1958-08-29

[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Hon. L. B. Pearson (Leader of the Opposition):: Mr. Speaker, I should like to ask the Minister of Agriculture if he can make a statement on the announcement that appeared in the press this morning with regard to measures for the stabilization of the price of peaches.


Hon. D. S. Harkness (Minister of Agriculture):: Yes, Mr. Speaker. The agricultural stabilization board has been authorized to provide a minimum price of $83 per ton for No. 1 peaches, 2-inch minimum size, delivered for processing in the province of Ontario. Under this authority the board will pay to the grower any amount by which the average return should fall below the prescribed price. The prescribed price of $83 per ton is about 89 per cent of the base or 10-year average price. This action has been taken to ensure that the peach growers will be able to market their crops. They were in considerable difficulty from this point of view, and this support on the part of the government will result in the maximum quantity being canned.


Mr. Hazen Argue (Assiniboia):: I wonder if I might ask the minister a supplementary question arising out of his very welcome statement. Can the minister say whether or not the canners in that area will maintain operations? I have read that they have shut down periodically.


Douglas Scott Harkness: As the result of a series of negotiations which have been conducted with the growers and canners during the past week or 10 days, I think most of the canning factories will now open. A number of them were not going to open for the canning of peaches, but they are now going to open and they are going to can to their maximum capacity. I think there will be no question but that the entire crop will be canned.
57071-3-271



INCREASED AID TO UNIVERSITIES


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. J. P. Deschaielels (Maisonneuve-Rosemont):: I should like to direct a question to the Minister of Finance before we reach his estimates. I should like to know whether before announcing the increase in the grants to Canadian universities the minister communicated with the authorities of the province of Quebec, either by letter, phone call or telegram?


Hon. Donald M. Fleming (Minisier of Finance):: No, sir.


Jean-Paul Deschatelets: Did the Minister of
Finance ever inquire from the premier of Quebec about his reasons for not permitting the Quebec universities-


Some hon. Members:: Order.


Jean-Paul Deschatelets: -to benefit from the federal grants?


Mr. Speaker:: I think the hon. member must surely be aware that this is a question on a matter entirely beyond the responsibilities of the Minister of Finance.



INQUIRY AS TO CHANGE IN FORMULA OF PAYMENT TO UNIVERSITIES

[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. G. R. McWilliam (Norlhumberland-Miramichi):: I should like to direct a question to the Minister of Finance in connection with his statement yesterday concerning increased grants in aid to universities. Will the minister inform the house if there is any change contemplated in the formula of payment?


Donald Methuen Fleming: No, sir.



FINANCE


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. W. H. McMillan (Welland):: Will the minister say if he, or anyone in his department, during the progress of the present conversion loan campaign sent out directives

Inquiries of the Ministry to anyone, including banks or other financial institutions, ordering or suggesting any restriction in the price or in the dealing, in connection with the new conversion loan bond issues? If so, what were the contents of those directives?


Mr. Speaker:: This seems to me to be a question that might better have been put on the order paper. However, if the minister can answer it offhand he may do so.


Donald Methuen Fleming: I think before attempting to answer that question one would have to have some clarification of some aspects of it. If the hon. gentleman cares to ask it on my estimates, it could be more properly dealt with there. The terms of the loan were clearly laid down at the beginning, and there has been strict insistence on adherence to those terms.



INDUSTRIAL RELATIONS


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. H. W. Herridgs (Kootenay West):: wish to ask a question of the Minister of Labour before we reach his estimates-next year. Would the minister inform the house if officials of his department are now undertaking a review of the provisions of the Industrial Relations and Disputes Investigation Act, and if so, if consideration is being given to suggestions put forward for the improvement of the legislation by the national legislative committee of the railway brotherhoods and other labour organizations? Does the minister intend to introduce amendments to this legislation at the next session of parliament?


Hon. Michael Starr (Minister of Labour):: wish to thank the hon. member for giving me notice of this question. There are three national organizations that have not as yet submitted their recommendations. They are the Canadian Labour Congress, the railway association and the Canadian construction association. We have received recommendations from the national legislative committee of the railway brotherhoods, but we cannot review these until we have received the recommendations of all organizations.
So far as the introduction of amendments is concerned, that will depend a great deal upon the work required to review these suggestions and make recommendations.

(Translation):



ADMINISTRATION OF JUSTICE


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. Azellus Denis (St. Denis):: Mr. Speaker,
may I ask a question of the Minister of Justice (Mr. Fulton)? Has the minister received from the Laurentides bar a request for the establishment of a bankruptcy court and registry at St. Jerome for the judicial district of Terrebonne? If so, may we expect that such a registry and bankruptcy court will be established soon?


Hon. E. D. Fulton (Minister of Justice):: Mr. Speaker, a request was received some time ago for the establishment of a new bankruptcy division for the judicial district of Terrebonne and for a bankruptcy court in St. Jerome. As the appointment of a bankruptcy registrar for such a division comes under the jurisdiction of the chief justice or the associate chief justice of the district for which he has been appointed in the province of Quebec, the correspondence on that matter has been referred to him for study, and it seems that no decision has been taken so far.
(Text):



DOMINION-PROVINCIAL CONFERENCE SUGGESTED NEED FOR MEETING AT EARLY DATE

[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Jean-Paul Deschatelets: Mr. Speaker, I should like to
direct a question to the Prime Minister. Because of the application of certain legislation such as that with respect to the hospital insurance plan, tax gift exemption and federal grants to the conference of universities, does the Prime Minister not realize now that there is more than ever an urgent need for a federal-provincial conference, which he promised a year ago?


Mr. Speaker:: The hon. member is offending the rules again. He is simply making a statement, and that is not what this question period is for.



BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. Frank Howard (Skeena):: Mr. Speaker, today is the three-month anniversary of a question I placed on the order paper on May 29 with regard to government expenditures for spirituous liquor. I wonder whether the Secretary of State could indicate when this question might be answered.


Hon. Henri Couriemanche (Secretary of State):: What is the number of the question?


Frank Howard: It is the first one. There is no number attached to it. I am sorry; I should say it is No. 43.


Henri Courtemanche: I will check with the minister interested.



LABOUR CONDITIONS


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Lester Bowles Pearson: I should like to ask the Minister of Labour whether he is in a position or will soon be in a position to report on the conference on winter employment?


Michael Starr: Yes, Mr. Speaker.


Lester Bowles Pearson: I should like to ask a supplementary question. Does the minister's "yes" mean that he is now in a position or will soon be in a position to do so?


Michael Starr: I will soon be in a position to do so.



PUBLIC SERVICE


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Hazen Robert Argue: I should like to direct a question to the Minister of Finance. Can the minister say whether he will be in a position soon to make a statement with regard to the representations made to the minister and the government by the various civil service organizations asking for increases in salaries, particularly as to salaries of the lower income group?


Donald Methuen Fleming: A request was received a few days ago from one of the organizations asking for a meeting. The request was for a meeting either last week or next week, but not this week. A request was received from another one of the organizations, I think yesterday, for a meeting. Probably a meeting will be held within a few days, depending somewhat on the course of this session.



HOUSING


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. J. R. Garland (Nipissing):: I should like to direct a question to the Minister of Public Works. I should like to know whether there 57071-3-271J
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will be any liberalization of the salary or income requirements by Central Mortgage and Housing Corporation on applications for the new lower priced type of housing announced yesterday.


Hon. Howard C. Green (Minister of Public Works):: No, Mr. Speaker; there is no intention to make any change.

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



DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORT

[Stage Direction]
414. Departmental administration, $2,144,060.
Frank Howard: Inasmuch as the minister said last night that the estimates of his department were given very exhaustive and detailed study in the committee on railways, canals and telegraph lines, and that there was extensive questioning of witnesses, I do not think there is much point in my going over the same ground to any extent.
I just wish to say that I certainly appreciated being a member of the committee and being able to listen to the information given by the minister and the officials of his department. I want to publicly express my appreciation of the frank and open manner in which the discussions were held, and for the great amount of information and assistance given by the officials who were in attendance at the committee meetings.
The activities of this department probably have a far greater effect, from a material point of view, upon our society than those of any other department except the Department of Public Works. Those activities affect so many communities, industries and walks of life in our nation, and we in British Columbia are particularly dependent upon the attitudes and policies of the department. For instance our fishing industry, occupying such a great place in the economy of the province, is very much dependent upon the approach of the Department of Transport, especially as it relates to aids to navigation. I know the fishermen have expressed in years past, and will continue to do so in the years to come, their desire for additional aids to navigation and for the installation of more up to date and modern equipment for positioning, lighting and things of that nature.
In so far as aviation is concerned, the coast of British Columbia is a pretty difficult area in which to fly for a great portion of the year, and from that point of view also we are dependent to a great extent upon the approach of this department.
Shipping policies certainly affect my province, particularly the communities along

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the coast line. Some of them are accessible by other means of transportation, but others are almost entirely dependent on shipping, and certainly the attitude of the government with respect to freight rates has a great effect upon our economy.
It is not my intention to go into detail as to the efficiency or otherwise of the department with respect to some of these questions, but I just wish to emphasize our dependence in British Columbia, as in the case of other provinces, on the attitude of this department. Probably there is only one respect of the department's operations which has no bearing on our affairs in British Columbia, and that is the aspect relating to canals. Try as we might, our efforts did not result in our being able to bring any need in this respect to the attention of the Minister of Transport. Apart from that, the activities of the department are watched with interest by workers and industrialists in British Columbia, and we hope that in future the approach will be even better than it has been in the past.
There is one problem I should like to mention briefly; and while this may be more specifically dealt with on the items relating to the Canadian maritime commission it might be just as well to mention it at this time. We might then be able to proceed with the rest of the estimates without too much difficulty or loss of time, inasmuch as the detailed and exhaustive analysis of the department was made in the standing committee.
Our merchant shipping fleet in Canada has been on the decline over the years, especially since the end of the last war. Ten or eleven years ago Canada was considered to have the fourth largest shipping fleet. Our fleet at that time numbered in the neighbourhood of 175 ships with a tonnage of 1,100,000. Then came a gradual decline in the number of ships under the Canadian flag, accompanied by a decline in tonnage and a decline in the amount of cargo carried by those ships, which would indicate that the policy of the government in this regard-and here we must look to the government which was in office during the period of this decline-was nothing more or less than one of allowing the merchant shipping fleet to wither on the vine and die an unnatural death, when it could very well have been expanded to include even more ships under the Canadian flag and employ even more Canadians in our own merchant fleet and handle our own commodities for export and import.
However, that has not been done, and we have seen this decline in shipping reach a point as at the end of March of last year where we had a total of 26 ships representing a gross tonnage of 186,165, only five ships being in the 10,000 ton class as far as cargo

ships are concerned. The balance was made up of smaller ships, diesel cargo ships, tankers, and so on. This decline in our Canadian merchant navy presents a sorry picture when it is considered that if the government of that day had taken an aggressive policy and abandoned its approach of holding in effect a fire sale of these ships after the last war, we might never have reached this position.
Unfortunately, I must say that I doubt very much whether the attitude of this present government is any better than that of its predecessor, because we have seen no great change in the policy of this government as compared with the government which was formerly in office. At what figure the number of merchant ships stands at the present time I do not know, but I imagine it is less than 26 ships, the figure given a year ago. Allowing the sale of the ships of the Canadian National fleet was not a good demonstration of this government's attitude with respect to attempting to build up our own merchant shipping fleet.
I have just these few remarks to make, and I will not go into more detail at this time. One could deal with these matters more extensively and better illustrate the deficiencies that have existed in past years with respect to this department, but I do not think it is necessary at this stage. Such questions can be dealt with more exhaustively in the committee on railways, canals and telegraph lines than in this committee.
(Translation):


Mr. Bourgei:: Mr. Chairman, I would not want in any way to wound the humility of the Minister of Transport (Mr. Hees), but I trust that he will allow me, at the beginning of my brief remarks, to add my congratulations to those he received last night from the hon. member for Laurier (Mr. Che-vrier) upon the introduction of his estimates in the house. I feel that he has a right to be proud of heading one of the most important departments of the government, and I feel certain that in the few months that he has been leading that department, he has found that he can count on the support and the co-operation of honest, intelligent and loyal employees. I therefore wish him good luck during the few years he will remain as head of that department.


An hon. Member:: That is what you hope.


Mr. Ricard:: For many years to come.


Maurice Bourget: Mr. Chairman, I wish this morning to discuss for a few moments a matter of special concern to my constituency and to a few others, that is the matter relating to shipyards.

(Text):
During the debate on the address in reply to the speech from the throne I spoke about the very difficult situation facing the shipbuilding industry in Canada today, particularly in my constituency and others where many thousands of families depend on this industry for their livelihood. Earlier during the session the report of the royal commission on coastal trade was tabled in the House of Commons, and hon. members will now have had an opportunity of studying it. Those who have done this will notice that with respect to the most vital question of whether or not free competition with non-Canadian ships should be allowed in Canadian inland waters when the St. Lawrence seaway is completed the commission recommended in the affirmative, as the minister well knows. This recommendation, of course, was contrary to the request and arguments of the Canadian shipbuilding and repairing association and other organizations representing the shipbuilding industry. As a consequence Canadian shipbuilders today are very concerned, and I know the minister is well informed of this, about their future and the future of this important part of our national economy.
Of course I want to be fair about it and state that the problem of maintaining a prosperous shipbuilding industry in Canada did not arise overnight. At the beginning of the last war Canadian shipbuilders expanded their facilities very rapidly and were able to make a vital contribution to the allied war effort. However, since then the situation has become progressively worse for Canadian vessels. Construction costs are higher here than in the United Kingdom, and operating costs are also higher. So our shippers find it impossible to compete in international trade.
For this reason the last large group of 70 Canadian vessels was transferred to United Kingdom registry in 1949 and 1950. Transfers are still being made as new ships are built. Now that the Canadian National (West Indies) ships have been sold, the Canadian merchant fleet consists almost entirely of the vessels on the great lakes; and if with the opening of the St. Lawrence seaway these boats too are to be faced with open competition from foreign vessels, then the minister will agree with me that the outlook for them is also very bleak.
It is for that reason that the Canadian shipbuilding and ship repairing association urged the following suggestions in its brief submitted to the royal commission on the coasting trade on June 30, 1955 as found at page 157 of the report of the commission:
1. That from henceforth the coasting trade of Canada shall be reserved to ships registered in Canada.
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2. That from January 1. 1957, or some other convenient date in the near future, replacements of and additions to Canada's coasting fleet shall be built without exception in Canadian shipyards.
As I said at the beginning, the commission did not agree with this request. When the St. Laurent government set up the commission that was one of the most important questions it wished to have answered, but it was not the only question. If you read the order in council, P.C. 1955-308, appendix I of the report, setting up the commission you will find that Mr. Justice Spence and his colleagues were authorized and instructed to go much further than that. In fact they were authorized to study and recommend upon the whole subject of coastal shipping in Canada. So the present government is called upon to decide not only whether or not it will accept the royal commission's recommendation concerning open competition on our inland waters, but also the whole question of the future of our shipping industry.
When I spoke in the house on May 26 I mentioned some of the reasons why it is important to preserve our shipping industry in Canada. I referred to the serious consequences of closing down an industry employing some 15,000 people and supplying a livelihood to entire communities. I referred also to the importance of water transportation in the economic development of our country. As our economy grows our water transportation facilities must keep pace. If we are so convinced of the importance of water transportation as to spend hundreds of millions of dollars on the St. Lawrence seaway and other projects, surely we must be convinced as well of the importance of our merchant vessels to Canada's future. Can you imagine, Mr. Chairman, a nation with the most highly developed inland waterway in the world serving its ports and not having the necessary vessels to transport its own produce? It seems to me that our pride and confidence in Canada make it essential to find ways and means of maintaining our shipping industry, including the shipbuilding facilities which are the essential basis of a fleet.
There is also, Mr. Chairman, a third reason, and in my opinion a very important one, for maintaining our shipbuilding industry. We all remember in what an embarrassing situation Canada found itself when war broke out in 1939, when we had neither ships to come to the aid of Great Britain nor a navy suitable to protect such ships. The United Kingdom eventually managed to obtain 50 over-age destroyers from the United States for escort duty in exchange for military bases in Newfoundland and elsewhere. Our shipbuilders did heroic work, for which we have great cause to be grateful, in building ships to

