritimes. I am sure it is no stranger to this house. But no realistic attempt has ever been made to correct the situation. Perhaps one of the greatest defaults of the Liberal administration was its failure to face and try to meet the difficulties of the Atlantic region. These difficulties have grown worse year by year. I do not say that no contribution has been made to the Atlantic area during that time. It is true that we have had some essential public works allotments, limited freight rates assistance and such grants in aid from time to time as would allow our provincial governments to survive and to provide a minimum of social welfare, education, and so on. As a matter of fact, if it were not for these special considerations our average income in the Atlantic region would indeed be very much less than even the present poor level.
We have had such help as would carry us from crisis to crisis. When our impoverishment reached the ultra-serious stage we were thrown sufficient crumbs to support us for another few years. But the great default of the Liberal party to the maritimes was that there never was at any time in all those years the slightest suggestion of a positive program to give the Atlantic provinces a new start to aid us in developing a self-supporting economy. The approach was always negative, a little charity from time to time to keep the poor relatives of the east coast from the final pangs of starvation.
One of the best illustrations of this negative, nothing can be done policy of the previous administration is to be found in the report of the royal commission on Canada's economic prospects. The Gordon commission catalogues Atlantic problems in cold, frank statistics. It recites the problem with clarity and just as clearly declines to suggest a solution. Of what use is it to have discovered our troubles if they would not try to recommend a cure?
The Gordon commission closely adhered to the negative philosophy of the government which sponsored it. It apparently had not the courage to question that philosophy and make the recommendations for rebuilding our provinces that should have been obvious to anyone. Instead of facing the problem, the commission finessed it. It hid behind the falsity that seems to have inspired thinking in regard to the east coast provinces since confederation, namely that we are poor because we lack natural resources and there is nothing that can be done about it; that we are doomed to marginal farming, fishing and logging and nothing can be done about it. Out of this thinking comes the suggestion

The Budget-Mr. MacLellan
that if coal miners are displaced due to lost markets, more federal grants in aid should be provided to move them to greener economic pastures.
Nothing could be more wrong than to presume that the Atlantic provinces lack natural resources. It is true that we do not have the oil pools of Alberta or the timber or minerals of British Columbia or the farm lands of the prairies. But we do have rich resources, indeed, the same type of resources that made Britain the foremost commercial nation of the world for a century and a half.
We have great resources of coal and iron ore, enough perhaps to supply this continent with steel. We have great timber resources and one of the fastest rates of coniferous timber growth in the world. We have great resources of gypsum and minerals of all kinds. Above all, we have tidewater at our feet and some of the finest harbours in the world. If we are poor, we are poor in the midst of plenty. Suggestions that we are bankrupt in resources were the excuses of the previous administration for its neglect to afford an opportunity for development of our Atlantic provinces.
What is the basic problem of the Atlantic provinces? The Gordon commission cites it. Atlantic business investment per capita is only one-half the Canadian average. For example, as the table on page 406 of the report shows, in the years 1954 to 1956 investment per capita in manufacturing was only 35 per cent of the Canadian average. By comparison, the per capita investment in Ontario in the same period was 137 per cent of the Canadian average and in British Columbia it was 154 per cent. In other words, our problem is that we do not have sufficient industrial production to maintain and support our population. We do not produce enough goods to enable us to earn proper and sufficient incomes.
In my province of Nova Scotia we have only two major manufacturing industries, the mill of Dominion Iron and Steel Company Limited at Sydney and Mersey Pulp and Paper Company's pulp mill at Liverpool. Aside from these we must live on our marginal fishing and farming, a few small factories and on our precarious coal industry. We have not seen the start of a new major industry in Nova Scotia since 1925. The only possible road to the rescue of the Atlantic region is in the development of manufacturing and processing industries. Only the establishment of industry can provide us with a stable self-supporting economy and provide us with the chance to find employment for our people.
We in the Atlantic area, are grateful for the special grants of 1957 amounting to $25

