1958-02-01

Hon. Gordon Churchill (Minister of Trade and Commerce):: Mr. Speaker, I have a statement concerning Canada's atomic energy program which I should like to make at this time. I regret the length of the statement, but the subject is very important.
In March, 1948, Eldorado Mining and Refining Limited was designated by the government as the sole purchaser of uranium produced in Canada. Since that time Eldorado has entered into purchase contracts with 16 companies and has entered into matching sales contracts. The total value of these contracts is approximately $1,425,723,000.
Six of the companies are now in full production, four are producing but not at the rated capacity, and six have still to come into production. In addition, Eldorado has entered into sales contracts covering production from its own mines, which contracts have a total value of approximately $211 million.
During 1957 Canada produced 6,687 tons of uranium. It is estimated that 13,000 tons will be produced in 1958, and it is expected that production will rise to approximately 15,500 tons in 1959. The total value of shipments made under contracts as at December 31, 1957, was $223,162,037.
The bulk of the uranium to be produced under existing contracts will be delivered to the United States atomic energy commission under an arrangement entered into in March, 1948. This arrangement provided that Canada would reserve for its own use such quantities of uranium as might be required for the Canadian program. In 1956 the United Kingdom expressed a desire to obtain some part of its uranium requirements from Canada. As announced on March 26 last at the conclusion of the Bermuda conference, a contract with an approximate value of $115 million has been entered into with the United Kingdom atomic energy authority. Deliveries will be made over a period ending March 31, 1962, by diversion from existing contracts.
It was also stated in the joint communique issued following the Bermuda conference that consideration was being given to the 96698-262
supply from Canada of a substantial part of the uranium requirements of the United Kingdom atomic energy authority in the period after March 31, 1962. Arrangements have now been made whereby the United Kingdom atomic energy authority will obtain an additional quantity of uranium with an approximate value of $105 million. The delivery of this quantity will be made over the period April 1, 1962, to March 31, 1963, by a diversion from quantities now under contract which are scheduled for delivery in that period.
Negotiations are now under way with regard to the supply from Canada of a substantial part of the uranium requirements of the United Kingdom atomic energy authority over the period April 1, 1963, to December 31, 1966. These negotiations are proceeding satisfactorily, and Canada has undertaken to supply the quantity which the United Kingdom atomic energy authority has requested in this period. This will be supplied from quantities under option in the present purchase contracts.
In each of the three periods in question Canada has undertaken to supply in full the quantities requested by the United Kingdom atomic energy authority. Moreover, the same authority has been advised that the quantities could be increased should this be desired.
On the basis of present information it is expected that certain uranium mines will be able to produce in excess of the rates specified for delivery in their contracts with Eldorado. Every effort will be made to sell this surplus uranium to individual friendly countries and to organizations of friendly countries such as Euratom and the organization for European economic cooperation. These sales will be made under agreements for co-operation in the peaceful uses of atomic energy. As announced in the house some days ago, such an agreement has now been entered into with the Federal Republic of Germany. Negotiations for a similar bilateral agreement with the Confederation of Switzerland are now under way. Uranium sales will be made under these two bilateral agreements. At the conference of the international atomic energy agency held in Vienna in October the Canadian delegation advised the conference that Canada could make available to the agency substantial quantities of uranium.

Atomic Energy-Uranium Sales Contracts
The nature and scope of the research and development program under way at Chalk River are described in detail in the annual report of Atomic Energy of Canada Limited which was tabled on October 15. The objectives of the program are fourfold; first, to develop economic nuclear power in order that nuclear power may be available for use in Canada in those regions where a new source of energy will be required to supplement existing conventional sources; second, to carry out this development in a manner which will provide for the most effective participation of the utilities and the manufacturers; third, to expand the civil market, both domestic and foreign, for Canadian uranium; fourth, to produce and market radioisotopes for use in industry, medicine and research, and to develop new uses for these radioisotopes.
The development of economic nuclear power involves three main areas of activity, fundamental research, applied research, and the design, construction and operation of demonstration nuclear power plants. These activities have a common objective, the development of a power reactor technology based on the use of natural uranium as a fuel and heavy water as a moderator, the technology which Canada pioneered so successfully with the NRX reactor.
The fundamental research program under way at Chalk River consists of pure research in physics, chemistry, biology, physical metallurgy, and associated sciences. It is necessary that this program be continued and expanded in areas of particular interest if Canada is to maintain her position as one of the countries most advanced in the science of atomic energy, and if Canada is to continue to play an appropriate part in the program of international co-operation in the field of atomic energy.
It is now recognized in all nuclear programs that the economics of nuclear power can only be demonstrated by designing, engineering, constructing and operating nuclear power plants. Canada has two power reactor projects under way, the design and construction of a demonstration power reactor known as the NPD with an output of 20,000 kilowatts electric, and a design study for a power reactor with an output of 200,000 kilowatts electric.
Construction of the NPD reactor was suspended in April last in order to incorporate in the design certain new and desirable features. The work of redesign was completed successfully late in 1957. Fabrication and construction will now be resumed. It is expected that the NPD reactor will be in operation early in 1961. This project is being carried out in

co-operation with the Hydro-Electric Power Commission of Ontario and the Canadian General Electric Company. While it is not expected that the NPD station will produce power at competitive costs, it will demonstrate reliability of operation; it will provide information on fuel element design and performance, and it will serve as a prototype for nuclear stations with a larger power output.
Reference has been made in the annual report of Atomic Energy of Canada Limited to the results of the preliminary design study for a nuclear power station with an output of
200,000	kilowatts electric. A conceptual design was proposed in the report which offers good promise of producing power at an acceptable cost. However, the proving-up of the engineering and economic feasibility of the conceptual design proposed in the report will require a large and comprehensive development program. This program will take a period of from three and one-half to four years for its execution. The government has now approved the carrying out of such a program.
Atomic Energy of Canada Limited will set up a nuclear power plant division in Toronto which will be responsible for directing both the NPD project and the development program for the large reactor. All the Canadian utilities and those manufacturers who are now engaged in the program or who have an interest in the program will be invited to contribute staff to the new division. In this way we hope to provide for the most effective participation of the utilities and the manufacturers in the development of economic nuclear power.
It is estimated that the net cost of the research and development program, including the cost of the two power reactor projects, over the period April 1, 1958, to March 31, 1926, will be $140 million. This estimate has been established after allowing for certain revenues which Atomic Energy of Canada Limited will earn in that period and after allowing for the contributions which the Hydro-Electric Power Commission of Ontario and the Canadian General Electric Company will make toward the cost of the NPD station. Of the total amount of $140 million, approximately $100 million will be required to maintain the programs in fundamental and applied research and approximately $40 million will be required for the two power reactor projects.
The requirements of funds in each fiscal year over the four-year period will be subject to parliamentary approval. However, I have thought it desirable to give the house an estimate of the total requirements, since in a program of this kind commitments cannot be confined to a single fiscal year.


Hon. L. B. Pearson (Leader of ihe Opposition):: Mr. Speaker, I think the house will have listened with great interest to this important statement of the minister which deals with the development and marketing of one of our most important products and will, I think, have learned with satisfaction that the policy of the previous government in working out bilateral contracts with other governments for the sale of this commodity is making progress. In his statement the minister indicated the commitment of the government to make available certain quantities of uranium to the international atomic energy authority. Perhaps he will permit me to ask him at this time whether that is to be by gift or by sale.


Gordon Minto Churchill: I think perhaps that will be by sale.


Mr. Stanley Knowles (Winnipeg North Centre):: May I too join in the welcome that has been indicated with respect to the statement made by the Minister of Trade and Commerce. May I ask him one question. Does the three and a half to four year development program to which he referred envisage that at the end of that period electricity from nuclear power will be commercially available.


Gordon Minto Churchill: Some power will be available from the NPD power reactor producing, it is estimated, 20,000 kilowatts of electric power. At the end of the four-year period its design will be completed and the construction arranged of the larger power reactor which will take some further time for construction. At the conclusion of that operation it is expected to produce 200,000 kilowatts of electric power.


Stanley Howard Knowles: The
minister is getting close to my point. What is his forecast of the length of time between the end of the four-year period and the time taken to get that further development?


Gordon Minto Churchill: I should not like to hazard a guess at this stage until more research has gone forward with regard to the designing of the larger power reactor.



WHEAT-ANNOUNCEMENT OF INTERIM PAYMENT

[Stage Direction]
ON 1956-57 crop
Gordon Minto Churchill: I have another announcement to make which will be of interest to the house. I should like to advise the house that I have received a report from the Canadian wheat board dealing with the financial position of the 1956-57 wheat account. This account is in a surplus position, 96698-262J
Wheat-Interim Payment and it is possible to make an interim payment to producers in the near future. The government has therefore authorized an interim payment of 10 cents per bushel on all grades of wheat except milling grades of Durum wheat, upon which the interim payment will be 25 cents per bushel.
Producers delivered 361.4 million bushels of wheat to the 1956-57 pool. Taking into account the higher interim payment rate on milling grades of Durum wheat, the payment will provide for the distribution of $39.2 million to producers. It will be possible for the wheat board to commence issuing interim payment cheques within the next two or three weeks.
I might add, as indicating the success of the program for this year, that the total of this interim payment exceeds the total of last year by something over $2 million.


Right Hon. J. G. Gardiner (Melville):: May
I be permitted to say to the minister that the farmers of western Canada, more particularly those in Saskatchewan, who produced considerably more than half of this wheat, will be very much helped by the payment by the wheat board at this time, which I am sure they will greatly appreciate.


Mr. H. R. Argue (Assiniboia):: I wonder if the minister could say whether, prior to making this announcement, consideration was given to the possibility of paying into the account a deficiency payment from the treasury so that an interim payment of at least 20 cents a bushel might have been made, namely the same kind of payment which had been made for many years until a few years ago. Second, could the minister say when a payment will be made on the barley account?


Gordon Minto Churchill: With regard to the second part of the question, with respect to the barley account, the wheat board is now reviewing that situation and they consider that the barley pool is in good condition. My hope is that some payment will be forthcoming very soon.
With regard to the first part of the question, as to whether or not consideration had been given to adding a deficiency payment to this interim payment, I perhaps heard the hon. member incorrectly but I thought he said this had been done in the past, which was news to me. We were not able at this time to consider making the payment he suggests along with this interim payment. The whole question of deficiency payments has been brought to our attention very vigorously by farm organizations, but no decision has been reached as yet.

Inquiries of the Ministry


Hazen Robert Argue: I wonder if I might explain what I had in mind. Is the minister aware that in the vast majority of the years since the war the interim payment has been 20 cents a bushel, but in the last two or three years only the interim payment has become 10 cents a bushel?


Gordon Minto Churchill: I have examined all these figures very carefully, Mr. Speaker. The interim payment being made now corresponds with the interim payments made in the last four or five years and, as I have pointed out, the total amount is substantially higher than for the last year.


Mr. Tucker:: The farmers' costs have
gone up.



REFERENCE TO INQUIRY INTO ALLOCATION OF BOX CARS

[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. H. W. Herridge (Kootenay West):: Mr. Speaker, as a member of a group that is not in a state of nerves I want to address a question to the minister who informs us repeatedly that he is doing all he can to prevent the imposition of tariffs on lead and zinc by the government of the United States. I refer, of course, to the Minister of Trade and Commerce.
In view of the minister's statement to the house yesterday that Hon. John Bracken had been appointed by the government to undertake an inquiry into the distribution of box cars, and in view of traditional Conservative and Churchillian insistence on the correct usage of titles, orders and other honours, would the minister inform the house when Mr. Bracken was appointed a member of the privy council?


Stanley Howard Knowles: When he became a Tory.


Gordon Minto Churchill: Mr. Speaker, had there been proper recognition of the position of leader of the opposition in this house when Mr. John Bracken was here he would have been immediately appointed a member of the privy council.


Mr. Sinclair:: They never appointed any Liberals.


Gordon Minto Churchill: I used the expression "honourable" in connection with Mr. Bracken's name as a title which he richly deserves, having served for 20 years as premier of the province of Manitoba-


An hon. Member:: As a Liberal.


Gordon Minto Churchill: -and leader of the opposition in this house.
[Mr. Churchill.)


Walter Adam Tucker: Then why not take him into the privy council?


Gordon Minto Churchill: I can assure the hon. member who has asked the question that if his conduct in the future is similar to that of Mr. Bracken I would be pleased to refer to him as "honourable".


Herbert Wilfred Herridge: A supplementary question, Mr. Speaker. Will the minister admit that in the legal and greater Churchillian sense his use of the title was incorrect?


Lester Bowles Pearson: No, he will not admit it.


Gordon Minto Churchill: I was not indicating that Mr. Bracken was a member of the privy council. I used the title as a matter of respect and out of courtesy to him.


Lester Bowles Pearson: Oh, oh.



REQUEST FOR TABLING OF ORDER IN COUNCIL

[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Walter Adam Tucker: Mr. Speaker, may I direct a question to the Minister of Trade and Commerce. Is the minister now prepared to table the order in council appointing Mr. Bracken to inquire into the box car situation, in order that the house and country may know the scope of his authority and all that is connected with it and as to what he is to inquire into? I may say that this is not a matter of curiosity on my part but is a question about which the country would like to know. The people of this country are interested in knowing about some of the things the government is doing.


Gordon Minto Churchill: Mr. Speaker, the government has disclosed to the general satisfaction of the country the things it is doing.


James Sinclair: I'll say it has.


Gordon Minto Churchill: The order in council was tabled at eleven o'clock.


Walter Adam Tucker: May I direct a question to the Minister of Trade and Commerce. The order in council with regard to the matter I asked him about was apparently tabled at eleven o'clock this morning, but it purports to have been signed on January 31, 1958. I would ask him if, when he made the announcement yesterday, the order in council already was signed and, if so, why he did not table it when he was asked to do so on the floor of the house.


Gordon Minto Churchill: Mr. Speaker, I think that is a thoroughly improper question, in that it asks for details regarding the transaction of

cabinet business. I also object to the hon. member's inference in saying that it purports to have been signed on January 31.


Walter Adam Tucker: It appeared to have been
signed on that date.


Gordon Minto Churchill: That is the date on the order in council, as he can readily see for himself.


Walter Adam Tucker: On a question of privilege, Mr. Speaker, I only have a copy of the document before me and I said it appears to have been signed on that date. That is what I said.


Gordon Minto Churchill: You used the word "purport".


Walter Adam Tucker: I did not use the word "purport" with the inference suggested.


Mr. Cardiff:: Half the time you do not know what you say.


Walter Adam Tucker: I raise the point for this reason. I think it should be a matter of great interest not only to members on this side of the house but to members on the other side, and I am raising the matter as a question of privilege not only as it affects myself but as it affects the privileges of parliament. Your Honour knows the rule is that when a minister refers to an action by the government embodied in an order in council he must thereupon table that document. The minister was asked yesterday to table the document. It appears to have been signed yesterday. I am asking him if, when he made the announcement, the order in council was signed and if it was why he did not, in accordance with the established rules of parliament, table it yesterday.


Gordon Minto Churchill: I am sorry the hon. member is so little interested in the investigation of the box car situation which was ignored for so long by the former administration.


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh.


Mr. Gauthier (Portneuf):: That is the silliest answer ever given here, one of the silliest.


Mr. Speaker:: Order. The hon. member has raised a question of privilege, and I think in fairness the house should hear what the Minister of Trade and Commerce has to say.


Gordon Minto Churchill: Yesterday, Mr. Speaker, I did not cite the order in council. It was suggested by the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre that I had so done, but I did not. I made the announcement that Mr. Bracken was going to make an inquiry into box car allocation with regard to the movement of grain in western Canada. The order in council was tabled at the earliest possible moment.


Stanley Howard Knowles: When was it passed?


Some hon. Members:: Answer.
Inquiries of the Ministry


Mr. Speaker:: I do not think the house should enter into a debate on this matter unless there is a motion before it. It seems to me that the matter has been dealt with sufficiently.


Walter Adam Tucker: On a question of privilege, how can we make a motion or take any steps to defend the privileges and rights of parliament if the government will not give us any information on the matter? For all we know the order in council was passed when the minister made his statement that the government had decided to appoint Mr. Bracken. The government acts by order in council. Inasmuch as he stated that the government had decided to appoint Mr. Bracken, the order in council must have then been signed, and if it was signed he should have tabled it. If it was not already signed he was stating something that was incorrect, because the government cannot act as a government except by order in council, and in that case he was flouting the house with regard to the matter. It is either one thing or the other. We should be very concerned about upholding the rights of parliament, and so should my hon. friends opposite. We are entitled to information as to whether the minister did contravene a rule of parliament when he made the announcement yesterday.


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh.


Mr. Speaker:: I take it that the hon. member's question of privilege is that the order in council was not tabled yesterday. I think Hansard is clear as to what happened yesterday, and we do not need to enter into a debate about it. Personally I do not see any question of privilege which requires any further debate, unless some member wishes to found a motion on what has happened.


Walter Adam Tucker: .With regard to the matter I raised of whether or not there had been infringement of the privileges and rights of parliament, I understood the Minister of Trade and Commerce (Mr. Churchill) to indicate that it was not well founded because he had not referred to the order in council in making his announcement. I should like to draw the minister's attention to what he said at that time-


Mr. Speaker:: The hon. member is rising on a question of privilege, I take it.


Walter Adam Tucker: Yes.


Mr. Speaker:: I fail to see what privilege he feels has been infringed. I wish he would explain that point before he goes further.


Walter Adam Tucker: The question of privilege is quite simply stated. It is an established rule

Inquiries of the Ministry binding this parliament that when a minister of the crown intimates that action has been taken embodied in a public document, he must thereupon at once table that document. Yesterday the minister was asked to table the document. He said-and Your Honour upheld that view-that he would table it in due course. He did not table it yesterday. He did table it today. I submit that was an infringement of the rights of this parliament. In seeking to explain the matter the minister indicated that when he made the announcement he had not mentioned an order in council. I wish to submit to Your Honour that this point of privilege is well taken because the minister indicated that an order in council was in existence. I wish to read his words in order to prove to Your Honour that he infringed that rule.


Mr. Speaker:: It is not necessary to read them. They are in Hansard for everybody to read, as I said earlier. If there is any matter of privilege, or if the privileges of the house have been offended by the delay of the minister in tabling the order in council, the hon. member has made his point sufficiently, and I do not think that we ought to take up time in debating the matter.


Stanley Howard Knowles: Is it not a question to which parliament should have an answer, namely as to whether this order in council had been passed when the minister referred to it yesterday morning or whether it was passed at a meeting of the cabinet held yesterday afternoon?


Mr. Speaker:: If the hon. member wants to ask that question I would consider it to be a proper question to ask.


Stanley Howard Knowles: Yes, I ask that question. At what time yesterday was this order in council passed?


Mr. Fleming:: That is an improper question.


Gordon Minto Churchill: Is it a rule or practice that the time of passing orders in council must be placed on the document?


Mr. Speaker:: I did not consider that was a rule. However, I would consider that if the hon. member asked whether the order in council was passed yesterday, he would be entitled to ask that question.


Gordon Minto Churchill: It was passed yesterday and it is so recorded.


James Sinclair: Before or after your announcement?


Stanley Howard Knowles: Mr. Speaker, the rights and privileges of parliament do not permit the evasion of a question that you have ruled to be in order.

I asked the minister at what time yesterday the order in council was passed.


Mr. Speaker:: I am not aware that I ruled that the house was entitled to know the time it was passed. It seems to me that would be inquiring into the secrecy of council. I have ruled, and the question has been asked, as to the day on which the order in council was passed.


Stanley Howard Knowles: On the point to which you have just referred, Mr. Speaker, namely as to the secrecy of cabinet proceedings, may I say this. We have been told on previous occasions by members of the government that certain questions we asked could not be answered because they related to discussions which were still going on in cabinet and which had not yet been made final. Surely that is the whole point of this issue. Was the minister yesterday morning telling us about an action that had been made final in cabinet by order in council, or was he merely reporting something that was more or less a matter of secret discussion? This matter could be cleared up if we could be told at what time that order in council was passed.


Mr. Speaker:: I am sorry, but I cannot agree with the hon. member that he is entitled to inquire as to the exact time of the passage of the order in council. It is apparently dated January 31, and the minister answered that it was passed on January 31. The question of privilege was with regard to whether the minister should have tabled the document at the conclusion of the announcement yesterday or this morning, as he did, and that point has been sufficiently dealt with.


Stanley Howard Knowles: That was not my question of privilege. My question of privilege is as to whether the order in council had been passed yesterday morning at the time the minister told the House of Commons about it.


Mr. Speaker:: I cannot see any question of privilege there. If the hon. member wants to cite any authority or to argue the point, of course I will hear him, but I do not see that there is any question of privilege of the house involved in the facts that the hon. member has presented.


Lester Bowles Pearson: May I say a word on that matter, Mr. Speaker. Is it not true that if action had not been finally taken by the government, the minister should not have brought the question up in the house; because a previous decision had been made that we in the opposition are not permitted to discuss these matters which have not been made final in cabinet.

Inquiries of the Ministry


An hon. Member:: He cannot take it.


James Sinclair: That is the point.


Lester Bowles Pearson: On the other hand, if the action had been made Anal and the order in council had been passed before the minister brought it up, he should have tabled the order in council.


James Sinclair: That states the position
exactly.


Mr. Green:: On that point, Mr. Speaker, may I simply point out to the Leader of the Opposition that yesterday there was ample opportunity given for questions and answers on this point. It is really very touching to see him and his colleagues so greatly upset about the non-disclosure of a document-


James Sinclair: Government by order in
council.


Howard Charles Green: -after what they did when they were in power.


Mr. Pickersgill:: This is a great reformation that we are seeing.



BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Lester Bowles Pearson: Mr. Speaker, I wonder if the house leader would give us any indication of the plans of the government for the remainder of the session before we embark on the work of today?


Howard Charles Green: This question was asked yesterday of the Prime Minister, and I expect that he will be answering the question later in the day.


Lester Bowles Pearson: Could the minister give us any Indication of when later in the day, and under what circumstances?


Howard Charles Green: Oh, Mr. Speaker, the Leader of the Opposition should not be so curious.


Some hon. Members:: Oh,oh.


Walter Adam Tucker: Public business.


Lester Bowles Pearson: Does the house leader not agree that this procedure or lack of procedure which has been indicated is more suited to a mock parliament than to the highest legislature of this country?


Howard Charles Green: I must say that I consider, and I am sure that the great majority of the Canadian people will also consider, that many of the statements and actions of the Leader of the Opposition since he took that office have been more suited to a mock parliament.


James Sinclair: Why is the Prime Minister not in the chamber as he should be?


James Sinclair: He cannot take it; he is not even here.


Stanley Howard Knowles: Mr. Speaker, I wonder if the leader of the house is now in a position to make a definite statement concerning a matter about which he spoke conditionally last night. On Monday will we be dealing with the closure resolution, or will it be a motion to go into supply, or will the government ask to go into supply without a motion in order to take up supplementary estimates?


Howard Charles Green: Mr. Speaker, I think I answered that question last evening.


Stanley Howard Knowles: May
I ask the leader of the house a supplementary question. May we take it from his reply a moment ago to the Leader of the Opposition that the Prime Minister will come into the house later this day and bring to an end the war of nerves he has been conducting?


Howard Charles Green: I am delighted to learn that the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre is now in a state of nerves. One of our main objectives for the last three months has been to get him into that condition. I think the answer I have already given meets the situation.


Stanley Howard Knowles: May
I ask a supplementary question.


Mr. Speaker:: Does the hon. gentleman not think he has had all the answers he is likely to get?


Stanley Howard Knowles: Mr. Speaker, I may have had all the answers I can get out of the government on that question, but my supplementary question is a different one. Can we now be assured, either by the leader of the house or by the Minister of Finance, that this government, which believes in the supremacy of parliament-


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear.


Stanley Howard Knowles: -
that this government which believes in the supremacy of parliament will permit this parliament to deal with all the estimates before there is a dissolution?


Howard Charles Green: Mr. Speaker, the hon. member has a great deal to say about our attitude toward parliament and the rights of parliament, but quite frankly I am forced to the conviction when I hear him that his belief as to what parliament is for is that it is a sounding board for Knowles.


Stanley Howard Knowles: What has the hon. member for Norfolk (Mr. Knowles) to say about that?

Inquiries of the Ministry


Stanley Howard Knowles: Mr. Speaker, may I direct a question to the house leader. Is the Prime Minister in Ottawa at the present time?


Howard Charles Green: I am afraid I cannot answer that question, Mr. Speaker.


James Sinclair: Secrecy, secrecy.