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transport men, munitions and supplies across
the Atlantic.
If we allow our shipyards to close down and disappear we risk finding ourselves in the same position as in 1939. After one severe lesson that is something which I think those responsible for the nation's security cannot ignore. Russia today has many more submarines than Hitler had in 1939. If war should be declared-and I am one who does not believe it would be over in a few hours-we would again be faced with the problem of keeping open the sea lanes between North America and our allies in Europe and other parts of the world. If the British shipping industry were to be destroyed, Canadian shipyards would then be the only ones in the commonwealth which could produce the ships necessary in wartime. So it is my contention that it is not only in Canada's interests but in the interests of the United Kingdom and all our allies that our shipbuilding industry be kept in readiness	as part of our military
preparedness.
Whatever the government decides to do, Mr. Chairman, about allowing foreign vessels to compete freely with Canadian vessels on the St. Lawrence waterway, it is of the utmost national importance for the government of Canada to take very positive steps to maintain our shipbuilding industry. Despite the fact that the Minister of Public Works has remained silent on this subject since becoming a minister of the crown, I still think I have his sympathy in this matter. If he and his colleagues would act now with the same force with which they used to criticize when they were in the opposition, then I think some way of helping the shipbuilding industry could be found. I was glad to notice that the royal commission on the coasting trade suggested that the shipbuilding industry might be assisted by a federal subsidy if seaway traffic from countries abroad worsens its positions.
I do not want to express negative criticism only on the question of shipbuilding. I want to place before the Minister of Transport a suggestion which I think merits some consideration, and which might serve to encourage the building of ships in Canada at this time. In one respect United Kingdom shippers, our keenest competitors, have what might be considered an unfair advantage over Canadian shippers. In addition to enjoying considerably lower construction and operating costs, they are able to claim 140 per cent of a vessel's value by way of tax deduction. In other words, a shipowner may claim as a deduction from his profit for tax purposes an investment allowance which when initiated in 1954 was 20 per
[Mr. Bourget.l
cent and now is 40 per cent of the cost of a ship. This is in addition to a normal depreciation allowance of 100 per cent over a period of years.
In the royal commission report, page 67, we find the following explanation given to the British House of Commons by the Chancellor of the Exchequer on April 9, 1957. He said this:
-the increase in the investment allowance is for ships only, and was proposed because of the special position of the shipping industry . . . faced with severe competition in a world market, often from ships sailing under flags of convenience with small liabilities. It finds it increasingly difficult to build up finance for the replacement of its ships when they become obsolete.
Surely, Mr. Chairman, if there is justification for the United Kingdom government helping its shipping industry in this way, a similar claim by Canadian shippers is justified. I am not suggesting that we should adopt a specific figure of 140 per cent in Canada, but perhaps the figure should be higher because the cost of building a ship in Canada, as the minister well knows, is approximately 60 per cent greater than the cost of building the same vessel in the United Kingdom.
For that reason I am not going to suggest a specific figure in this connection, but I do want to urge the Minister of Transport and the officials of the maritime commission to investigate this device and see whether, having regard to the fact that steel is no longer in short supply in Canada, the present would not be an appropriate time to introduce a measure of this kind, which seems to have given satisfaction abroad.
I do not forget, of course, that under the Liberal administration the Canadian Vessel Construction Assistance Act was introduced, and it has been a very useful measure. I want to say, too, that it has been improved upon by the present minister, and at the time I complimented him and thanked him for doing so. I believe, having regard to the present economic situation, we need more than that. The minister quite realizes that this is an important industry and needs more help than we are giving it now.
The commission also recommended that the industrial development bank, which was set up by a Liberal government after the last war and which has done such a marvellous job in assisting the growth of smaller industries, should give serious study to providing adequate credit for the operators of small ships engaged in the coastal trade. The commission suggested that the future for ship repair work would be brighter as business picked up after the opening of the St. Lawrence seaway in 1959. However, with the average cost of building a ship in Canada

about 60 per cent higher than in Great Britain, there are tew possibilities of obtaining foreign, let alone Canadian, contracts in this country unless the government takes some action.
It seems to me that the object of government policy in this field should be to assure sufficient shipbuilding and repair work to enable our shipbuilding industry to survive and prosper to the greatest degree possible as our country develops. I view this as a matter of national importance. Let me read one paragraph from the commission report, which appears at page 178:
The commission is in no position to determine whether the defence preparedness value of a Canadian shipbuilding industry would be great enough to warrant it being maintained at a level of activity higher than is in prospect without assistance. Should this be determined to be the case, the commission considers that a policy of direct subsidization of ship construction would be the least costly and the most effective way of achieving the desired result.
This is a question for the government to decide, and on its decision the future of the shipbuilding industry depends. At the present time this is an industry worth more than $350 million and employing many thousands of Canadians. The Prime Minister indicated, when the report was tabled, that it would receive careful study. Well, Mr. Chairman, these thousands of Canadians are all looking to the federal government to help them in this critical situation. A solution must be found that will enable Canada to enjoy the benefit of economic ship transportation but which will, at the same time, enable our shipbuilding industry to survive.
(Translation):


Mr. Pigeon:: Mr. Chairman, I take this opportunity to ask the hon. Minister of Transport (Mr. Hees) to make a nation-wide survey of our railway requirements for the benefit of all districts which now have no railway service, so that they too might share in Canada's economic development.
Railroads and highways play a large part in the economic development of a country. They link areas together and ensure the economic future of an area. Highway and railway communications are like the blood vessels of the body. From the remotest corners of the land they bring in materials essential to large industrial production and farm products to non-farming areas.
In Canada's pioneer days, the waterways were the avenues of progress. That is why settlement was concentrated on both banks of the St. Lawrence, way up to the large inland sea, the great lakes. At that time there was no congestion, but due to the great distances, our forefathers had to fall back on a kind of economic self-sufficiency.
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However, great modern discoveries gradually provided man with new and powerful means of venturing farther into the field of discovery and development. This opened up an era of artificial roads of communication entirely built by man according to his wants. Those linking roadways, railways, canals and highways marked, according to their purpose, the development of this vast country but favoured certain areas while keeping others back.
Thus some 40 per cent of the population of the province of Quebec is concentrated in the metropolitan area of Montreal.
The building of a coast-to-coast railroad was, to a great extent, the very lifeblood necessary for confederation to become a reality. It was a highly political decision, destined to promote progress inland as well.
There were other reasons why the province of Quebec was denied the railroads which would have meant greater industrial development for her. The former government, which held power for almost twenty-two years, neglected some areas and left them without needed railroads. This was typical of its neglect of the province of Quebec.
Thus, Quebec, with 30 per cent of Canada's population and a sprawling area, accounts for only 11 per cent of the railroad trackage, while regions with only a tenth of the population have equivalent trackage-or twice as much.
What is the sequel to this policy? Areas like Timiskaming, where, for twenty years, people have been clamouring for extension of the Montreal-Mont Laurier line, have, at best, remained static. The same applies to Gaspesia and other parts of Quebec-indeed, the entire country. Ore-rich areas like Chibougamau and Ungava, whose deposits were known practically half a century ago, are only at the dawn of their development, for people in the increasingly populous agricultural areas, unable to take part in the difficult development of industry in those parts where there are practically no communications, have been steadily forced to leave their village of origin, to take up residence in the big cities-even, alas, south of the border.
Mr. Chairman, allow me to draw your attention to a problem which exists in the town of Repentigny, in the federal riding of Joliette-L'Assomption-Montcalm. I have repeatedly tried to get the Board of Transport Commissioners to follow up an urgent request by ordering the Bell Telephone Company of Canada to include that town in the "extended area service". Now, Repentigny is near the island of Montreal, to which it is linked by a bridge, "Le Gardeur de Repentigny". Almost all the towns around Montreal have now obtained the "extended area service"
*

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from the Bell Telephone Company of Canada, and Repentigny, a fast growing community, urgently requires this service to keep up with the times; a number of new housing developments are under way and, all factors considered, no town in the whole of Canada is developing at a greater pace. His Worship Mayor Rosaire Deschamps and the aldermen of the town are clamouring for this "extended area service", realizing that the company's present service can only hamper present development and future prospects of this progressive town.
Mr. Chairman, quite apart from this lack of a basic service, Repentigny is putting up with an outrageous situation: 12-party lines -even 15-party lines! Fancy this-in the middle of the 20th century! It is enough to make Graham Bell turn over in his grave. It is unbearable for Repentigny residents. I grant that the Bell Telephone Company of Canada deserves a good deal of the credit for the country's economic progress, but it is high time it dipped into its kitty which still contains several million spare dollars, and put an end to this paralytic blow at Repentigny's development.
I call upon the Board of Transport Commissioners to instruct the Bell Telephone Company of Canada to resolve this pressing problem as soon as possible, to the satisfaction of those concerned.
Mr. Chairman, may I, in conclusion, congratulate the Minister of Transport for the admirable way in which he performs his duties, and for his bilingualism-symbol of national unity.
(Text):


Mr. Smith (Lincoln):: Mr. Chairman, I should like to refer to several matters that are extremely important to the riding I represent, and I think in a general way they are important to many other parts of Canada. In Lincoln county we are particularly interested in shipbuilding, water transportation and air transportation. First of all I should like to express my opposition to tolls on the Welland ship canal. Since the canal cuts across the Niagara peninsula I am well aware of the type of ships that use the canal and the type of cargoes that pass through it.
Briefly I should like to say something about the several canals that have been built in the Niagara peninsula during the last 130 years. Three canals in all have been built. I shall deal with the first one and also with the third canal, which is the one in use at the present time. The first canal was built by private enterprise with some financial assistance from the government of Upper Canada and the British government in London at that time. As it was a canal that was built by private

enterprise, tolls were charged. In 1841 the capital stock of this canal company was acquired by the government of Canada, and since that time Welland ship canals have been entirely under the control and maintenance of the government of Canada and thus toll free.
About 70 years ago the first canal was discontinued as a ship canal, and since that time it has gradually deteriorated into a public nuisance, dangerous to health and public safety. Without going into full details in connection with the clean-up of this canal, I must say that negotiations with the Department of Transport have been going on since 1934. However, it fell to our present Minister of Transport to conclude the negotiations with the area municipalities. Preliminary work is now started, and the balance of the contracts will be let for the clean-up before the end of the year.
To turn to the present Welland canal, as I say tolls were discontinued many years ago, just as tolls were discontinued on our public highways, all in the interests of a freer development of Canada. A toll free Welland canal is a custom of long standing, and has been a matter of settled international policy for many years. To change that policy now could bring about retaliation by the United States of America, and tolls could be placed on the upper lakes channels that have been improved and maintained by the United States and have also been toll free. Industry and commerce throughout the entire upper great lakes region, in which there are large industrial areas both in the United States and Canada, have relied upon the established policies of no tolls. The imposition of tolls now would tend to destroy this stability and could discourage new industries from locating in these areas. Even a small toll on the Welland ship canal such as that recommended by the joint tolls committee establishes a new policy, and implies that further tolls may be imposed when further improvements and enlargements are made to the canal.
I believe that this is the time to make a decision against the levying of tolls on the Welland canal and to clarify its future operational authority. Industry located on the Welland canal and those considering locating in that area should know the future policy of the Canadian government with respect to this matter.
The Welland ship canal is different from other parts of the seaway and other parts of the great lakes navigation system. It is entirely owned by the government of Canada and lies well within the boundaries of Canada.
I believe that this canal, located as it is,

should remain entirely owned by the government of Canada and operated by the Department of Transport, and should be toll free. There seems to be no need to have it under international seaway authority.
When I say the Welland ship canal is toll free and should continue that way, it does not mean that ships pass through the locks entirely free of charge. At the present time ships using the canal pay a locking charge to cover the cost of linesmen, supplied by the Department of Transport, who assist in tying up the boats when they pass through the locks. Industries located along the canal pay substantial charges for use of water, wharfage and other rentals, all of which is applied against the operational costs. This revenue from locking charges, rentals, use of water and wharfage amounts to something over $1 million annually, and the annual cost of operation and maintenance amounts to slightly over $2 million.
A review of these annual revenues should be made. I am informed that no increases have been made since 1932. Upward revisions, perhaps, could be made to bring revenues more in line with operating costs. The basic charge for locking a vessel through the canal is $25 for smaller vessels up to 250 feet long, and $50 for the larger ones. I believe it takes from four to eight linesmen on each lock to make the ships fast. There are eight locks, and it takes about eight to ten hours for a ship to pass through the entire length of the canal. I think there is reason to review this matter in order to bring our costs more in line.
Much of the cargo passing through the canal consists of Canada's natural resources including wheat, oil, pulpwood and iron ore. Tolls will only increase the cost of our wheat in Liverpool and our pulpwood, iron ore and oil in central Canada and the United States. We in the Niagara peninsula look forward with confidence in the expectation that with the opening of the St. Lawrence seaway it will be possible for coal from Nova Scotia and iron ore from the north shore of Quebec to compete with coal and iron ore from the United States. A toll free Welland ship canal would do much to make that possible.
I was interested to note in yesterday's press that Nova Scotia coal is now being delivered in the Toronto area. I believe this is the first time this has happened in a good many years, perhaps the first time it has ever happened. This is something we must encourage, but making it more expensive to sail on our waterways by the imposition of tolls is not going to help the situation. Tolls on the Welland ship canal and the upper
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lake channels might very well destroy some of the advantages which could be ours when the seaway is complete and larger vessels can be used. At such a time more direct shipments could be made of our raw material and natural resources. I trust that if the final decision on tolls is made by the cabinet when parliament is not in session, all the facts and forecast outlined in the many briefs which have been presented to the seaway authority and to the Department of Transport regarding the Welland ship canal will be thoroughly considered.
I would also like to mention the use of pilots on the great lakes by deep sea vessels. There seems to be a strong opinion in certain quarters that pilots are not necessary on the open lake but only when those ships are passing through the St. Lawrence seaway itself or the Welland ship canal, or are entering harbours and restricted channels. I understand, however, that our navigational signs and signals are quite different from those used under deep sea regulations. There is also, in many cases, a language problem in connection with foreign ships. For these reasons, and as a matter of safety for other vessels, I should think the captains of these deep sea vessels should have to undergo some test or examination before they are allowed to sail on any part of the great lakes system.
Another matter which I would bring to the attention of the minister is that of the pollution of our lake shore beaches by the discharge of sewage and industrial waste into our lakes, canals and water courses by the cities and towns. Many of our beaches on lake Ontario and lake Erie are becoming unsafe for bathing as a result of pollution from oil scum carelessly discharged from ships, untreated sewage and industrial waste. This is a matter which requires immediate attention, and it is one which is of more concern to the Department of National Health and Welfare. Nevertheless in the past the Department of Transport has given to municipalities and industries leases which permit the discharge of sewage and industrial waste into canals and water courses under the jurisdiction of the department.
I hope the minister will give this matter serious consideration. I know it is going to cost a lot of money to the city of St. Catharines; nevertheless it is something which must be faced, and the sooner we do it the better.
I would suggest to the Department of Transport that it should continue its interest in establishing regional airports in strategic areas, in providing services for feeder air lines, in picking up scheduled air services and

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by providing intermediate service to relieve the larger air terminals which are now badly congested.
Another matter which I am sure concerns all of us is the passing of our coastal and ocean going ships into the hands of foreign operators. In particular, the passing of Canadian steamships into Cuban registry has not constituted a solution to our problem. I am familiar with a small Canadian company which is being forced into the same position which, by the way, is a St. Catharines firm. I refer to the Ahearn Steamship Company, which over the past five or six years has been engaged in hauling supplies into the Northwest Territories. Ships of European registry are now cutting into that trade and paying about one-third of the wages. And having a much lower standard of living for their sailors, they are taking away the business from our Canadian companies, and as a consequence this company I have mentioned now has only one of its four boats in operation.
I have in my hand a clipping from a labour magazine in which I was interested, having been associated with labour organizations at one time, and unless they have changed their ways their reports are generally pretty accurate. This particular report says that the Canadian government has sent a fleet of 52 ships into the Arctic carrying freight and military supplies, and of those 52 vessels only two bear Canadian registry. One of these is a ship of the Ahearn Steamship Company I believe and the other the Maple-branch, is from somewhere down in Nova Scotia. I think this is a very serious matter, requiring the consideration of the government. If nothing is done about it, then it will not be long before ships of Canadian registry will no longer be operating on the great lakes. Their trade is already being cut into to a great extent.
Mr. Chairman, my remarks have probably been rather rambling, but I appreciate the opportunity of bringing to your attention and that of the minister the problems of the county I represent. I am sure the minister will give them this serious consideration, as he did in connection with the clean-up of the old canal.