million. Our provincial governments are using this money to meet the interest on our substantial indebtedness, to build schools for our children that we would otherwise have to do without, and to improve our highway systems, welfare benefits, and so on. We are grateful for the thermal power program and the coal subventions that we hope will save our Nova Scotian coal industry upon which 130,000 of our people depend for a living.
But grants in aid, public works projects and subventions can never provide the solution to the economic ills of our provinces. Such measures are stopgaps. They do meet our most urgent social needs and unemployment distress. They do not meet our basic problem. The present position of our coal industry shows what a failure a policy of grants in aid alone has been across the years. Our great need is productive development. If our resources were harnessed and our industry given a fair chance to compete in this nation, we would not require special grants in aid and ever higher special subventions. A parent educates his child to earn his livelihood or capitalizes him in an income producing business to support him in life. He does not plan to feed him through life with minimum living allowances. What we need is an ability to produce and earn, an opportunity to industrialize. We need income producing investment in manufacturing and processing industries.
The Atlantic provinces are making a valiant effort to develop industry. The government of Nova Scotia has established Industrial Estates Limited to interest investors in business opportunities in the province. Long term credit is offered by all governments to prospective new industry and every possible incentive to attract investment is being provided. Nova Scotia is now negotiating the establishment of a pulp mill at the strait of Canso which would be a third major industry in the province. Since confederation Newfoundland has invested about $30 million of public funds in several manufacturing and processing projects. We are making every attempt to help ourselves out of the economic cellar, and the thermal power program to provide subsidized cheap power is a great help to us in this attempt to improve our lot. Before this program was launched it was almost hopeless to expect a manufacturer to locate in our area of high cost power.
But, Mr. Speaker, even with cheaper power our provincial governments do not have a very attractive proposition to offer to industrial investors. We will have cheaper power, we have natural resources, we have an abundant labour supply, and if profits could be shown we feel we would have no problem to find capital to industrialize. Our

big handicap is one we cannot do much about. It is geography. We are in the worst geographical position of any region of Canada in terms of development.
Before confederation the Atlantic region enjoyed a quite favourable trade location astride the water route from Upper Canada to New England and the West Indies. Our ships and goods could move in two directions, south to the United States cities and west up the St. Lawrence. Confederation, with its tariff system necessary to protect infant Canadian industries, halted this trade. Commerce moved henceforth east and west across the continent. The centre of manufacturing and business, and therefore the centre of population, became Ontario and Quebec. The successful manufacturers were those who could sell east and west from the centre. It might have been different if the St. Lawrence river did not supply a water route deep into Canada. Without the St. Lawrence, Halifax, Saint John and Louisburg might have developed into Canada's gates to the Atlantic as Vancouver became a great port, on the Pacific. Vancouver, founded about 1888, has over half a million people today. The city of Halifax, founded 139 years earlier, is a city one-fifth this size. Canadian overseas export cargoes embarked from Montreal and while that city flourished and grew the great natural ports of the east coast became quiet still waters confined to winter traffic.
As far as industrialization today is concerned, it is obvious why it is difficult to attract industrial investment and technical capacity to the Atlantic region. The simple fact is that the manufacturer on our coast is at a distinct disadvantage in competition, both in the local Atlantic market and in Canadian markets generally. In many cases it is just not good business to open up a factory in our region.
Business of the House


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Rea):: Order. The assistant clerk has advised me that it is ten o'clock.


Mr. Deschaielets:: On a question of privilege, Mr. Speaker, would you permit me to point out that since the delivery of the budget everything seems to be upside down in this country, even the clocks of the house.


Thomas Miller Bell: The Liberals stopped the clock.
On motion of Mr. MacLellan the debate was adjourned.



BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE

Lionel Chevrier: I presume that we will proceed with this debate tomorrow as the house leader announced last night. Is there anything he can say about the business of the house for Monday?


Mr. Green:: Mr. Speaker, I am not yet in a position to say but I am hoping that it will be possible to reach an agreement to have a one-day supply motion on Monday. We are also hoping that on Tuesday it will be possible for the house to meet at 4.30 instead of 2.30 in order that members may attend the ceremony which is to take place on parliament hill. We would then plan to go on with government business for the rest of Tuesday, take the seventh and eighth days of the budget debate on Wednesday and Thursday of next week and then have estimates on Friday. This is subject to being able to reach agreement with the two opposition parties.


Lionel Chevrier: To use an expression which is very dear to certain members of the house, we on the opposition side will be very happy to co-operate on Tuesday.