Stanley Howard Knowles: May I ask the leader of the house a supplementary question. Is it correct that the Prime Minister took a plane from Ottawa this morning to fly to Quebec city?


Howard Charles Green: Mr. Speaker, I have already answered the hon. member's first question. I have nothing to add.


James Sinclair: Secrecy, secrecy.


Mr. Speaker:: I doubt whether that last question is a proper one for the orders of the day.


Stanley Howard Knowles: The answer is obvious.


Mr. Speaker:: It does not seem to concern the responsibility of any minister in the house.


Donald Methuen Fleming: Why does the hon. member ask the question if he knows? He is wasting more time.


Lester Bowles Pearson: The leader of the house knows I am always anxious to co-operate with him and assist him. Will he permit me to inform him that the Prime Minister has left by Department of Transport Viscount aeroplane for Quebec, and will he therefore inform the house when he is likely to return?


Howard Charles Green: I am surprised at this curiosity exhibited by the Leader of the Opposition and by the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre. They really have a very bad case of nerves. I gave an answer to the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre a few moments ago.


James Sinclair: You gave no answer.


John Whitney Pickersgill: It was quite obvious who had the case of nerves at five o'clock yesterday.


Stanley Howard Knowles: Will the minister permit a question? Does he not realize that our effort to obtain information is on behalf of his own, backbenchers, who would like to know what is happening?


Howard Charles Green: I am sure that the Conservative backbenchers greatly appreciate the solicitude of the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre.



INCOME TAX


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. H. J. Robichaud (Gloucester):: Mr. Speaker, I should like to direct a question to the Minister of National Revenue. Will the minister advise the house what leading citizens he had in mind, and what professions he was referring to, when he made the following statement in an address to the Canadian Institute of Surveying at its annual luncheon on Thursday last, as reported in the Ottawa Journal of yesterday:
I have been shocked at the number of selfemployed who do attempt evasion, many of them known as leading citizens. Why, we get doctors, with huge incomes, reporting less than is shown by the receipts received from their patients. And I can't say that doctors are worse offenders than members of other professions.


Hon. G. C. Nowlan (Minister of National Revenue):: I appreciate very much the
hon. member giving further publicity to the statement I made the other day, and I can assure him I did not have him in mind when I made it.


Hédard-J. Robichaud: A supplementary question. Was the minister aware of his oath of office as a minister of the crown when he took advantage of his position to launch such a blasting attack on the honesty of professional people in this country?


Mr. Speaker:: I am sure the hon. member does not appreciate the position, or he would not have asked a question which reflects on an hon. member of the house.



REFERENCE TO CANADIAN PROTEST AGAINST UNITED STATES ACTION

[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. W. M. Benidickson (Kenora-Rainy
River): I should like to draw to the attention of the Minister of National Revenue the fact that on January 24 I addressed a question to him relating to the United States-Canadian tax treaty, and in particular its effect on a Canadian corporation, Premium Iron Ores. I asked whether the minister would indicate to the house the nature of the representations he said he had made to the United States government, whether or not a reply had been received from the United States government, and if so did he think his representations were likely to be successful. The minister indicated that he would make a further report to the house at a subsequent time. I wonder if he could do so today.
Hon. G. C. Nowlan (Minister of National Revenue: Yes, Mr. Speaker. We have had more conversations about this matter since

the question was asked; otherwise the question would have been answered before. In so far as the nature of the communication is concerned, it was a communication in which the Canadian government expressed its concern about this matter of the taxation of Premium Iron Ores Company. In view of the fact that representations were made to this government that the contents of the aide-memoire of the previous government had not been communicated to the respective departments concerned in the United States but had been left in the state department- whether or not those representations were correct is not for me to say-we asked the United States government to make sure that the contents of our letter were communicated to each of the departments of the United States government concerned. We have received an acknowledgment from the United States government of the receipt of the communication and advising us that each of the respective departments of the United States government had been advised of the contents of the note.
I am not in a position to state the ultimate conclusion of the matter because I have had various reports within the last 48 hours. One told me that one course of action had been taken, and another told me it had not been taken. I am trying to find out at the moment exactly where the matter stands.
Mr. Solon E. Low (Peace River):: I should like to direct a question to the Minister of National Revenue arising out of his answer to the question asked by the hon. member for Kenora-Rainy River. In his reply the minister indicated that various contradictory reports had come out of the United States concerning the action or possible action in Washington by the United States tax department.
I should like to ask the minister this question. If he discovers that the United States tax department is determined to go ahead with the appeal in the Premium case, will he then ask his colleagues in the government to join him in making a stronger protest to the United States government against their action? Because it would indicate, in my judgment, that the aide-memoire which had been sent previously and which this government merely reiterated in its recent note was not strong enough medicine.


George Clyde Nowlan: That is one of those suppositious questions to which you have referred from time to time, Mr. Speaker. At the moment I am not in a position to say what this government would do in the event that the American government pursued an appeal. That, of course, is within their legal rights should they see fit to do so. We have 96698-263
Inquiries of the Ministry very strong opinions as to why it should not be done, but it is a matter for the United States government. If the appeal should result in the imposition of tax we would then be in the position where we would be obliged to register the strongest possible protest, because we would feel that the convention had been violated.



PUBLIC BUILDINGS


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. J. A. Byrne (Kootenay East):: Mr. Speaker, a humble backbencher would like to direct a question to a learned frontbencher, the Minister of Public Works. Is it the intention of the minister to construct a museum to house a model of the more ancient Bennett buggy as well as the more modern version which was unveiled at a colourful ceremony yesterday afternoon?


Howard Charles Green: Mr. Speaker, I hope that after not too long a time it will be necessary for us to provide a museum to house the hon. member for Kootenay East.


James Allen (Jim) Byrne: Does the minister have the Senate in mind, by any chance?



LABOUR CONDITIONS


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. D. M. Fisher (Port Arthur):: Mr. Speaker, I should like to direct a question to the Minister of Labour. Would the minister make a statement on the month-old walk-out affecting 700 men on the Northern Ontario Pipe Line Crown Corporation project, from the viewpoint of the action taken by his department to get the men back to work?


Hon. Michael Starr (Minister of Labour):: Mr. Speaker, I wish to thank the hon. member for giving me notice of his intention to ask this question. With regard to the question that has been raised by the hon. member I might say that my understanding is that the pipe line association of Canada has reached an agreement with the two unions involved in the dispute, and that consequently there would appear to be no reason why the cutting and clearing operations on the northern pipe line project should not be resumed at once by the contractors or their subcontractors. This agreement does not require the approval of my department, but we are willing to give effect to the wage rates established under such an agreement in
4156	HOUSE OF
Inquiries of the Ministry accordance with the provisions of the Fair Wages and Hours of Labour Act once the parties to the agreement provide us with a copy of it, or adequate confirmation thereof.


Mr. Arnold Peters (Timiskaming):: A supplementary question, Mr. Speaker. Is the minister in a position to say whether this walk-out is now a lock-out?


Michael Starr: No Mr. Speaker, I am not in a position to say that.


Douglas Mason Fisher: I should like to direct a question to the Minister of Trade and Commerce. It is supplementary to the one I asked the Minister of Labour. Has the minister anything to report on the walk-out on the Northern Ontario Pipe Line Crown Corporation project, as it affects the contracts awarded by that corporation which is under the minister?


Gordon Minto Churchill: I should like to thank the hon. member for drawing this matter to my attention. I am having an investigation made. The information I have at the moment is that the strike has been settled. Whether or not work has been resumed in all parts of the area that is to be cleared I do not know, but I should know soon. The contract under which the contractors have undertaken the work requires that the clearing of the right of way for the pipe line be done during the winter. They must, of course, adhere to that stipulation in the contract.



NON-OPERATING RAILWAY UNIONS  REPORTED RESIGNATION OF BOARD CHAIRMAN

[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Hon. George C. Marler (St. Anloine-Wesf-mount):: Mr. Speaker, I should like to address a question to the Minister of Labour. Is he in a position to make any statement concerning a report which appeared in the press this morning to the effect that Mr. Justice McTague has resigned as chairman of the board to consider the case of the non-operating railway unions?


Michael Starr: Mr. Speaker, I do not think I am in a position to do so until the parties involved have been advised. I think it would be most unfair for me to say anything.


Lester Bowles Pearson: Advised?


George Carlyle Marler: Mr. Speaker, may I infer then from the minister's answer that Mr. Justice McTague has resigned?


Michael Starr: Mr. Speaker, I have answered as fully as I can at the moment.


James Sinclair: Secrecy, secrecy, secrecy.


Michael Starr: Mr. Speaker, this is not a matter of secrecy, it is a matter of consideration for all parties involved. I do not think any statement should be made until those who are involved have been informed accordingly.


James Sinclair: Mr. Speaker, the hon. gentleman apparently did not hear the question. It is not why Mr. Justice McTague resigned, it is has he resigned. The answer is simply yes or no.


Donald Methuen Fleming: The question was heard and answered.


Lester Bowles Pearson: Whom are you going to
advise?


James Sinclair: Once more I say secrecy,
secrecy, secrecy.


Mr. Speaker:: Order. I understood the
minister to say that he felt he could not give any further information in fairness to the parties.



CANADIAN PACIFIC RAILWAY


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
James Allen (Jim) Byrne: I wonder if the minister could inform the house how soon we may expect the report of the Kellock commission, which was the commission investigating the dispute between the railways and the firemen.


Michael Starr: Mr. Speaker, I think the report is ready to be tabled, and it should be tabled either today or on Monday.



PUBLIC WORKS


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. F. C. Christian (Okanagan Boundary):: Mr. Speaker, I should like to direct a question to the Minister of Public Works. This question relates to progress rather than politics. The question is what progress has been made by the planning section of the Department of Public Works and, in particular, has the minister any information to disclose to the house relative to a new list of public works needs in the next five years?


Howard Charles Green: Mr. Speaker, I should like to thank the hon. member for giving me notice of his question. In view of the fact that the estimates of the Department of Public Works are to be considered later in the day-


James Sinclair: You hope.


Howard Charles Green: [DOT]-I suggest that he raise his question at that time.



AGRICULTURE


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. A. M. Nicholson (Mackenzie):: Mr. Speaker, I wish to direct a question to the Minister of Agriculture. In the light of the minister's statement in the house on January 11 which assured prairie egg producers a floor price of 30 cents a dozen, will the minister explain why the price at Invermay, Saskatchewan, on January 21 was 28 cents for grade A large? Could he account for the fact that a 12-dozen crate of eggs brought $2.68 this year, $4.39 in 1957, and $5.05 in 1956?


Hon. D. S. Harkness (Minister of Agriculture):: Mr. Speaker, I have no knowledge with regard to what the price may have been in Invermay. I will be glad to have the matter investigated. However, I can assure the hon. member that the price of 30 cents to the producer applies and has applied at all main assembly centres throughout the western provinces since action was taken about January 11 or 12 to ensure that that situation would obtain.
As far as the latter part of his question is concerned, in which he cited the prices of crates of eggs, I can only say that it seems to me to be designed to create a totally false impression. The reason for any difference of that kind would be due to the fact that in one case he is talking about grade A large eggs and in another place probably he is referring to grade B eggs, or else he is talking about two different periods of the year.


Alexander Malcolm Nicholson: I will be glad to send over to the minister the slips from which I took this information, which come from a very good source, and I note that the grade "C" eggs are worth only 10 cents a dozen.


James Sinclair: Tory times are hard times; 10 cents a dozen for eggs under the Tories.


Mr. Bell (Saini John-Albert):: You are only qualified to talk about rotten eggs.


Douglas Scott Harkness: In so far as the question asked by the hon. member for Mackenzie about egg prices is concerned, I have now had an opportunity of looking at the egg slips which he sent over to me. They appear to bear out completely what I said in answer to his question. The prices of these eggs which he has mentioned are due mainly to the fact that they were delivered at completely different times of the year. The first lot was delivered in January, when egg prices are always low and under support. The other two slips show that they are dated in August 96698-2631
Inquiries of the Ministry when prices were high, 39 cents for grade A large rather than 30 cents which is now being paid, and the other slip shows 45 cents for grade A. In one of these cases the eggs were grade A large, and in the other case he mentioned where the total is $2.68, only half of the eggs were grade A large.
Questions of this sort, when a member has the information before him in the form of these slips which he subsequently sends over to me, are designed entirely to give the farmers a completely false picture, and that is the sort of thing hon. members should not do.


Alexander Malcolm Nicholson: May I ask the minister if he thinks eggs can be produced cheaper in Saskatchewan in the summertime than they can be in January? Does he not think the producer who goes to the expense of putting up buildings for the production of eggs in January should have the ma'ximum price in that month?


Douglas Scott Harkness: What I think in regard to the matter is immaterial. The hon. member has asked me for my thought.


Hazen Robert Argue: That is right; they are worth nothing.


Mr. Speaker:: Order. In so far as this egg question is concerned, I hope the eggs are better than the questions. I shall refrain from making the obvious pun, but I do feel the questions might be taken up when the Department of Agriculture estimates are under consideration. These questions seem to produce a great deal of argument every time they are raised.


EXTERNAL AFFAIRS
[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Hazen Robert Argue: Mr. Speaker, I wish to direct a question to the Secretary of State for External Affairs. Can the minister inform the house whether the United States Senate foreign relations committee has invited Canadian officials to give testimony before that committee next week when it inquires into Canadian-United States relations, as has been reported in the press, and whether Canada is going to take part in the proceedings before that committee?


Hon. Sidney E. Smith (Secretary of State for External Affairs):: Mr. Speaker, I thank the hon. member for giving me notice of this question since I came into the house. We know nothing about this investigation into the relations between Canada and the United States except what we have read in
4158	HOUSE OF
Inquiries of the Ministry the newspapers. I have been endeavouring to obtain some official information about it but as yet I have not been successful and, as I say, all we know about it is what we have read in the newspapers. One report I saw indicated that the foreign relations committee of the Senate would not be inviting any Canadians to appear before it.
May I interpolate, Mr. Speaker, that we were gratified to observe that the foreign relations committee of the United States Senate is beginning to take heed of Canadian protests with respect to the injury that has been done on occasion to Canadian interests.


Hazen Robert Argue: Mr. Speaker, the Globe and Mail report I have in my hand says the committee would also like to hear testimony from Canadian officials. I am wondering whether the minister can say if Canada would be prepared to give sympathetic consideration-


Mr. Speaker:: Order. I am sorry, but that question falls in the category of being hypothetical and should not be asked until there is some certainty about the matter.


Lester Bowles Pearson: Mr. Speaker, I was going to direct a similar question to the Secretary of State for External Affairs with respect to whether he thought it was appropriate for Canadian officials to appear before the United States Senate foreign relations committee, but as you have ruled that question out of order may I ask him whether the intergovernmental agreement between Canada and the United States covering the air defence command which was set up last July and which was, in the words of the Minister of National Defence, to have been concluded early in the new year, has yet been concluded.


Sidney Earle Smith: Mr. Speaker, I certainly gave no undertaking that it would be ready early in the new year.


Lester Bowles Pearson: The Minister of National Defence said so.


Sidney Earle Smith: All I can
say to the Leader of the Opposition is that it is still in process, and I re-emphasize what I endeavoured to say the other day, that no one in the house knows better than the man who held the portfolio I now hold the time and care it takes to prepare a document of this kind.


Lester Bowles Pearson: Does the Secretary of State for External Affairs not realize that in the past in his department agreements of this kind were made before action was taken, and not afterward?


Donald Methuen Fleming: The whole trouble was that no action was taken.



ADMINISTRATION OF JUSTICE


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Hon. Lionel Chevrier (Laurier):: May I
direct a question to the Minister of Justice. Is the report heard over the radio this morning to the effect that the former treasurer of Ontario has been appointed chief justice of that province correct?


Hon. E. D. Fulton (Minister of Justice):: The hon. gentleman will realize that appointments to the position of chief justice are within the province of the Prime Minister. Without consulting the records I am not certain exactly what the position is with regard to the chief justice of Ontario, and I would prefer to wait until the Prime Minister returns.


James Sinclair: Secrecy, secrecy.



UNITED KINGDOM


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. F. S. Zaplitny (Dauphin):: May I direct a question to the Minister of Trade and Commerce which does not involve an order in council. Since the minister's visit to the United Kingdom has he taken any steps with regard to the proposal of that country to Canada for the establishment of a free trade area?


Gordon Minto Churchill: Mr. Speaker, this question has been raised in the past. It is repetitious. I do not know whether the rules of the house are being observed when repetitious questions are being asked so frequently.


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh.


Gordon Minto Churchill: I have pointed out on other occasions that the whole question of expanding Canada's trade is being very carefully examined. The trade mission to the United Kingdom was a step in that direction, and proved to be highly successful.



FISH FILLETS-U.S. TARIFFS ON IMPORTS

[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Hédard-J. Robichaud: May I
direct a question to the Secretary of State for External Affairs. Can the minister advise the house if any official representations or protests have been made by the Canadian government to the government of the United States concerning the United States tariff board's recommendation for the imposition

of additional tariffs or quotas on the import of frozen fish fillets from Canada into the United States?


Sidney Earle Smith: I will have to take that question as notice.



COLOMBO PLAN


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. E. J. Broome (Vancouver South):: should like to direct a question to the Minister of Trade and Commerce. In view of the substantial requirements of India for Douglas fir ties under the Colombo plan, amounting to some $3 million, could the Minister of Trade and Commerce tell the house if tenders can be called in the near future?


Gordon Minto Churchill: Mr. Speaker, I think that will be the case. It means a very substantial order for the industry in British Columbia. An announcement will be made in due course.



NATIONAL PARKS


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. S. H. S. Thompson (Edmonlon-Strathcona):: Mr. Speaker, I have given notice of the question I wish to ask the Minister of Northern Affairs and National Resources, but I understand that in his absence the Minister of Agriculture is in a position to answer it.
In view of the assistance being given to provincial governments for the development of parks, it would appear that immediate consideration should be given to the completion of urgently needed park projects which are strictly a federal responsibility. Would the minister advise the house of the action he is taking to expedite the early construction of a good highway through that portion of the Yellowhead pass lying west of Jasper within the national park?


Douglas Scott Harkness: Mr. Speaker, the road to which the hon. member refers would connect with the B.C. highway leading to the west gate of the park through the Yellowhead pass. The road within the park is at the present time of fully as high a standard as the provincial road leading to the west gate. There is obviously no purpose in building this road to a higher standard until the government of British Columbia provides a link outside the park to an equally high standard.
Inquiries of the Ministry
The position has been discussed from time to time with the province, and I can assure the hon. member that the road within the park will be kept at just as high a standard as the provincial road leading to the park, and will be improved just as soon as the government of British Columbia indicates a firm intention to improve its connecting road.


Mr. B. R. Leboe (Cariboo):: May I ask a
supplementary question of the Minister of Agriculture with regard to the road from Jasper down to the west boundary. I think if he investigates he will find that the load limit on the bridges within the park is from two to three tons, while on the British Columbia section the load limit on the bridges is 30 tons. Will the minister look into that matter and see that those bridges are so constructed that they will carry the same tonnage as the British Columbia road leading to the park?


Douglas Scott Harkness: Mr. Speaker, that was an observation, I think, rather than a question. I am quite sure the department will be glad to look into the matter so far as the load limit on bridges is concerned.


Bert Raymond Leboe: Will they take action?



IMMIGRATION


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Michael Starr: Mr. Speaker, the hon. member for Vancouver-Kingsway raised a question the other day as to the possibility of the national employment service arranging for training in order that we may have the kind of technician that is imported from the United States for work in connection with the conversion of equipment to the use of natural gas. The Acting Minister of Citizenship and Immigration took this question as notice on my behalf.
On inquiring into this matter I am informed that for the conversion of equipment and appliances to the use of natural gas it has been the practice to allow the entry into Canada of a certain number of United States personnel to provide supervision and crew organization which involves the training of Canadian workers to do the job. This has been the practice in the several locations in Canada where gas conversion has taken place to date.
In the particular instance dealt with by the Acting Minister of Citizenship and Immigration in the house on January 25, we are informed by the firm concerned that after May 15 all the United States workers will have returned to the United States, leaving the whole work force of the company comprising Canadian workers, with the possible exception of one or two foremen or executives.

Inquiries of the Ministry
With reference to the question raised by the hon. member for Vancouver South, I am informed that numbers of Canadian workers who became skilled in the gas conversion program in one area have found work in conversion projects in other areas. Whether or not Canadian workers from Toronto are employed in Montreal I do not know, but I know that such is the case with the gas conversion project that is now going on in Ottawa.



FINANCE


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. E. B. Huffman (Kent, Onl.):: I should like to address a question to the Minister of Finance, arising out of the statement that was made by the minister as recorded at page 1274 of Hansard of November 19, 1957. I might just quote his words, which were as follows:
As I have said, the government has not yet had an opportunity to consider the recommendations presented in the report which I have just tabled.
I can, however, assure hon. members that the report will be studied carefully, and that the government will give serious consideration to the tariff board's recommendations. If we decide to take action along the lines of these recommendations we would expect to take the necessary steps in conformity with the general agreement on tariffs and trade.
My question is, could the minister advise the house if any action has been taken in accordance with those recommendations?


Donald Methuen Fleming: There have been preliminary discussions on the subject.


Edward Blake Huffman: Has the Canadian delegation returned from the GATT conference?


Donald Methuen Fleming: Some of the members have, but the composition of the delegation has changed from time to time.



PIPE LINES


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
William Arnold Peters: May I
ask the Minister of Trade and Commerce what preparation has been made for the establishment of land appropriation boards to set the rates of payment for land expropriated for the trans-Canada pipe line?


Gordon Minto Churchill: Mr. Speaker, the activities of the Trans-Canada Pipe Lines company do not come under the purview of this department, except for the crown corporation's responsibility for the construction of the

northern Ontario section of the line. I will have to take the hon. member's question as notice, because I may not have got its full significance.


William Arnold Peters: Since this matter has now become of great consequence in connection with the trans-Canada pipe line, with respect to expropriations by the crown corporation and others, may I ask the Minister of Veterans Affairs what consideration has been given to supplying legal advice on behalf of those veterans who are holding land under the Veterans' Land Act and are now being asked to sell their property and are making appeals? Is the department prepared to handle the appeals since they are the holders of the mortgages?


Hon. A. J. Brooks (Minister of Veterans Affairs):: Mr. Speaker, this matter is receiving consideration by the legal branch of my department at the present time.



UNEMPLOYMENT INSURANCE


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
John Whitney Pickersgill: I wonder if the Minister of Labour could inform the house if the government would give consideration to a possible amendment to the unemployment insurance regulations to permit unemployed persons to attend school until jobs are available for them? One or two cases have come to my notice where unemployment insurance is cut off because young workers have taken advantage of their periods of unemployment to attend school. I know the minister is sympathetic with regard to this matter.


Michael Starr: Yes Mr. Speaker, I am very sympathetic in this regard, and I think there is a great deal of merit in the suggestion. I will certainly see that it is given serious consideration.

The house in committee of supply, Mr. Courtemanche in the chair.



DEPARTMENT OF CITIZENSHIP AND IMMIGRATION

[Stage Direction]
81. Construction or acquisition of buildings, works, land and equipment, $5,785,150.
Mr. Patterson:: Mr. Chairman, last evening I asked the minister if he would give us a breakdown of two items listed at page 169 involving over $3 million for the construction

or acquisition of buildings under the heading of day schools, and residential school construction or acquisition of buildings in the sum of $1,985,000.


Edmund Davie Fulton: The day school program includes the following: 90 classrooms, 9 of which are revotes; 34 teachers' quarters and vocational accommodation at some schools; 1 garage; 9 power lines; 12 joint agreements; 2 additions to provide indoor plumbing; 1 contribution toward municipal services; 2 items for plumbing and wiring. In addition there is provision for equipment for classrooms, recreation and vocational training, buses for the transportation of children to schools, and teachers' residence furnishings.
The program for residential schools is required to complete the Mohawk, Cecilia Jefifre, McKay and Guy schools; to commence construction on the Ermineskins classroom blocks, Wabasca Roman Catholic and Lower Post auditorium-gym and chapel; also to construct the McIntosh classroom block and classroom block at Kamloops and to provide staff quarters at McIntosh, Norway House, Qu'Appelle, Holy Angels, Old Sun's, Ermine-skins, Morley, Alert Bay, Cariboo and Lower Post schools; and to provide warehouses, roothouses, garages, etc. at Shubenacadie, Fort George, Prince Albert, Onion Lake, Le-jac and Carcross.