Mr. Badanai:: Mr. Chairman, Dominion day this year, the 91st anniversary of Canada's confederation, marked the completion of the major works in the building of the St. Lawrence seaway and power project. It was the day on which the rushing waters of the St. Lawrence poured into a basin above the international St. Lawrence power dam. It

was the day on which a new lake was born. According to the statement by the Minister of Mines and Technical Surveys made in the house on August 20, the lake has now been named lake St. Lawrence. The minister said that was the choice of the Canadian board on geographical names. I have no quarrel with this particular board, but it seems to me that the name is meaningless.
I thought here was an occasion to name this lake after a Canadian who had rendered outstanding service in the promotion of the St. Lawrence project. On August 4 last I asked the Minister of Transport the following question:
Is the goverment contemplating naming the newly created lake in the St. Lawrence seaway in the near future? If so, is the suggestion contained in the letter to the editor to be considered?
A letter to the editor of the Ottawa Citizen which appeared in the issue of Saturday, August 2, impressed me with the idea that here perhaps was a suggestion which, regardless of political affiliation, was good and had real merit. I wish now to quote the letter which I was prevented from reading because, apparently, I was out of order in attempting to do so at that time:
I understand our authorities are looking for a suitable name for the new lake in the St. Lawrence. I believe a Canadian name would be well received especially the name of one who had so much to do with the getting together of the United States and Canada in the formation and completion of this great project. I know most Canadians and Americans appreciate the efforts of Mr. Seaway himself, Mr. Lionel Chevrier, M.P. What man in Canada whether Conservative or Liberal is more entitled to a thank you for a job he did. than Mr. Chevrier?
I believe lake Chevrier would be well received by the Canadian public in general and would also show that the present government appreciates the work of this great Canadian for services rendered whether Conservative or Liberal.
I do not know whether the minister is very happy about the choice, or whether he or the government ever gave any consideration to naming the lake, but it seems to me that the government should have seized the occasion to honour a person, preferably one who has had more to do with the actual planning of the great project than any other Canadian, by virtue of the position he held in the Canadian government of the day and subsequently as chairman of the St. Lawrence seaway commission.
I would say that the name "Chevrier" would have met with the approval of a large majority of Canadians. The large French Canadian population living along the shores of the seaway would have appreciated one of their favourite sons being so honoured.
Will the minister take all these factors into consideration and perhaps recognize the former minister of transport in some manner,

so that the name "Chevrier" will be associated with what has been undoubtedly one of the most talked about projects in the world, ranking alongside the building of the Suez and Panama canals?
Along the great lakes 8,300 miles of shore line, cities in the great mid-west of the United States will become ocean ports. The city of Chicago will be linked with Calcutta, Duluth, Antwerp, Toronto, Brisbane, Australia; General Motors of Canada will be able to ship a Chevrolet or a Cadillac to New Zealand for less money than it now costs to ship a car from Oshawa to Vancouver by rail; wheat will move from Fort William, Ontario to Rotterdam at a saving of up to 15 cents per bushel.
This is a reality of the near future, and what could be more exciting than to have Her Gracious Majesty Queen Elizabeth sailing along this great seaway on the royal yacht Britannia from Montreal to Fort William on the official opening of this magnificent project? A suggestion along these lines has already been communicated to the Prime Minister, and I understand that his office and Buckingham Palace are considering the idea.
The broad outline of the Queen's third visit to Canada next year would indicate that a voyage starting at Montreal and ending at Fort William would give Her Majesty and her sailor-minded husband one of the greatest possible opportunities for sheer enjoyment and relaxation, and would permit brief stops at major points on both sides of the international boundary.
I express the hope that the Minister of Transport and the government will do everything in their power to plan the official opening of this great project, in which the Queen will participate, in such a manner that it will go down in history as the most memorable Canadian event of the century.
There is another matter I should like to mention, and that is the effective role which Trans-Canada Air Lines is playing in the transportation field in our nation. This is at least one of the beneficial projects which the former Liberal government created, the chief architect of which was the former brilliant minister of trade and commerce, Right Hon. C. D. Howe. Trans-Canada Air Lines has an enviable record of efficiency and I wish to congratulate the president, Mr. G. R. McGregor, and his capable staff for the very courteous handling of passengers.
Now I would like to ask the minister if he is giving consideration to granting transportation privileges on T.C.A. to members of parliament on the same basis that is now enjoyed in connection with the railways.
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There are a goodly number of us who cannot possibly use the railways due to the time factor. Surely any member whose riding is 500 miles or more from Ottawa should have the privilege and the convenience of visiting his constituency as often as possible without being compelled to be away too long from his parliamentary duties.
I understand the minister was wholeheartedly in favour of the free use of the services of T.C.A. for members when he sat on this side of the house. May I ask him if he is still in favour of the idea-I hope he is- and may I also express the hope that he will see his way clear to make a statement on the matter which will give us all hope that we may expect the implementation of what he himself has advocated in the past, if not during the present session, which is nearing its end, then in forthcoming sessions of this parliament.


Herbert Wilfred Herridge: Mr. Chairman, because the minister's estimates have been very thoroughly examined by the standing committee and because of their lateness in coming before us this session I am going to be most parsimonious in dipping into the barrel of time on this occasion. However, I should be remiss if I did not bring to the attention of the minister one or two matters which are still of very serious concern to my constituents.
Before doing that, however, I do want to say that after reading the minutes of the committee on estimates and Mr. Gordon's evidence I, like a good number of other Canadians who read reports of the same evidence in the newspapers, am very disturbed at the suggestion by Mr. Gordon that there is a need for the curtailment of the transcontinental passenger service in this country. I am one of a good many who hope this will not be necessary, and I think that in this respect the C.N.R. is somewhat at fault for a certain lack of patronage. I am not sure that everyone will agree with me, but I believe that with respect to transcontinental passenger trains The Canadian, which operates under the C.P.R., is probably the best train today; and hon. members can imagine how it pains me to admit that at this time.
These railways are the fundamental basis of our transportation system. Regardless of the possibilities of air travel and travel by road, we must realize that at all times during the year our heavy freight and commodities must go by railroad, and that in bad weather the great majority of people want to go by railroad, too. It is essential that we maintain our railroad system in Canada and our first class passenger service.

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I realize the difficulties; the demand for air travel, for water travel, for improved transportation by highways and the carrying of freight by trucks, and so on. We are inclined to want everything at once without regard to the circumstances. I believe the whole situation in Canada with respect to transportation of all types shows a lack of planning, and illustrates the need for consideration of the entire problem from a national point of view and the development of a national transportation policy.
I have noticed from conversations with employees and with somewhat senior officials of the Canadian National Railways that there is a lowering of the morale of the staff of that company across Canada at this time. I am not blaming the management entirely for that. It is occasioned to some extent by large lay-offs in certain places involving men 45 years of age and over, who have given the very best years of their lives to the railway and who have an investment in their homes in the communities in which they have lived for many years. I have also noticed a certain lowering of morale amongst the supervisory staff, occasioned by the fact that there is a somewhat different approach to railroading nowadays from the approach that obtained in the old days.
Going back approximately 50 years I remember that some of the older officials of the C.P.R., the men who operated the railroad, were railroaders from the ground up. The railroads are now managed by business administrators and executives, to a large extent, and in my opinion and in the opinion of many people they have not the same human approach to problems as they affect the employees and the communities which the railways were designed to serve.
I have personal knowledge of many cases of men who have served the company well for a long period of years. I believe these remarks apply to both the C.N.R. and the C.P.R. These men have long experience and have given many years of good service. They find themselves denied promotion today because someone who has just graduated from a university with a degree in engineering or a bachelor of arts degree is considered more suitable for positions in these circumstances. I would not want to underestimate the value of those degrees and academic qualifications generally, but I feel that both the railways could give more serious con-
sideration when they are making promotions in the middle supervisory class to those men who have experience and who have served the railways over a number of years.
In addition, it was recently brought to my attention that the C.N.R. has made an agreement with the Pacific Great Eastern Railway to haul its empty box cars from the coast to the interior for 5 cents a mile per box car. I do not know what the details of the arrangements are, but the information I obtained from people closely in touch with the administration of the C.N.R. in that division is that it will have the effect of taking traffic away from the C.N.R. without providing any substantial saving. I mention those facts because these older employees of both railways have no one to speak for them with respect to their complaints in general as they apply to the parliament of Canada, except members of parliament.
I now come to a more local problem, and I can tell from the look of anticipation on the part of the minister that he is eagerly looking forward to hearing what I have to say.


Mr. Hees:: Always.


Herbert Wilfred Herridge: In our own district we
believe that the C.P.R. has been most unthoughtful in its consideration of the needs of the people of the district so far as passenger service is concerned, and has completely overlooked the great contribution that the Kootenays make to the industrial production of Canada. They have done that by reducing service in two ways. First of all, they have reduced the number of days the trains operate on the Kettle Valley railroad between Vancouver and Nelson; and second, they have reduced the service by running a Budd car without any sleeping accommodation or any cafe car for the serving of meals.
This has been brought to the minister's attention very forcefully by representatives of various organizations in my constituency which he visited during the election period last year in an effort to try and make certain that I did not return to this house. I do not blame him for that; that was his duty, and we all have to accept our responsibilities in that respect. However, it has been brought to his attention and it is continually being brought to his attention, as it is to mine. I represent a type of people who never cease agitating until they reach their objective.

They have the same attitude with respect to peacetime affairs as the 54th battalion had overseas in the war.
With respect to the reduction of service I wish to read a letter that was written by the local chairman of the brotherhood of railroad trainmen, Kootenay lodge No. 558, Nelson, British Columbia on July 31. The letter is addressed to Mr. G. L. Phillips, superintendent, C.P.R., at Nelson, British Columbia, and a copy was sent to me. The letter states the position from the point of view of the men who are operating the trains: Dear Sir:
I have been instructed by the members of the brotherhood of railroad trainmen and other running trades to vigorously protest to you, the company attitude and manner in regards to the curtailment of service on the boundary subdivision.
On Sunday July 27. passenger train No. 45. two diesel units and four passenger cars was run from Nelson to Midway on the boundary subdivision, leaving Nelson at 9.00 a.m., arriving Midway at
1.20	p.m. A freight train extra 4064 east was run out of Midway on the same date, leaving Midway at
1.20	p.m. arriving at Nelson at 10.00 p.m. with ten loads and two empties.
The fact that the two above mentioned trains have been run on a day and weekend at which time a curtailment of service is supposed to be in effect is sufficient to prove that other trains could be run seven days a week under the same conditions.
The people in our district, the people in general as well as employees of the railway, are of the opinion that the C.P.R. is taking advantage of the particular circumstances in the Kootenay district, where on occasions the railway track has been blown up, to reduce the passenger service. In their opinion the very fact that freight trains can operate continuously is an indication that the company is taking advantage of this situation to reduce that service.
With respect to the Budd car, we find this is a most unpleasant means of travel. It is particularly difficult for older people coming from the coast because it involves a 22-hour trip in a Budd car with no sleeping accommodation provided and no opportunity to obtain meals in a proper manner. A newsboy does come around periodically with a pot of coffee and dried up sandwiches, but that is not suitable nutrition for elderly people, children and those who are sick.
I have outlined my complaints on behalf of the people I have the honour to represent, and I urge the minister to do all he can to ease the situation by discussing the matter again with the board of transport commissioners and the officials of the C.P.R. to see if something cannot be done to meet the very modest requests of my constituents.


Mr. Small:: Mr. Chairman, I believe it was just a week ago today that I rose to make some comments on the estimates of the Department of National Health and Welfare,
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on which occasion you offended my sensibilities and caused me deep grief by suggesting that I was making a political speech. I was grievously hurt at your suggestion, because that was the farthest thing from my mind and because you know I never indulge in activities of that kind. I thought it was a general, rough and tumble discussion in which anyone could join, and I felt moved to participate in the discussion on that occasion.
However, a different situation obtains today. I am rising to speak on the estimates of the Department of Transport, and I want to join the happy throng who have jumped on the bandwagon and become one of the members of the mutual admiration club that has been operating since the minister concluded his remarks. In doing so I wish to extend him my compliments and congratulate him on the efficient administration of his department.
It was a revelation to me to find, shortly after I became a member of the house, that no matter from what constituency a member came or to what party he belonged, all of them, whether they were ordinarily extreme free traders or high protectionists, had one thing in common when it was a question of their own riding, municipality or province. They were all outstanding high protectionists. They wanted everything they could possibly get to protect their own ridings.
But today we have a general give-away, with each one after a bridge or a canal or a post office or an airport, and the Minister of Transport is acceding to their requests. I was particularly pleased last night when the hon. member for Laurier presented his request. He outlined his connection with the department over a period of years and complimented the minister upon carrying out some of the policies he had inaugurated and adding a few others that pleased him as well. He spoke about the St. Lawrence seaway, referred to the Lachine section, requested that the Quebec hydro authorities be given consideration with respect to development and mentioned an amount in the neighbourhood of $6 million which, with today's inflation, would represent a sum of approximately $20 million.
I was exceedingly pleased at the alacrity with which the minister acceded to the request of the hon. member, and the fact that the minister said he would go as far as he possibly could. It brings to mind what a difference a few years make, because I can remember the continual trek to Ottawa over the years by Sir Adam Beck when he was just plain Adam Beck, the father of hydro development in the province of Ontario. I can

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remember how all during his regime, and subsequently Mr. McGrath, Mr. Cook, Mr. Lyon and Bob Saunders, all of whom had the interests of Ontario hydro and the province at heart, he came down here year after year to plead for development of the power potential on the St. Lawrence only to meet with obstacles, stumbling blocks and frustrations and have to go back home after fruitless journeys. The St. Lawrence seaway was known at that time as the deep sea waterway, later as the great lakes waterway and finally the St. Lawrence seaway.
No matter what party was in power the same answer was always given. No recognition was given to their pleas. In addition to having tremendous energy, Sir Adam Beck possessed marvellous powers of foresight in being able to peer into the future and assess the requirements of the province of Ontario and the whole dominion. He had an analysis made of the power potential of the province. He outlined what was going to be required. He pointed out that when Niagara power was exhausted Ontario hydro would probably have to call upon the province of Quebec to assist them, because Ontario hydro was then supplying eastern Ontario by bringing power from Niagara Falls.
The hon. member for Laurier mentioned the wonderful hydro development that has taken place in connection with the St. Lawrence seaway and said that he thought that Premier Frost should consider allotting some of the power from the St. Lawrence seaway development to the eastern section of Ontario in the same way as is being done by the New York state power authority across the river. I can assure the hon. member that Ontario hydro has always endeavoured to take care of the eastern part of the province, even going to the extent of bringing in power from Niagara Falls and elsewhere.
But the situation is different today. We have this power development now on the St. Lawrence seaway after 25 or 30 years of making appeals and being blocked by the electrical ring and commercial interests, some of the opposition emanating from the province of Quebec and the city of Montreal. The same thing happened in the case of Sir Adam Beck. The power ring in the United States concentrated all their efforts to frustrate everything Sir Adam Beck did in the interests of the people of Canada, particularly the people of the province of Ontario. If I were to follow the technique of the opposition groups of saying that we do not start things soon enough and do not go far enough I could point out that the St. Lawrence seaway is an outstanding example of that, in that it was not started soon enough and did not go far enough under the previous administration.