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

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

Mr. Argue: 1.	What sections of the trans-Canada highway-have been completed in each province?
2.	What was the total cost of the completed sections of the trans-Canada highway in each province?
3.	What was the federal contribution towards the total cost of the completed sections in each province?
4.	What mileage in each province remains to be completed, and what percentage of the total mileage in each province is this?
5.	Of this, what mileage in each province is now under construction?
Answer by: Hon. Howard C. Green (Minister of Public Works):
1.	Mileage completed in each province under the trans-Canada highway agreement to April 30, 1958:
Newfoundland	 -
Prince Edward Island	 67
Nova Scotia	 -
New Brunswick	 78
Ontario	 434
Manitoba	 246
Saskatchewan	 406
Alberta	 214
British Columbia	 262
Total	 1707
2.	Information covering the cost of completed sections is not available. The estimated cost of all work for which approval has been given, together with the estimated amount of Canada's share, is as follows:-
Total	Canada's
commitment	share
Newfoundland $ 27,438,223.30 $ 17,166,350.22 Prince Edward
Island	
7,336,758.99	4,385,739.50Nova Scotia ...	11,245,837.20	6,807,398.60New Brunswick	33,479,012.85	23,271,942.83Ontario	
117,832,008.33	66,551,524.15Manitoba	
28,877,966.55	15,181,295.68Saskatchewan .	27,759,207.27	15,864,748.65Alberta	34,179,330.14	19,686,515.47Br. Columbia..	94,356,081.85	51,660,139.12Total	$382,504,426.48 $220,575,654.223.	Payments to provinces December 10, 1949, to May 31, 1958:Newfoundland	
$	9,777,397.16Prince Edward Island	
3,272,532.20Nova Scotia	
4,792,713.50New Brunswick	
12,385,775.21Ontario	
41,240,308.94Manitoba	
12,890,076.46Saskatchewan	
15,051,388.49Alberta	
17,264,295.06British Columbia	
40,820,162.99Total	
$157,494,650.01Total mileage	Paved mileage on travel route*Newfoundland 	, . 554	67Prince Edward Island .	,. 71	70Nova Scotia 	.. 311	202New Brunswick 	. . 390	346. . 1436	972Manitoba 	.. 309	277. . 406	406. 282	289**British Columbia ...	. . 568	407Total 	.. 4327	3036
*The paved mileage shown includes that detailed in No. 1 and mileage which was paved by the province prior to December 10, 1949. No information is available as to the extent to which the provinces may reconstruct the originally paved mileage and consequently percentages cannot be given.
**This mileage will be reduced to 282 when work on the highway is completed.
5.
Grading
approved
for con- Mileage struction completed
Newfoundland 	366	249Prince Edward Island ..	71	70Nova Scotia 	99	94New Brunswick	120	118Ontario	674	576Manitoba 	240	234Saskatchewan	406	406275	275British Columbia	428	385Total 	, 2679	2407
Paving approved for con-	Mileage
	struction	completed
Newfoundland 	_	.Prince Edward Island .	. 70	67Nova Scotia	. 26	New Brunswick	. 88	78Ontario 	. 452	434Manitoba 	. 270	246Saskatchewan 	. 406	406Alberta 	. 214	214British Columbia	. 262	262Total 	. 1788	1707


CUSTOMS OFFICES, ACTON VALE AND WATERLOO, QUEBEC
Mr. Boivin: 1.	Have representations been made to the Minister of National Revenue or any officials of his depart-
Questions
ment asking for the establishment of customs offices at Acton Vale and Waterloo, Quebec?
2.	If so, by whom?
Answer by: Hon. George C. Nowlan (Minister of National Revenue):
1.	Yes, in 1954.
2.	Representations made by Mr. Marcel Boivin, M.P.


NATIONAL FILM BOARD
Mr. Rouleau: 1.	Have tenders been called by the government for the building of a vault at the national film board in St. Laurent, Quebec?
2.	If so, has the contract been awarded, to what firm and at what amount?
3.	If not, when will tenders be called?
Answer by: Hon. Howard C. Green (Minister of Public Works):
1. Yes.
2 and 3. Tenders are due on June 25, 1958.

Wednesday, June 25, 1958