Ernest James Broome: With regard to vote 82 I was wondering if the minister could advise us as to the progress of negotiations between the city of Vancouver and the federal government with regard to an all-weather access road to the Musqueam Indian reserve, where we had a rather disastrous fire and because of the road conditions the city of Vancouver fire department could not reach the reserve.
There is also the question of the extension of fire lines by way of hydrants in the Indian village. I have one further question I would like the minister to answer and that is whether he will take into consideration in connection with the Capilano Indian reserve on the north shore of the first narrows at the entrance to Burrard inlet that it is the feeling of the people of that area of Vancouver that this shore line should be reserved for park purposes.
I know that the rights of the Indians must be respected, and that their rights must not be sacrificed by parks and public recreational facilities being provided without their securing the same monetary return as if the land had been used for, let us say, commercial purposes; but if this land should ever be sold for commercial purposes it would be lost for park purposes forever, and I believe some means could be worked out with the
Supply-Citizenship and Immigration provincial government and the municipalities concerned so as to maintain the same type of park land on the opposite shore as on the Stanley park side.


Mr. Fulion:: Mr. Chairman, with regard to the tragic fire on the Musqueam reserve, there were perhaps three reasons why nothing could be done to extinguish it and prevent loss of life. First, it is true that the road was not in sufficiently good condition to carry the fire engines had the fire engines been able to get there in time. Second, there seems a likelihood that even had the fire engines been able to get out over the road, the house was too far away from the nearest hydrant for the equipment to have reached the house. The distance between the house and the hydrant was, I believe, 2,000 feet. Third, of course, it must be borne in mind that according to my information the house was consumed so rapidly that it is questionable whether any equipment could have reached it in time to save the lives of the children inside.
As far as the condition of the road on the reserve is concerned, that is of course a matter for which we are responsible, and we are prepared to see to it that the road is put into such condition that the first factor I have mentioned will not arise in future. With regard to the question of fire protection generally, negotiations with the municipalities are continuing but we have not as yet received a complete report from the Indian commissioner of British Columbia.
With regard to the Capilano reserve, the interest of the people of Vancouver in this matter is appreciated. As has been indicated, however, our responsibility is to ensure that the Indians receive a due return for the use of this land, and there is not at the moment any authority under which we could turn over this land for park purposes even though it might be felt that this was the proper use to be made of it.
We have received a number of proposals for the utilization of this land, the majority of which, I can assure the hon. member, will not in any real sense detract from the beauty of the skyline of the waterfront coming into Vancouver harbour. One or two of them are most attractive developments. These have been submitted to the band council for consideration, and the council has asked us to obtain expert advice as to what would be the best proposition from their point of view.
It has been agreed that we may refer all the proposals received to two experts in matters such as town planning for their advice as to which of the proposals is, in the first place, in the best interests of the Indians and, in the second place, most advantageous in so far as the interests of the

Supply-Citizenship and Immigration Indians and the general community may be brought into line. But we are bound to have regard, in the light of our responsibility as trustees of this land and, in a measure, as trustees for the welfare of the Indians, to the way in which we can get the best return for the land in question. In approaching this matter we are keeping in mind to the greatest possible extent the interests of the community concerned.


[Stage Direction]
Item agreed to.
Citizenship-
682. Citizenship branch-further amount required. $145,150.
John Whitney Pickersgill: Mr. Chairman, I have
something to say on item 682. If this vote had been passed last night I should not be in a position to say this, but my attention was drawn this morning to the account of a speech made to the Alberta women's conservative association by a Miss Elizabeth Janzen who, I believe, is the national president of the Conservative women's association. As this is a very serious reflection indeed upon my administration of the citizenship branch, and as the estimates of the citizenship branch are under consideration here, I feel I am not in any way trespassing on the time of the committee by bringing this matter to the attention of hon. members. This is what the Albertan says:
Miss Janzen brought gasps from the audience when she claimed that new Canadians coming into the country during the rule of the former Liberal government were definitely intimidated. They were "practically told that they had to vote for the Liberal candidate in the community in which they were to live."
Miss Janzen rather regretted this extravagant and utterly false statement, because she is quoted in the Edmonton Journal for January 10 as having backed water a good deal. I shall read the first paragraph or two of this quotation:
Miss Elizabeth Janzen, national president of the women's Conservative association who charged last week in Calgary that new Canadians coming into Canada under the former Liberal government were "definitely intimidated" and practically told to vote Liberal, admitted in Edmonton Wednesday that "if it was not intimidation, the power of suggestion and thought left that there be no doubt."
The only evidence this lady suggests for this extraordinary and, as I have said, utterly false statement is that in Kitchener she had discovered that the Liberal member was sending letters of congratulation to people who received their citizenship.
I want to say a word about this matter of sending letters of congratulation to new citizens. This came up a great many times when I was minister. The question of obtaining the names of new citizens from the courts

was brought to my attention by hon. members on both sides of the house including, in particular, one who is now an occupant of the treasury benches but who, I am sorry to say, is not here at the moment, namely the Postmaster General. I took the view that the taxpayers' money should not be spent in providing these lists of names-and I think perhaps the hon. member who is now the parliamentary assistant could bear this out -to any members of parliament on either side of the house, but that these lists were public property and that any hon. member who wanted to go to the courts-and this was true of the two courts of federal jurisdiction in Toronto and Montreal-was perfectly at liberty to do so and take the names down; and that a place to sit, a chair and a desk, would be furnished for the purpose of doing this.
Those facilities were available-and I am sure there are several members on the government side today who will corroborate every word I am saying without the slightest hesitation-to hon. gentlemen in any part of the house. I see nothing improper in any hon. member whether he is a Conservative, a Liberal, a C.C.F'er or a Social Crediter, attempting to find out what people have received their citizenship and writing to congratulate those people. After all, our method of choosing members to sit in this house is to try to persuade the electorate-and I see nothing wrong with persuasion-that we can represent them better than somebody else, and in the process it seems to me to be a perfectly proper thing to do.
I think it is really quite shocking to have a person occupying the prominent position this lady occupies in the Tory party going about making extravagant and utterly false statements of this calibre and then adducing as evidence the fact that a Liberal member of parliament sent letters of congratulation to new citizens. I believe no member was more assiduous in doing this than the present Postmaster General. Of course, I do not know whether it paid dividends, but the Postmaster General is still here.
I see absolutely nothing wrong with the practice. If there had been the slightest discrimination as between the parties on one side of the house and the other it would have been a different matter, but there was not. It seems that for the 1957 election apparently the way the new Canadian vote was to be won was by the Prime Minister getting up and saying to the ethnic press association, as reported in the Globe and Mail of April 27, that his party if elected was going to bring in immigrants at the same rate as they were brought into Australia,

which works out at about 600,000 a year; and then as soon as he got into office he stopped immigration almost entirely. I do not criticize what was done, and I made that clear last night; but I do criticize this kind of phony propaganda before an election. Apparently the Conservatives do not dare promise for the 1958 election-if there is to be one, and we are not told-that they will bring in large numbers of immigrants, but they are now saying that the new Canadians are being intimidated.


Edmund Davie Fulton: On a point of order, Mr. Chairman, would the hon. member tell me what the immigration program has to do with the special item for the citizenship branch? It seems to me that he is completely out of order in the line of discussion he is now following.


John Whitney Pickersgill: I do not think we need discuss the point of order, Mr. Chairman, because I have concluded what I intended to say.


Mr. Anderson:: Mr. Chairman, would the hon. member for Bonavista-Twillingate permit me to follow up his remarks. The hon. gentleman mentioned one of my constituents. I rise at this time simply because I would like to observe that I am here today as I have been for every sitting of this house, and I heartily'concur in what Miss Elizabeth Janzen had to say. The hon. member for Bonavista-Twillingate, I might point out, should be the last one to have anything to say about any phony statements that might have been made with regard to Waterloo, I can assure hon. members of that.


Mr. White:: Mr. Chairman,	I too	have aword to say	along this	line.	Ever	since Ihave been a	member of	this	house	I havetried to secure a list of	the	names	of new
Canadians from the crown attorney of the city of London and the Department of Citizenship and Immigration, and only on one occasion was I able to get a complete list of names. On one occasion I asked the crown attorney for the city of London for the list of names and he had the audacity to send me a list containing five names, when there were many more names than that. Reference has been made to co-operation from departments. There was no co-operation forthcoming from that department, but hon. members will note that it did not affect the results of the election as far as the constituency of Middlesex East is concerned.


John Whitney Pickersgill: Mr. Chairman, would the hon. member permit a question. Is the crown attorney of the city of London an official of the provincial government or the federal government?
Supply-Citizenship and Immigration


An hon. Member:: He is a well known Liberal.


George Stanley White: That answers the question. That is what he was and is.


John Whitney Pickersgill: Mr. Chairman, is the hon. gentleman suggesting that if the crown attorney did anything improper the government of Ontario would not have disciplined him?


George Stanley White: I did not say he did anything improper. I said he did not co-operate in providing me with the list of names of new Canadians, yet I know other members of parliament were able to obtain them.


Mr. Richardson:: Mr. Chairman, I would not have risen to speak at this time except for the fact that I heard what was said by two hon. gentlemen on the other side of the house and I listened to the remarks made by the hon. gentleman who spoke on this side of the house. While the hon. member for Bonavista-Twillingate was speaking the Postmaster General was out of the house but he has now returned, and I think in fairness to the former minister of citizenship and immigration he might rise in his place and state what is the fact. As far as I have been able to ascertain, every co-operation was given to the Postmaster General in respect of this matter in Montreal.


[Stage Direction]
Item agreed to.
684. To provide, subject to the approval of treasury board, for trans-oceanic and inland transportation and other assistance for immigrants and settlers including care en route and while awaiting employment-further amount required, $8,000,000.
Stanley Howard Knowles: Mr. Chairman, vote No. 684 is for $8 million, and it is for the same purpose set out in vote No. 71 in the main estimates. The amount in the main estimates is $2,483,000. In other words these two items taken together come to $10,483,000. However, when we were discussing the main item which is for the same object as this one, I reminded the Acting Minister of Citizenship and Immigration that still further money had been obtained for this purpose. I did not object to the obtaining of money for this purpose nor did I offer any criticism as to the way in which that money was obtained, namely by means of a governor general's warrant. The Acting Minister of Citizenship and Immigration was most forthright in his answer on Thursday evening, as he always is, and made it clear that the amount of $2,428,000 obtained by governor general's warrant on August 19, 1957, was separate and apart from the sums of money involved in the main estimates and the supplementary estimates for this purpose.
We discussed this matter on Thursday evening, January 30, as recorded at pages
4164	HOUSE OF
Supply-Citizenship and Immigration 4078, 4079 and 4080 of Hansard. I find that I made one error when I was speaking on the matter Thursday evening, but unlike some others in this house I do not mind admitting an error when I find I have made one. I said this warrant and the other one that was obtained by this government last August were the first governor general's warrants obtained since 1945. I find I was incorrect in that, for there were some governor general's warrants obtained by the previous government after the election in 1949. However, this must be of particular concern to the Acting Minister of Citizenship and Immigration because of the stand he has taken in the past regarding the control that parliament should exercise over public expenditures.
In find that in relation to the obtaining of governor general's warrants there has been a change of tactics which I think should give parliament some concern. I have taken the trouble to get as much information as I could within the time at my disposal as to the practice regarding governor general's warrants in days gone by. I went back to that dramatic year in Canadian parliamentary history, 1926, when first one minority government and then another were defeated on the floor of parliament.
As one would expect from that situation, governor general's warrants had to be obtained to carry on the business of the country until parliament reconvened after the general election of 1926. I find that governor general's warrants were issued now and then through the years, notably a number of them in 1939 and the early part of 1940 at the outbreak of world war II. I find also, as I have already indicated, that there was a warrant on August 30, 1945, because of the fact that there had been an election and the government needed money to carry on until parliament met. Then, as I have already said, following the general election in 1949 the government had to draw on governor general's warrants to carry on until parliament convened.
Therefore, Mr. Chairman, it was not unusual that in 1957 after an election a government, particularly a new government, found that in two instances it did not have enough money to carry out the plans that had been made and therefore used this emergency device of appropriating money by governor general's warrants. I shall come in a moment to the point of difference that sticks out very clearly when one examines this situation as between the present practice and the practice in years gone by.
First may I remind hon. members that the obtaining of money by governor general's


warrants, though perfectly legal, though provided for by parliament formerly in the consolidated revenue and audit act and now in the Financial Administration Act, is regarded as something to be done only in emergencies. As a matter of fact the very wording of the section of the legislation that provides for governor general's warrants starts out by a reference to the destruction of a building or some emergency like that, but it does go on to say that they may be used for any purpose not foreseen or provided for by parliament. Nevertheless when section 28 of the Financial Administration Act-


James Ross Fulton: Mr. Chairman, on a point of order, while there could certainly be no objection raised to the reference by the hon. gentleman to the governor general's warrant of last January 30, at which time I explained the warrant, we are now dealing with a supplementary estimate -which has no relationship to the governor general's warrant. I think it is extremely questionable whether the hon. gentleman is in order even in dealing with the particular warrant, which was made necessary and which has already been explained and I am convinced that he is completely out of order in launching on this occasion into a discussion of the general principles of governor general's warrants.
I submit that he is almost certainly out of order-in fact in my view' he is clearly out of order-in discussing the warrant on this vote. He is also further out of order in launching into a general discussion of the subject. If we had not had a discussion and explanation of it on January 30 I would hesitate to raise this point of order, and I assure my hon. friend of that most sincerely, but since we did have that discussion and since it is entirely irrelevant to the item now before us I must ask, Mr. Chairman, that you rule the hon. gentleman out of order.


Stanley Howard Knowles: On
the point of order, Mr. Chairman, it is precisely for the reason raised by the Acting Minister of Citizenship and Immigration that I feel this discussion is in order on this supplementary item, and more so than it was on the main item. What I was leading up to, and I will submit it in just a sentence or two now because we are on the point of order, was that in respect to all the previous governor general's warrants I have been able to find by searching the records there was subsequently a supplementary estimate or an estimate of some sort that included the amount that had been appropriated by governor general's warrant.
My point in discussing the supplementary estimate that is now before us is that this

minister, this minister of all ministers in that he is concerned about parliamentary control over the nation's purse, has brought before parliament a supplementary estimate drawn up after the governor general's warrant was obtained, and on his own word of Thursday night he has not included the amount of that governor general's warrant in this supplementary estimate. I make no defence of the former government so far as the rights of parliament are concerned. The country knows what we thought of that government in terms of the rights of parliament, but at least every time the former government obtained governor general's warrants they gave parliament subsequently in supplementary estimates the opportunity to approve or otherwise of the amount of money that had been obtained by order in council.
But this minister, on his own word of Thursday night, admits that he had the cabinet of which he is a member obtain $2,428,000 by order in council, by governor general's warrant, and now he comes before parliament and asks for another $8 million and has not had enough respect for the traditions of parliament to include in that supplementary estimate an amount to cover the sum already obtained by governor general's warrant or by order in council.
I submit, Mr. Chairman, that this discussion is thoroughly in order, that the real point of the discussion is why the item now before us does not include the cheque that was written by order in council, particularly when the records of Canadian history as far back as I have been able to trace them-and I confess I have only gone back to 1926- make it clear that even though the consolidated revenue and audit act and the Financial Administration Act do not require a subsequent vote of parliament but only the tabling of the warrant, on all previous occasions I have been able to check there was a subsequent estimate in the supplementaries laid before parliament, many times designated by a small capital heading as "governor general's warrant", so that parliament had a chance to approve or otherwise of the action that had been taken by order in council.
I submit, Mr. Chairman, that because between the time of the main estimate and the supplementary estimate there was this governor general's warrant, and because in this supplementary estimate no reference is made to the governor general's warrant obtained last August, it is in order to discuss this matter at this time.


Edmund Davie Fulton: Mr. Chairman, since in replying to my argument on the point of order the hon. gentleman has taken the opportunity of making the criticism he had in mind and which I suggest he might have come to far
Supply-Citizenship and Immigration more directly than he actually did, I think I should be allowed to reply to what he regards as a criticism.
We had the point before us as to whether the amount of the governor general's warrant should be covered in the supplementary estimate, and we took advice on the point. While it is perfectly true that in past years that has been the normal practice, we decided that it would be the sounder course and, in fact in the better interests of parliament and the people not to include it in the supplementary estimates but to ensure that in the ordinary way parliament was informed of what had been done. That was done by the tabling of the order in council in which the governor general's warrant was authorized.
When I say we felt it was in the better interests of parliament and the people to do it this way, namely by making sure the information was available but not including it in a supplementary estimate, there were two reasons, amongst others, why we came to that conclusion. First, if we had put it in a supplementary estimate we would be asking parliament to vote again money which had already been provided under the authority of the governor general's warrant, and I can see no sensible argument for asking parliament to increase the amount of the estimates by money for which authority has already been obtained.
I give the other reason, that while it is appropriate that parliament should have the information and the right to express its opinion on the propriety or otherwise of the action taken, it would not be open to parliament, merely by putting an item in the supplementary estimates, to prevent the spending of that money because the money had already been spent pursuant to the authority acquired in the governor general's warrant.
While no one is happy about having to use governor general's warrants, it is a fact that they are only used, and were only used in this case, because the money is urgently required. The situation simply is that parliament does not have an opportunity of preventing the spending of the money, whether or not it wants to do so.
The desirable principle is, of course, that parliament be given an opportunity to concur in or disapprove of the spending of the money. We had to resort to governor general's warrants and there was no opportunity for us to seek parliamentary approval beforehand. The mere fact that the money was not put in the supplementary estimates did not withhold anything from parliament. Parliament could not withhold or prevent the spending of the money, as it has the right or power to do in connection with an item appearing in the supplementary estimates. Therefore it would
4166	HOUSE OF
Supply-Citizenship and Immigration be foolish and wasteful of time to increase the amount in the supplementary estimates and ask parliament to vote money which has already been spent.
The rights of parliament are preserved when the order in council covering the governor general's warrant is laid on the table. The information is available to parliament. If what is desired is merely an opportunity to express approval or disapproval, a motion can be founded on that order in council when it is tabled. The matter will be referred to in the public accounts, and parliament will have a further opportunity in the proceedings of the committee, and can discuss the report when it is received in the house, to say whether or not it approves of the course of action which was followed. That is all that can be done at this time, and that is a right that is -fully preserved to parliament. We made the information with regard to the spending of money by warrant available at the first opportunity.
I suggest to the hon. member that what he is doing now is wasting the time of the house; that for us to have increased the supplementary estimates by the amount already spent under warrant would have been pointless and really would have been to ask parliament to waste its time, which we are not prepared to do.


Stanley Howard Knowles: find it most interesting that my good friend- I underline those words "good friend", remembering former days-regards it as a waste of parliament's time to be concerned about the relationship between parliament and the expenditure of money by the executors-


Edmund Davie Fulton: On a question of privilege, Mr. Chairman; I would ask the hon. gentleman not to distort what I said. I said no such thing. I said that I considered it would have been a waste of parliament's time to ask parliament to consider estimates increased by the amount of the governor general's warrant, when in fact that money had been spent and when to include it would have been to distort the estimates. But I did consider that parliament should be informed and should have an opportunity to express its opinion on the matter. We afforded that opportunity by tabling the order in council as soon as possible.


Stanley Howard Knowles: accept that, Mr. Chairman. I put it this way.
I find it hard to believe that my hon. friend regards it as wasting time that we should discuss this way of dealing with governor general's warrants when this is the first time, to my knowledge, in the history of the House of Commons that it has been done this way. 

The way the minister criticizes as being not sensible, of increasing the supplementary estimates, has been followed across the years. I would suggest that when the pattern is being changed and, for the first time so far as I can find out, it is being done in this way, I think a parliament that is concerned about its supreme function of control over expenditures is only doing its bounden duty if it discusses this question as to what should be a proper course in relation to governor general's warrants.
I give my hon. friend full marks for the forthrightness of the position he has taken by making it clear that we are not arguing that certain facts are in the picture. He will admit my agreement that we are not arguing as to the desirability of the objective for which the money was obtained. Neither are we arguing about the emergency which made it necessary for the government to obtain money by using governor general's warrants. There is no argument as to the legality of governor general's warrant. The point between us is as to whether it was a good idea to change the practice of the years, which was that when money had been spent by virtue of governor general's warrants it was included in the estimates later so that parliament had a chance to deal with the matter in committee of supply.
Now we come to this other practice of simply tabling the order in council as required by the Financial Administration Act and leaving it to the house to take action if it so desires, as he says, by motion on the subject of the order in council. I know what my hon. friends said when they were on this side of the house about the indirectness of having to get at the government in that way. They know there is a much more direct way of getting at the government, by having an item of expenditure in the estimates, as has been the case with respect to the governor general's warrants down through the years.
I am concerned about this because, as I say, this is the first time it has happened. I should make it clear that there were two warrants last August, one for the Department of Veterans Affairs and one for this department. We did not raise the matter when we were considering veterans affairs estimates, and that is why I say this is the first one. I see it is one o'clock, Mr. Chairman.
At one o'clock the committee took recess.


[Stage Direction]
AFTER RECESS

The committee resumed at 2.30 p.m.
Edmund Davie Fulton: When the committee rose at one o'clock, the hon. member for Winnipeg

North Centre had just repeated his suggestion that there was something improper about our not having included in the supplementary estimates now before us the amount of $2,480,000 spent under governor general's warrant before parliament met. He based his argument upon two points, as I appreciated it. His first point was that to refrain from doing so was somehow or another to deny to parliament an opportunity it might otherwise have to express its opinion upon the propriety of the matter and to make any criticism that parliament might wish to make. His second point was that it had always been done in that way previously and that therefore there was something improper in our not continuing to do it in that way.
As I said earlier, we did take advice from the experts as to whether it was proper not to include it in the supplementary estimates, and our advice was that it was more appropriate not to increase the amount of the supplementary estimates by the amount that had already been spent but rather to inform parliament by the tabling of the order in council of what action had been taken. This was done.
To have included the amount spent under governor general's warrant in the amount of the supplementary estimates would have been to distort the amount of the estimates and would ask parliament to vote money which had already been spent. I can see no escape from the fact that if we did as hon. gentlemen opposite suggest we would have been placing before parliament and asking it to vote money which should not be included in the estimates in that way.
As to the question of denying to parliament any opportunity to express its opinion on the point, may I remind you, Mr. Chairman, and the committee that the matter was before the house and the committee and was raised on Thursday, January 30, at what I submit was the proper time by the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre. Had there been in fact any solid ground for criticism of the course we followed, I cannot believe that the hon. gentleman would not have raised it at the earliest possible opportunity. I am therefore unable to conclude otherwise than that the hon. gentleman has had an afterthought. He seeks to raise a parliamentary issue, so-called, which does not exist in fact, merely because he is suffering from the nervous jitters to which he referred this morning. Now he is trying to take an opportunity to raise something which, if there had been any substance to it, he should have raised when he first referred to the matter on January 30.
Supply-Citizenship and Immigration
As for the question of any right or opportunity to express agreement or disagreement-


Mr. Barnett:: I rise on a question of privilege, Mr. Chairman. Was it not the Minister of Public Works who referred to nervous jitters this morning rather than the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre?


Edmund Davie Fulton: It does not matter who referred to them. Where the nervous jitters lie is a matter which is obvious.


Stanley Howard Knowles: It
is very obvious.


Mr. Walker:: What the hon. member needs is a pill.


Edmund Davie Fulton: As for the question of whether or not parliament has a right to criticize or to express its opinion, that right is not taken away merely by the fact that this amount is not included in the supplementary estimates. If my hon. friend feels strongly about it, if he felt that there was sufficient merit really to warrant his raising the point, I point out to him that he can express his opinion very directly by moving a reduction in the amount of the present supplementary estimate equivalent to the amount of the governor general's warrant or in the alternative, if he feels that it should be included and was properly spent, he can move that the amount be increased by the amount of the governor general's warrant.


Stanley Howard Knowles: Can I?


Edmund Davie Fulton: The hon. member has me there. He is perfectly right; he cannot increase it.


An hon. Member:: Who has the jitters now?


James Sinclair: That is as phony as the rest of the argument.


Edmund Davie Fulton: He could move it but of course, he would not be allowed to put the motion. He could ask that the amount be increased.


Stanley Howard Knowles: I did.


Edmund Davie Fulton: No. He merely said that we should have included it in a supplementary estimate. But if he feels that we are making a mistake, if he feels that we are abusing the position of parliament or detracting in any way from parliament's rights, it is open to him now to express his censure by an appropriate motion for reduction couched in such terms as he may desire to use, and we are prepared to defend the action we have taken. If he does feel it is as improper as he tried to make out this morning, then that is the appropriate course for him to follow.