However, we are indulging in happy, mutual approbation today and complimenting each other upon the wonderful results of the St. Lawrence seaway. Nevertheless there is one thing I regret. I do not want to be too severe because of the nice-Nellie diplomatic policy of the previous administration in dealing with the United States, but things came to the point where we were so fed up with the opposition to the seaway project that we finally told the United States that if they were not going to participate in the project we would go ahead and build it and pay for it ourselves.
I thank the hon. member for Laurier for expressing appreciation of the services of Bob Saunders in abating the opposition in the United States and getting them to cooperate with the province of Ontario with respect to power. Be that as it may, the United States came to the conclusion that we were going to be tough about it and would go ahead. Therefore though they were reluctant to do so, they agreed to take part in the project. But after that our tough policy was watered down. It became lukewarm and the United States eventually took over and dictated the whole policy as far as the St. Lawrence seaway was concerned.
I will not say anything more about the building of the St. Lawrence seaway and the fact that we did not go far enough because we did not build our own canal system within the Dominion of Canada. I will leave that to another time later, because I do not want to mar the love and sweetness evident in this debate, and also because I know the minister would like to get these estimates through.
To change the subject for a moment, I am pleased that the amount of money available under the grade crossing fund has been increased. In that regard may I say to the hon. member for Laurier that I appreciated his attitude when he was the minister of this department and the matter of the grade crossing fund came up. I had always been vitally interested in it, and I still am. At that time I put forward a plea for further consideration by the government, but I was ruled out of order because the matter was under quasijudicial consideration by the board of transport commissioners. However, I was very much concerned because in my riding there were some 11 level crossings where serious accidents had happened, and likewise in the adjoining riding of Scarborough there were 82 level crossings, 52 of which were considered hazardous because of accidents. I was, therefore, bringing the matter before the house knowing that I was out of order, but the hon. member for Laurier allowed me to practically complete my remarks before he

raised his objection. I want to say that I appreciated that very much.
When the report did come in it was worth waiting for, and I feel that the minister did his best at that time to increase the amount of money that is available. However, there was not sufficient consideration given to the matter because, in fact, there are very few votes in that proposition. At any rate, I think they are on the right track, and they are going to speed up the progress of removing this menace from the Dominion of Canada.
The other matter I should like to mention is one to which the hon. member for Kootenay West referred. The last time I was talking about it the hon. member was introducing a bill. While he was out of order, I joined with him in placing before the house some of the claims I thought should be made in regard to the railways. I have not changed my opinion on that. He has referred to the attitude of the president of the Canadian National Railways, and I think serious consideration should be given to that matter. I do not say it is an amusing thing, though sometimes it is, but it is alarming when the president of a great concern can come to our committee and, with the nonchalance of a person who is enjoying himself, tell the committee that we are going to have a deficit next year; that the railway is going to have to remove this particular service or reduce it. He did not have to tell us he was reducing the service, because everyone is aware of it. He says he is not getting the passengers, but he is not giving the service that the people of Canada require of him, and if it keeps on he will not have anyone riding on his passenger cars.
I pointed out to hon. members at that time the situation with regard to the stations at Ottawa and Toronto, as well as other places. I referred to the lack of service and the complete contempt in which the people travelling on the railroad are held. I thought there might be some prospect of a change in that situation, but no change whatever has taken place. I think it was a Mr. Dunn who was in charge of the service here who admitted that everything I said was correct but there was not much that they could do about it. It was one of those things with which we had to put up. They were going to move the station some five miles away soon, and the long-suffering public would have to put up with that until then.
There is the attitude of a railway that is operating on a deficit, for which you and I and all the people of Canada have to dig down into our pockets to pay. They cannot improve the service with these half-baked policies, these half-considered plans which are in effect today. Probably it would be a good idea if we called them in and said,
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"We are going to cut your salary in half because of the service you are giving." Probably we could say to Mr. Gordon, "All right; you are taking it so nonchalantly, how would you like your salary cut from $75,000 to $37,500?" If a private business were operated like that, there would either be a new manager very soon or the business would close down.
I have a clipping from a newspaper here which says that they are going to discontinue operating the passenger service to Owen Sound and Wiarton. There is probably some reason for curtailing that service, but they are going to continue the freight trains, and there would be no more expense involved in having a passenger car on the freight train. They said they would discontinue that service because they were not getting any passengers. Well I claim there will be no harm in leaving the passenger coach on the freight train that is to be continued; it will cost very little. The clipping goes on:
The company further applied for licences which would enable it to carry by road transport the mail, express and passenger baggage formerly carried by two Montreal-Brockville trains.
The railway said it proposes to serve all railway stations and express agencies on the line between Montreal and Brockville with trucks which would operate on highway No. 2 and others, and county roads.
That is a capital idea. At last they have a certain amount of wisdom and they are going to give faster service by using trucks. It is because of the slowness of the passenger service the railways were giving that people are using automobiles. I wish they would apply this to the railway section between Brockville and Ottawa. I wish they would take off those super-duper freight cars that they call express cars and baggage cars, and for which they have all kinds of freight and postal equipment. These cars form such a large part of the train that when you come to the station you have to crawl over crates and large trucks used for hauling away this freight and express.
Since the last time I mentioned this the railways have added another inconvenience. They just dump the ice on the platform in large blocks before putting it in the cooling system of these cars. You have to jump over that, and probably if you miss the jump and light on the slab of ice, you slide into the station on your backside. Just imagine my chagrin last Thursday when I was returning from the opening of the exhibition in Toronto. The Minister of Transport had to suffer the indignity of having to walk through the passenger cars up to the baggage cars before getting out in order to try to avoid walking through the rain. There were so many of these baggage cars on the train that the

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passenger cars were down to the Laurier avenue bridge and the passengers had to walk through the rain right into the station. I said to the Minister of Transport, "Can you imagine that happening to us?"


Some hon. Members:: Shame.


Robert Hardy Small: Imagine that kind of service, when the Minister of Transport has to walk through all this rain and lose the press in his trousers to get to the station. I said, to our dapper Minister of Transport, "George, I think the next time we will have to get you the Governor General's car so you can be brought right into the station." Then, if they do not give better service, we shall have to carry this thing further. I think we would accomplish marvellous results if we were to bring in Mr. Gordon and say, "You are a swell fellow, and you can tell us how much you deficit is going to be, how much it is going to cost with your broken-down equipment, but we think your salary should be commensurate with the service."
He tells us that the parlour cars, the sleeping cars and so on are going concerns, that they produce a profit. At the same time they treat travellers with the utmost contempt. Hon. members have great difficulty in securing accommodation if they want to leave here on a Friday or Saturday night. They are told there is a waiting list, so you must wait for cancellations to get accommodation. When we receive that kind of treatment from a service that is producing a profit I think it is time we broughi in Mr. Gordon and talked to him in a lovey-dovey fashion, saying, "We do not want to hurt your feelings, but we think the time has arrived when your salary should be commensurate with the kind of service you are giving, and probably at $25,000 a year you would be overpaid."


Mr. Crestohl:: We were, of course, greatly interested in what was said by the hon. member who just took his seat, especially in the opening portion of his remarks when he joined hands in a very affectionate way with the opposition and congratulated the former minister of transport for the attitude he takes toward the present minister. But somehow or other I think the hon. member perhaps resorted to the type of caution that he always exercises in the statements he makes. He has always been very careful in every way he expresses himself to retain unity in the country, to retain unity as between the parties. With that same type of caution which he previously exhibited in this house, he now proceeds to reverse himself. I do not know why at this juncture he becomes critical in a way which, judging from his remarks, led me to believe that

maybe the hon. member for Danforth is looking for an appointment or seeking a job in the railway service of Canada.


Robert Hardy Small: Oh, heaven help me, no.


Leon David Crestohl: I do not know that, but that is the impression I received. After all, I think the hon. member has referred to a very fine civil servant of this country who, over the years and in difficult days in time of war, has been exemplary in giving the kind of service that Canadians should give to their country. There may be some criticism which might be made of the railway operation or of the railway system, but I do not think it is within the right of members of the House of Commons to speak in a fashion that is not appropriate with regard to a distinguished citizen of Canada and a prominent civil servant.
There was the suggestion, for example, that the minister himself had perhaps experienced some inconvenience in having to walk a little distance in the rain. This was typical of the humility which the minister has always shown in his new office. There is no hauteur about him. He is humble in his ways. He lives with the people. That is one of the things which I am sure prompted the hon. member for Laurier to congratulate him so fully and sincerely on his appointment.
I want to join in that congratulation. We find the Minister of Transport to be a most congenial gentleman. He is affable. Above all, Mr. Chairman, he is easily approachable; he receives you like a colleague in the house. He is really a splendid gentleman. With all these qualities, being a humble man and one who does not mind if he is obliged to walk several yards in the rain, the minister should be congratulated. Certainly he should be the first one to complain if he was not pleased with the situation.


Mr. Chevrier:: He might even sing "Walking in the Rain".


Leon David Crestohl: As I said, he does not look any the worse for his experience. I am sure he has not suffered by it. However, Mr. Chairman, I should like to say something that is not intended to be critical.
The minister disturbed much of the thinking around the city of Montreal when he announced recently that there will be no air conditioning for the Dorval airport. That announcement was a disturbing one. The minister may have given good reasons, but it is my objective at this time, if I can, to persuade the minister to reconsider whether or not the new Dorval airport merits air conditioning. I should like to point out that there is a substantial increase in air travel, and that there will be a further increase in

the future. Montreal is the showplace of Canada to incoming air passengers, whether from the United States or from Europe. Montreal airport will make the first impression upon visitors or newcomers to our country. Having gone to the tremendous expense of erecting such a magnificent building, I think it is a little shortsighted not to complete it to the fullest extent. Certainly in a few more years air conditioning will be prevalent everywhere, in every public building. Why then wait a few more years and be obliged to tear down sections and instal air conditioning? The time to instal it is now. It will be done at a great saving if it is done now.
I should also like to point out not only that Montreal is the showplace to incoming passengers but that we must also consider first impressions. People coming to Canada and being received at such a magnificent airport certainly are being dealt with by civil servants. The immigration branch, for example, should have the comfort and the convenience of air conditioning when they are examining passengers, when passengers are sitting before them, are being questioned and cross-questioned and are having to spend time there. Imagining how uncomfortable the situation could be on a hot July day for incoming passengers on their first trip to Canada, being in this gorgeous building and sitting and sweltering in the heat before an immigration official. Apart from the fact that answering questions is a trying experience-being alert to answer properly-there is that added discomfort.
Then, of course, you also have the customs branch. Why should not the customs officials enjoy the convenience of air conditioning? Everywhere in public buildings it is possible to enjoy it. The customs officials must exert themselves physically in the lifting up of baggage, in the lowering of baggage, in opening it and in closing it, and in examining the baggage of passengers. On a hot sweltering day it is not a very comfortable occupation. I am sure the hon. member for Danforth would not like it. Does the minister wish to say something?


George Harris Hees: If I may, Mr. Chairman; I see that it is about one o'clock. I should like to thank the hon. member for his very constructive remarks, and also to assure him and other hon. members from the Montreal area that since I made my announcement in the house, my officials and I have been doing a great deal of thinking about this matter with a view to seeing whether something can be done. I am very hopeful that something can be done, and that it will be possible to make a statement to that effect in the very near future. I thank the hon. member
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for what he has said, and I agree with him. Everything possible is being done to work out something along those lines and, as I have said, I hope to be able to make in the very near future the kind of statement that he would like me to make.


Leon David Crestohl: With that assurance, Mr. Chairman, I have nothing further to add, and I shall conclude my remarks.
At one o'clock the committee took recess.


[Stage Direction]
AFTER RECESS

The committee resumed at 2.30 p.m.
Mr. Pickersgill:: I had not really intended to inflict any remarks on the committee in connection with the minister's estimates on my own account, but my hon. friend, the member for Grand Falls-White Bay-Labrador, is unfortunately not able to be here today, and there are one or two matters which he wished to bring forward and which I am sure the minister will excuse me for bringing forward in his stead.
Before I do so, however, although I was not in the committee this morning I understand that an hon. gentleman on the other side of the house had some observations to make about the president of the Canadian National Railways, and I wish to say that so far as I am concerned-and I hope I am speaking in a completely non-partisan way- there have been times in the past 21 years or more of our friendship when Mr. Gordon and I have not seen eye to eye on some subjects. It is very hard for anyone with the strong opinions I have and the strong opinions Mr. Gordon has to always agree on everything, but he is in my opinion one of the greatest public servants this country has ever had.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear.


John Whitney Pickersgill: Indeed, none of us who lived in Ottawa through those awful six years of war under the great strains which we experienced during that period will ever forget the extent to which Mr. Gordon's work enabled this country to make the tremendous effort it did at that time in the prosecution of our part of the war. Mr. Gordon undertook his present position without any previous experience in connection with railways, and I think no one would doubt that he undertook that task with the same zeal, the same energy and the same intelligence-and I might say the same disinterested patriotism-which he brought to every other task he ever undertook.
While many of us may disagree with some of his decisions at times, and there are

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times when I have myself disagreed with them, I still believe no one could find grounds for questioning the disinterested public service of this great public servant.
The two matters which I wish to raise on behalf of the hon. member for Grand Falls-White Bay-Labrador are rather closely related and have to do with communications in Labrador. The first matter is one with which I know the minister's department is familiar, though he himself may not be familiar with it, and I am not asking him for his comments at this time but I just wish to place the matter on record and ask for his careful consideration of it. I would refer to an agreement made by the Department of Public Works, although today this is really a matter for the Department of Transport. The other party to the agreement was the Gulf of St. Lawrence Telephone Company, and it was made a short time before confederation, or at least what I call confederation, that is to say March 31, 1949.
If the minister will look up this agreement he will see that in so far as the operation of that company in the province of Quebec was concerned, there were certain stipulations about the maintenance of the service, and that similar stipulations were not made about the maintenance of the service in that part of Labrador which is in the province of Newfoundland. Of course it is easy to understand that at that time, since Newfoundland was not a part of Canada, it was not part of the domestic duty of the government of Canada to make provision with respect to that area, but it does seem to me that under the circumstances which have existed since March 31, 1949, there should have been protection and service given in Newfoundland equal to that given in Quebec. I am not going into the details of this matter, but I hope the minister will take a sympathetic look at the question, as I believe is the minister's practice in connection with all such matters.
The other matter to which I wish to refer is one which has always been directly under the minister's jurisdiction and, so the minister will not give me what used to be the stock answer though we are hearing it less and less, namely "Why didn't you do it", I will tell him right now why I didn't do it. It was because I was not able to persuade the minister's predecessor to do it; but I believe the arguments I put to that hon. gentleman in private are still sound arguments, and since I am not under the strain of the responsibility from which the present minister now suffers I can put those arguments in public at this time.
Under the terms of union, as the minister well knows, the telegraphic and telephonic
[Mr. Pickersgill.l
communications in Newfoundland were operated by the department concerned with postal and telegraphic communications in that province. In the island of Newfoundland these services were transferred to the Canadian National telegraph system, and that system has extended its service, not as fast as my friend the hon. member for Burin-Burgeo and I would like to see it done, but it has been steadily extended. Unfortunately the same process did not apply in Labrador, although Labrador is just as much a part of the province of Newfoundland as is the island of Newfoundland. The facilities which then existed there were brought under the operation of the Department of Transport. Unhappily some of these facilities have been restricted in recent years, and there has been no expansion in Labrador comparable with that carried out by Canadian National Telegraphs on the island of Newfoundland. This has caused a great deal of inconvenience and some hardship and, in some cases, actual suffering in the area.
I know this is not a situation which could arise in any other part of Canada, because in other parts of this country telegraphic and telephonic communications are either provided by private companies or by provincial entities; but in the province of Newfoundland, because of its former status, the post office service was part of the postal and telegraphic department service. It is, in fact an inheritance from the days before confederation, and is one of those unique features which we have to take into account in our confederation in exactly the same way as in other respects we do with the province of Quebec.
I recognize that this is not a comparable situation at all, because I recognize how much more important is the situation from the point of view of Quebec. But in the same way that we respect the civil code of Quebec, this peculiar situation in the province of Newfoundland should be recognized and we should seriously consider maintaining, and where necessary expanding and improving, that service. I do hope these arguments which would have been made by the hon. member for Grand Falls-White Bay-Labrador had he been here will commend themselves to the minister.
I am now going to speak on my own account with respect to one other subject which I wish to bring to the attention of the minister, and I hope that here again the minister will appreciate that I do not do so in a spirit of captious criticism.
I was very apprehensive when the minister told us in the house a month or so ago about this new policy of almost unrestricted competition which was being encouraged with regard to certain types of air service. We

are very apprehensive in Newfoundland- and I think the minister will probably find that this is true in other outlying areas-that this is going to result in fly by night competition-perhaps that is not a very happy image to use; I do not mean literally flying in the night time-but we are apprehensive lest outside companies should come in for a time, skim the cream off the milk, and then go out again.
We know that this situation did exist in the thirties. We remember how some of these small companies, shoestring operators, were put out of business at that time. We think the minister should take another long and careful look at this matter and keep an eye on it to see that reputable companies which give service day and night, in season and out of season, are not going to And all the profit taken out of their flying by competition from operators who, once they have made a killing, will leave the place without any adequate service.
I have tried to speak to these points as briefly as possible. I would appreciate the minister's consideration of them.
(Translation):


Mr. LaRue:: Mr. Chairman, before addressing the house today on this subject, I think it would be timely for me to say something about my constituency. Saguenay is the biggest constituency in Canada, with the exception of the Northwest Territories. With an area of 374,000 square miles, it has a widely scattered population of approximately 80,000. There are 2,000 enfranchised Eskimos scattered among ten posts along James bay, Hudson bay and Ungava bay. The remainder of the population live in a 700-mile coastal strip along the St. Lawrence gulf and river, stretching from Tadoussac to Blanc Sablon.
Mr. Chairman, during my 8 years as director of the chamber of commerce of Baie Comeau, I had a firsthand opportunity of seeing that Saguenay's main economic obstacle is the dearth of adequate communication facilities, whether they be by air, land or sea.
Today, Mr. Chairman, I want particularly to mention our land transport facilities placing special emphasis on the necessity of a railroad on the north shore of the St. Lawrence. I shall try to be as concise as possible, as I do not wish to delay the progress of the session.
It has always been considered that the great thing in opening up an area is to build railroads; that is how the Canadian west was opened up-not, I would add parenthetically, without great sacrifices.
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A railroad running from Great Slave lake is at present contemplated with a view to developing the mining industry.
Saguenay is going through a phase of full industrial expansion. Great strides are being made in the forestry and mining industries, and in power development.
I will name a few of the companies operating in my constituency: In forestry, we have the Quebec North Shore Paper, the Consolidated Paper Company, the Donnacona Paper, the Anglo Canadian Pulp and Paper, the St. Lawrence Corporation, the Canadian International Paper, and the Gulf Pulp and Paper.
As for mining, we have the Iron Ore Company of Canada, the Quebec Iron and Titanium Corporation, the Quebec Cartier Mining, and the Canadian British Aluminum. Further, Cyrus Eaton has a mammoth project for the development of the Hamilton Falls.
The grain elevators, I might add, are in the process of construction.
A 350-mile railway, the Quebec North Shore and Labrador Railway, built and financed by the Iron Ore Company, carries the ore from Knob Lake to Seven Islands. Another railroad is being laid down by Quebec Cartier Mining. It will stretch 150 miles from Shelter Bay, in the north of Quebec.
Even greater industrial expansion is foreshadowed in Saguenay by its enormous hydraulic resources. Saguenay's hydro-electric potential is calculated at 12 million horsepower.
To sum up, Mr. Chairman, we can say that the various companies have invested capital of at least a billion dollars so far, and economists assure us that, by 1970, companies' investments in Saguenay will exceed two billions.
It will be noted that the various companies operating in the Saguenay did not allow the constituency's development to be contingent upon federal aid in transport; these private undertakings went ahead with their own capital to build harbours, airports and railroads.
But I think, Mr. Chairman, that it is now up to the federal government to show its good will by improving our transport facilities. Indeed, the companies in Saguenay are confronted with a serious problem, namely, winter transport. Navigation in winter has become most difficult, regardless of all the aid from the federal government.
Consequently, heavy industry is forced to stockpile an enormous amount both of its production and of material needed for production. The same problem applies to small industry and trade. Businessmen must accordingly invest considerable amounts in the fall, so as to have the necessary material on hand for the winter.