Supply-Citizenship and Immigration
But I come back to the other point. It is perfectly obvious that he himself-and I think if he examines his own thinking on the matter he will agree-realizes that there is not anything to which to object. That is established by the fact that he did not raise this point on Thursday night when the matter first came up for discussion. I submit to you again, Mr. Chairman, as a matter of fact, that that was the only time when it should have been discussed and that in raising it in the way he raised it this morning, the hon. gentleman is out of order and is not, in fact, advancing or serving the interests of parliament as he would have us believe he is doing.


Stanley Howard Knowles: There are a few statements that my good friend made which of course should be corrected. He has already corrected his remark that I would be entitled to move a motion to increase the amount of this estimate. That was a slip which I can only put down to the jitters from which he is suffering. He made another slip when he said that although I could not move a motion to increase the amount, I could put a motion-


Edmund Davie Fulton: No; I said you could make a motion.


Stanley Howard Knowles: That is a function that is reserved to the chairman of the committee. Only the chairman can put a motion. He made yet another slip.


Edmund Davie Fulton: I think what I said was that the hon. gentleman could not put the motion.


Stanley Howard Knowles: We
will let that mistake stay as it is without confusing the matter any further. He made yet another third error.


An hon. Member:: You will soon be going back to teaching.


Stanley Howard Knowles: We
will all be doing a lot of instructing in the next few weeks.
He made a third error when he said it was open to me to move the appropriate motion, even though I could not move for an increase in the amount that wou'd have that effect.


Edmund Davie Fulton: A motion for reduction that would have the effect of expressing censure; censure is what I said, if you are trying to censure us. I said you could move a motion that would have the effect of censuring us.


Stanley Howard Knowles: The hon. gentleman said that before he got down to the latter part of his remarks. When he was dealing with the estimates he said I could not move to increase the amount. I agree that I could not move to increase the
(Mr. Fulton.]
amount. But he said there was an appropriate motion that I could make which would have the same effect.
I remind him of citations 478, 479 and 480 of Beauchesne's third edition which make it clear that the only motions that can be moved when we are in committee of supply are either to reduce the amount of the item or that the committee rise and the chairman report progress or otherwise. In other words, in committee of supply there is open to me no motion which can stipulate the point that I am trying to make, namely that the minister should have included in this estimate the amount that was spent by means of an order in council or a governor general's warrant. That is the whole point. I am not arguing about the object of the money. I am not arguing about the emergency that made it necessary to obtain the governor general's warrant. Neither am I arguing that the government has done anything illegal. I am arguing that this government has, so far as I have been able to ascertain from my study, for the first time in Canadian history adopted a practice of a governor general's warrant, the voting of money by order in council, by the cabinet setting itself up in the place of parliament, that all that having been done, it is not necessary to bring the matter before parliament by a vote afterwards. I admit that the statute does not require that to be done but I am conservative enough-


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh.


Stanley Howard Knowles: -to think that there is something to decades and decades of practice. I am a radical; I am a reformer. I want change. But I think that even we radicals and reformers at times are prepared to admit that the wisdom of the decades that have gone by has some merit. Always previously, in the parliament of Canada, when the governor in council has voted money by governor general's warrant, the government has given parliament the opportunity afterwards to deal with the matter. The minister says that it is open to me, if I seriously object to what has happened, to deal with the matter by means of a motion with regard to the order in council itself. The hon. gentleman of course knows how much time there is left in this session for laying down a motion of that kind. He also knows that when he was on this side of the house and the hon. member for Quebec East as prime minister brought in certain legislation with regard to techniques for upsetting the government with respect to an order in council, he and his friends did not think much of it. We had to settle, they and we, when they were on this side of the house, that if such a motion was presented, a motion to

test the government over an order in council, that he, the former prime minister would do his best to see to it that the matter came before parliament. We, of course, have had no such undertaking from the present Prime Minister. We do not know whether a motion of that kind would get debated at all, but the point is that the machinery necessary to test the position of the government with respect to an order in council is very complicated. In fact, it is almost impossible to go through with, as compared with the simple and direct way in which you can deal with government expenditure when you have before the committee of supply an item in the estimates.
I say again, Mr. Chairman, that even the expenditures which were necessary in 193940, as emergency expenditures in connection with war, were set out in supplementary estimates akin to the estimates the minister now has before this committee but which do not include this order in council vote of money which this government obtained last August 17. This is serious not only in relation to what the minister is asking this committee to do right now regarding this governor general's warrant, but in relation to the fact that we have been presented with a pattern which this government across the way will probably follow in the next three or four months. The government will probably be spending over $1 billion of the people's money without a prior vote of parliament, and with a precedent established, so that if it comes back into power it will not even have to lay that sum before parliament for a subsequent decision. This is being done by my hon. friend opposite and his colleagues who learned from us something about the rights of parliament.


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh.


Stanley Howard Knowles: They shouted about the rights of parliament in this House of Commons and shouted about them all over the country during the election campaign of 1957. Now we have a government which is breaking the traditions set up over decades, and which is going back on a principle which it has announced time and time again was one thing which was so important in parliament, namely parliamentary control over the executive and over the purse.
I made reference a moment ago to my hon. friends opposite learning something from us about the rights of parliament.


Mr. Hamilton (York West):: We have never learned anything from you about the rights of parliament.
Supply-Citizenship and Immigration


Stanley Howard Knowles: This is one case where what they learned was indigenous. Some of the other things they learned from us, but this was their own idea; this was extremely important. Speeches were made by Mr. Drew, the Prime Minister, the Minister of Finance, the Minister of Justice, and I have many quotations here, although there is not sufficient time now to use them.


James Allen (Jim) Byrne: Let us have them.


Stanley Howard Knowles: They were most insistent that this was one way in which parliament must retain its supremacy over the government, by retaining control over the expenditure of money. And yet here we have an example of the very opposite course from this minister. It is passed by order in council in the cabinet. It is passed when parliament is not sitting and now parliament is being denied the chance to vote on it even on an ex post facto basis. We have this brought out just at a time when certain events are about to happen, during which it is pretty clear that we will have this government spending over $1 billion of the people's money without a prior vote of parliament and without any opportunity for parliament to discuss the matter afterwards.
The Acting Minister of Citizenship and Immigration made a charge against me-a charge that I had some motives of which he did not think too much-for not raising this aspect of the matter on Thursday night on the main estimates but leaving it until today. May I first of all tell him that I think it is far more appropriate on this supplementary estimate than it was on the other estimates. After all, the other estimates were the main estimates and were presented to the house by the former government, and there was at that time no thought of a governor general's warrant being obtained. It was between the presenting of the main estimates and the supplementary estimates that the governor general's warrant was obtained by order in council of last August, and if there is a point where parliament should be given a chance to express approval or otherwise of what was done last August, it is in relation to the supplementary estimates. Therefore I contend that I am fully within my rights in raising the matter at this point.
Another reason why I am now raising this matter is that on Thursday night, when I asked a question of the minister, I wanted to be sure before I pursued the matter as to whether or not it was included. It looked to me as though it was not, but I conceded the possibility that it might be and I waited
4170	HOUSE OF COMMONS
Supply-Citizenship and Immigration until I had the minister's forthright answer that nothing was being done to include the amount of this governor general's warrant in the supplementary estimates before proceeding.
I offer something else and I offer this to confound absolutely the charge of the minister that I delayed this matter for any motive which could not be brought right out in the open. It is my right as a member of parliament to seek information from departments of the government. I exercised that right over the years when another party was in power and I have continued to exercise that right since this government has been in power.
On Thursday, January 30, I took steps through channels which are open to me as a member of parliament to try to get information as to what had happened in respect of governor general's warrants over the past 20 years. I am not going to name the person to whom I will refer, but I have certain documents on my desk at this moment. I telephoned an official whom it is proper for any member of parliament to telephone; that official assured me that this information would be obtained for me from the Department of Finance and would be sent to me. I have in my hand a letter from the official whom I contacted by telephone, dated January 31, and which I received on that day, namely yesterday. Accompanying this letter was a document of four pages which was prepared at my request in the Department of Finance. I have enough sense to rely on the officials of the Department of Finance-


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear.


Stanley Howard Knowles: -for figures when I want to talk about something, even if the Minister of Finance does not always have the sense to do so. This document, as I say, came into my possession yesterday with a covering letter dated January 31. It was not until yesterday that I knew that it had been the practice over the last 20 years for every governor general's warrant, every vote by order in council, to be laid before parliament subsequently.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear.


Stanley Howard Knowles: am prepared to send this letter across to the Minister of Justice if he would like to see it.


Mr. Benidickson:: Should it not be tabled, in any event?


Stanley Howard Knowles: am not a minister and I am not entitled to table letters.


James Sinclair: You are quoting.


Stanley Howard Knowles: am not even quoting. I am saying, on my responsibility as a member of parliament, that I hold in my hand a letter dealing with this matter and that it is dated January 31. Any member who wishes to look at it may do so.
My point is that I obtained this information on the basis of which I am charging this government with changing the pattern only yesterday. After obtaining this information which gives me details about every order in council since August 25, 1939, and which gives me in each instance the purpose and the amount and how it was later covered, either by vote in the estimates or by a special section in the Appropriation Act, I spent all the time I could under the hours we are now working these days in checking through the statutes in the library. First of all I checked all these examples to be sure that the information given to me by the Department of Finance was correct and it is correct to the letter. After that I went back to the statutes of earlier years, particularly to those of the dramatic year of 1926. I found under the Appropriation Act in the year or two following 1926, that the House of Commons was given the chance to vote, in detail, in the estimates, on every governor general's warrant which was obtained by the government following the defeat of two governments on the floor of the house in 1926.
In other words, Mr. Chairman, not only is this the proper point, because of the nature of this estimate, at which to raise this matter but, this information having come into my hands only yesterday and the further information being in my hands as a result of the study I made in the library this morning, I submit it is my duty to raise this matter at this time.
Mr. Chairman, in this estimate, this item 684, which is before the House of Commons right now, we have a turning point in Canadian history-a turning point in relations between parliament and the executive in the matter of governor general's warrants. Even after what the minister said to me on Thursday night I still was not absolutely sure that he would not at a later date bring in a supplementary estimate to cover it. I discussed this with some of my colleagues, and with some of my friends who are not my colleagues, and they said: "maybe he is going to do it'the other way". But no. He confirmed today that parliament will have no chance to vote on an estimate that relates to this warrant and this is defended by the government as an appropriate course of procedure. Apparently as long as this government makes any use of governor general's warrants,

they are, from henceforth, to be regarded as votes of money passed by the cabinet as though they were parliament itself, giving parliament no chance to deal with these matters.
Let me quote from a distinguished Canadian:
Well, parliament does not operate that way. We are not trying to take short cuts through the traditions and fundamental needs and responsibilities of parliament. If we wanted to take a short cut, all we would need to do would be to elect a cabinet for the Canadian people and then nothing more would need to be done; you would have your executive chosen. But that would not be parliament.
Guess who uttered these words. It was the present Prime Minister in the House of Commons on May 4, 1953, as recorded in Hansard on pages 4717 and 4718, and his statement was in relation to expenditure. He, like the Acting Minister of Citizenship and Immigration and the Minister of Finance and my good friend the hon. Minister without Portfolio who sits for Greenwood, all took the position time and time again that the place where parliamentary control of government really comes to focus is in relation to the expenditure of money; that we must not have a set-up where the cabinet goes off on its own as though it were parliament and passes the money without even giving parliament a chance to go into the matter afterwards.
Mr. Chairman, we are at a turning point in Canadian history and at a turning point in parliamentary history so far as control over expenditure is concerned, and I want to say right now that I welcome wholeheartedly the opportunity which is likely to arise in a matter of hours to take this issue to the Canadian people-an issue with regard to the crowning infamy of all in defiance of the rights of parliament. And this is being done by hon. gentlemen who once had so much to say about this subject both here in the House of Commons and outside the House of Commons as well.
Do not try to tell us that we have the opportunity to deal with this matter by a motion objecting to what the government had done by order in council. Do not try to tell us that the government has kept the letter of the law by tabling the document. They did table the document, but that was done by previous governments, too. All those previous governments who had their governor general's warrants later approved by votes of parliament did the other thing as well, and tabled a document telling parliament about the warrants. They did as this government has done, hut in addition to that, they did the other thing.
Do not tell us that what the government has done satisfies the traditions of parliament, though it does satisfy the letter of law. The
Supply-Citizenship and Immigration Minister of Finance tabled the document on October 15, 1957. When I started talking about this a couple of days ago, two or three pressmen said to me: "We did not run a story on that, did we?" Of course they did not. Nobody noticed what was done last October 15. It was tabled by handing it to the clerk and then it went down to the sessional papers office, and I wonder whether any other member of this house, outside of members of the cabinet, knew it was there until I mentioned it two days ago. This tabling of a document in almost secret fashion may meet the letter of the law, but it violates the tradition which has grown up across the years, and, as I say, it establishes a new approach to the relations between parliament and the executive and is one which, I am sure, merits the condemnation of the Canadian people. My hon. friend opposite says we can make an appropriate motion if we wish to do so. He knows how much chance we will have to do that. But I tell him we shall have the opportunity to express our opinion about this in the course of the next couple of months to the people of Canada who thought that when they threw out one government which seemed indifferent to the rights of parliament they had elected another which would be more conscious of those rights.
I do not defend the former government for what they did in relation to the rights of parliament. I know what they did. But this is just about the worst of all.


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh.


Stanley Howard Knowles: Mr. Chairman, I hope Hansard records the laughter across the way. I know that the only way Hansard can record laughter is by those two words "oh, oh", but those words will, I trust, record the fact that Conservative members laughed and said "Oh, oh" when a reference was made to by-passing parliament in terms of control over expenditure as the worst violation we have yet seen of the rights of parliament.


Gordon Minto Churchill: May I ask the hon. member a question? The hon. member has said that this is the worst violation of the rights of parliament. Does he not think that the denial of freedom of speech in this house by the former administration was a worse violation?


Stanley Howard Knowles: The
denial of speech by the former administration was a serious infringement of the rights of parliament. The Minister of Trade and Commerce-my neighbour in Winnipeg-and I are agreed on that. He will not get me defending the former government by one iota. But, Mr. Chairman, the Minister of Trade and Commerce and others were among those
4172	HOUSE OF
Supply-Citizenship and Immigration who criticized the former administration for its denial of the rights of parliament. They are among those who said that the reason they came into power was that they had been elected to replace a government which would not acknowledge those rights. And now this government is doing something the Liberals never thought of doing.


Gordon Minto Churchill: You have freedom of speech.


Stanley Howard Knowles: Freedom? How much freedom are we going to have to discuss the estimates-the money that will be spent between now and the date of the election

the money that will be spent from the beginning of the new fiscal year on April 1, until parliament reassembles again after the election? Not one iota. The Liberals took steps to make it difficult for us to talk on the floor of parliament. Hon. gentlemen opposite have adopted a pattern which will make it impossible for there to be any discussion whatsoever with regard to these sums which, I estimate, will run to $1 billion or more, by following the pattern which is before us as we discuss this supplementary estimate of the Department of Citizenship and Immigration.
As I say, we will get our opportunity. The Prime Minister will no doubt tell us in a few hours that we will have the opportunity to take this issue to the Canadian people. It was an important election last year; the rights of parliament were a real issue as far as the Canadian people were concerned. That issue has not been completely resolved. In place of the old administration we have a government which turns down part of its own principles-its own philosophy-despite the fact that the former minister of justice, former minister of finance, Mr. Drew and others in reference to this matter said that this is the place where we come to grips;- this is what counts-that the supremacy of parliament shall be expresssed most of all in control over public expenditure. Yet now we have a government which says it is perfectly all right to provide for huge sums of money to be voted in the secrecy of cabinet meetings, and that parliament may not even have the opportunity to discuss them.
Moreover, this is going to take place under the direction of a government whose Minister of Finance said categorically in this house on December 4 last that all the estimates would come before the committee of supply and that hon. members would have the opportunity to make all the speeches, then, that are relevant. That same minister now says he does not control the course of destiny.
The one who thinks he controls the course of destiny is apparently suffering such a case


of jitters as far as his party is concerned that he wants to get rid of parliament before it has a chance to exercise what he said was its most important function, namely the control of expenditures, efficiently and effectively.
I observe, Mr. Chairman, that you are on the edge of your chair as though you are about to rise and advise me that my time is up. That being the case I am prepared to conclude these remarks at this time, depending of course on what the argument is as to whether or not I have to get back into it.
It is interesting how these things develop. The Acting Minister of Citizenship and Immigration accused me of holding it back in some way. I gave him the answer to that. I got the necessary information only yesterday. As a matter of fact, I was surprised when I received it. I thought the Liberals had probably done this sort of thing in years gone by.


James Sinclair: Not us.


An hon. Member:: Oh no, never.


Stanley Howard Knowles: It
would have been like them. But apparently their officials urged them not to do it that way and the advice my hon. friend says this government got is the reverse. I wonder who made the actual decision. We bring this matter to a head at this time because this estimate, the one that should be making provision for the money that was spent by governor general's warrant, is now before us. As far as my experience is concerned, it is only since yesterday that I have had all the information.
The Acting Minister of Citizenship and Immigration said it would not be sensible to swell the supplementary estimate by an amount that has already been provided for by order in council and already spent. Let me read a section from the Appropriation Act, No. 3, 1940, when there were governor general's warrants for a huge sum. These were the moneys that were made necessary by the emergency of the outbreak of war. It reads this way:
-provided the amount herein authorized to be paid and applied in respect of each item, set forth in the said schedule A, shall be deemed to include and not be in addition to, the amount authorized for each such item by governor general's warrants issued during the Bscal year 1940-41, prior to the 16th day of May, 1940.
There are similar sections in the Appropriation Act, No. 6, of 1945 and in one or two others and the same is true in the wording of some of the estimates in the supplementary estimates; therefore, it is crystal clear at all points where it was done that the money then being voted was being made by statute to cover what had been appropriated by the governor in council by means

of a governor general's warrant. The minister says it is not possible to "unspend" the money. That is not his word; I^have coined it for the purpose of this argument. He is perfectly right. It is true of many things a government does that they cannot be undone, but our whole system of responsible government is based on the principle that there are things a government has a right to do but it must be responsible to parliament. It must be possible for its strength in parliament to be tested in relation to that particular act. That is why we have a certain provision in the National Defence Act regarding putting troops on active service. That is why we have these provisions and practices in relation to the expenditure of money. That is why it has always been done in this way, so that money having been spent by this royal fiat of an order in council comes before parliament with parliament having the chance to approve it. If parliament did not approve -oh, I agree that that does not "unspend" the money-it defeats the government. It gives parliament control over the government and the government, knowing that that control is exercised over it by parliament, thinks twice before it passes such governor general's warrants. Is that why this government changed this pattern last August? It was a minority government; was it afraid it would be beaten? This, of course, occurred in those days before the government reached the point where it wanted an election. Is that the reason? It looks to me as though there must be some reason for this drastic change of pattern from the days across our history when these estimates came back to parliament to be debated and this new pattern where the-cabinet in the secrecy of the council chamber having passed money says, "This is it; we will slip in a report on the table of the House of Commons a few days after parliament meets but we will make sure that parliament never gets a chance to debate these items."
Mr. Chairman, I see that my time has expired. I deeply regret that this government has chosen to make this change in the course of our parliamentary history but, having decided to make this change, we will ask the Canadian people what they think about it.


Lester Bowles Pearson: Mr. Chairman, the hon. member who has just spoken with his unrivalled knowledge and experience in this field and his sincerity which we all admit and which we admitted even when that sincerity was used against us when we were in power-


James Ross Fulton: But you did not admit it then.


Lester Bowles Pearson: -has made an absolutely unanswerable case against the procedure or lack of procedure which is now being followed by
Supply-Citizenship and Immigration the minister in respect of this particular matter. This matter is central to our whole theory of free parliamentary government which must rest on the effective control by the legislature over the expenditures of the executive. In defying that principle the government has gone back to a period of history to which my hon. friend used to refer a great deal a year or so ago. For defying that principle a King of England lost his head but on this occasion it is only the government that has lost its head politically.
We have heard a great deal over the years about government by order in council. We learned something yesterday about government even without order in council, and now we are learning about something that is absolutely new in our parliamentary practice, government by governor general's warrants without an effective opportunity being given to parliament later to discuss the expenditures made under those warrants.
As my friend the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre pointed out, this precedent is being established on the eve of a period when this government by governor general's warrants will be expending millions and millions of dollars. Is this procedure to be applied to this subsequent expenditure? No wonder the minister who expressed himself very forcibly on these matters when he was on this side of the house is uncomfortable and unhappy about the procedure which he has recommended.


Edmund Davie Fulton: Not in the least.


Lester Bowles Pearson: When he was on this side of the house the Acting Minister of Citizenship and Immigration was the John Hampden of parliamentary and House of Commons privileges. He is in a most uncomfortable and I admit an unaccustomed role this afternoon. As was pointed out this afternoon by an hon. gentleman who does not support this party,-


Stanley Howard Knowles: Hear, hear.


Lester Bowles Pearson: -the procedure that has been followed in this instance is not constitutionally sound as was the procedure that was followed by our party when we were in power to cover expenditures made in this way. My hon. friend does not seem to know what those procedures were although they were made very clear in detail by the hon. gentleman who has just spoken. Whenever this kind of expenditure was adopted by the previous government an item was put in the estimates which gave the House of Commons every right to discuss that expenditure in the normal parliamentary way, and when a motion was brought forward, or could have
4174	HOUSE OF
Supply-Citizenship and Immigration been, on this matter the prime minister of the day said that it would be given precedence over other motions and it would be made possible for the house to discuss it. Is that what we are faced with today in being asked to submit to this kind of arbitrary procedure?


An hon. Member:: What about Beauharnois?


Lester Bowles Pearson: If my hon. friend will look back at the Beauharnois days he will probably find that the same kind of procedure was adopted in the house to disguise that kind of expenditure. I do not wish to delay the committee because the case has been made. As I have said, it is an unanswerable case, and I hope that even at this time the minister will withdraw from this course which he is proposing to follow and which must be very uncomfortable for him, of all the members in this house. Let me put on the record a quotation from the foreword to a book.
But the problem is, having chosen that type of constitution, those ideals, how can we be true to them when on the one hand governments substitute a different relationship between the constituent elements, and on the other hand people fail to realize what is happening? His simple accusation-
This is about the author of the book and I am reading from the foreword to the book.
His simple accusation is that in Canada the cabinet, and more especially the prime minister, has arrogated the most important constitutional function of the crown, the right and obligation to determine whether, within the constitutional life of a parliament, there exists in that parliament any person capable of forming and carrying on a government.
This doctrine and the developments which flow from its acceptance-
Perhaps this is one of the developments.
-particularly the right to demand and obtain a dissolution even in advance of an anticipated defeat in the house, lead inevitably to a fundamental constitutional change.
The upholding of this new doctrine by hon. members opposite, for instance.
For instead of there being three elements, crown, cabinet and commons, each with an independent yet inter-related authority and function, no one of the three thus able to dictate, you now have the cabinet, or the prime minister, combining two authorities and thus master over the others. The government is enabled to evade even its responsibility to the commons. And so for a parliamentary democracy based on a limited monarchy, there is substituted a cabinet dictatorship almost without limitation.
Who is the author of these words? The minister himself-


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Lester Bowles Pearson: -who is trying to force this unprecedented procedure through the house on the eve of dissolution. I ask him even at this late moment, will he live up to his own pretentions and cease trying to force this arbitrary procedure on the house, which


would enable the government in his own words, to evade even its responsibility to the House of Commons?


Solon Earl Low: Mr. Chairman, I appreciate the fact that you have seen me. I know that the minister would like to speak at this moment but I do think that on a matter of such serious import each of the parties should make its stand clear. I want to do that at this time. I have listened to the case made by the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre, and I too want to say that I think he made a completely impregnable case. I do not see how in the world any responsible minister of the crown could find a flaw in it. This is the first time in my 23 years experience in legislatures and parliaments that I have ever seen this particular device resorted to. I have every sympathy with a government that finds itself under the necessity of using governor general's warrants or, as we used to call them in the provincial field, special warrants. That is understandable. But, Mr. Chairman, in every single case I have ever seen where such warrants have been used the government concerned brought them back somehow to the legislature or parliament for validation or approval. That is the only way that a government can possibly avoid arrogating to itself the legislative functions of government.
I was in British East Africa three years ago, along with the Minister of Finance. At that time he was representing the opposition in the Canadian parliament. I heard him deliver a speech in the parliament of Kenya in which he castigated the Liberals for attempting to arrogate to themselves the authority and rights of the legislative function of government. He did what a lot' of people thought was a masterful job, but I am surprised to note that today the very government to which he belongs is attempting to do the kind of thing against which he inveighed.


Walter Adam Tucker: Far worse.


Solon Earl Low: On many occasions during the ten years that I was provincial treasurer of Alberta I used special warrants, as we called them, to meet emergencies, things which the legislature had not foreseen, but in every single case that we used warrants we were meticulous in seeing that the legislature was provided with an opportunity to say whether it approved or disapproved of what we had done. If the legislature disapproved we provided an opportunity for the testing of the strength of the opposition against the government.
That has not been done in this case, and I think it is a matter of censure, something to which the government ought to pay attention. Having embarked on this course and found they were wrong, I do not think that the

government should continue on the course. I appeal to the Minister of Justice, who is now arguing the case for the government, to give careful consideration whether he should not turn from that course, acknowledge that it is wrong and do the thing in the right way because what he is attempting to do now, if he persists, is to lay down a precedent which will be a dangerous precedent for any government to follow in the future. As the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre said, if the government, using this as a pattern, is able to spend tens of millions of dollars, perhaps a billion dollars


Stanley Howard Knowles: It
will be a billion.


Solon Earl Low: -before parliament has another opportunity to discuss and debate these things, then I say that becomes a most serious breach of the rights of parliament. I want to add my voice to the protests that have been raised today in connection with this unusual course of action. It is most unusual and one that cannot be justified by any argument that is brought forward. I would certainly find myself in the position where, if a motion were proposed, I would have to vote to censure the government for having embarked on this course unless they had the courage to back up, acknowledge their fault and take the other course which would be to give parliament a chance to say whether it approved of the amount of the governor general's warrant.


Edmund Davie Fulton: Mr. Chairman, I do not think that in the twelve years I have been here I have heard such shallow arguments-


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Edmund Davie Fulton: -or seen such an attempt to whip up at the last moment an issue which has no foundation in fact.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


John Whitney Pickersgill: Is this the last moment?


Edmund Davie Fulton: One can test the validity of the issue raised by reference to the words used by the Leader of the Opposition when he spoke of the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre. In referring to the hon. member's attitude with regard to a matter of this kind he said, "-whose sincerity we all admit". I should like to ask my hon. friends opposite, did they admit his sincerity in the pipe line debate two years ago?


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh.


Lester Bowles Pearson: I was asked a question, and I should like to answer it.


Edmund Davie Fulton: I was here at the time. I
fought in that battle on the same side as the
Supply-Citizenship and Immigration hon. gentleman and I know the opinions that were expressed on his sincerity or otherwise by the members who composed the government of that day.


Lester Bowles Pearson: On a question of privilege, Mr. Chairman; the hon. member has asked me a question, and has gone on to relate that question to our motives. The answer to that question is, yes, we all admit we respected the sincerity of the hon. member.


Edmund Davie Fulton: I must, of course, accept the
word of the hon. member. I can only say then, that they chose a very peculiar method of expression to indicate their respect.
Another proof of the validity of my contention, if we need another indication as to the lack of any depth in this issue, is in the words used by the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre in the last speech he made on the subject a few moments ago. He said that a press man came to him after he raised the matter-and of course when he raised it on January 30, he saw nothing wrong with it by the necessary implication of his words-and the press man said: 'We did not run a story on that did we?" What a suggestion to put in front of the hon. member!


Stanley Howard Knowles: On
a question of privilege-


The Acting Chairman (Mr. Rea):: , The
minister has the floor and if he wishes to allow a question to be asked, he may do so.


Stanley Howard Knowles: Will the minister permit a question?


Edmund Davie Fulton: I would be glad to deal with
questions at the end of what I have to say, but I should like to be able to present the facts in a comprehensive fashion.


Stanley Howard Knowles: Is
it not a fact that I allowed the minister to correct me when he said I misquoted him?


An hon. Member:: Closure.


Edmund Davie Fulton: It has been admitted, at least
by the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre-and I take it by implication by the Leader of the Opposition and the leader of the Social Credit party because they all adopted his arguments-that there is no dispute over the propriety of the expenditure made under the governor general's warrant. There is no dispute either over the propriety of using a governor general's war-ant under those circumstances. The only dispute, then, is over the method of informing the house as to what had been done. This house stands informed about what has been done. This house is now dealing with the question of what has been done, in the.
4176	HOUSE OF
Supply-Citizenship and Immigration full knowledge of what has been done. How in the name of common sense any hon. member can really pretend he is making a serious argument that any right of parliament has been denied, when parliament knows what has been done and has been discussing what has been done for two and a half hours, defeats me.


Mr. Stuart (Charlotte):: It will defeat you.


Edmund Davie Fulton: On January 30, and again
when the estimates of the Department of Veterans Affairs were being considered, the knowledge of what was done was in the possession of hon. members. They raised no issue on it. I believe these facts give the true measure of the validity of the issue they are attempting to raise here today.
I think it must also be admitted that the appropriate time to raise an issue, if in fact the person who raises the issue believes that it is a serious issue and if he believes that the conduct of the government or any person is a grave abuse of parliamentary rights, is the first time an opportunity arises.


John Whitney Pickersgill: Here it is.


Edmund Davie Fulton: I think the hon. member for Bonavista-Twillingate had better not reveal the depths of his own ignorance because the opportunity has arisen twice before.


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh.


John Whitney Pickersgill: On a question of privilege, Mr. Chairman. The hon. gentleman made certain specific imputations against me.


Edmund Davie Fulton: It was not an imputation, it was a statement of fact.


John Whitney Pickersgill: I maintain that the proper place, and the only proper place to raise this matter-


Some hon. Members:: Sit down.


Charles Edward Rea: I do not
want to hear a debate at this time. What was the hon. member's question of privilege?


John Whitney Pickersgill: My question of privilege is that the hon. gentleman said I was revealing my ignorance because I had not raised this matter on other occasi'ons when it might have been appropriate. Of course, I did not raise the matter at all, but I maintain that the only proper place to raise this particular warrant is on this specific item. The basis of my argument for that, sir, is this:


Charles Edward Rea: Order. There seems to be no argument about that. It already has been raised on this vote No. 684. I do not see that there is any question about that, and I do not see what the question of privilege is.


Edmund Davie Fulton: It is not a question of privilege; it is an argument.


Walter Adam Tucker: You are dictating to the chairman now.


Charles Edward Rea: I cannot understand the hon. member's question of privilege because this question he is discussing has been raised on vote 684 and is now being discussed.


John Whitney Pickersgill: The hon. gentleman said it should not have been raised here, sir.


Charles Edward Rea: It has
been raised, and it is a question of argument now.


John Whitney Pickersgill: Then, I rise on a point of order, Mr. Chairman. My point of order is the same point of order that was raised by the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre earlier but not decided, and it is this. This is the only appropriate place in the whole of the estimates to raise this particular item. Now, what was this warrant about?


An hon. Member:: That is not a point of order.


Charles Edward Rea: That is a matter of opinion; the Acting Minister of Citizenship and Immigration has the floor.


Edmund Davie Fulton: Mr. Chairman, the hon. member for Bonavista-Twillingate said a moment ago, when he attempted to raise a point of order that was not a point of order or a question of privilege that, as a matter of fact, he had not raised this issue. This is obvious. It had not occurred to him, and he is just jumping on the bandwagon now.


Andrew Wesley Stuart: It is a bandwagon.


Edmund Davie Fulton: As I said earlier, all those who have spoken on this matter have adopted the argument of the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre, who himself earlier admitted that there were two previous occasions on which he could have raised the matter, but he did not.


Stanley Howard Knowles: Will the minister permit a question?


An hon. Member:: No.


Edmund Davie Fulton: Not at this moment.


Stanley Howard Knowles: Will the minister not extend to me the same courtesy that I extended to him?


Edmund Davie Fulton: I simply point out that I did not interrupt the hon. gentleman while he was speaking.


Andrew Wesley Stuart: Oh, yes you did.

Supply-Citizenship and Immigration


Stanley Howard Knowles: The hon. member knows that when he said I misquoted him, he did.


Edmund Davie Fulton: But not at the time when he was really developing the technical part of his case.


Charles Edward Rea: If the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre has anything to say I wish he would direct it to the Chair.


Edmund Davie Fulton: As the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre pointed out, there were two governor general's warrants; one in connection with the Department of Veterans Affairs and one in connection with this department. He said, as I recall his words, that he could raise the matter when the veterans affairs estimates were before the house but he did not do so.


Stanley Howard Knowles: For
the reason I have already given.


Edmund Davie Fulton: And he could have raised the parliamentary issue on the night of January 30, but he did not do so. He did not do so, I submit, because it had not occurred to him then. He raises it now, I submit, because of a certain event to which he himself has eluded this afternoon-an event of which he may have some knowledge but I have not-with which he says he is about to be faced, and he thinks this will be a good opportunity to try to obscure the issue. Let us not forget that if an issue is serious, then it should be raised at the first opportunity that presents itself. Otherwise, I think the house is entitled to judge as to the validity or otherwise of the issue on the basis that it is raised late in the day, merely in an attempt to embarrass and to obscure what are the real facts.
In attempting to make this argument the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre tries to say that he did not know on the night of January 30 whether or not we would be including in the supplementary estimates an amount to cover this governor general's warrant. He says it was not until this afternoon, when we came to the supplementary estimates, that he knew for certain that we would not, as he puts it, retreat from our course and adopt what he regards as a proper course and bring in supplementary estimates including that amount. Let me refer the hon. gentleman to what I said in reply to his questions on the night of January 30, which reply made it perfectly clear that we did not intend to introduce a supplementary estimate covering this warrant, and that we felt that we were perfectly
entitled not to do so. As reported at page 4079 of Hansard, the hon. gentleman asked me this question:
I should like to know whether the $2,428,000 voted by order in council is included in that $10,483,000 set out in the estimates or whether it is in addition to the moneys that parliament is asked to vote?
I replied as follows:
The answer is no, the $2,428,000 is not included in the total to which the hon. gentleman has referred.
Then I went on to say this:
It is included in the total of $54,055,059, which I gave earlier this afternoon as the total which would be covered by the amount in the main and supplementary estimates. In fact, I think I described it as the total estimated expenditure for 1957-58.
Then I went on to say again, as reported on that same page in the second column:
I think I may have been guilty inadvertently of misleading the hon. gentleman earlier. The total of $54 million which I gave does not include the final supplementaries, which I believe total $643,150.
Therefore it was within the hon. gentleman's knowledge then that all the supplementary estimates, including the final supplementaries, had been tabled and that the last final supplementaries for this department totalled $463,150,000. All he had to do-and knowing the care with which he peruses documents I cannot believe that he had not done this- was to read all the supplementaries including the final supplementaries which had then been tabled, and he would have found that there was no item covering this governor general's warrant.
I submit that it was within his knowledge at that time, on the night of January 30, that 'there was not in the estimates, the supplementaries or the final supplementaries, anywhere an item including this governor general's warrant. I therefore submit to you, Mr. Chairman, to the committee and to the country that that fact completely refutes the argument of the hon. gentleman to the effect that he had to wait until this afternoon in order to be certain that we would not possibly be introducing some sort of supplementary estimate in order to include this governor general's warrant.
It is therefore clear that there were two occasions when the matter could have been raised, namely on the estimates of the Department of Veterans Affairs and on the night of January 30. The question of the governor general's warrant was raised on the night of January 30, but this point was not raised at all. The reason it was not raised at all, in my submission, was that it was recognized then that it was not an issue and that the government had, in fact, done all that any government should be expected to do,

Supply-Citizenship and Immigration namely to inform parliament of what it had done by governor general's warrant and to give to parliament the opportunity to discuss it, which opportunity parliament is now taking.
On the question of whether or not parliament can express its censure of the government, whether or not parliament has the right to disapprove of what was done, let me point out to the hon. gentleman that there is the fullest opportunity throughout the whole course of these estimates. There is an opportunity before the hon. gentleman now-and he knows how to take advantage of it if he thinks this is a real issue-to indicate approval or disapproval of what was done by governor general's warrant and of the course we followed and which we now follow and for which I and my colleagues have no apology whatsoever.
We have respect for the rights of parliament. We have laid information before parliament what was done. We have preserved that traditional right and opportunity to parliament to censure us if it wishes to do so. What we have done is to avoid distorting the estimates in the way the hon. gentleman suggests that we should do by including moneys which should not be, in my submission, in the estimates because they have already been spent under the authority of the governor general's warrant. I submit to you that it would be asking parliament to make a duplication of effort to include the governor general's warrant in the vote now before the house.
I should like to deal for a moment with this question of the rights of parliament and whether parliament has the opportunity to express its approval or disapproval of the course of the expenditure. When the Leader of the Opposition earlier this afternoon said that we were, in following this course, seeking to evade our responsibilities, I could not help thinking that no one here is asking to be allowed to evade any responsibilities except the Leader of the Opposition and the Liberal party who have sought to evade their responsibilities ever since the beginning of this session. They have evaded the responsibility of meeting the government on any real issue. They have ducked and run to cover until they thought there was an issue raised by the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre which they could use to redeem themselves from the disgrace in which they were plunged by their previous course. We are therefore left in this position. When we took office last June we found that the authority for spending money to provide assistance, transportation and accommodation and other necessaries for the Hungarian refugees and

for the other very heavy immigrant movement into Canada had lapsed and we were faced with the position of either allowing those immigrants to starve, cutting off the assistance to the refugees whom we had undertaken to receive, or of using a governor general's warrant under the authority provided in that behalf. We took what I think will be agreed was the sensible, the courageous and indeed the decent course and we used a governor general's warrant to the extent of $2,428,000.
Let me remind hon. members and you, Mr. Chairman, that it was not our fault that the authority had lapsed. We did not have the responsibility at the time when the continuing authority for the expenditure of money should have been arranged for. No. Hon. gentlemen opposite, who raise this hue and cry, had the authority, and they were careless or else they did not know how to arrange it. But, for whatever may be the reason, the authority lapsed and we were faced with a situation which we met in the only way that was open to us; and for that course we have no apology to make.
Then we were faced with the question of bringing the matter before parliament and we tabled the order in council at the earliest possible opportunity. The order in council came to the knowledge of the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre and I daresay to that of many other hon. members who do what most hon. members do, namely look at the sessional papers which are tabled from time to time outlining the orders in council that have been passed.
We knew that the estimates of the department were to come before the house, and when the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre says that parliament has been denied the opportunity to deal with this matter and of expressing its approval or disapproval let me remind him that, as a matter of fact, we would have dealt with far more of the estimates by now had the hon. gentleman been a little more co-operative and had the hon. gentlemen opposite been more co-operative.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear.


Stanley Howard Knowles: Coming from my friend, that makes me smile.


Edmund Davie Fulton: But it has been arranged that, although we have been held up and impeded in dealing with many of the estimates of government departments,-


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh.


Stanley Howard Knowles: The
hon. gentleman himself is smiling now.


Edmund Davie Fulton: We have arranged to bring before the committee of supply the estimates

of the two departments in which governor general's warrants were used namely those of the Department of Veterans Affairs and the Department of Citizenship and Immigration. It would have been very easy to defer these two departments and to have left them until some time later in the year. Then perhaps we might have been subject to the accusation that we had attempted to deny parliament the opportunity to discuss this matter and to express its approval. We did not do that; we brought the estimates of the two departments to which I have referred before the house and we have now spent four hours-or at least three-in discussing this matter of giving to parliament a full opportunity, which it should have and which we intended to give it. Indeed we would never have sought to withhold from parliament the opportunity to express its approval or disapproval of what the government did at the time or of the course now being followed by the government. If in the course of three hours the hon. gentleman or any other hon. gentlemen feel they have not been able to make a point, then, sir, I suggest that the responsibility is theirs and not ours. Furthermore, the question of the responsibility for wasting the time of parliament is also theirs and not ours.
We are prepared, of course, to discuss this matter for as long as hon. gentlemen wish to do so, because that is their privilege, but the longer they take on it the more they emphasize the fact that parliament is being given the full right to discuss this matter and to express its approval or disapproval of the conduct of the government.
The longer they spend in talking and the longer they defer getting down to grips with the issue, that much longer will we see repeated the history of the whole session to date, namely the raising by the opposition of phony issues and trying to impede the course of the government and then, when they have the opportunity to meet the issue head on, of ducking and running for cover.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear.


Stanley Howard Knowles: First of all may I correct the minister's arithmetic and then I will deal with his logic. We started to discuss this matter about fifteen minutes before one o'clock. We had fifteen minutes on it before lunch and we have been in session about one hour and a quarter since lunch. According to my arithmetic that makes one and a half hours.


Edmund Davie Fulton: I am sorry. Listening to the hon. member makes time pass slowly.


Stanley Howard Knowles: That is the first time the minister has scored today and I will let him have the credit. I am 96698-264
Supply-Citizenship and Immigration interested in the minister's reference to this as a phony issue. I think he has chosen just about the worst day in this session of parliament to refer to the question of parliamentary control over public expenditure as a phony issue.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear.


Stanley Howard Knowles: We
will see about that. In the early part of his remarks just now the minister misquoted something I had said earlier. He referred to my conversation with a friend in the press gallery whom I had quoted as saying, "We did not run a story on that."


Edmund Davie Fulton: That is what I said you said.


Stanley Howard Knowles: The
minister said that was a reference to what was discussed on Thursday night and that my motive in re-opening this issue today is that it did not reach the press as a result of it being discussed on Thursday night. The minister was not paying the attention to me that he usually pays to debates in this house. I said that my friend in the press gallery was referring to the sessional paper tabled last October 15, when he made that remark. In other words, my press friend was drawing attention to the fact that the device used by the government to inform members of the house as to what had been done was most ineffective. Nobody knew about it except perhaps the Minister of Finance who tabled it and the linotype operator who set the necessary lines in Votes and Proceedings.
The whole point is that this machinery we now have for the tabling of documents, which was revised the last time we had a meeting of the committee on procedure, makes it possible for documents to be laid on the table and there to be missed completely so far as the public is concerned. It does so happen that this one instance came to my attention and that is why we are now having a debate on it.
The minister made the point that we are now dealing with the matter of what the government has done and he says that we have ample opportunity to discuss it as long as we wish to do so. Has he forgotten that before the luncheon recess he raised a point of order and tried to stop me from discussing it?


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear.


Stanley Howard Knowles: Was that apostle of free speech, the Minister of Trade and Commerce, here when the Acting Minister of Citizenship and Immigration made that move to try to prevent a discussion on this item? We have had this discussion only because some of us have insisted
4180	HOUSE OF
Supply-Citizenship and Immigration upon it as our right and also, I may say, because of the impartiality and fairness of the Chair.
There is more required in relation to parliamentary control over the purse than that parliament should be informed. I used the words of the Minister of Justice himself as recorded at page 1042 of Hansard for February 9, 1956, when he said that it was parliament's job to perform its function of the control of expenditure mostly efficiently and effectively. As a matter of fact, the Leader of the Opposition used the word "effective" three or four times and I took it that he had been reading the speeches of the minister. That is the key to this whole business. It is not just a matter of parliament being informed by a method that is almost secret. It is a question of parliament having effective control over expenditure, and you do not have effective control just because a sessional paper gets tabled, about which very few people learn in any event.
The Minister of Finance also spoke on this point as recorded on page 1651 of Hansard for February 28, 1956, as follows:
We have drawn attention to the fact that it is a paramount duty of the House of Commons to maintain strict control upon government expenditure. The control of the public purse must be exercised by the House of Commons.
These were the sentiments of the hon. gentlemen opposite when they sat on this side of the house; not just that parliament should be informed of the actions taken by the government by order in council, but that the parliament of Canada, the House of Commons, the representatives of the people, should have effective control over those expenditures. Furthermore, Mr. Chairman, we have had that effective control down through the years.
As I have already said, we have reached a turning point in Canadian parliamentary history. This government is taking us around the corner to a new way of dealing with governor general's warrants and of dealing with expenditures by order in council and is laying down the pattern that this can be done merely by informing parliament afterwards.
I suppose if it were not for the rules governing our procedure generally we should be obliged to have recourse to the newspapers to find out what the government is doing. We have got away completely from the proposition that there has to be effective control by means of supply estimates always being tabled so we can vote on them.
The Minister of Justice, despite what I told him when I was on my feet earlier, continues to try to make a great deal of the fact that 1 did not press this aspect of the point


on Thursday night. He also tried to make a great deal of the fact that I did not raise the point when we were discussing the estimates of the Minister of Veterans Affairs. May I say this again, just as plainly and as simply as I can, Mr. Chairman, that I am not in the habit of raising issues in the House of Commons until I am sure of my ground.


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh.


Stanley Howard Knowles: hon. gentlemen opposite would like an example, they may recall the occasion in February, 1957, when Mr. Howe made a statement in this house on a Tuesday regarding certain share options in a certain company which we will not name today. I knew at that point that there was something fishy about it. But when did I raise the matter on the floor of parliament? It was on the following Monday, though I ran the risk of the Tories getting ahead of us. Why did I wait? I waited because I spent the intervening days running down my facts, because I wanted to be sure of them.
I was not sure on Thursday night whether the minister would cover this item by a supplementary estimate. And there was something else that I did not know until yesterday. I appreciate all the nice things that are said about me because of my interest in parliamentary procedure and my habit of perusing all the documents, but I am humble enough to stand up in this house and say I am still learning things, and I did not know -I say this again to the Minister of Justice, and I say it to the House of Commons- until yesterday that this had never been done before. It was only yesterday, after I had received this letter dated January 31, from an official of the government with a document attached to it, that I learned that on all previous occasions this had been done the other way; that it had been done by means of supplementary estimates being brought in afterwards.
I say again to the minister that on Thursday night, when he and I were discussing this matter, he may have known that this was a new pattern, but I did not. It came to me as a shock. It came to me as a surprise yesterday when I received this document and found out what the facts were. Oh, it is true that I could have found it out if I had pursued this branch of research in the course of months gone by, but it was not until after Thursday night that I discovered that this pattern was an entirely new one and that I realized that this government had taken parliament around a corner which is extremely serious as far as parliamentary control over public expenditure is concerned.

The minister says that every right of censure over the government is preserved by the course now being followed. He knows, because he is a student of Beauchesne and all these other chaps, that there is a citation in Beauchesne, No. 480, of the third edition, which reads as follows:
The only motion allowed, when a resolution is under consideration in committee of supply, is that the amount be reduced or that the chairman leave the chair either without making a report or to report progress on certain resolutions.
There are only two motions that I can make at this moment. One would be to reduce the amount of the estimate-


Edmund Davie Fulton: That would be a vote of
censure.


Stanley Howard Knowles: -and the other would be to ask the chairman to rise.


An hon. Member:: Let us do that.


Stanley Howard Knowles: But
I do not disagree with this vote of $8 million. I approve it. I am not going to move for its reduction, and if I were to move that you, sir, leave the chair, that would be a motion against passing this $8 million.


Edmund Davie Fulton: It is an accepted method of censure, and you are ducking this again.