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Mr. Chairman, there is only one adequate solution to our transport problems, and that is to build a railroad from Seven Islands to Quebec. But I know that a responsible government must be sure that such a project will be self-liquidating before it can contemplate the enormous investments required for railroad construction.
In this connection, Mr. Chairman, I would draw special attention to the excellent brief submitted by the chamber of commerce of Baie Comeau to the royal commission on Canada's economic prospects.
This brief contains all the necessary information to prove conclusively that not only would a railroad in Saguenay be a good proposition, but that it should also compensate for some of the deficits which the Canadian National Railways have in other areas.
In conclusion, I would like to quote an extract from this brief.
(Text):
An active and insistent group with the formidable title of "Comite du Chemin de Fer Chambre de Commerce du District de Baie Comeau" have been making studies of the possible rail routes and have met with Mr. Marler recently on this subject. We will quote the extracts from the report of our committee drawn up November 5, 1955. Certainly the question of the construction and economic prospects for a railway along the north shore should be given serious and immediate study by our federal government. Such a railway line, we believe, would be of national value to our great dominion with its growing importance, responsibilities and new sources of danger.
Our committee reports as follows: In view of the growth which is taking place in this section of the Saguenay and north shore region and the wealth of potential resources available for future development, it is important that consideration be given to supplying year-round transportation facilities in the form of a railroad.
While it is impossible for us to provide estimates of the present profitability of a railway line, joining present C.N.R. facilities and extending to Baie Comeau and Seven Islands, it is apparent such a rail line should be built in the general interest of Canada. We believe that there is sufficient assurance of future development in this area to merit such action.
...Any railroad can only be profitable if the freight traffic to warrant its construction and operation is available. The Minister of Transport mentioned a minimum of 500,000 tons a year would be required to warrant such a venture. Our committee is presently working on preliminary estimates and these are not yet complete; however, the first large item which we would be certain of is the movement of at least 100,000 cords of railed pulpwood which amounts to 250,000 tons to start with. There is merchandise, construction supplies and equipment, pulp and paper machinery and products, mining machinery and products, army, navy and air force requirements. With a population of 100,000 people, which we will realize in a very short time, and rapid and increasing flow of raw and manufactured or semi-manufactured materials, we believe the north shore and Labrador will load much more freight on a railway each year than you Will
[Mr. LaRue.j
find on some of the railways above enumerated which have been recently undertaken by the C.N.R. We count on your commission to draw to the attention of our government the need for ah immediate and serious study of our railway problem.


Mr. McGrath:: Mr. Chairman, I have a few matters I should like to bring to the attention of the minister at this time, and I do so in the knowledge that the Department of Transport which administers the Canadian National Railways has a great responsibility in the province of Newfoundland because the C.N.R. is practically our sole means of transportation there. Consequently I should like to bring a few points pertaining to transportation, particularly as they apply to the C.N.R., to the attention of the minister.
We all welcomed the announcement made by the minister to the effect that the long awaited arrival of the ferry William Carson was now an accomplished fact and that she had sailed into Port aux Basques harbour on a trial run. I do not intend to comment on this controversial vessel. All I should like to say is that I hope the minister later on in this discussion of his estimates will be able to tell the committee what are the results of that trial run, and also when the William Carson will be able to operate to Port aux Basques as she was intended.
During the time when further repairs and alterations were being made at Port aux Basques this vessel plied between North Sydney, Nova Scotia, and Argentia in the eastern part of Newfoundland. This fact lends emphasis to the following important point. As yet the province of Newfoundland does not have an adequate system of roads. No doubt some hon. members will be surprised to learn that it is impossible to drive from east to west in Newfoundland. Therefore the following question naturally arises. With the advent of this automobile ferry service to Port aux Basques, what useful purpose will it serve? I submit it will be many years before this vessel can operate as she was intended to operate, carrying automobiles from Nova Scotia to Newfoundland, because if she does go to Port aux Basques there are virtually no highways to take the automobiles across the province.
With that in mind I should like to point out the need for a ferry to ply between the eastern part of Newfoundland and Nova Scotia on the mainland of Canada. The Avalon peninsula is practically an island in itself. Two-thirds of the population of Newfoundland are domiciled there, and much of the industry in that

province is located there. Indeed, there is a great need for some means of communication between this peninsula and the province of Nova Scotia, in order that our people may communicate directly and freely with the rest of Canada.
I would hope that the minister, his department and particularly the Canadian National Railways will give consideration to the following request. If it proves that the William Carson cannot operate effectively to Port aux Basques, I hope consideration will be given to providing facilities at Argentia in the Avalon peninsula of Newfoundland so the vessel could operate as a car ferry to the eastern part of the province.
I have been concerned about the attitude of the C.N.R. with regard to Newfoundland, because whenever hon. members of this house representing Newfoundland have approached the Department of Transport or the railway concerning badly needed improvements they have been met with the attitude that such improvements would not be profitable. I submit it should not be a question of profit. The C.N.R. is the only means of transportation on the island of Newfoundland; consequently I believe it has a grave responsibility to the people of that province. Profit should be only a secondary consideration, and service should be placed above all else.
I noted with interest the comments of the minister to the effect that provision was made in his estimates for the construction of an auto ferry to ply between Portugal Cove and Bell island in my constituency. This is a very important island in the province of Newfoundland which for many years has carried on under a most inadequate system of transportation. Frequently the ferry service as it presently exists did not function at all.
When this new boat is put into operation I would ask the minister and his deputy to give consideration to extending Canadian National express services to Bell island. That island has a population of approximately 10,000 people and is the site of a great iron ore mine, one of Newfoundlands chief industries. The people there should have the benefit of Canadian National express service. At the present time they are treated the same as the residents of the city of St. John's, and they operate under the same regulations. If a Bell island businessman or resident receives goods via Canadian National express he has only 48 hours to go
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to the express office in St. John's and claim his goods. If he does not reach the office within that period he is penalized. On the surface it would appear a simple matter, but for a resident of Bell island to reach St. John's he must cross a stretch of water which consumes 30 minutes of his time. In all about an hour is required to make the trip because the present ferry service does not operate on schedule.
Representations have been made to the department and to the railway on this important subject. I ask the minister to bring pressure to bear on the C.N.R. with a view to seeing whether it is feasible to establish a suboffice of the Canadian National express on Bell island so the local people will have the same advantages that are enjoyed by people in St. John's.
The other point I should like to make has to do with Torbay airport. A new terminal building is currently under construction there, and I understand that the official opening will possibly take place next month. In that connection I would emphasize the need for an alternate air strip. Torbay airport was built during the war as a military air field, and I am afraid very little consideration was given to the location of that air strip because flying conditions there are not always what they should be. As a matter of fact Torbay airport is closed in a lot more than it should be. About 30 or 35 miles from the site of the present airport at Torbay excellent flying conditions can be found, and the terrain lends itself to the building of an alternate air strip.
This is very important in view of the importance to my province, and to the city of St. John's particularly, of Trans-Canada Air Lines. With no road system so people can drive their cars across the province, and with no car ferry on which to put their cars in order to go to Nova Scotia, the people are practically wholly dependent on Trans-Canada Air Lines. Consequently it is a very serious handicap when Torbay airport is closed in for as much as a week at a time, as it sometimes is. I would ask the minister to give this matter serious consideration.
Finally, I should like to express my gratitude to the Minister of Transport for the great personal interest he has taken in matters pertaining to my province. There are many accomplishments which can be directly attributed to the minister, not the least of which is the building of the new car ferry for Bell

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island. I hope his record will continue to be one of good service to the province of Newfoundland, and I hope the recommendations I have made this afternoon will merit his consideration.


Jean-Paul Deschatelets: 
Mr. Fisher:: The minister's introductory statement, which he made last night, contained two paragraphs which were devoted to the question of pilotage. I note that he said:
We expect in the coming months to send a special team of officials to our pilotage districts to hold discussions with the pilots themselves and other interested parties or groups in an effort to ensure that existing problems are not overlooked, and that we are doing our best to provide a proper atmosphere for the operation of pilotage.
The question immediately comes to my mind, why did the minister not do this long ago? We have had a dispute on the lakes -I know it appears a small matter affecting the livelihood of only some 40 Canadians- but why was this step not taken some time ago? However, he went on in his statement:
Special problems relating to the Kingston and the great lakes area will involve further discussions with the United States, as a result of construction of the seaway. At the moment, our objective is to provide a balanced framework within which pilotage may operate in the mutual interest of both shipping and pilots. Pilotage dues now represent a substantial cost to shipping-
I think we need to interpolate right here that pilotage dues do not represent a substantial cost to United States or Canadian ships within the great lakes system. I doubt very much that pilotage dues represent a substantial cost, because if you divide the cost of pilotage into the total tonnage carried by foreign ships I do not believe you would find it a terrific burden. Then the minister went on:
-and we will seek to avoid a situation in which this becomes so expensive as to injure shipping itself while, at the same time, ensuring the proper standard of working conditions for pilots.
When we were considering these estimates in the standing committee, the minister was very blunt in answering some points I tried to make. As a matter of fact he received considerable applause from most of the government members on that committee when he came out with the forthright statement that we did not care what the United States thought about this, Canada was going to set its pilotage policy on its own. I can certainly understand why the minister made that statement in the particular way he did, but it seems to me it overlooks, in its sharpness, the realities of the situation, because the minister in his statement said it involves further discussions with the United States. The minister's answer in the committee ignored the fact we have to co-operate with the United States just as they have to cooperate with us. There can be no throat-slitting by either party in this regard.
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As I interpret the situation, it seems we have a lock-out or a strike, whatever you want to call it, and some 40 Canadian pilots who formerly made their living by piloting foreign ships in great lakes waters are out of work. Most of these pilots picked up their ships around Kingston and went on from there. As of last year they dealt with the shipping federation of Canada on a sort of temporary basis. The shipping federation of Canada is not a federation of Canadian shipping interests, it is really a committee representing foreign ship owners. The pilots formed themselves into an association and made arrangements with the United States association or union representing the masters and mates, to approach the whole seaway problem together from the pilots' point of view.
When it came time to renew the contract for this year with the shipping federation of Canada, the shipping federation turned down any negotiations on the demands of the pilots and informed them they were going to set up their own pilotage district between Port Weller and Sarnia. The shipping federation said they would not need pilots on any other part of the great lakes system. The deputy minister of transport, I understand, informed the shipping federation of Canada that it had no authority to set up a pilotage district and tried, along with the minister, to bring the shipping federation and the pilots together in some sort of colloquy to settle their problems.
The pilots have informed me that they have always been willing to go to such a meeting, either under the aegis of the minister now before us or the Minister of Labour. The shipping federation has refused to deal with this particular case. I have asked to have tabled the correspondence between the department and the shipping federation and with the dominion marine association, which is the third interested group. I had hoped to have that correspondence available today so I would have a better idea of the opinions exchanged between the ministry and these organizations.
The Canadian pilots had hopes that legislation which was passed by the United States House of Representatives and was before the Senate would win them back their jobs. It was expected that this legislation would become effective this fall. During what I understand was the last committee meeting to be held on this particular legislation the chairman of the committee, Senator Magnuson, announced that the state department, which

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interposed no objection during the house consideration, telephoned him to urge delay because of opposition by the Canadian government.
In effect, therefore, this is one example where a Canadian protest had some result, unlike the Premium Iron Ores case where the Canadian protest seems to have been ignored. Our government, acting on the advice of the Minister of Transport, has blocked some United States legislation which indirectly would have had a beneficent effect on our own pilots; that is the way I interpret it. Perhaps I interpret it wrongly. I know that was not the consideration in the mind of the minister. I think he was undoubtedly pressing the point of view of the Canadian shipping federation, perhaps not deliberately because I suppose they are coincidental, with the emphasis upon the high cost of pilotage which may put tremendous burdens upon transportation costs and upset our whole dream of cheap shipping through having foreign bottoms come into the great lakes.
This is all very well as an argument, but we have to consider what is going to happen to Canadian shipping and Canadian pilots in this regard. What were the reasons for the anxiety of the United States, especially the United States coastguard, to go ahead with this particular bill, which the Canadian government managed to hold up temporarily? The emphasis in the United States bill was, I know, on safety and security and to have on foreign ships at all times in this very expensive seaway system pilots who had been screened both for ability and for loyalty.
As a result of the Canadian government's action in killing this bill, there are a couple of other possibilities looming up. One possibility is that each individual state along the great lakes will be able to write its own legislation so far as pilotage is concerned. We could get into a situation where Governor Harriman in New York could require a Canadian pilot to get off a ship going through that part of the canal and a United States pilot would take the ship through until it got back into the river. We know that sort of thing is probably nonsense, but the point I want to emphasize is that each of the states has retaliatory power if it wants to use it.
I underline the fact that we need an agreement with the United States on the federal level which will take all these factors into consideration. What I am afraid of is that the government, in its present ignorance, is going to be pushing strongly the interests of foreign shipping rather than, let us say, the interests of our Canadian pilots and the mutual interest they have with the United

States pilots. I feel also that the government may be missing the safety factor.
I should like to read to the committee, Mr. Chairman, part of a statement by Captain John Bishop, international secretary treasurer of the international organization of masters, mates and pilots, in support of this bill No. S-2096 of the United States House of Representatives, which was blocked in the Senate by our government's action. I read this in order not to back up his position completely but just to put on record the American side of opinions, which opinions are held by our great lakes pilots and held with sincerity. Captain Bishop said:
I am appearing today in support of S-2906, a bill which would upon enactment, formulate a long-needed safety factor in the fast growing navigation program in the great lakes and St. Lawrence seaway area.
The present laws regarding manning by licensed officers on United States and Canadian vessels provides for sufficient qualified personnel, licensed by the appropriate agency of the countries mentioned. However, the fact remains that foreign vessels are not required by law to provide for competent and qualified personnel to pilot their vessels in the area under consideration and covered by the provisions of this bill. The fact that this situation exists, certainly indicates that no matter how proficient and qualified the American or Canadian pilot may be in the execution of his duties, complications will arise over which he has no control.
It may be readily seen that a hazardous situation will exist when, during each such an ordinary event as the passing of two vessels, where one being piloted by a thoroughly competent licensed pilot and the other is manned with a crew of individuals who may be making their first trip in the great lakes area and are unfamiliar with our passing signals, rules and regulations. There are even cases when communication by radiotelephone is impossible, due to the language barrier between the foreign crew or the American or Canadian crew.
Although the passenger vessel trade is small in nature as compared to the bulk and dry cargo trade on the lakes, one major catastrophe caused by the lack of properly experienced pilot personnel would prove tremendously embarrassing to the opponents of this legislation as well as a possible reflection of dereliction of duty on those charged with the safeguarding of the American public.
The reciprocal feature of the bill involving Canada provides the solution to any possible problem which may arise due to the geographic nature of the ports and channels of the seaway and the ports in the great lakes area.
The significance of proper pilotage regulation can be best indicated by the fact that in practically every seaport in the world, a pilot native to that country is required by law on entering or leaving the port or navigating in canals, rivers or other areas which may be deemed dangerous.
In other words, if I may interject here, if a Canadian ship goes into foreign ports it is going to have to have a pilot in almost every case. But we are much more generous with