Stanley Howard Knowles: will at least give hon. gentlemen opposite credit for smiling. The hon. member for Renfrew South, like the Minister of Justice, is actually laughing at the suggestion that we would duck an issue or run away from it in this parliament. They know what we have done since this parliament met. We are not going to be placed in the dishonest position in which the minister wants to place us. We approve of this item of $8 million. We approve of the additional expenditure of $2,428,000, which was made available for this item by means of the governor general's warrant, and we are not going to take any action which would reduce the amount of money available for this purpose; and the Minister of Justice will not make any yardage by taking that attitude, because everyone in this committee is for it.
What we want is something that is not open to a private member to move. What we want is this estimate of $8 million to be raised to $10,428,000 so that it will include the amount of $2,428,000 which was appropriated in cabinet council, within those four walls, by order in council last August, and I say to you, Mr. Chairman, that if the minister will bring in such an increase or bring in another item, we will vote for it, and I think every member of this committee would vote for it. But what hon. gentlemen opposite do not seem
Supply-Citizenship and Immigration to realize is that even though we are prepared to vote for a resolution, that does not mean that parliament is being satisfied when it is not being given a chance to do so.
The same thing is, apparently, going to happen again in the next few months. The estimates before parliament this year total some $5,600 million of which about $2 billion are statutory expenditures, leaving about $3,600 million to be passed in the estimates. Interim supply has provided for about five-sixths of those estimates, which means that about $600 million of the estimates have not been provided for, and even the amount for which provision has been made has been secured on an undertaking by the Minister of Finance that we would get the chance to discuss all those items. So, Mr. Chairman, the sum of $600 million is likely to be spent in the balance of this fiscal year without parliament having the chance to vote on this expenditure, and if an election is coming-and we all know it is-there will be another two months in the new fiscal year before parliament can meet and vote supply. I estimate that aside from statutory items, expenditure is running at about $300 million a month. So there is another $600 million from April 1, until parliament is able to meet again and vote money. Add $600 million before April 1 to $600 million after April 1 and you arrive at a sum of the order of $1,200 million-over a billion -which will be passed by order in council. That is the pattern which this minister and this government are now introducing to parliament, and it is such that parliament will have no chance to discuss these items at all, either in this parliament, or in the next parliament or at any time in the future.
The blue book of estimates we have been kicking around for 10 or 11 months will be down the drain. We will never see it again. The new book of estimates will have the first part in it, but it will not be discussed by parliament at all. That is what flows from the attitude the minister is taking now and it seems to me that the hon. gentleman, whom I have always regarded as a wise man, would have been much wiser if he had admitted that perhaps the old course was a better one, and had said to the House of Commons that if a majority of members felt the government should reconsider the matter any governor general's warrants would be dealt with in the old way in the future.
I will repeat the point I have been making from the time this issue was first raised. I think the issue is one of great seriousness. It is a case of taking parliament around the corner and down a dangerous path as far as parliamentary control over expenditure is concerned. And the minister, I think, should
4182	HOUSE OF
Supply-Citizenship and Immigration have had the decency, after I told him about the letter I had received on January 31, to withdraw his charge that I was raising this matter now because of some political motive, on the basis of which I did not want to raise it on the night of January 30.
If he did not understand it before, let me say it to him now. Thursday night, apart from the fact that I was not too sure whether he might not yet do it the other way, at least I did not know that it had been done the other way across the years. I found that out yesterday when I received this document with this covering letter. I confirmed it last night and this morning by going through the statutes, Hansard and the old estimates in the library. And so we are in the position that on this day I had the first opportunity to raise this issue in parliament. I say to the minister that the attempt he made to answer me by talking about shallow arguments and his becoming involved in an argument with the Leader of the Opposition about the sincerity of hon. members and all that sort of thing was completely beside the point. Any attempt to raise the question as to whether or not the object of this expenditure is justifiable is likewise beside the point.
The issue is clear and simple. There has been a change of practice. The old practice across the years was always to bring before parliament estimates, supplementary in character, covering what had been spent by warrants. It can be found on page 31 of the statutes of 1926-27, covering the governor general's warrants of 1926, and I have other examples here for various years. That has been the practice all across the years. Along with that practice was the practice required by law of tabling the documents informing parliament.
The practice has been twofold: parliament has been informed and effective control by parliament has been maintained by parliament being given a chance to deal with the supplementary estimates. We now have a new dispensation, a new chapter, a new approach to the control of parliament-or to the lack of control by parliament-over expenditures. We now have this new line that when governor general's warrants are used all that will happen is that the letter of the law will be kept. Parliament will be informed, the sessional paper will be put on the table and sent down to room No. 167, and perhaps some hon. member such as the member for Winnipeg North Centre will find it, but there will not be given to parliament any opportunity to discuss in committee of supply the supplementary estimates related to those matters. I say to the minister, do not come back at us with the argument about the right to make motions respecting orders in council. That


machinery is valueless as far as the House of Commons is concerned. The most effective instrument we have is in committee of supply where, according to citations such as No. 478 and No. 479 of Beauchesne's third edition, every item has to be discussed separately as a separate grant. Here is the place where parliament has its traditional control over the executive and over the purse.
My hon. friend is doing with this practice what was done with the rule book a couple of years ago; it has been thrown into the river. "Oh, it is not too serious if it is only this one item of $2 million," says my hon. friend, "because this is an item on which we are all agreed that something should have been done with respect to this project under the immigration branch of the department."


Edmund Davie Fulton: I never said any such thing.


Stanley Howard Knowles: But, Mr. Chairman, this comes at a significant time, and I did not pick this time; perhaps I predicted the election date with some accuracy but I could only predict it, I could not set it. The government chose to have this come out at this time when we have in prospect the spending of $1,200 million by governor general's warrants. We now have a pattern on the basis of which parliament will not have a chance to approve of those expenditures. Mr. Chairman, it is as serious as my hon. friend the Leader of the Opposition and the leader of the Social Credit party and those of us in this group have tried to represent it at this time.


Lester Bowles Pearson: Mr. Chairman, might I ask the minister-and perhaps I should address this question to the Minister of Finance- whether he would join us in this party and the other parties in this house in an assurance that this procedure will not be followed in respect of governor general's warrants between now and the opening of the next parliament?


An hon. Member:: You would ask a stupid
question like that.


Donald Methuen Fleming: Mr. Chairman, the war of nerves about which we heard this morning has now given way on the part of the opposition to a sham battle.
The course that has been followed by the government with respect to the two items of expenditure under discussion, an expenditure authorized by governor general's warrants, has been regular, proper and constitutional in all respects.
May I just remind the committee of the situation and then I shall proceed to discuss the statutory authority for the course properly followed by the government. Due to improvidence and lack of foresight on the part

of hon. members opposite, who would do well to remind themselves of their improvidence and lack of foresight on this occasion, they failed to make adequate provision in the estimates that they introduced last spring for the meeting of the necessities of the Hungarian refugees and the immigration movement into Canada. The new government facing this situation in the summer was confronted with the necessity of making a decision whether, in the absence of an appropriation by parliament, to resort to the use of governor general's warrants in accordance with the provisions of the Financial Administration Act, or simply to refuse to provide any money for the necessities of these immigrants and refugees. Had we not acted as we did, starvation on the part of these refugees would have resulted.
While situations like this have not arisen as frequently in years gone by as they did during the not very much lamented Liberal regime that came to its proper end on June 10 last, nevertheless they have arisen in time past, and parliament has provided continuing legislation to be available in situations in which the necessities of the situation cannot be met out of the provision that parliament has made. That kind of legislation in this country goes back to 1878. It has been in existence on the statute books of Canada for 80 years, so let there be no more of this hollow pretence and sham that this is a novel course to which we have resorted.
There was the choice, and this government did not hesitate, in the face of those alternatives, to make the choice it did. No self-respecting government bearing the responsibility of office in Canada could have done otherwise, and had we not taken the course we did and had starvation and hardship on the part of the refugees and immigrants resulted, I am sure that those on the other side who are raising their shrieking voices in the house today would have been shrieking equally loudly in condemnation of us for not taking the course for which they now seek to condemn us.
I have something to say as well, sir, as to the timing of the introduction of this subject into the debates of this house. Throughout this session, which began on October 14, 1957, there have been not one, but many occasions when, if hon. members were really earnest in the point that they sought to raise today, they could have raised that point, raised it directly and pressed their objection to an issue; but not they.
These gentlemen, who are more at home under cover instead of coming out in the open and raising issues, let these opportunities go by one after another. During the 96698-265
Supply-Citizenship and Immigration course of the session we have had in committee of supply already-I said "in committee of supply"-as the Minister of Justice pointed out, several occasions when the point now under debate could have been raised. January 30 was a good date and also earlier. But these were not the only occasions. If hon. members opposite were in earnest about this matter, if they were not just putting on a sham battle today, they could have raised this issue on every motion to resolve the house into committee of supply during the course of the session, any one of them. If I recall correctly, I think there have been five such motions during the course of the session.
Was the point raised? Did these hon. gentlemen who are so loud today raise these same voices in objecting to the course taken by the government? No, Mr. Chairman, so far as this point is concerned silence prevailed. Yet we are asked today to take seriously the suggestion that something grave, serious and unconstitutional has now come to light.


An hon. Member:: That is true.


Donald Methuen Fleming: Mr. Chairman, it has been under the light of parliament for every wideawake and vigilant member of the house to see since the 15th day of October 1957. These earnest emulators of Rip Van Winkle-


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Donald Methuen Fleming: -have tried to hide from public knowledge their somnolence, their indifference and their proven, demonstrated incapacity to assume the responsibilities of their duties in this house.


An hon. Member:: How funny can you
be?


Donald Methuen Fleming: Now, what happened on the 15th day of October when it fell to my lot to table in the house a report of the Queen's privy council? Here is the note in Votes and Proceedings of the house for Tuesday, October 15, 1957, as found on page 17. Under the heading "Returns and Reports Deposited with the Clerk of the House" I find the following:
By Mr. Fleming, a member of the Queen's privy council,-Report dated October 10, 1957, showing special warrants issued under section 28 of the Financial Administration Act for the year ending March 31, 1958, pursuant to Section 28,(3) of the said act, chapter 116, R.S.C., 1952.


Stanley Howard Knowles: Will the minister permit a question?


Donald Methuen Fleming: Yes.
4184	HOUSE OF
Supply-Citizenship and Immigration


Stanley Howard Knowles: When he filed that sessional paper on October 15, did he draw the attention of the house to it, as he did to the estimates and supplementary estimates which he tabled that day, by saying a few words about them?


Donald Methuen Fleming: No, Mr. Chairman. I followed the correct and proper procedure, as I shall demonstrate to all members-


Stanley Howard Knowles: Is there any rule against it?


Donald Methuen Fleming: -who are not approaching this question with their minds blurred by prejudice and passion today and by their bad attack of jitters. There was the matter on the records of the house. Surely hon. members well know that the Financial Administration Act is the statute which gives authority to the Queen's privy council to appropriate money-I said "appropriate money"-by governor general's warrants. It is not much use, Mr. Chairman, for parliament to legislate in terms of requiring that the government table documents in the house, for ministers of the crown then to follow the provisions of the statute and table those documents in the house, for the proceedings of the house to be printed, showing clearly that those documents, printed in both languages, have been tabled, if we are to be told then that something further is required and that is not enough to bring it to the attention of hon. members. Those who legislated in terms of section 28 of the Financial Administration Act put a higher value upon the sense of responsibility of members of the house than those opposite today who are trying in this sham effort to say that we did not do enough to bring this matter to the attention of the house, that what we should have done was to read this document to the house.
It would have been quite irregular and improper to have read that document in the house. The document was tabled in the house in accordance with the provisions of the law enacted by the parliament of Canada.


Stanley Howard Knowles: Where is the rule that denies you the right to read it aloud?


Donald Methuen Fleming: Mr. Chairman, I made some passing observation a moment ago about the timing of these observations on the part of hon. members opposite, but that is not the only extraordinary feature of this debate. Another extraordinary feature is the way in which the Leader of the Opposition and those of his one hundred odd followers who still remain around here have chosen not to follow a self-respecting and courageous course in


this matter but to jump on the bandwagon of the C.C.F. and to say "Me too".


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Stanley Howard Knowles: They have to be smart once in a while.


Donald Methuen Fleming: Only a few days ago over television and radio in this country we had from the Liberal national convention those great speeches, the waving of the arms, the rousing cheers, and we were told the one thing the country needed to put it back in shape was the implementation of what were called Liberal principles. Well, Mr. Chairman, you can see a demonstration today of Liberal principles. If you did not see any Liberal principles at stake you certainly did see some Liberal tactics, 1958 version.


Mr. Boivin:: Where were you during the vote yesterday?


Donald Methuen Fleming: I voted, Mr. Chairman. These hon. members opposite who have passed orders in council themselves before to appropriate money by means of governor general's warrants, waited until the deputy leader of the C.C.F. raised this point and then after they had sat back and listened to it being discussed for some time on both sides of the house, eventually the Leader of the Opposition actually got to the point of standing up and saying: "Well, count us in too".


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Donald Methuen Fleming: 
Stanley Howard Knowles: A parliamentary appropriation.


Donald Methuen Fleming: There is a difference between the view expressed by the Auditor General of this country as to the proper course in this matter in 1926, and the view expressed by the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre. Perhaps he will forgive me if I prefer to accept the view of the Auditor General of Canada.
I have a few brief observations to make in conclusion, Mr. Chairman. Hon. members opposite, the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre and the Leader of the Opposition, evidently have not duly considered the provisions of section 28 of the Financial Administration Act. Subsection (1) contains this provision:
-where any other matter arises when parliament is not in session in respect of which an expenditure not foreseen or provided for by parliament is urgently required for the public good, the governor in council, upon the report of the minister that there is no appropriation for the expenditure, and the report of the appropriate minister that the expenditure is urgently required, may order a special warrant to be prepared to be signed by the Governor General authorizing the payment of the amount estimated to be required for such expenditure.
Now, Mr. Chairman, what is the effect of a governor general's warrant issued under those provisions that I have just read? This is laid down in subsection (2):
A special warrant issued pursuant to this section shall for the purposes of this act be deemed to be an appropriation for the fiscal year in which the warrant is issued.
There is no word said there that a warrant is tentative; no word said that it lasts only until it has been ratified and approved by parliament; no word said there that this is not an appropriation and is only temporarily voted. No, Mr. Chairman, the language of the statute enacted by this sovereign parliament of Canada is that a special warrant issued under the provisions of subsection 1 is to be taken as an appropriation for the fiscal year. It is crystal clear that when that
418S	HOUSE OF
Supply-Citizenship and Immigration governor general's warrant was issued by order in council last summer it had, by the force of a statute, the Financial Administration Act, the quality of an appropriation, an appropriation in that respect having the same legal effect as an appropriation by an item in the appropriation bill passed by this parliament.
Now, what remains to be done to give the appropriation by this governor general's warrant that is under discussion today the final, legal, binding quality and effect? It is to be found in subsection (3):
Every warrant issued under this section shall be published in the Canada Gazette within 30 days alter it is issued, and a statement showing all warrants issued under this section and the amounts thereof shall be laid by the minister before the House of Commons within 15 days after the commencement of the next ensuing session of parliament.
There are two requirements enacted by parliament in order that the existence of these governor general's warrants may be known. The first is publication in the Canada Gazette. I might tell you, Mr. Chairman, that these warrants were published in the Canada Gazette Part I, August 31, 1957 at page 3053. I am going to suggest to the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre and the Leader of the Opposition that they subscribe to the Canada Gazette hereafter.


Stanley Howard Knowles: We
get it free.


Donald Methuen Fleming: The other requirement imposed by statute is that a statement showing the amount of the warrant should be tabled by the minister, which means the Minister of Finance, before the House of Commons within 15 days after the commencement of the next ensuing session. The next ensuing session of parliament commenced on October 14. We did not wait for the 15 days; we tabled this the next day, October 15. The law of this country has been followed to the letter by the government in this matter. We have followed the course prescribed by the sovereign parliament of Canada embodied in the Financial Administration Act.


Mr. Harrison:: How about a budget?
^r- Fleming: You would not know a budget if you saw one.


John Whitney Pickersgill: Give him a chance.


Donald Methuen Fleming: So, Mr. Chairman, we have listened to the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre. About 10 per cent of what he had to say was intended to be related to the matter of these warrants that were tabled in the house on October 15.


Stanley Howard Knowles: That is another of the minister's inaccuracies.


Donald Methuen Fleming: Of course, what he in effect was trying to do was to get on the record of parliament in this House of Commons a hustings speech in anticipation of an event which he and his ilk face with dread.


The Chairman:: I recognize the hon. member for Bonavista-Twillingate.


Stanley Howard Knowles: note where the word "ilk" comes from so I will not pay any attention to it.


Donald Methuen Fleming: I can assure my hon. friend that I intended no offence by the use of the word "ilk". It is a very good English word. It is also a very appropriate word.


John Whitney Pickersgill: Mr. Chairman, I think I have the floor. Now that the Minister of Finance has finished his muttering I will proceed to deal with what he had to say. I shall try to do so without prejudice and certainly without passion. The minister made a great deal of the fact that the government had followed the letter of the law. Neither the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre nor the Leader of the Opposition ever said anything to the contrary.


An hon. Member:: What is the argument?


John Whitney Pickersgill: The argument is that they ignored the spirit of the law.


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh.


John Whitney Pickersgill: The argument is that they ignored the practice of the constitution. The argument is that on previous occasions the appropriations in these governor general's warrants were subsequently inserted in the estimates where they could be discussed in parliament. Under a Liberal government- and previous Tory governments also-parliament was given a chance to vote on these warrants, for or against them. It is true that the expenditure could not be revoked but the government that made the expenditure could be defeated; and that is the essence of responsible government. We have now gone back to the old regime, to the old practice in the colonial legislatures where the executive informed the assembly of their expenditures and said "You have no control over them and no right to exercise any control over them or to express any opinion about them". The Acting Minister of Citizenship and Immigration did his best, by raising a point of order when the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre rose, to prevent this matter from being discussed,-


Edmund Davie Fulton: No. It was discussed on January 30.


John Whitney Pickersgill: -right in the manner of the old colonial governments, of the old family compact.


Edmund Davie Fulton: It was discussed on January 30.

Supply-Citizenship and Immigration


John Whitney Pickersgill: The Minister of Finance, who completely ignored the only point that has been at issue all day and who raised many points about which everybody was in agreement, said that we were insincere on this side of the house because we did not raise this matter earlier. I submit that it does not matter when a matter is raised. If something is wrong, it is wrong. If a wrong is discovered, even on the eve of the perpetration of a greater wrong, that is no reason why it should not be denounced. The Minister of Finance also, with those mock heroics to which we are so much accustomed in this house, said that the Leader of the Opposition had climbed on the bandwagon of the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre.


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh.


John Whitney Pickersgill: I may say I am glad that the Leader of the Opposition, as well as other leaders of the Liberal party, is always on the side of right no matter who raises the question.


An hon. Member:: Black Friday.


John Whitney Pickersgill: I have risen primarily-


Mr. Hees:: Nobody will ever know why.


John Whitney Pickersgill: I certainly would not think the Minister of Transport would be able to understand a matter of this kind.


George Harris Hees: I have not been able to figure you out. I do not think anybody can.


Henri Courtemanche: Order.


John Whitney Pickersgill: The Minister of Finance said the reason this particular warrant was necessary was the improvidence and lack of foresight of the previous administration.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear.


John Whitney Pickersgill: Before hon. gentlemen do too much applauding, let us consider the dates. The warrant was issued in August. We made the best provision we could make for an unforeseen expenditure, one unforeseen in extent, as the minister indicated in presenting the estimates, for an unforeseen movement of these immigrants and refugees or an unforeseen number of them. We made the best provision we could make when the estimates were brought before parliament early in the year. Mr. Harris said, "Let us make adequate provision so that we can be sure the money will last until parliament can meet again after the election".


An hon. Member:: Where is he now?


John Whitney Pickersgill: If we had been returned- but we were not-parliament would have met in August, not in October and there would have been no need to use these warrants at all. In other words there was no improvidence
and no lack of foresight whatsoever. This additional provision did not become necessary until August. The writs were returned in August and there was no reason, except the political convenience of the government, why parliament was not called into session in August.


Mr. Hamilton (Noire Dame de Grace):: Will
the hon. member permit a question?


John Whitney Pickersgill: Certainly. I have never refused to do so, unlike hon. gentlemen opposite.


Mr. Hamilton (Notre Dame de Grace):: Will
the hon. gentleman tell the house where he planned to house the Universal Postal Congress which the previous government had agreed to have here at that time?


John Whitney Pickersgill: If it had been necessary, in order to provide for the public service of this country, to find other quarters for the Universal Postal Congress, they would have been found. If hon. gentlemen had really wanted to get on with the public business of this country instead of attending various circuses, stampedes and things of that sort in the summer, there was nothing to prevent them from doing so. No feebler excuse has ever been offered to the people of Canada than the one which the Postmaster General has just attempted to make. What is more, Mr. Chairman is this. If this parliament had met in August and had proceeded in an orderly fashion with the unfinished business of the last parliament, this session would have ended long ago and the feeble excuse to which we have listened from the Prime Minister and other hon. gentlemen opposite about others prolonging a session which they have prolonged-


An hon. Member:: You apparently don't read Hansard.


John Whitney Pickersgill: -would not have been available. It would have been quite simple to have had parliament meet last August, to have passed the remaining estimates, to have ended up that short session and then to have called a regular session in a proper manner and carried on the new business which the government had forecast before they became a government. Possibly if they had followed that very sensible course which my friend the right hon. member for Melville recommended in October they would not have got into quite so many messes as they have got into during this parliament.
I think perhaps I am wandering some distance-


Gordon Minto Churchill: There is no doubt about that.


George Harris Hees: That is the only sensible thing you have said.
4188	HOUSE OF COMMONS
Supply-Citizenship and Immigration


John Whitney Pickersgill: I have been wandering
some distance from the estimates of the department, and I do not wish to put myself out of order.


George Harris Hees: You are always putting yourself out of order.


Lewis Elston Cardiff: I would like to see you when you are in order.


Walter Adam Tucker: Wait for silence.


John Whitney Pickersgill: Since the Minister of
Finance has chosen to call into question the providence and foresight of the previous government in respect to this particular item in the estimates now before the committee, and since the Acting Minister of Citizenship and Immigration the other evening-


George Harris Hees: You are running out of steam- a little louder.


John Whitney Pickersgill: -suggested or expressed certain suspicions with respect to the conclusions which I had reached last April as to the reasons for issuing a stop order upon open placement visas after July 31, which is directly relevant to this matter because it is, as the minister himself said, the volume of this movement which was responsible for the warrant in the first place and for the vote in the second place,-


Edmund Davie Fulton: No, I did not say that.


John Whitney Pickersgill: Well, the things which the hon. minister said certainly sounded like that and it would be very hard to construe them in any other way.


Edmund Davie Fulton: If the hon. gentleman will read what was said on January 30 he will find his answer. It was the lapse of authority because of the improvidence of the hon. gentlemen opposite who, when they were in power, did not conclude the agreements with the provinces- which would have provided the continuing authority for the expenditure of money.


John Whitney Pickersgill: I do not think the hon. gentleman's explanation would cover anything like the whole of this $8 million. In fact, I feel perfectly confident that it would not.


Edmund Davie Fulton: My hon. friend forgets that he had supplementary estimates of $9 million by this time, which would have provided it. It was the result of their improvidence and carelessness in not concluding the agreements which would have provided the authority for spending the money-the authority lapsed on March 31.


John Whitney Pickersgill: Well, if the hon. gentleman wants to argue that point I will be quite willing to do so at another time-


An hon. Member:: Argue it now.


John Whitney Pickersgill: But I want to clear up this other point upon which there has been a great deal of discussion. The hon. gentleman said the other night as recorded at pages 4068 and 4069 of Hansard for January 30:
I suspect that the former minister's order of April 12 was in part at least based upon that forecast or resulted perhaps indirectly but in large part from the forecast that he had received on the basis of the opinion of the economists whose responsibility it is to advise the government as to what the future months will hold and on whose opinion is based estimates of the labour market, amongst other things, in the coming months.
I have since had the opportunity to consider how accurate was the view expressed by the minister and I would like for a moment, since after all it is my administration of the department that is being called into question, to give to the committee an idea of the kind of forecasts which I did consider.
In the first place, the most important consideration in my mind was the volume of immigration, and the second consideration was the known size of the native additions to the labour market. One had also to consider the prospective capacity of the labour market to absorb these people. I had the advantage of the same judgment which was brought to bear on this matter as the minister of finance had when he presented his budget, and I would like to draw the attention of the committee to two short paragraphs in Mr. Harris' budget speech of March 14, 1957, as recorded at page 2216 of Hansard for that date. I would particularly like to draw the attention of the minister to this matter because he has said things that were rather misleading about it. Mr. Harris said:
I come now to consider the economic prospects for the coming fiscal year.
This was the kind of consideration we had to take into account in determining the volume of immigration.
On the present evidence I think we can expect a continuation of the current high level of economic activity throughout the coming year.
And that of course was true. In fact, the level of economic activity in 1957, as hon. members will recall, was higher than it was in 1956.
There may, as always, be some unevenness between industries and regions, but by and large I expect the momentum of expansion to continue, at a somewhat more moderate pace but strongly enough to ensure-
I particularly draw attention to the next words-
-at a somewhat more moderate pace but strongly enough to ensure further increasing in production and employment, and a continuation of rising standards of living.

Supply-Citizenship and Immigration
These were the factors which had to be taken into account. Then at page 2217 Mr. Harris said:
I do not believe that we can count on obtaining as large an increase in the labour force this year as was experienced last year.
I may say that when Mr. Harris made these statements on March 14, 1957, I agreed with him but, in the intervening month between the date of the remarks I have quoted and the date when I issued this stop order which was April 12th, it became evident that the volume of immigration would be considerably above what we had anticipated. Mr. Harris went on:
Nevertheless, there will be a substantial addition by the expected increase in immigration, an increase which appears likely to provide us with a greater percentage of workers than is usually the case. Further, while industrial capacity is continually growing, some industries may not have an increased requirement for manpower.
Now hon. members opposite have suggested that Mr. Harris gave an unusually rosy picture of the future, and I want to draw to the attention of the committee the very accurate and balanced picture he gave in the budget. As a matter of fact, every word he used has been thoroughly justified by what has happened since. Mr. Harris continued:
All in all, I believe, there is a good possibility that the inflationary pressures which have been present throughout the past year may begin to moderate during the coming year.
That last sentence of Mr. Harris', though perhaps it is not strictly relevant, is worthy of note, and I suggest the measures taken by Mr. Harris, and not anything done by the present Minister of Finance, have resulted in the control of inflation which we have experienced this year.
That was not the only advice I had. I had advice also from the Department of Trade and Commerce and at the end of March the Department of Trade and Commerce had a few things to say about unemployment and employment to which I would like to refer, because these were the things we had to face when this situation was being developed which the hon. gentleman had to meet by his increased appropriation. The department's report said:
Labour income, which amounts to two-thirds of personal income and one-half of the gross national product, will increase further during 1957.
I would like the committee to notice particularly that the department said it would increase further during 1957.
The most important factor contributing to this s the continued increase in wage rate expected. During 1956, wage rates increases were quite general. and larger on average than the previous three *'ears. Further increases can still be expected, md hourly earnings can be expected to continue on rp for some months after a general decline in imployment, were it to develop.
I emphasize that point, "were it to develop". It was not said that it would develop. The next sentence is really important:
In addition, employment in the latest statistics available is higher than the average for last year and a moderate further increase can be expected. In total, labour income in 1957 is expected to be about 7 per cent higher than last year.
What I have read from is the document, the so-called hidden document, which the Prime Minister tabled in this house on March 20, and this is a very good bit of evidence of the way in which the Prime Minister completely misrepresented the contents of that document. If hon. gentlemen want further evidence of that misrepresentation I commend them to the editorial page of the Winnipeg Free Press of January 30, where they will find set out side by side what the Prime Minister quoted and what he left out. And I think that before hon. gentlemen go out on the hustings and start misrepresenting this document all over the country they had better read this page of the Winnipeg Free Press or, better still, read the whole document instead of parts of sentences torn out of their context, sentences torn out of paragraphs-


An hon. Member:: And covers torn off.


John Whitney Pickersgill: -and covers tom off.


Gordon Minto Churchill: You are out of order, you know.


John Whitney Pickersgill: I recognize this is not relevant.


Gordon Minto Churchill: It has not been relevant for half an hour.


John Whitney Pickersgill: I will return to the matter before us. I agree completely with what the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre has said.


An hon. Member:: What did he say?


John Whitney Pickersgill: That the warrant to provide this money was necessary because of the additional volume of immigration and because of the problem of meeting the situation faced by immigrants until they could find work. I agree that this vote was necessary, and I said so on October 17. But I also agree with the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre when he said-and I do not care when he said it- that this house should have the opportunity, when warrants are used, of considering them in a direct and straightforward fashion, and I think the government would do well to give the assurance which the Leader of the Opposition asked them to give, and which he gave on our part, that this should, for the future, be the case.


Solon Earl Low: Mr. Chairman, I hope the Minister of Finance and the Acting Minister of Citizenship and Immigration will believe me
4190	HOUSE OF COMMONS
Supply-Citizenship and Immigration when I say sincerely that the position I took earlier, like the position I am taking now, is not a matter of a sham battle. With me it is not a question of jitters because I am as strong as a summer morning, and I am not worried about anything except the attempt to do something here in a manner different from that in which I think it should he done.
It was not a question with me, of jumping on the bandwagon of the C.C.F. party, though let me make it abundantly clear that just because the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre raised this question there is no reason why I should not support it if I feel he is right, and it is because I feel his case is right and I do support it. When it was said by the Minister of Finance that here was a case of the leader of the Liberal party being led by the C.C.F., I seemed to remember an occasion about two years ago when his party did a similar thing for about two solid weeks.


Stanley Howard Knowles: Two
solid months.


Solon Earl Low: In the earlier part of his contribution to this debate the Minister of Finance tried to bury the real issue in a flood of tears shed evidently for the starving Hungarians. Nobody had denied that the government had the right, and, indeed, the obligation, to pass governor general's warrants for the purpose of taking care of the Hungarian situation in so far as it affected us. Not a single member of the house objected to that, and certainly we did not object because we felt it was right and proper for the government to make a provision by warrant for this expenditure, which had not been provided for in the normal way. But the Minister of Finance did not, at any point in his argument, touch the real issue.


Stanley Howard Knowles: He
just waved the flag.


Solon Earl Low: What is the real issue? In my opinion the real issue is the government's attempt to change a procedure which for many, many years has been considered absolutely essential for the preservation of the sacred rights of parliament over the control of expenditure. That is the simple issue.
I should like to give the house a simple example of what I have in mind. I hold in my hand the estimates for the province of Alberta for the fiscal year April 1, 1954 to March 31, 1955, and I wish to use them by way of illustration. In these pages are set out departmentally the estimates of the proposed expenditures both on income and capital account. But near the back of this book is a statement of further supplementary estimates of expenditures for the fiscal year ended

March 31, 1953. There is a list of items: legislation, education department and highways, on income account; agriculture, public works, on capital account, but the table is headed by these very important words: "Amount expended and to be voted". Those are very important words. And I draw to the attention of this committee that at the end of the items set up in this table follows this very important note: "This statement represents expenditure by special warrant authorized after the prorogation of the legislature with respect to the fiscal year ended March 31, 1953." That special warrant is the counterpart of the governor's warrant.
Here we have a table of further supplementary estimates placed before the members of that legislature, carefully noting that it refers to amounts already expended but to be voted by members of the legislature in spite of this fact. These further supplementary estimates were placed before the members of the legislature that year in exactly the same manner as the ordinary estimates of expenditure for the forthcoming fiscal year, and the members of the legislature had every opportunity to question the government about them and vote them in the same manner as the others were voted.
I think that is a good example, and a clear example, of the kind of thing which has been done by this parliament year in and year out from the earliest days, though perhaps in a somewhat different way. The effect, in any case, has been exactly the same and the intention has been the same, and it is because a change has been made in that procedure that we are making a protest here today.
The supplementary estimates containing item 684, which caused this whole discussion today, were tabled on October 15, 1957, and on that occasion the Minister of Finance rose in his place and announced that he was tabling them. He gave ample notice to all hon. members that they were being tabled that day. The governor general's warrant providing the money-I think it was $2,400,000 under immigration-was passed by the executive council of Canada some time in August.
It seems to me that between August and the time these estimates were tabled there was ample opportunity to have included in the printed further supplementary estimates a very simple note. Instead of showing "immigration branch, $8 million" there could have been shown "immigration branch, $10,400,000",-in round figures-with a little asterisk at that point, and then a note at the bottom with the asterisk explained in this way: "amount expended. This item represents expenditure by governor general's

warrants authorized after the dissolution of parliament in respect of the fiscal year ended March 31, 1958."
Under those circumstances, Mr. Chairman, this house would have had ample notice that the governor general's warrants had been passed and that we would be asked to consider what the government had done and the purposes for which the warrants had been issued and all would have been well. That would have been the normal course and no one could have taken any exception whatsoever to that procedure. What I am complaining about is that the government, in the way it has taken to deal with this situation, has attempted to cut a corner and it has not been ready to straighten out its course since, and I continue my protest.


John Borden Hamilton: Mr. Chairman-
#


Stanley Howard Knowles: Welcome back.


John Borden Hamilton: Mr. Chairman, little did I realize when I rose this morning that I would have this opportunity to play on the first team. As a matter of fact, I felt a little sympathy for the new leader of Her Majesty's loyal opposition, because I have been feeling today very much as he must have felt the other day when he came to bat in the ninth inning with 2 out, 3 on base and the count 2 and 3. His only problem was that it was his first baseball game and it was the world series.


Mr. Mclvor:: He knows his game.


Mr. Habel:: They did not even applaud.


Hédard-J. Robichaud: They did not even get it.


John Borden Hamilton: I am glad to realize that hon. gentlemen opposite are waking up again after those two last efforts. On this occasion I would like to say that I feel it will not be long until the galleries will be cleared, the press will be put to bed and the protests we have heard this afternoon will become only an echo; but before the day is out the people of Canada will see through all the phony arguments that have been raised in this house this afternoon.


Stanley Howard Knowles: They surely will.


John Borden Hamilton: With regard to the question of sincerity, there can be no doubt about where the finger will be pointed. It will be pointed at the two groups to the left of the Chairman.


Joseph-Alphonse-Anaclet Habel: Just a minute, you do not know.


John Borden Hamilton: In connection with the problem facing us,-


William Arnold Peters: You do have a problem.
4191
Supply-Citizenship and Immigration


John Borden Hamilton: -it seems to me that we can examine these questions under two or three important headings. The first is the question of when or how this type of expenditure should be brought before the house. As I understand it, no one has argued today in any way that the method used in tabling this expenditure was illegal or improper. As a matter of fact, we have had reference made to the fact that publication in the Canada Gazette was quite within the statutory requirements. In addition, we have been told that sessional paper No. 175 was laid on the table of the house within the allotted time.
Of course, hon. members opposite would like us to believe that we are talking about something entirely different from what has been outlined in the estimates. Let me read the words of the original item in the main estimates which were compiled by the previous administration. Item No. 71 of the estimates of the Department of Citizenship and Immigration for the fiscal year 1957-58, under the heading "immigration branch" reads as follows:
72. To provide, subject to the approval of treasury board, for trans-oceanic and inland transportation and other assistance for immigrants and settlers, including care en route and while awaiting employment-
Item No. 684 in the supplementary estimates reads as follows:
684. To provide, subject to the approval of treasury board, for trans-oceanic and inland transportation and other assistance for immigrants and settlers, including care en route and while awaiting employment

What did the document say that was laid on the table of the house? Sessional paper No. 175, filed on Tuesday, October 15, 1957, reads as follows:
Report presented by the Minister of Finance to the House of Commons on October 10, 1957, being the statement showing special warrants issued under section 28 of the financial administration act during the present fiscal year.
This is a report to parliament prepared by the Minister of Finance and bearing his signature. May I read the wording of paragraph 2 of this report:
2. Warrant issued pursuant to order in council 1957-1134 of August 19, 1957, whereby the Minister of Finance and Receiver General was authorized to pay the sum of $2,428,000 (in addition to the sums already granted under vote 71 by the Appropriation Act, No. 3, 1957, and the Appropriation Act, No. 4, 1957) to provide, subject to the approval of treasury board, for expenditures in respect of trans-oceanic and inland transportation and other assistance for immigrants and settlers, including care en route and while awaiting employment.
Mr. Chairman, this report from the Minister of Finance outlines the purpose of this expenditure in almost identical terms as are used in the votes contained in the main and

Supply-Citizenship and Immigration supplementary estimates. One could understand the position taken by hon. gentlemen opposite it they had come to the house today and said, "But this is an entirely different program; we did not know anything about this. What are you trying to do under the table?" But no one can deny that the language of sessional paper No. 175 is identical to that used in the main and supplementary estimates.
My hon. friends know that this program started long before this government took office. The hon. member for Bonavista-Twil-lingate admits that the payment covering this program could not have been made in any other way. The hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre rose and said, "But there is no adequate way to check it." If I understood his argument correctly it came to this point: If he had known that something like this had been done before he would not have bothered even to look at the figures, but because some member of the press said, "Oh, this is different," he then decided it was important.


Stanley Howard Knowles: Mr. Chairman-


John Borden Hamilton: Let me speak. I did not interrupt you at all.


Stanley Howard Knowles: the hon. member wants to go ahead with his inaccuracies, let him do so. I suggest that he try and stick to the facts.


John Borden Hamilton: The attitude that is taken today by my hon. friend is that there would be no cause for worry had there been a precedent. What type of attitude is that in connection with an examination of the estimates of a department of government in this house?


Mr. Stewart (Winnipeg North):: The word is "precedent". It does not rhyme with "president".


John Borden Hamilton: Hon. gentlemen have been arguing that the action taken by the government in this regard has been without precedent. If the item was of such importance as to be a matter of principle with the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre, then, as the Acting Minister of Citizenship and Immigration has said, there has been plenty of opportunity to put that principle to the test.


Stanley Howard Knowles: Will you keep the house here on Monday?


John Borden Hamilton: Mr. Chairman, there has been ample opportunity this afternoon and the only reason action has not been

taken in this regard is that the leaders over there have looked behind them and have seen the scattered legions.


Stanley Howard Knowles: The reason is he knows we favour this money being spent.


Edmund Davie Fulton: You could have done it on January 30.


John Borden Hamilton: What an argument, Mr. Chairman! He favours the money being spent but the principle is not important. Surely this is proof beyond any doubt now. Let no one go away under any misapprehension. The same rights of examination are available to the house on this report as are available on the estimates and on the supplementary estimates in the blue book.


Stanley Howard Knowles: That is not true.


John Borden Hamilton: If any further proof of that is needed, Mr. Chairman, let me say that we have had it this afternoon. Oh, I know the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre said, "You tried to cut us off; we were not going to get a chance to debate today". I want to tell him this. The only reason we had to cut him off today was the fact that on at least two previous occasions he had a full opportunity to examine this very expenditure, and if the procedure of the house means anything it means that you follow the rules in all cases, whether one party is affected or whether it is not.


Alexander Malcolm Nicholson: Very weak.


John Borden Hamilton: So I say, sir, that there is every opportunity in this committee to ask where this money has gone. I might say that it is gone. It is not a case of some program we have devised and with respect to which we are looking for the wherewithal to carry it out. It was left with us on June 22. It is not a case of my hon. friends complaining that we are not taking care of these people now. It is not a case of them saying that they set up this program and we are not spending the money properly. Rather, they come here today, when it is all over, and attempt to have people go away with a completely phony picture of the rights of parliament and the duties of members to check.


Stanley Howard Knowles: Your pipe line speech was a lot better.


Hédard-J. Robichaud: Whom are you expecting to come in through the centre door?


John Borden Hamilton: I am quite sure the hon. gentleman will not be disappointed about who is going to come in through the centre door.

Supply-Citizenship and Immigration
Very obviously if there have been any jitters they have been over to your left, Mr. Chairman.


An hon. Member:: You will not be coming through any door.


Francis Alvin George Hamilton: Let me say this,
Mr. Chairman. This has been a sorry day-


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


John Borden Hamilton: -for Her
Majesty's loyal opposition. If this principle was so important, then I say I would have expected that the former minister of the department would have been the man to stand up and say that here was something that should have been done and done properly in the department, but it was left to the deputy leader of the C.C.F. who, having had some type of midnight rendezvous with a member of the press-


Stanley Howard Knowles: Where were you yesterday?


Hédard-J. Robichaud: Where do you have yours?


John Borden Hamilton: -decided that here was a principle that could make up for all the inaction and all the failure to stand up and be counted like men.


Mr. Deschalelets:: How	did you vote
yesterday?


Hédard-J. Robichaud: Where were you?


Jean-Paul Deschatelets: Were	you with the
Solicitor General yesterday?


Stanley Howard Knowles: Where was the brave man during the vote yesterday?


John Borden Hamilton: If you have reference to yesterday's vote, I may say that I was doing a very good job on behalf of the government, and had I been near enough to get into the chamber in time I would have stood up and been counted. Let me say this, sir. These are the questions at issue. When should have objection been raised? Certainly it should have been raised when the first item of this description in the estimates came under discussion. As I have said, there have been two such opportunities. What type of method should have been used in connection with this expenditure? There is no doubt about how it had to be done. This was something that had to be accomplished in a hurry. It was something which was an emergency measure. It was something with respect to which the former minister of the department said there was no alternative in handling it.
How were the steps carried out? Strictly within the rules. There was publication in
96698-266J
the Canada Gazette within the time provided. There was tabling in the house, which in fact tied in the description of what the vote was for with the two previous descriptions. Under this method, what is the restriction on the type of information that is available to the opposition. I say, sir, that there is none.


Stanley Howard Knowles: Would the hon. member permit a question?


John Borden Hamilton: If there is any member inclined to doubt that, I point out the fact that we have been able to carry on this debate all afternoon. Can anyone go out of this chamber feeling that there had been a restriction on his right to stand up? I include in that the former minister of the department because he has had his full say today.


James Sinclair: Sixteen days for the pipe line and half a day for your estimates.


Stanley Howard Knowles: Would the hon. member permit a question? Before he concludes his speech would he say at least a brief word about the real issue, namely the fact that the government has handled this matter after the report was tabled in the house in a different way from the way in which such matters have been handled in the past? Has he missed the point that previously not only was the document laid on the table as this document was but that supplementary estimates were brought before parliament so that parliament could deal with the matter in committee of supply? Will he explain why his government, for which he is in a position to speak, has chosen to change this pattern of doing things?


John Borden Hamilton: Surely the hon. member does not expect me to take this question seriously.


Stanley Howard Knowles: Do
you expect the voters of Canada to take your rights of parliament attitude seriously?


John Borden Hamilton: I said in the first instance-and I repeat-


James Sinclair: That does not make it true.


John Borden Hamilton: -that there are two phases to the matter. Does the hon. member feel that what is involved here is important as a question of principle; that is, the fact that this was never done before? If he does, he had an opportunity to show his displeasure, to show his non-confidence in the minister and in the government. He has chosen not to do so. On that basis I ask: Are we to take it that it is inherently wrong
4194	HOUSE OF
Supply-Citizenship and Immigration to pursue a course which is legal in every respect because in fact the hon. member says that it was never done before?
That is the answer to my hon. friend's position. I will say this, sir, that the hon. member's description of his treatment in this house by this government, compared with the treatment my hon. friend received a couple of years ago, is far from hitting the truth. He knows that had that type of treatment been meted out he would have been cut off by special instructions and told he was out of order before he had proceeded for five minutes.


Stanley Howard Knowles: Your minister tried to do it today.


John Borden Hamilton: I have answered that.


John Whitney Pickersgill: Will the hon. member permit a question?


John Borden Hamilton: I should like to answer this one first. My minister answered the question in this way. He said the reason he raised this point of order was that this hon. gentleman had an opportunity on two previous occasions to question the matter. I want to ask you, Mr. Chairman, do the rules in this house govern us all or is there an exception made for the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre? You know, Mr. Chairman-


Stanley Howard Knowles: Do
not point that Diefenbaker finger at me.


John Whitney Pickersgill: Will the hon. gentleman
permit my question now?


John Borden Hamilton: Just let me finish with the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre, if it is possible to finish with the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre. X should like to tell him that I admire his reputation and his ability to talk on the rules; I admire his ability to debate in this house. However, I want to say that there are at least 112 members on this side who would like to take part just as often as the hon. member, but I ask you, Mr. Chairman, what a shambles the House of Commons would be if there were 265 Stanley Knowles.


Stanley Howard Knowles: Mr. Chairman, perhaps I, too, should keep my eye on that door in case a certain person comes in. May I say that it has been a source of amazement to discover the number of members of the Conservative party who could completely miss the issue. This has happened today on the part of the Acting Minister of Citizenship and Immigration, the Minister of Finance-


Edmund Davie Fulton: Everybody is out of step but Stanley.


Stanley Howard Knowles: -and the parliamentary assistant to the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration. I suppose it is true also of all those who have been doing the applauding from the back benches. There is no question about the desirability of the object for which this money has been obtained. There is no question but that the government followed to the letter^ what is required in the statute, namely that a document be tabled showing a list of governor general's warrants that had been passed. But all previous governments have done that, too.
In this parliament, Mr. Chairman, we are governed not only by the letter of the law, but we are governed by tradition and practices. According to the tradition and practice of this parliament, in addition to the information to be conveyed by means of laying a document on the table, there has been included in subsequent supplementary estimates an appropriate estimate covering the amount passed by the governor general's warrants. It is that that has not been done this time. It is that that is different; it is that that is changed. It is that that has taken us around the corner. It is that that is the whole issue today. All my hon. friends opposite needed to do if they did not want this long debate, which is now longer than the minister thought it would be, was to admit that perhaps the practice of the decades of our history was correct and that they should get back on the track by doing it as it has been done before.
I am not going to take any further time by arguing, in more than a sentence or two, with these repeated assertions that I should have raised this matter earlier. If a wrong is a wrong, Mr. Chairman, a person should raise it as soon as he is aware of it. It was not until yesterday, on the basis of the facts that I obtained, that I was aware of it. This is the first opportunity I have had since then to raise the matter. Then, there is this utterly silly talk about our not being willing to challenge this government. Surely, the hon. member opposite knows that we in this corner have moved several want of confidence motions this session. We have voted for every one of those want of confidence motions we have moved. We have voted also for want of confidence motions moved by some other members of the house. Indeed, the only one for which we did not vote was that one on January 20, which suggested that the Liberals would be better than the Conservatives. This was a silly amendment. We did not vote for it because it was our belief that that decision should be made by the people of Canada. We are glad that chance is going to come soon.

After my hon. friends opposite refused to come to grips with the point and kept wandering off on these irrelevant talks, the Minister of Finance was pulled to his feet by the question the Leader of the Opposition put to him. He made a lengthy speech, in which he did not even refer to the straightforward question that the Leader of the Opposition put to him. The Leader of the Opposition asked the government across the way if they would give an undertaking that, after the forthcoming election, they would see to it that any future governor general's warrants would be made not only the subject of a report laid on the table of the house but the subject of supplementary estimates so that parliament could deal with them. The Minister of Finance did not answer the question, did not respond to the challenge. He did not even refer to it. I submit, Mr. Chairman, that that issue, like some others that have been evaded in recent days, is one to which the people of Canada have a right to have an answer.
I may say that my leader, the hon. member for Rosetown-Biggar, is absent from the house today because he has gone to the maritime provinces to fulfil an engagement he made some weeks ago to address meetings of the Canadian Club in Charlottetown and in Halifax. He took this afternoon's train for Montreal to go down to the maritime provinces. Last night, however, I had a discussion with him after I had assembled my material on this issue. He shared to the full my concern over what has happened. I telephoned him at two o'clock today just before he caught the train to go to Charlottetown. I told him that at last we had succeeded in raising this issue this morning-just before lunch-in the light of the information I obtained yesterday.
We do not usually talk about these private discussions, but since my leader is away I feel I should. I do so in the light of what the Leader of the Opposition said earlier today. My leader urged me at two o'clock today to do my best this afternoon to get out of the government the kind of commitment the Leader of the Opposition asked for earlier today, a commitment that during the election period coming up there would not be the use of governor general's warrants without those warrants being made the subject of estimates that could be voted upon by parliament when we reassemble after the election. So, Mr. Chairman, having failed, along with the Leader of the Opposition to get a commitment out of the Minister of Finance, I want to say, as deputy leader of this party and on behalf of my leader as well as all my colleagues, if this party is returned to power after the next election any governor general's warrants that have to be used, will be laid before parliament for parliament to have an opportunity to pass
Supply-Citizenship and Immigration upon them. If it should so happen that, as a result of the next election, we are still on the opposition side of the house, we will do our best to persuade whatever government is then in power to follow that course.
We will use as a method of persuasion the weapons that are open to members of the opposition. No chiding from the other side about not being willing to move motions will change our course of action. My hon. friends can talk all they want to about our not moving a motion on this matter. They know that we do not want to upset the passing of this money. They know what would happen if we did so. If we moved any kind of amendment they and I know what they would do. They would go around the country saying that those people in the opposition were inhumane; that they did not want to spend this money to pay for the expenses of this program of assistance to the Hungarian refugees. They are not going to catch us in that trick of dishonesty, no matter how much they may chide us for not doing so.
As for talking about other ways that are open to us, may I say that they need not lecture us on the vehicles that are open to the opposition in this parliament. We know them. But when they tell us that the method of getting at that order in council is a proper vehicle, may I remind them that the only thing we could do would be to put down a private member's motion-and there are not any on the order paper; they are not allowed six weeks after the debate on the address is over-criticizing the passing of that order in council. If such a motion were passed, it would mean that the order in council should not have been passed. Nobody in this house today has said that that order in council should not have been passed. Nobody has complained about spending that money by governor general's warrant. What we are complaining about is that that money has not subsequently been made the subject of a supplementary estimate brought before the house so that we can have the opportunity not of defeating it but of passing it.
My hon. friends opposite can indulge in all of these irrelevancies, if they wish to do so. This is a clear-cut issue which they have created. I confess that I did not have all the facts on which to reach a conclusion as to the rightness or wrongness of it the day before yesterday. But once I had those full facts and was aware of the wrongness of what is being done, 1 made the decision, in consultation with my colleagues, that it would be raised as vigorously and as strongly as possible at the first opportunity. That is what we have done. We have raised this matter here today on the very first opportunity that it could be done.
4196	HOUSE OF COMMONS
Supply-Citizenship and Immigration
I hope hon. members opposite will realize that they have made a mistake; that they have tried to take us around the corner so far as parliamentary history is concerned. I may tell them that some of us will see to it that the people of Canada are reminded during the next few weeks that these are the people who not only fought for the rights of parliament but who said that amongst those rights should be the control of parliament over the purse. That was their line when they were in opposition. That was their line when they were on the hustings in 1957. But they have taken the reverse of that position now that they are in parliament. It is time they were put to the test. By that I mean not just the test of this House of Commons but the test of the people of Canada.