our ports and our installations, at least in this government's view. Captain Bishop goes on to say:
I think the record of casualties involving vessels without the proper personnel will indicate the necessity for regulation of vessels covered by this proposed legislation.
In the interest of marine safety, it is essential that a pilot or other qualified officer direct and control vessels navigating on certain channels and rivers of the great lakes system. We further maintain that when a vessel is in the open areas of the great lakes, it would be sufficient if the pilot was on board subject to call to assume control and direct the navigation of the vessel.
One fact which we feel of equal importance is the feature of security which would be provided by the enactment of S-2096. Although the presence of an American or Canadian officer would not by any stretch of imagination stop any smuggling of contraband or narcotics into this country we feel it would be a factor which would at least slow it down, also the illegal entry of aliens could be more closely observed and reported to the proper authority.
The American officer at the present time must be screened by the United States coastguard for security and loyalty wherein a great deficiency exists on foreign flag vessels in this respect.
The safety factor for American shipping alone warrants the endorsement and support of this organization.
That statement is the United States pilots' position. In other words, they insist that safety and security are extremely important there. Our government evidently feel that those matters are not major considerations. I understand that the United States coastguard helped to prepare the bill which our government blocked. We must assume that the United States coastguard considered safety and security to be extremely important matters.
I know we must balance safety and security against cost. I should like the minister to tell us just what pilotage costs are in relation to the total costs of moving freight in the great lakes. One of the points I think the minister must recognize, if he knows anything about foreign ships, is that they work with practically skeleton crews compared with our own lake ships. There were foreign ships on the lakes this summer with crews as small as 10 or 11 men. Yet the minister is worried about the cost of pilotage of these ships, and evidently seems willing to present the point of view of this group of foreign ship owners that the high costs of pilotage are something about which we need to be deeply concerned.
There is one final point I wanted to make in connection with this matter. This is from a brief prepared by the great lakes pilot association, which states as follows:
The shipping federation argues that pilots are not needed on "the open waters" of the great lakes. Foreign ships propose to use-and they are now using-pilots in the Welland canal, the Detroit river and the St. Clair river. They state that they do not even wish to use pilots on lake Erie.
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The argument is completely fallacious. The so-called "open waters" can be and often are very dangerous. There are many hazards in shallow lake Erie.
On all the lakes fog or snow can and frequently do reduce visibility. In bad weather ships are required to give many signals. Foreign shipmasters persistently give the wrong signals, not being familiar with the inland shipping rules. One foreign master, on a voyage from Toronto to Kingston early in May, 1958, admitted that he did not even have a copy of the inland rules in his possession. He, however, had been wise enough to take on a pilot at Toronto (contrary to the instructions of the federation) and was able to proceed to Kingston in heavy fog without mishap.
I understand that the departmental officials are ready to go into consultation with their United States counterparts to thresh out legislation which I understand the government is considering bringing in next session, and which one would understand the United States congress would pass some time next year. Their session starts in January. Probably it would become law by the middle of next summer. In other words, in the next few months there is to be a threshing out of this whole problem on an interdepartmental basis between Canada and United States officials.
I should like to suggest to the minister that in these discussions his officials take a bit more broadminded look at the proposals the Americans have than he seems to have indicated in his reply in committee. I sincerely believe that the arguments of the pilots' association, as far as security and safety are concerned, are extremely important. The arguments that he put so strongly and the propaganda the ship owners put so strongly, namely this whole idea of "feather-bunking" and "we are not having the United States union dictate our set-up in Canada", I think are rather emotional arguments that are advanced by people who do not have a very sound position.
I should like the minister to look into the matter personally just in order to see how powerful a factor the pilotage costs are in the total cost of materials being moved on this great lakes seaway. I should like to have some idea in terms both of percentage of the cost and also percentage of the cost in relation to wages that are paid on the ships that are moving the material.
In conclusion on this particular point may I say this. The United States coastguard has a rather remarkable reputation that has been improving, I would say, until it stands in many Americans' minds almost on a par with their practically worshipped United States marines. I do not know whether the United States coastguard is entitled to the high reputation it has, but if there is any merit at all in this high reputation then there must be a great deal of merit in the

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proposals which have been made and which were embodied in that United States bill which our government has blocked. I would like the discussions to take place with a recognition on the part of this government that these men are not fools and that they do not resent this legislation which is nothing more than the backing up of the pettifogging of some United States unions, but that there is much more to it than that.


Mr. Smith (Calgary South):: As I do not
wish to prolong this discussion, I will omit the usual congratulations to the minister because I will congratulate him at a later date. I just wish to introduce a subject which is not a matter with which he is altogether unfamiliar and this also applies to his deputy minister. Rather than going over the same old ground again, I hope to present a solution to what has become a most difficult problem, not for any particular region but for the whole of Canada.
I refer to what we normally call the bilateral agreement between Canada and the United States on air transportation routes. Until recently we have been one of those countries interested in the opening of bilateral negotiations but we now find ourselves in a position, particularly with respect to the United States of America, which involves matters which are the concern of the Department of Citizenship and Immigration and the Department of External Affairs. Until the past few months it did look as though Canada and the United States were going to be able to sit down at something less than a summit conference to discuss how the international agreement has been affected by changed circumstances since it was amended in 1951 and the fact that there are areas in both countries which are not receiving the type of services which the various communities involved require.
As an example, in the city from which I come there is absolutely no north-south connection and we know that various congressmen and senators in the United States have been more than interested in seeing that a particular airline should be granted rights by the United States administration to land in Calgary but that we have run up against an impasse. This impasse does not constitute something peculiar to the present administration because it dates back almost 10 years, but neither government has been able to move ahead in connection with this agreement because of certain differences between them.
This is the past history and today we find ourselves in the situation where the United States, just as recently as a month ago, indicated they were prepared to re-negotiate
IMr. Fisher.]
the bilateral agreement between the two countries which we had hoped would eventually lead to better and a greater number of routes for both countries. We now find that there is an objection raised by the United States with respect to the landing of transports carrying immigrants from Europe to Canada and this objection has prevented the discussion of the agreement at the top level.
I want to suggest to the minister a solution. First of all, in the event that the United States continues to insist that this question of immigrants should hold up the discussion of the bilateral agreement, I suggest this is a matter which could be referred to the cabinet committees recently set up by Prime Minister Diefenbaker and President Eisenhower or, failing that, that the subject matter could be discussed by the proposed committee to be established between the legislatures of the two countries. I am suggesting that the question of immigration and where these immigrants are to be picked up and whether or not they are to first land in the United States and from there journey to Canada, is not a matter which should affect an international air agreement such as this one. I say this particularly in view of the fact that this agreement can help to a very large extent to develop air routes between the two countries.
If that suggestion is not acceptable I believe that if the United States and Canada still cannot come to any agreement because of this problem then it is in the interests of Canada to permit unilateral discussions to take place. I believe that it does not perhaps require a formal agreement between our countries, but perhaps could be dealt with on a purely limited basis involving, for instance, an amendment to the charter to provide Canada with landing rights for a particular airline which I have mentioned, so that it may utilize the facilities in the city of Calgary which, as I have said, is completely without a north-south connection. I realize that this presents difficulties and I have now reduced it to a local rather than a national problem, but I am sure that those who have travelled across Canada will agree with me when I say that when one considers any Canadian city having a population of over a quarter of a million people, when one considers our citizens are not permitted the advantage of a direct route for flights to the United States, when one considers the centre of the petroleum industry which has one company alone making 235 flights a year for which it must operate its own airline, he has to realize the urgency which, although admittedly it has existed for six years, is becoming more extreme every day.
I am not speaking of any particular government but refer to the governments of

both countries when I say it is time we should stop hiding behind what has really become a technicality which is preventing us from carrying on these discussions. When I have broached the subject to the minister or to his deputy I have received nothing but courtesy, but I am reaching the point where I believe the discussions are going to have to take place. These considerations preventing us from re-opening negotiations on this bilateral agreement must be dealt with entirely separately and the question of immigration particularly should be considered on its own merits. I do hope the minister will find an opportunity to reply to this suggestion.


William Hector McMillan: Living as I do at the top
of the Niagara escarpment at the site of the twin locks of the Welland ship canal, I have had more to do with the Department of Transport than with any other department of government. Like the hon. member for Laurier I congratulate the minister on his appointment to one of the most important, and I think the most interesting, government portfolios, and I would also pay tribute to the officers and employees in his department who have always given to me and to my problems every consideration.
I think the minister is doing a very good job and I have never thought he was overstaffed except perhaps at one time, and that was during last March, when I thought at least in my area there were more employees on the Welland canal, or there seemed to be more employees there, than there were shovels or tools for them to use. However, that situation was soon corrected and I hope the minister will still take the same keen interest in the number of unemployed in my area as he showed at that time.
The ministers of transport have always taken great interest in the Welland ship canal. At the time of my first election the hon. member for Laurier, who was then minister of transport, came to my constituency and later the Hon. Mr. Marler was down there and at the last election the present minister showed up there.


Lionel Chevrier: But not for the same reason.


William Hector McMillan: Not for exactly the same reasons, at any rate. Some of his supporters told me that the present minister had a smile on his face when he told the people in Welland that they should elect a Conservative because the Conservatives always looked after their constituents better than did the Liberals-


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


William Hector McMillan: -and always paid more attention to everything that was going on in the house.
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I would think that probably this is an invitation to members on this side at least to go over his estimates with a fine tooth comb on this particularly occasion and to give his department more than just passing attention. He also told an audience in Welland that if they would only elect a Tory candidate that he would tell him when he came here what he would do about the overhead crossings across the Welland canal. I know the minister is honest, and that he had no plans about the crossings over the canal, because on the orders of the day I have asked him about them since and he has admitted that he has had no communications from the minister of highways of Ontario about building bridges over the canal. When Premier Frost announced the planning of the construction of three toll bridges across the canal the minister seemed to be just as surprised as I was at that particular time. I hope the minister will not further try to dispense with me in this parliament. I have not much to say and very little criticism to make of his department. '
I regret indeed to see the Department of Transport handing over the operation of the canal to the St. Lawrence seaway authority. These canals have always been operated with efficiency by the Department of Transport and I know that the employees of the Welland ship canal at least will not hail these changes with any degree of satisfaction. I hope that these efficient, trustworthy and loyal employees will be remembered and that they will continue to have their seniority and pension rights.
In connection with the approaches to the canal crossings at Welland, Port Colborne and other centres of population there is much annoyance and inconvenience caused by the holding up of traffic. This applies also on the Queen Elizabeth way. I hope the minister will give every co-operation to the department of highways of Ontario with respect to the problem of the congestion at these bridges and their approaches.
The agreement between this government and the municipalities of St. Catharines, Mer-ritton and Thorold regarding the old Welland canal rehabilitation and clean-up has been finalized and I would like to ask the minister when this work will get under way. There are a good many unemployed in this area, and if the minister would only co-operate I could send him many men to help along with this work.
The hon. member for Port Arthur brought up the question of the dispute between the shipping federation of Canada and the great lakes pilots association over the use of pilots on ocean-going boats in our great lakes system. I have received many letters from people interested in this and I was glad to

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hear the minister say he would send somebody down to contact the pilots and other people who are interested. I note that the department has no present authority to require pilots on boats on the great lakes system and that it has informed the shipping federation that it could arrange, or had the right to arrange, for pilotage on its own behalf for ships of its members in the area from Port Weller to Sarnia. There was one statement that the department did not want to give the impression that this was a scheme approved by the department.
I should like to ask the minister if he has evolved any scheme to deal with this. I should also like to ask him if in his own words of July 1st it is his conviction and the conviction of the department that to impose pilotage fees upon shippers where pilots are not necessary-and I take it he thinks they are not necessary in the open lakes- amounts to imposing an extra and unnecessary burden on shipping charges generally which must be borne eventually by the consuming public. I should like to ask the minister, also, if the masters who are piloting ships of the shipping federation of Canada from Port Weller to Sarnia and back are fully qualified. I should further like to ask the minister if the communication system belonging to the Department of Transport on the Welland ship canal is being utilized by the ships to contact pilots other than those belonging to the great lakes pilots association.
The pilots of this association are well trained and responsible men and I understand that they hold certificates from the Department of Transport. I should like to see the Department of Transport try to compose the differences between these pilots, their association and the foreign ships.
I hope the department can arrange some satisfactory agreement because these men are well trained. They are experts and they have been off work most of the summer. I suppose we may expect some legislation at the next session of parliament if similar legislation goes through congress and I can say here that the pilots themselves think that this government is taking the side of the shipping federation of Canada. I do not know whether that is so or not; I am just saying that that is their impression.
There are two other questions I should like to ask the minister at this time. Will the St. Lawrence seaway and the Welland ship canal be turned over to the St. Lawrence seaway authority by order in council, and has any action been taken in this regard. I should also like to ask a question in connection with tolls. I notice that the hon. member for Lincoln brought up the matter of

tolls and said he was against tolls on the Welland canal. I have often spoken in this house on the same subject, expressing myself against tolls on the Welland ship canal. However, it seems likely that tolls will be applied. That is the last information I have been able to obtain. In these circumstances I should like to know if these tolls will be applied by order in council or if they will be brought before parliament so that we may have a chance to discuss them next year before the opening of navigation.


Mr. Chambers;: Mr. Chairman, I should like to join other hon. members who have offered congratulations to the minister on the efficiency of his department and on the very fair attitude which his officials have taken with regard to questions of local interest which are brought before him.
I should like to say a few words this afternoon on the subject of some of the facilities maintained by the department in the Montreal area. I was very happy to hear the minister's statement this morning with regard to air conditioning at Montreal airport in reply to a question by the hon. member for Cartier. The minister will remember that I, along with others, spoke to him privately about this matter, and we are very glad to hear that further consideration is to be given to it. Of course, we hope that results will be favourable for the airport.
The Montreal research council, which is a body sponsored by McGill University, has made a very thorough investigation and brought out a report concerning the impact of the St. Lawrence seaway on the Montreal area. I am sure the minister and his officials have received copies of this report and no doubt have studied the recommendations made but I should like to place some of the recommendations on the record at this time because with the opening of the seaway which is imminent will come a time of crisis for the port of Montreal. Since Canada became an active trading nation the port of Montreal has been the most important port in the country and the effect of the seaway on this port will depend to a large extent on how well plans have been laid by the federal, provincial and civic governments. I do not wish to dwell at great length on the detail of how these recommendations were arrived at but I should like to emphasize to hon. members that the group that made the investigation was a large one and took a considerable amount of time in conducting the study. The recommendations of that body are well worth consideration by the department where they apply to the federal government.

I should like first to read from some of the general conclusions contained in the report:
Stripped of qualifications and refinements, this study suggests that the seaway is likely to confer substantial economic benefits on the Montreal area's traffic in grain, coal and iron ore; that little or no change is to be expected in the volume of local petroleum traffic; that the port may well incur significant losses in general cargo business handled; and that the seaway stimulus to industrial location in Montreal is not likely to be of major proportions. In short, the local pattern for the future is a mixed one, precluding any simple estimate of net seaway effect.
It is pointed out in the paragraph above that there is an expectation of increased grain traffic and the department has already instituted some of the improvements in the grain facilities in Montreal that will be required. I should like now to turn to the subject of ore. The section on ore contains the following conclusion:
The post-seaway outlook presents difficulties, however. Any substantial rise in local tonnage of imported ore will be contingent, to a considerable extent, on the expansion of Montreal's handling facilities. While existing dock space, water depth and storage capacity are generally quite adequate for future needs, this is not so in the case of the rate of discharge. And the problem here will be further accentuated when transshipment is made directly into upper lakers with a carrying capacity roughly equal to that of the ocean ore vessels. In short, the greatest priority attaches to those improvements which will increase the speed of turn-round of bulk carriers in Montreal harbour.
As I mentioned when reading the general conclusions, general cargo is the field in which Montreal must expect to lose. General cargo, of course, is that part of the port business that provides the greatest proportion of employment. The amount of general cargo we will lose will be dependent on the facilities available in the harbour. I should like to quote the conclusion contained in the report in regard to general cargo facilities:
In common with most established ports, however, the bulk of Montreal's facilities were constructed many years ago, and consequently, under present-day conditions, considerable strain on these facilities is apparent. The trucking industry, for example, complains of serious traffic congestion on the harbour front, and of antiquated transit sheds which do not permit the most efficient handling of goods.
And further:
It should be added that improvement of these general cargo facilities is currently under way in Montreal. For example, the federal government is building four transit sheds which will extend the port's shed floor area by nearly 300,000 square feet. However, there would appear to be a substantial need for further expansion and improvement of general cargo facilities in the Montreal area.
In common with other hon. members of the committee from the Montreal area I am extremely concerned that everything possible be done so that in those areas where Montreal may expect to be hurt by the opening of the
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seaway the impact shall be as minor as possible and therefore I wanted to read these recommendations into the record for the consideration of the minister and his officials.
I should like to add an additional thought in connection with traffic in the area of the Montreal harbour which is a very congested area. With the developing trend of shipping by truck rather than by railroad the port will be at a great disadvantage if there is not a great improvement in the traffic situation in and around the harbour so that trucking firms will be willing at reasonable rates to take on cargo from shipping in the harbour. I realize that for the most part this problem is a civic one. Nevertheless there is a considerable mileage of roads in that area under the jurisdiction of the Department of Transport. The suggestion has been made that a through-way established along the harbour front which would in part pass over the national harbours' board property would be of great advantage. I hope that in consultation with the civic authorities there the department will give sympathetic consideration to co-operation both with regard to allowing use of the department's land and with regard to financing with a view to providing a modern highway system in that area so that not only private cars but more particularly trucking facilities can get in and out of the harbour area quickly and with a minimum of delay.
(Translation):