James Garfield Gardiner: The question under discussion this afternoon has brought up matters which are of great importance not only to the estimates that are being considered at the moment but to the position which an institution of this kind holds among the democratic countries of the world. It is rather important that the occasion is brought about by the fact that it was necessary to find additional money in order to bring people to this country from a country which has suffered from the fact that its people did not have the benefits of democratic government. The money about which we are talking is money which the incoming government thought it would be necessary to vote for the purpose of taking care of additional numbers of Hungarian people who thought this was a good country to which to come because of the experiences we have had in the type of government which has been ours.
I should like to say at the beginning that the basis of all the freedom which we have in this country and which the people in Britain had before us is resting squarely upon the issue which we have been discussing this afternoon, as well as an additional one. The two principles which the common people of Great Britain in the earlier years fought to obtain were first, the right to pass legislation, and second, the right to vote money; that is the right to tax people and the right to vote money as a result of the fact that people had been taxed. That fight takes us back through the whole history with which every school boy and school girl in this country are familiar. That history brings up the most important charters and pieces of legislation that were ever placed upon the statute books. It begins with Magna Carta and it comes through the Declaration of Rights in the day of the struggles that took place during the Stuart period in British history. Then it is associated until the Bill of Rights which was the final act in order to prove

once and for all that the beheading of a king settled something, a matter which was referred to a few moments ago by the Leader of the Opposition. All of these documents which are a part of our history are back of the discussions which we have been having today and the real reason for having certain precedents followed when providing the executive with the people's money.
I want to say to members of this house, some of whom perhaps do not know it, that my experience was similar to that of the hon. member for Peace River. On two different occasions in my political life I have been the treasurer of a province. I have therefore had something to do with votes of this kind and know what is required in connection with them. For that reason I should like to say that the very nature of the house that we have at this time is such that it does not make it easy to carry on the constitution as we have it. Certain things happened early in this session which are of importance in relation to our constitution, but have not been referred to except incidentally in connection with this discussion. It was said by an hon. member a few moments ago that very early in this session,-as a matter of fact in the debate on the address in reply to the speech from the throne-I had occasion to address ideas to this house. They were based upon the very matter that we are now discussing. I have been surprised, as a matter of fact, at the length of time that we have been here- something over three months-before we get right down to discussing the important matters relating to the method under which the government came into being. It brings us back to the fact that at the time we had our election on June 10, which has been referred to over and over again, the people of this country did not make a decision in favour of the government that is sitting on the government benches today. The people of this country gave a majority, in so far as votes were concerned, very much in favour of the party that is sitting as the official opposition as against the Conservative party.


An hon. Member:: They will not do so next
time.


James Garfield Gardiner: I realize, of course, that that is not the basis on which the decision is really made to form a government, the people elected to this house a larger group of Conservatives than they did of Liberals. That brought up the question as to who was going to form a government to carry on during a period when there was not a majority in this house in favour of any party. I realize that, under our constitution, no party has a right to form a government. It is not parties that have the right to form a government. It is

Supply-Citizenship and Immigration
the individual in the house who can command a majority and only the individual in the house who can command a majority. It does not matter whether he heads any party or whether he does not. Under our institutions of government, parties are formed only for the purpose of making it possible to have a government that can carry on for four or five years or, in other words, so that we can have a stable government. The people did not make a decision that made that result possible on June 10.
So there had to be some consideration given to it and some discussion of the matter. In spite of some of the things that have been said since that time, I want to say now -and I do not think anyone will ever be able to contradict what I am about to say and base that contradiction on constitutional arguments-that there is only one way in which a Governor General can act, and that is on the advice of his prime minister. I want to say further that if the prime minister of the day had said "Well, we are going to carry on for a while"-the Governor General would have accepted that, but that was not said, and there are certain reasons why it was not said.
The leader of the C.C.F. party on the day after the election-on the 11th day of June-said very distinctly to all the people of this country, over the air and through the press, that he was prepared to support a government that would be formed by the leader of the Conservative party. The leader of the Social Credit group took a similar position, although there was a difference in their respective positions. The leader of the C.C.F. party said in effect that the only person he would support as prime minister in this house was the leader of the Conservative party,-or if he did not say that definitely, he certainly left that inference. The leader of the Social Credit group however made it very clear that which ever party undertook to form a government they would give them the chance to show their wares in this house before that group voted want of confidence.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear.


James Garfield Gardiner: But there was a difference between the position taken by the C.C.F. and Social Credit, and after both of these parties had made these statements, the leader of the second largest group in the house, the prime minister, made a statement to the press and over the air in which he indicated that if the leader of the Conservative party was prepared to take charge of the government, his party would be prepared to give the necessary support in order to do the things that were essential to be done as a result
of what had happened during the election campaign. The leader of the Conservative party became Prime Minister on that understanding.
We came into the house on that understanding. On the basis I have outlined, of course, the Governor General called upon the leader of the Conservative party to form the government, but, if on the first occasion when we had come into the house-as has been suggested by the Minister of Finance this afternoon-we had voted the government out of office, and the three groups voting together could have done so-


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


James Garfield Gardiner: If we had joined together, as has been suggested we should have done, and voted them out of office, I do not think the people of this country would have thought that we in the three groups had carried out an undertaking which had been given under the unusual circumstances which existed following that election.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear.


James Garfield Gardiner: So we did carry along throughout the period down to the present day. It has been said, and in fact it was said by the deputy leader of the C.C.F. a few moments ago, that on all but one occasion they had voted for the want of confidence motions. I want to say to him that if every one of the groups in this house, other than the government party, had followed the same course which his party has followed we would have all broken the confidence which we tried to give to the people of this country when we told them we were going to assist the government to carry on for a reasonable length of time. However, we did go on with our undertaking, right through, and my hon. friends opposite like to speak of the motion made a week ago Monday as a silly motion. The deputy leader of the C.C.F. party apparently agrees with them.


Stanley Howard Knowles: I do.


James Garfield Gardiner: However, I want to say to my hon. friends opposite that there is a possibility that that motion was-


An hon. Member:: Silly.


James Garfield Gardiner: -the only kind which could have been moved whether or not it was put in the exact language.
It is the governor who would have to make a decision if we had voted against the party now in power. He would have to decide whether there was a leader in the house who could form a government which would command a majority and if so he would have to

Supply-Citizenship and Immigration decide whether there was a leader who could command a majority and the party now forming the government could have been replaced without an election. The person who had shown he could command a majority-


Henri Courtemanche: Order.


James Garfield Gardiner: -at a time when the governor would have to make his choice would be entitled to replace the person who could not command a majority. The leader of that party moving want of confidence would have said, in view of the votes taken in this house, that his party had a majority. The Governor General would say, I must therefore call on him. When the leader of the Conservative party assumed the responsibility of taking over the government of this country, as he did on June 21, he also assumed the responsibility, when the day has arrived that he can go no further in carrying on that government, of saying, because he is in the position where he does not command a majority of the members in this house, he is through.
There is no other way in which he could be absolutely certain of that fact, other than when a vote is taken on a matter of this kind. No vote has been taken, and I understand from the way things are forming up around me at the present moment, that one will not be taken but something is going to happen. When this thing which is going to happen, whatever it is, and if it is dissolution and we go to the country, I want to say to the leader of the government that he has had no right given to him in so far as any action in this house is concerned for the action contemplated at the present time.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear.


James Garfield Gardiner: If he thinks that having had the support of the Liberal party on every occasion which a vote on a motion of nonconfidence was taken, he can now go to the country and say he is doing so because his government is not getting the support of the members of this house, he is going to have to take another look at the people of this country.
. Mr. Pearkes: We are anxious to do so.


James Garfield Gardiner: He may find that when he says he is going to the country because he wants to accomplish all these things that were promised during the election and that it was said, if his party was put into power, would be done-


An hon. Member:: And we have done them.


James Garfield Gardiner: I would remind him that they were kept in power and they have not done them.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear.


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh.


Gordon Minto Churchill: We have done too many things to suit you. You do not like it.


James Garfield Gardiner: If he is going to go to the country and say, "no one is helping us and we want you to put us back into power so that we can do all these things which we promised to do in the last election", then there are going to be a lot of surprised fellows over there on the other side of the house.


Some hon. Members:: We will still be sitting
here.


James Garfield Gardiner: When the Minister of
Finance got on his feet a few moments ago the first remark he made was that the nerves of some people on this side of the house seemed rather frayed and as a result they were taking certain actions. Ever since I was a small boy I have heard people say that when your nerves are frayed, the first thing you do is to go up in the air. Well, that is what the leader of the government did today. This action he is going to take-and I am not in his confidence as to what- that action will be-must have been given just about the same amount of thought as the words which he used during the election. He did not go very far towards carrying out these ideas.
I am certain that the right hon. gentleman did not really know until very recently what he was going to do today, and I am not too sure he knows even yet. He could not have consulted many people about it, because no one else seemed to know what he was going to do, or when he was going to do it, and since he found it necessary to take an aeroplane it may be, though I do not know how high up he went, that he intended to follow that Sputnik which was shot up into the air yesterday and which is now circling the world. He may have been doing that. I do not know. But in any case he did the usual thing that people do when they are nervous

he shot up into the air. Judging by the fact that one of the ministers who accompanied the Prime Minister returned to this chamber some time ago, that 'plane must have been back for some time. At last, the hon. gentleman is here in his place, but he still does not seem to have made up his mind to do whatever it is he may have in mind to do.
It is now five minutes to six, and with the house closing at six o'clock there is very little time left to him in which to say anything about it; and in that short space of time I should like to be able to say to him that he had better be able to show very plainly

just why he is doing this, and all about it, because there is going to be an awful lot of talk about the things that have happened in this session during the next two months.
There are going to be discussions across this country of the kind that were foretold at the time when I spoke on the address. I have gone through this kind of thing before in the province of Saskatchewan in 1929 and again, I repeat, on the same issue as that on which we were switched out this time. In 1929 we did not have a majority in the house and so we did not do what the group did here on this occasion. We did not say to them: such and such things are going to happen. We said: we will meet the members and find out. We met the members in session and were voted out, and we went across to the other side of the house and sat there. The new government sat there for five years. They took every year they had the chance to take, and at the end of that five years after we had discussed all the things they did or did not do in the five years they were there, they did not elect anybody to the house. Just before they went to the country they came to me and asked me if I would drop out of politics and take over the presidency of the University of Saskatchewan. That would have been a very fine thing, but I said this to them: 1 came into politics some years ago, and I am going to stay in politics until my constituency votes me out. And they have never done so.


James Sinclair: In 44 years.


An hon. Member:: Too long.


James Garfield Gardiner: And I should not be at all surprised if after we get through discussing during the next two or three months the things that this government has done and the things they have not done and the things they said they were going to do and the things they say that they could not even get started in seven months, there won't be many of them back either.
There is nothing new about these things. As I stated a few moments ago, what we do in this house and what we do in legislatures or in the British House of Commons is what has been our practice over the years, and is based upon precedents that are well established, and the precedent in connection with this matter is well established. You must put it on the table of the house, and not only that you must put it in the Gazette. My hon. friend says that all of us who do not get the Gazette should subscribe to it. You do not just subcribe to it. If you are a member of parliament, you get it. When my hon. friend the Prime Minister agrees that is all we have
Dissolution of Parliament to do, that would be a method of accomplishing what he tried to prove to this house earlier when he suggested the Liberals had a document and hid it away some place and did not read it. When I got my copy on March 29, 1957, I made a note on it to send it west. I took it out west and read it. Of course, I had to get it back again and that document is marked, right on the front page, with the word "secret". Of course, I did not read it to the press and to my constituents out west at election time. And then on the second page it is marked "secret" again and, of course, I did not read that document to others.
You will not laugh so much in a moment, but somebody on the other side of the house did read it. I am not going to say it was the leader of the government, but somebody on the other side of the house read it and tore off the blue page and there was still "secret" then when they found that they had ripped off the blue page and there was still 'secret" on the next page, they tore that page off too and then they brought this volume into the house. In that document is every argument, both for and against each consideration and the right hon. gentleman read the arguments for one side and left the other arguments out.


Some hon. Members:: Shame.


James Garfield Gardiner: This is a sample of what is going to have to be said to the people during the next two or three months. Now that a document of this kind has been produced and put on the table of the house, every hon. member who sits on this side of the house from this time on will be able to call on ministers to produce any documents which officials of their departments may have given to them, and put. it on the table, with the result that ministers will get a different kind of advice, or very little advice, from men who are in a position to give good advice. They trusted the ministers to whom they gave that advice would read both sides of the question and reach their own conclusions.


Henri Courtemanche: Order, order.
Progress reported.
Resolutions adopted in committee of supply this day reported and concurred in.



DISSOLUTION OF PARLIAMENT


Right Hon. J. G. Diefenbalcer (Prime Minisier):: Mr. Speaker, today I made an
historic trip by air to the citadel at Quebec city.


Some hon. Members:: Six o'clock.

Dissolution of Parliament


John George Diefenbaker: I took that medium of transportation which made it possible for me to go and return in the same day. The announcement I am about to make will, of course, occasion no surprise to hon. members, for events in this house-and I thought they were well indicated by the right hon. gentleman who just spoke-have been moving steadily and firmly toward it.
The present government is supported by 113 members out of a total of 265. Its position as a minority government has become intolerable. No other party or group in this house can possibly form a government; that I want to make clear. The only way in which the present situation can be effectively resolved is by the course I am about to announce. No hon. member will suggest that a situation in which a government can depend upon the support of only a minority of the members of this house is a satisfactory situation or one that could be expected to continue long. At the outset of the present session in October last-


James Sinclair: Mr. Speaker, I should like to rise on a point of order.


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh.


James Sinclair: I rise on a point of order, sir. We had thought that the Prime Minister would rise to ask the consent of the house to revert to motions. If he is not doing that, we would like to ask under what order of business he is now speaking at five minutes past six o'clock.


Mr. Speaker:: At this time the house usually considers the business for the following day.


James Sinclair: Mr. Speaker, no request was made by the Prime Minister to revert to motions.


Some hon. Members:: Six o'clock.


John George Diefenbaker: I was saying, Mr. Speaker, that at the outset of the present session in October last, assurance was given by the then leader of the opposition (Mr. St. Laurent) that the government might count upon the official opposition not to place obstacles in the way of the government in seeking to carry out the program which was approved by the Canadian electorate on June 10, 1957.


James Sinclair: Mr. Speaker, I rise again on this point of order.


Some hon. Members:: Sit down.


Thomas Miller Bell: This is
interesting.


James Sinclair: Mr. Speaker, if the Prime Minister is indicating the order of business for Monday he should do so, rather than

make a political speech without asking for permission to revert to motions.


Mr. Speaker:: I was in the chamber during the latter stages of the committee stage, and I am sure no hon. member wants to stand strictly on any point of order at this stage. If the Prime Minister is making an announcement with respect to the business of the house, I am sure hon. members would wish to hear him.


Lester Bowles Pearson: On the point of order, Mr. Speaker, we would have been very glad, of course, to have reverted to motions for the Prime Minister to make a statement. He has proceeded to make a statement, and I assume that the leaders of all parties in this house will be given an opportunity to reply to his statement.


Mr. Speaker:: That is a question which I shall have to decide after the Prime Minister concludes his statement.


John George Diefenbaker: Mr. Speaker, I just mentioned that at the beginning of the session the then leader of the opposition indicated that the government might count upon the official opposition not to place obstacles in the way of the government carrying out its mandate. The immediate items of the program of this government have now been carried into legislative effect.


James Sinclair: What about the South
Saskatchewan river dam?


John George Diefenbaker: The present Leader of the Opposition clearly indicated in his speech in this house on January 20 that the government can no longer expect any continuance of the course announced by his predecessor. Indeed, there have been many statements from opposition sources indicating quite clearly that the government would be defeated in the house as soon as the opposition could contrive it, and that they would welcome a general election.
On January 21, as recorded at page 3570 of Hansard, when the Minister of Finance was speaking about the lack of courage on the part of the opposition to challenge this government, the hon. member for Laurier said, "Bring it on," and the hon. member for Montmagny-L'Islet said, "Hold it". Indeed, on the previous day, January 20, as recorded at page 3524 of Hansard, I said when we have the authority to cut taxation we shall do so and the hon. member for Laurier said, "Why don't you find out whether or not you have it?"


Some hon. Members:: Order.


James Sinclair: Is this the order of business for tomorrow? This is a speech.


Stanley Howard Knowles: Mr. Speaker, on the point of order, I quite agree with Your Honour's suggestion that the Prime Minister should be allowed to make this statement; but I do feel that your statement as to the right of representatives of the other parties to speak afterward should not be conditional. I think Your Honour will agree that this announcement is such that the other parties should have a chance to speak through their leaders, and I am sure if you would give that undertaking now there would be no further objection to whatever the Prime Minister wishes to say.


John George Diefenbaker: I thought I had been challenged to give reasons and I was going to quote the words of my friend the hon. member for Coast-Capilano, but I shall refrain from doing so.


James Sinclair: You will be quoting a good source if you do.


Thomas Miller Bell: Who is conceited now?


John George Diefenbaker: The hon. member for Coast-Capilano has made a very good answer, since he challenged us to call an election over and over again.


James Sinclair: All by myself with my little hatchet I chopped down the cherry tree.


Mr. Speaker:: Perhaps hon. members will allow me to refer to the point of order raised by the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre. I think all hon. members will agree this is perhaps an unusual situation that is not ordinarily met with, and when I reserved my decision as to what might follow the Prime Minister's statement I did so having in mind what the nature of his announcement might be. I do make this acceptance of what has been said by hon. members on the left. This is a statement about business of the house and not a time for a debate, and I would not consider it proper for the Prime Minister to give more than a factual foundation for the statement he is to make.


James Sinclair: In that case, Mr. Speaker, I rise again on this point of order. You, sir, said the Prime Minister is making a statement. He can do so now only with the consent of the house to revert to motions. You have accepted the procedure that on all motions the leaders of each party can reply.


Mr. Speaker:: I have already dealt with that point. It is not necessary to revert to motions to make a statement with respect to the business of the house at this stage of the proceedings, when it is past the time for the house to adjourn.
Dissolution of Parliament


John George Diefenbaker: Mr. Speaker, I shall delete from my remarks those portions that my hon. friends opposite might not like, and particularly my hon. friend who has just spoken.


George Carlyle Marler: Just observe the rules.


John George Diefenbaker: Having regard to all the
circumstances the government cannot possibly hope to carry forward its long-term program of the development of resources and strengthening of the Canadian economy and the building of a bright future for Canadians unless it can be assured of sufficient support in the house.


James Sinclair: What about the South Saskatchewan dam?


An hon. Member:: What a phony.


John George Diefenbaker: Indeed, the government's program has encountered increasing obstruction and delays in the house. As the House of Commons is divided today, stability in government is impossible of achievement. Accordingly we believe that for effective government the responsibility of carrying on the government of Canada should be fortified by a direct and unquestioned mandate from the people. Therefore an immediate appeal to the country is necessary.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear.


John George Diefenbaker: I now conclude, sir, by saying that the present parliament of Canada has been dissolved by proclamation under the Great Seal of Canada bearing date the 1st day of February, and members and senators are discharged from attendance. The election date will be March 31 next-


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear.


John George Diefenbaker: -and the new parliament is being summoned to convene on May 5. As the proclamation points out, this parliament is now dissolved.


Stanley Howard Knowles: Mr. Speaker-


An hon. Member:: The Speaker is on his feet.


Mr. Speaker:: My view of the situation in view of the announcement is that this House of Commons has no further existence, and it only remains-


Stanley Howard Knowles: What about the rights of parliament?


James Sinclair: The rights of parliament, eh?


Some hon. Members:: Closure.


Some hon. Members:: Black Saturday.


Mr. Speaker:: Order. It only remains now for me to leave the chair.

Dissolution of Parliament


Walter Adam Tucker: What right had the Prime Minister to speak?


Lester Bowles Pearson: By what right did the Prime Minister speak?


Walter Adam Tucker: The order in council was signed before he spoke.


Mr. Speaker:: Right or wrong, that is the view I take. Before leaving the chair, may I just say one word on my own behalf-


James Sinclair: Shame. You were a good
Speaker.


Mr. Speaker:: -that I do so with regret because of the co-operation I have received from all members of the house on all sides.
At 6.13 p.m. Mr. Speaker left the chair.
The twenty-third parliament was dissolved on Saturday, February 1, 1958, by proclamation of His Excellency the Governor General.



ANSWERS TO 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. Raymond: 1.	Pursuant to the Municipal Grants Act, has any amount of money been paid to the city of St. Jerome, and the municipality of Ste. Agathe des Monts, in the county of Terrebonne, since June, 1957?
2.	If so, what amounts were paid?
Answer by: Hon. Donald M. Fleming (Minister of Finance):
1.	Nil. An application has been received from the city of St. Jerome, which is now being checked.
2.	Answered by No. 1.


HIGHWAY CONSTRUCTION, N.W.T.
Mr. Hardie: 1.	Were tenders called for the construction of twenty miles of road between Yellowknife and Fort Rae in March of 1957?
2.	If so, (a) what were the amounts of each tender; (b) to whom was the contract awarded?
3.	Were tenders submitted in March of 1957 for the construction of the extension of the Mackenzie highway to the Mackenzie river?
4.	If so, (a) what were the amounts of each tender; (b) to whom was the contract awarded?
5.	How many miles of road have been completed up to the end of December, 1957, on the Yellow-knife-Fort Rae section, and what amount was paid to the contractor?
6.	How many miles of road have been completed on the Mackenzie highway extension to the Mackenzie river up to December 31, 1957, and how much was paid to the contractor?
Answer by: Mr. Hodgson, Parliamentary Assistant, for the Minister of Public Works:
1.	Yes, tenders received March 14, 1957.
2.	(a) McNamara Construction Co. Ltd., Toronto, Ont., $695,172.00; Pigott Construction Co. Ltd., Edmonton, Alta., $771,024.00;
Questions
B. G. Linton Construction Ltd., Hay River, N.W.T., $798,202.00; Arthur A. Voice Construction Co. Ltd., Edmonton, Alta., $937,422.00; Western Construction & Lumber Co. Ltd., Edmonton, Alta., $985,850.50; Standard Gravel and Surfacing of Canada Ltd., Calgary, Alta., $1,998,630.00.
(b) McNamara Construction Co. Ltd., Toronto, Ontario, March 26, 1957.
3.	No; tenders were received February 5, 1957.
4.	(a) Western Construction & Lumber Co. Ltd. Edmonton, Alta., $884,957.30; Arthur A. Voice Construction Co. Ltd., Edmonton, Alta. $939,173.00; Standard Gravel & Surfacing of Canada Ltd., Calgary, Alta., $1,301,947.50; Mannix Ltd., Calgary, Alta., $1,351,021.00.
(b) Western Construction & Lumber Co. Ltd., March 18, 1957.
5.	The equivalent of 13 miles completed and $575,435.07 paid to December 31, 1957.
6.	The equivalent of 35.7 miles completed and $699,633.18 paid to December 31, 1957.
[The following items were passed in committee of supply]:


DEPARTMENT OF CITIZENSHIP AND IMMIGRATION
[Stage Direction]
81.	Construction or acquisition of buildings, works, land and equipment, $5,785,150.
82.	Grant to provide additional services to Indians of British Columbia, $100,000.
A-Department-
Immigration branch-
616. Field and inspectional service, Canada- further amount required, $438,000.
A-Department-
Citizenship-
682.	Citizenship branch-further amount required, $145,150.
Immigration branch-
683. Field and inspectional service, Canada- further amount required, $836,650.


[Stage Direction]
Saturday, January 11, 1958