Mr. Rouleau:: Mr. Chairman, on August 15 last, following a report which appeared in the Star of August 13 and another report which appeared on August 14, I directed a question to the Minister of Transport (Mr. Hees) as to whether air conditioning would be provided at the new Dorval airport. I was very glad to hear the hon. minister this morning inform the hon. member for Cartier (Mr. Crestohl) that he would take into serious consideration the representations made and that he would soon make another statement in the house, which, if I understood him well, would satisfy everybody. I am very happy to see that the minister has decided to reconsider his decision and I sincerely hope that he will see fit to go ahead with and put in air conditioning in that important building.
Now, Mr. Chairman, I come to another subject with which I have often dealt in this house, that is the provision of adequate protection at level crossings throughout the country.
On June 28, 1955, parliament enacted an amendment to the Railway Act to allow the

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federal government to contribute 60 per cent of the cost of construction of adequate protection at level crossings, up to a maximum of $300,000. This year the federal government has decided to amend again this act and raise its contribution to 80 per cent, up to a maximum of $500,000. It is another step in the right direction.
When we think of the number of lives lost throughout the country because of inadequate protection at level crossings, we realize that the expenses necessary to ensure adequate protection at such crossings are insignificant. Taking into account the number of lives lost and the money spent each year to protect human lives, prevent accidents and safeguard the health of Canadians, I believe that the amounts spent for the protection of people at level crossings are not wasted.
If we think also about the difficult situation in which the municipalities have found themselves these last years on account of the expenses they incurred in connection with level crossings, we must realize that the federal government, as well as the provincial governments, must do something to help them.
Both during the last electoral campaign and the preceding one, a promise was made that the federal, provincial and municipal authorities would be brought into a conference with a view to helping our municipalities. That is another promise which the Conservative government has not yet fulfilled. However, the fact that this government intends to help the municipalities by paying 80 per cent of the cost of construction of means of protection at level crossings is something that will help the municipalities.
Following my election as member for Dollard and during the first session, I had the opportunity of pointing out here that there were in the constituency of Dollard, and more particularly in Ville St. Laurent, several railway crossings about which the federal government should do something in order to protect human lives. In some cases, I met with some success. I shall mention only one, because during the last election campaign, the official Conservative candidate in the constituency of Dollard, his worship mayor Cousineau-and I hope this will not be too displeasing to the hon. member for Joliette-L'Assomption-Montcalm, Mr. Pigeon-had promised, in his electoral program, as published in the newspaper I'tcho de Dollard:
My dear friends,
The day of reckoning is at hand. It will then be time to decide who is going to represent us in Ottawa, in the forthcoming administration.

Briefly, I would favour, in addition to the articles of my party's platform, the following measures:
Among other things, Mr. Cousineau said:
Adequate protection at railway crossings in the constituency of Dollard.
Well, Mr. Chairman, I did not wait for the mayor of Ville St. Laurent, the Conservative candidate in the constituency of Dollard, to serve the people of my constituency and more particularly that of Ville St. Laurent. As I said a moment ago, at my first session here, I made representations to the then minister of transport, Mr. Chevrier, now member for Laurier, and in some cases I obtained the protection I was asking in regard to railway crossings.
In fact, on March 1, 1956, I received a letter from Mr. Henri A. Dore, chairman of the Property Owners' Association of Northeastern St. Laurent, in which he thanked me for the work I had done in order to obtain what I had asked, and I will quote only one passage:
Dear Sir,
The automatic signals at the railway crossing of Cote Vertu, in Ville St. Laurent, have been in operation since February 6 last, as you had forecast in your last letter.
Well, Mr. Chairman, it is certainly not the Conservative candidate who was running in the last election, who obtained that protection at the Cote Vertu railway crossing; in fact, it was done even before he decided to be a parliamentary candidate.


Louis-Joseph Pigeon: If Mr. Cousineau had been elected, he would-
(Text):


Guy Rouleau: Mr. Chairman, would you be kind enough to have the hon. gentleman keep his mouth shut? I know he likes to talk a great deal.


The Acting Chairman (Mr. Chown):: Order. If the hon. member wishes to ask a question he can address his request to the member who has the floor. If that member consents to answer such a question the hon. member may go ahead and do so, but I do not think other interruptions should be made while the hon. member for Dollard has the floor.
(Translation) :


Guy Rouleau: Mr. Chairman, the hon. member who has just interjected likes to rise all the time when others are speaking. I strongly suggest to him to speak after the others are through. I know how fond he is of taking the floor and we on this side, like hearing him; we, on the opposition side, are not the

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ones who will make trouble for him; his colleagues on the government side will take care of that.
Mr. Chairman, on several occasions I urged in this house the construction of an underpass on Decarie boulevard at the C.N.R. crossing, in Ville St. Laurent. Once again, I did not wait for any pressure from his worship mayor Cousineau, Conservative candidate at the last election, to make representations in this house to the then minister of transport (Mr. Chevrier) and, later on, to the hon. George Marler. This is confirmed by the fact that, on August 13, 1956, the present Postmaster General (Mr. Hamilton), then private member for Notre Dame de Grace, said, following representations I had made:
(Text):
Let me turn now to a few events of local interest in Montreal. I should like to join my voice to that of the hon. member for Dollard. when he gets around to it, in suggesting that there be an underpass constructed, and that very shortly, on Decarie boulevard north.
(Translation):
This is another proof, Mr. Chairman, that I did not wait until his worship, mayor Cousineau, who was Conservative candidate during the last election, would urge me to make some representations in this house and to the Board of Transport Commissioners. I constantly gave adequate attention to all railway crossings in Ville St. Laurent and, as I said, I particularly dealt with the underpass on Decarie boulevard, because I know that the city of St. Laurent alone would not have the necessary means to undertake such a project which would cost $600,000. Thanks to the steps we took on various occasions, we obtained in very clear terms the department's consent to build this underpass, and I know that the Board of Transport Commissioners are ready to issue an order in the matter.
The Board of Transport Commissioners, like the C.N.R., are ready to proceed with this underpass.
On February 12, 1957, the Board of Trans-the interested parties on the building of this port Commissioners met in Montreal to hear underpass. The town of St. Laurent, the Canadian National Railway, the Bell Telephone Company and the Montreal Transportation Commission were present at that meeting. All parties concerned were in favour of the project.
Mr. MacDougall, representing the Canadian National Railways, said, as can be read on page 452 of the record of that investigation, and I quote:
(Text):
We are anxious to do anything we can to accommodate the board and our friends in the city of St. Laurent. We have no wish to be obstructionists in the matter in any way at all.
(Translation):
On the other hand, Mr. Letourneau, representing the Montreal Transportation Commission, said, as can be seen on page 449 of the same report the following words:
(Text):
-we will do our utmost to help the board in every way we can or it can be suggested to us.
(Translation):
So as to implement the project under consideration. However, the same Mr. Letourneau, representing Montreal Transportation Commission, pointed out, as can be read on page 448 of the report:
(Text):
-but I am just wondering whether the town of St. Laurent can do that there because that is our private property. That street belongs to us. That is not public property but it belongs to us. We merely gave a right of servitude to the town of St. Laurent.
(Translation):
While the commissioners were ready to hear the case, the authorities of Ville St. Laurent found that the street on which it was proposed to build the underpass did not belong to the town but to the Montreal Transportation Commission. And to conclude the investigation, the chairman of the commission, at the time of the investigation, asked the parties concerned, that is the town of Ville St. Laurent and Montreal Transportation Commission to come to an agreement before proceeding, so as to allow the building of an underpass on Decarie boulevard at Ville St. Laurent.
But what happened then? The Board of Transport Commissioners of Canada and the Canadian National Railways were both anxious to go ahead with the project. They wrote on several occasions to the lawyer representing the authorities of Ville St. Laurent. They even wrote to his worship the mayor, Conservative candidate during the last election, asking him whether an attempt had been made to reach an agreement with the Montreal Transportation Commission, before a start could be made on the construction of that underpass on Decarie boulevard, which is urgently needed because of the great number of accidents which happened there.
Well, following the investigation made in Montreal, considerable correspondence was exchanged between the authorities concerned. I will quote but a few passages of that correspondence to show that, if that project has

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not been completed, it is the fault of mayor Cousineau who, during the last election campaign, promised that the matter of the underpass would at last be settled, although I had been working on it since 1953.
On May 17, 1957, the Board of Transport Commissioners of Canada through its secretary, Mr. Rump, wrote to the solicitors of the municipality of St. Laurent.
Mr. Chairman, I am sorry I do not have this information here, but in that letter Mr. Rump asked the municipal authorities of St. Laurent whether an agreement had been reached between the Montreal Transportation Commission and the municipality of St. Laurent. The Board of Transport Commissioners of Canada received no answer to that letter.
Well, Mr. Chairman, I just found that letter, and another paragraph reads as follows:
During the discussion, the Montreal Tramways Company contended that they owned the street on which the petitioner-
That is the city of St. Laurent-
-plans to build a tunnel with easement allowing for the use of the street.
The case was then adjourned to allow the petitioner and the Montreal Tramways Company to reach an agreement as to property rights to the street-
Farther down, it reads:
The board now wishes to be informed of the progress concerning the matter involved, that is the matter of property rights to the land where it is planned to build the tunnel, or, in case an agreement has not been reached, what is the intention of the petitioner.
-that is the city of St. Laurent-
-concerning the expropriation procedure against the Montreal Tramways Company.
This case is still pending before the board, and it is desired to reach a final decision.
In a note sent to the secretary of the Board of Transport Commissioners of Canada, the chief engineer of the board, on December 16, 1957, said the following:
(Text):
It is evident from the C.N.R.'s letter of December 11 that they are anxious to proceed with the construction of a grade separation at the Decarie boulevard, but it is also evident that the town of St. Laurent is not moving fast on this proposal.
(Translation) :
On February 17, 1958, Mr. MacDougall, representing the Canadian National Railways, addressed the following letter to the secretary of the Board of Transport Commissioners, Mr. Rump, and I quote:
(Text):
On December 11 last I wrote to you inquiring as to the reasons why the city of St. Laurent and the Montreal transport commission are taking so long to review the plans of the Decarie boulevard grade separation which I sent to them on October 28 last. We have not heard from either the city or the commision since that time.

(Translation):
And later on, Mr. MacDougall added: (Text):
With the approach of the spring construction season we feel that this matter, now that it has been raised by the city, should not be left to drag along but should be proceeded with to a conclusion. We have told the board that we are quite prepared to bear our fair share of the cost of this matter,-
(Translation):
On February 26, 1958, Mr. Rump, secretary of the Board of Transport Commissioners of Canada, wrote again to the solicitors of the city of St. Laurent. This is what he said:
The board wants me to ask you whether you are now in a position to let us know if the municipality of Ville St. Laurent has made representations on this matter.
Plans for the proposed tunel on Decarie boulevard, prepared by the Canadian National Railways, as well as estimates of the cost of that tunnel, were forwarded to you on October 28, 1957. It seems that the municipality has had ample time to study those plans and to make its comments known to the board.
And on March 27, 1958, the secretary of the Board of Transport Commissioners of Canada wrote again, this time to the mayor of Ville St. Laurent, Mr. Maurice Cousineau. Here is this letter, in full:
This case was heard at a commission hearing and the commission believes that the matter should be pursued to the point where an order could be given authorizing the construction of grade separations.
Therefore, the commission would appreciate any comments from your municipality in answer to its letters of May 17, 1957, and February 26, 1958, forwarded to the city solicitors. Herewith copy of those letters.
The Railway Act may be amended shortly in order to increase the appropriations of the level crossings fund up to a maximum of $15,000,000. When the act has been amended, the contributions from the fund will probably be higher.
Therefore, if the city gives its approval, the commission would be willing to consider issuing an order to authorize the construction of grade separations, the matters of costs allotment and payment of a subsidy from the level crossings fund being postponed to some later date, that is until the anticipated amendment has taken effect.
The commission would therefore appreciate any comments from the city of St. Laurent on this subject as soon as possible.
And now, on May 2, 1958, Mr. MacDougall wrote another letter to Mr. Rump, secretary of the Board of Transport Commissioners of Canada. He said, among other things:
(Text):
Canadian National . . . would advise that we have no objection to the issuance of the order authorizing construction, reserving the question of apportionment of costs and the grant from the fund for future decision by the board.
A copy of this letter is being sent to the city of St. Laurent and the Montreal transportation commission.

(Translation):
Finally, on May 2, 1958, his worship, mayor Maurice Cousineau, Conservative candidate in the constituency of Dollard at the last federal election, decided at last to ask the secretary of the municipality, Mr. Lucien Toupin, to write to the Board of Transport Commissioners. I quote from the letter sent to Mr. Rump, secretary of the Board:
Dear Sir:
Following your letter addressed to his worship, mayor Maurice Cousineau, C.R., on March 27, 1958, the council, at its committee meeting on April 30, 1958, directed me to send you the following information:
1.	The council approves the revised plans of the Canadian National Railways dated October 7, 1957, which provide for a clearance of at least 30 feet between the two concrete structures, as well as the estimates to the amount of $412,900.
2.	The city of St. Laurent could not agree with the Montreal Transportation Commission which owns part of the street on that site. The M.T.C. will consent to the building of a tunnel only if the city of St. Laurent assumes the cost of replacing streetcars by buses. Together with the city of Montreal, the Metropolitan Commission of Montreal and Mount Royal, we are urging the M.T.C. to remove its car lines as soon as possible. According to the original plan the change was to have taken place only in 1960. Everything your commissioners could do in this respect would be greatly appreciated by the council of the city of St. Laurent.
One thing the mayor of Ville St. Laurent does not seem to know is that the federal government cannot interfere in municipal affairs, but that it is up to the city council to approach the Montreal Transportation Commission in order to settle the differences between this commission and the city of St. Laurent. As to the statement that the municipality of St. Laurent has communicated with the Montreal Transportation Commission, Mr. Letourneau, one of the commissioners, took it upon himself to answer in the following manner:
I have had no news from them since my letter of May 27, 1957. Under the circumstances, I cannot understand the contents of the second paragraph of the letter written by the council of Ville St. Laurent to the Transportation Commission on May 2, 1952.
In the third paragraph of his letter the clerk of the city of St. Laurent says the following:
The cost of that tunnel would be about $612,900, counting $412,900 for the structure, according to the estimates of the Canadian National Railways, and another amount of $200,000 for damages to property and changes to be made in public utilities (sewers, water mains, telephone, electricity, gas, etc.). Since the Canadian National Railways agree to pay only 15 per cent of the cost of the structure and your Commission 60 per cent, there would remain for Ville St. Laurent to pay approximately $303,225, which is much to high.
Fourthly, Ville St. Laurent would be prepared to contribute toward the construction of that tunnel a minimum of 20 per cent of the total cost which is estimated at $612,900.
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Well, Mr. Chairman, I should like to call
the Minister of Transport's attention to this last paragraph of the letter from the municipal authorities of Ville St. Laurent, in which they say that they are prepared to pay 20 per cent of the total cost of the construction which is estimated at $612,900.
I do hope that the minister will again consider this question which is of great importance not only for the residents of Ville St. Laurent and the constituency of Dollard, but also to the residents of Montreal island, who use that railway when they go out vacationing in the Laurentians.
I wanted to make this clear in so far as what went on between the Montreal Transportation Commission, the municipal authorities of Ville St. Laurent and the Board of Transport Commissioners.
During the last election campaign, Mr. Maurice Cousineau acted in bad faith,-so far as we can make out from the record,- in order to mislead the people. He attempted to make them believe that I had done nothing to settle that important problem. Now, you can well realize, in the light of that correspondence as well as of the debates of the house, that I did everything possible to settle that question. If it is not yet settled, if the underpass has not been built, whose responsibility is it? It is no fault of the member for Dollard, or of the Board of Transport Commissioners or of the federal government, which are both prepared to do their part. The one responsible for this situation is none other than the mayor of Ville St. Laurent, Mr. Maurice Cousineau.
(Text):


Mr. Morris:: Mr. Chairman, hon. members of this house will recall that throughout the single session of the 23rd parliament a resolution dealing with the greater use of Canadian ports stood in my name on the order paper of the house. It was repeated on the order paper again during this session and had reached that unlovely spot of heading the list when this house, in its wisdom, decided to forego further private members' resolutions for the balance of this session. During the debate in this house at the time we abandoned private members' resolutions the house leader assured us that I would have the opportunity to raise the matter during consideration of the estimates of the Department of Transport.
This is, Mr. Chairman, not exactly the kind of debate that I should like to have, inasmuch as hon. members representing constituencies surrounding or adjacent to ports of the national harbours board in other parts of Canada had indicated to me that they would

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warmly support the resolution which stood in my name. I am therefore hopeful, Mr. Chairman, that an opportunity will present itself at the next session of parliament for a fuller consideration of what we believe to be an important resolution. In the circumstance in which my resolution has been on the order paper for two sessions and had reached the head of the list, I wish now to speak for only a few minutes.
In consequence of the circumstances surrounding the abandonment of my resolution again this session I ask, Mr. Chairman, whether the committee will give unanimous consent to have printed in Hansard two tables prepared by the traffic branch of the national harbours board which I intended to use for purposes of debate on the resolution which was to have been supported by the hon. member for Saint John-Albert and others. These two tables I wish to have printed in Hansard with the consent of the committee so that hon. members might, during the interval between this session and the next session, contemplate the problem which attracted our attention. I shall be grateful if
I may have the unanimous consent of the committee, Mr. Chairman, for the reproduction in Hansard of these two charts, one of them dealing with exports of 19 selected groups of products to overseas countries via United States and Canadian ports, and the second dealing with total exports and imports through other than Canadian ports.


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


Gordon Campbell Chown: Order. Has the hon. member the unanimous consent of the house to have these two tables printed in Hansard?


Herbert Wilfred Herridge: How many pages of Hansard will these tables take?


Edmund Leverett Morris: I should think about two pages; a double fold and perhaps part of a single one.


Gordon Campbell Chown: Is it
agreed?


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


Edmund Leverett Morris: The tables are as follows:

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EXPORTS OF CANADIAN PRODUCE TO OVERSEAS COUNTRIES VIA THE UNITED STATES AND VIA CANADIAN PORTS

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Commodity	Via	Unit	1954	1955	1956	1957	Quantity or value	%	Quantity or value	%	Quantity or value	%	Quantity or value	%Flour of Wheat	U.S. Ports	Brl.	1,143,286	11.5	975,040	11.6	800,385	9.7	611,203	8.5Canadian Ports	8,832,616	88.5	7,422,433	88.4	7,485,391	90.3	6,621,119	91.5Total	9,975,902	100.0	8,397,473	100.0	8,285,776	100.0	7,232,322	100.0Whiskey	U.S. Ports	Pf. Gal.	292,230	32.4	340,669	37.8	297,283	36.1	229,183	26.6Canadian Ports	608,786	67.6	560,445	62.2	525,936	63.9	633,396	73.4Total	901,016	100.0	901,114	100.0	823,219	100.0	862,579	100.0Vegetable Oils	U.S. Ports	Gals.	-	-	509,913	10.4	334,893	5.5	280,801	4.4Canadian Ports	-	-	4,387,296	89.6	5,781,720	94.5	6,083,955	95.6Total	-	-	4,897,209	100.0	6,116,613	100.0	6,364,756	100.0Rubber Tires and Inner Tubes	U.S. Ports	No.	255,204	91.4	241,681	92.1	171,206	89.2	157,769	96.0Canadian Ports	24,143	8.6	20,749	7.9	20,751	10.8	25,578	14.0Total	279,347	100.0	262,430	100.0	191,957	100.0	183,347	100.0Upper Leather	U.S. Ports	Sq.ft.	5,033,357	53.8	6,122,209	53.6	6,376,342	58.6	7,617,942	56.5Canadian Ports ....	4,317,935	46.2	5,299,921	46.4	4,495,957	41.4	5,866,532	43.5Total 	9,351,292	100.0	11,422,130	100.0	10,872,299	100.0	13,484,474	100.0Meats	U.S. Ports	-	-	$1,258,990	21.6	$1,341,854	24.4 Cwt.	41,011	21.4Canadian Ports	-	-	$4,569,338	78.4	$4,151,320	75.6 Cwt.	150,868	78.6Total	-	-	$5,828,328	100.0	$5,493,174	100,0 Cwt.	191,879	100.0Milk, processed and milk preparations	U.S. Ports	Cwt.	70,295	21.3	63,702	21.8	59,405	18.1	44,041	19.0Canadian Ports	260,380	78.7	228,866	78.2	269,639	81.9	187,711	8i.o;Total	330,675	100.0	292,568	100.0	329,044	100.0	231,752	100.0'Rolling Mill Products, N.O.P	U.S. Ports	$	-	-	4,752,391	31.1	6,970,299	32.0	7,581,781	25.2Canadian Ports	-	-	10,547,934	68.9	14,789,226	68.0	22,467,836	74,8Total	-	-	15,300,325	100.0	21,759,525	100.0	30,049,617	100.0,Engines, Boilers, Locomotives and Parts.	U.S. Ports	$	-	-	3,750,670	20.5	3,716,181	18.0	11,771,657	61.4Canadian Ports	-	-	14,511,201	79.5	16,900,408	82.0	7,399,556	38.6Total	-	-	18,261,871	100.0	20,616,649	100.0	19,171,213	100.0Farm Implements and Machinery	U.S. Ports	$	21,153,405	90.1	10,518,181	83.6	10,064,435	84.7	8,489,951	82.7Canadian Ports	2,322,074	9.9	2,068,789	16.4	1,811,873	15.3	1,777,744	17.3Total	23,475,479	100.0	12,586,970	100.0	11,876,308	100.0	10,267,695	100.0
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EXPORTS OF CANADIAN PRODUCE TO OVERSEAS COUNTRIES VIA THE UNITED STATES AND VIA CANADIAN PORTS-Concluded
Commodity	Via	Unit	1954	1955	1956	1957	Quantity or Value	%	Quantity or Value	%	Quantity or Value	%	Quantity or Value	%Machinery (except agricultural)	.. TJ.S. Ports	s	8,998,252	34.3	11,971,235	48.0	11,985,219	42.6	11,747,589	33.6Canadian Ports	17,263,100	65.7	12,949,290	52.0	16,151,509	57.4	23,236,047	66.4'Total	26,261,352	100.0	24,920,525	100.0	28,136,728	100.0	34,983,636	100.0Automobiles, Freight and Passenger	U.S. Ports	No.	7,818	72.0	10,914	59.7	14,664	77.2	15,843	79.2Canadian Ports	3,043	28.0	7,381	40.3	4,340	22.8	4,169	20.8Total	10,861	100.0	18,295	100.0	19,004	100.0	20,012	100.0Automobile Parts	.. U.S. Ports	$	7,876,772	55.7	9,216,814	48.9	7,857,988	43.0	5,290,493	46.4Canadian Ports	6,269,682	44.3	9,612,252	51.1	10,424,143	57.0	6,100,703	53.6Total	14,146,544	100.0	18,829,066	100.0	18,282,131	100.0	11,391,196	100.0Copper Tubing and Wire	.. U.S. Ports	St	-	-	2,650,747	47.4	3,711,179	53.2	3,174,001	60.0Canadian Ports	-	-	2,937,017	52.6	3,260,677	46.8	2,120,564	40.0Total	-	-	5,587,764	100.0	6,971,856	100.0	5,294,565	100.0Nickel	.. U.S. Ports	Cwt.	103,371	9.8	150,426	13.0	190,212	14.9	172,218	12.5Canadian Ports	952,891	90.2	1,003,912	87.0	1,086,683	85.1	1,205,483	87.5Total	1,056,262	100.0	1,154,338	100.0	1,276,895	100.0	1,377,701	100.0Electrical Apparatus	.. TJ.S. Ports	$	-	-	6,357,912	48.2	6,272,903	55.1	6,346,783	35.3Canadian Ports	-	-	6,839,005	51.8	5,121,816	44.9	11,614,426	64.7Total	-	-	13,196,917	100.0	11,394,719	100.0	17,961,209	100.0Cellulose Products	.. U.S. Ports	*	-	-	1,608,406	11.9	5,728,574	68.0	5,387,131	46.3Canadian Ports	-	-	11,869,389	88.1	2,693,155	32.0	6,256,773	53.7Total	-	-	13,477,795	100.0	8,421,729	100.0	11,643,904	100.0Synthetic Resins and Manufactures	.. U.S. Ports	$	6,259,303	53.1	5,376,869	38.6	6,613,924	38.6	7,074,438	38.2Canadian Ports	5,523,092	46.9	8,562,111	61.4	10,507,831	61.4	11,443,364	61.8Total	11,782,395	100.0	13,938,980	100.0	17,121,755	100.0	18,517,802	100.0Drugs and Chemicals, N.O.P	.. U.S. Ports	$	-	-	8,403,082	17.9	8,918,347	16.6	10,994,571	17.3Canadian Ports	-	38,434,658	82.1	44,878,330	83.4	52,474,814	82.7Total	-	-	46,837,740	100.0	53,796,677	100.0	63,469,385	100.0
Traffic Branch,
National Harbours Board, Ottawa, July 30, 1958.
Source-Dominion Bureau of Statistics, International Trade Division, External Trade Section, Ottawa, Canada.
4312	HOUSE OF COMMONS
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CANADIAN EXPORTS AND IMPORTS VIA UNITED STATES PORTS Exports of Canadian Produce to Overseas Countries via the United States-Years 1952-56
Years	Amount to	Percentage to	AH Countries	United Kingdom	Other Commonwealth Countries	Foreign Countries	All Countries	United Kingdom	Other Commonwealth Countries	Foreign Countries$	S	$	$	%	%	%	%1952	
259,469,383	7,268,951	51,922,125	200,278,307	13.01	0.97	19.84	20.301953	
168,985,791	7,856,426	37,270,581	123,858,784	9.95	1.18	16.04	15.461954	
136,257,465	7,538,356	30,647,516	98,071,593	8.71	1.15	15.71	13.701955	
137,380,726	8,576,502	38,108,545	90,695,679	7.98	1.11	16.07	12.671956	
153,987,820	7,307,000	41,582,186	105,098,634	7.81	0.90	17.10	11.48Imposts fob	Consumption from Overseas Countries via the	United States-	-Years 1952-56	Amount from	Percentage from	All Years Countries	United Kingdom	Other Commonwealth Countries	Foreign Countries	AU Countries	United Kingdom	Other Commonwealth Countries	Foreign Countriesi	$	$	$	%	%	%	%1952....	
81,948,277	61,892	4,021,940	77,864,445	7.78	0.02	2.18	15.301953....	
123,223,719	197,658	3,195,088	119,830,973	10.61	0.04	1.87	22.291954....	
199,053,144	214,281	3,708,247	195,130,616	17.59	0.05	2.04	35.001955	
212,715,911	242,113	5,786,492	206,687,306	16.88	0.06	2.76	31.801956	
238,618,777	222,143	6,365,489	232,031,145	15.46	0.05	2.88	27.69
Traffic Branch,
National Harbours Board,
Ottawa, November 28, 1957.
SOURCE-Dominion Bureau of Statistics, International Trade Division, External Trade Section,
Ottawa, Canada.
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I thank hon. members of the committee for their consideration of this request under the unusual circumstances existing and I shall not detain the minister in the consideration of his estimates for more than a few moments in order to draw attention to the principal items which I should like hon. members to consider before the next session when it would be my hope the resolution might appear again under private members' notices of motion.
Understandably we are most concerned with the impact of the resolution upon eastern Canadian ports. We have some of the finest harbours in North America which are well served by both inland and ocean transportation lines. Particularly the ports of Halifax and Saint John represent the investment of many millions of dollars of federal money. That investment was originally made and has continued to grow in order to provide all Canada with an outlet to the sea from her eastern shores. It is well known that this investment in large part lies fallow during the season of navigation in the St. Lawrence river. We are understandably concerned about the future impact of the St. Lawrence seaway upon our area. It would be ideal if we could find a way to utilize the facilities of the east coast throughout the year. Because of the use of the ports for only a brief period of each year, we feel it is all the more important that the ports on the Atlantic shore should be utilized to the fullest extent during the four or five months of every year in which they are Canada's only ice-free outlets to the Atlantic ocean. But instead of this full utilization, Mr. Chairman, what do we find? We find that vast quantities of cargo are both exported and imported via United States ports. We find that hundreds of millions of dollars in inland transportation charges, in labour costs and in port service charges flow across the border yearly instead of staying in this country where they could contribute to the prosperity of all our people.
We in the Atlantic provinces are disturbed at this tremendous flow of Canadian foreign trade through non-Canadian channels. We do not, however, urge that all such traffic go through Canadian ports. We realize that our neighbours to the south possess some of the finest ports in the world and that, for a number of reasons, some of our traffic probably will always use their installations. However, we insist and urge that companies which derive their prosperity from the Canadian market make a special effort to ship both their import and export requirements through our Canadian ports. We in the Atlantic provinces are realistic enough to realize that 
patriotic sentiment is not the only or the most important business factor under normal conditions.
I will make one or two suggestions in a moment's time. In the interval I should like to point out the significance of the Atlantic ports to the regional economy of the area. Every ship that enters or leaves any port on the eastern coast of Canada, of course, provides jobs and dollars for our people. This is true also in the United States. Hon. members of the committee may not be aware of the fact that the port of New York authority has estimated that that great port supports one out of four of the 13 million people living in the area. We have no similar statistics relating to Halifax and Saint John but I doubt whether, if we did have them, they would differ greatly from the New York statistics.
Our ports provide a multitude of jobs in a variety of fields. The men who are actively engaged in all sorts of businesses, from those engaged in the handling of cargo such as freight handlers, stevedores, even down to banks and mercantile companies, benefit from port business. We have estimated that in the port of Halifax and the port of Saint John the annual wages of longshoremen, freight handlers, watchmen and checkers alone come to about $10 million. By the economic principle of "free economic generation", by which every dollar earned by these workers generates or creates two dollars of additional income, hon. members will see that this represents at least thirty million very valuable dollars to us.
I should like to ask the members of the committee during the interval, and perhaps before we have an opportunity to discuss the matter in a full day's debate at the next session, whether they would consider, in relation to the tables prepared by the national harbours board which they have kindly consented to have printed in Hansard, these possibilities as corrective devices. We believe that the utilization of Canadian ports could be vastly increased. We believe that it may be possible at next month's commonwealth trade talks to suggest to other commonwealth countries whether it would not be possible to implement something paralleling the British preferential tariff to apply to goods brought into Canada from commonwealth countries through Canadian ports. We think that perhaps we might urge commonwealth countries to allow the British preferential tariff only on such of their imports from Canada as have been shipped out via a Canadian port. There is certainly no doubt that the recapture of part of the nearly $400 million a year of Canadian trade passing through United States ports instead of through

Canadian ports would be of tremendous assistance not only to the ports of Halifax and Saint John and their people but to the entire economy of the Atlantic provinces and to that extent to the entire economy of the country.
Mr. Carter:: I too, Mr. Chairman, should like to join with all those who have congratulated the minister on his appointment to the office, as this is the first appropriate occasion on which it could be done, and also on this first occasion of the presentation of his estimates before parliament.
I should like to thank the officials of his department for the very fine, sympathetic and courteous manner in which they have listened to all our problems and also for the consideration which has been given to improving the navigational aids and other facilities in my own riding and in my province generally.
Unfortunately, I did not have the privilege of being a member of the committee on railways, canals and telegraph lines, by which committee the minister's estimates were discussed. I am sorry that the pressure of work has made it impossible for me to keep abreast of the evidence so I trust that the minister will bear with me if I raise a few questions as the various items of his estimates come before the committee.
There is probably no department of the federal government which touches the lives of the people of my province more intimately than does the Department of Transport. Newfoundland has seafaring traditions going back over 400 years; we are a seafaring people and a great part of the population spends a large part of their lives on the sea. In Newfoundland more than in any other province, the people are dependent upon the sea, either directly or indirectly, for their living. Furthermore, all of our necessities must be brought in by water because the majority of our population lives on the island of Newfoundland and practically everything we produce must be sold in world markets and therefore must be taken out by water. In no other province do the transportation costs play such a large part in the cost of living as they do in Newfoundland and for that reason we deplore the decline in our mercantile fleet.
There is need for special shipping to take care of the requirements of our province. This is the age of specialization and specialization must certainly be applied to Canadian shipping if we are to keep up with the times and to meet competition from other maritime countries. We need special ships to carry our fish particularly to the West Indies
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markets. There is a need for a special selfunloading ship to bring coal into our province and this is one way in which the minister and his department could kill three birds with one shot. He could certainly help the shipbuilding industries and the coal mining industry in Nova Scotia and at the same time by lowering the cost of coal help the people of Newfoundland if his department would consider providing assistance for the construction of a self-unloading coal carrier. Then we need small ships of from 200 to 300 tons to distribute our goods from the large centres to the smaller fishing settlements in our province and there is a need for special assistance to encourage the industry to provide these ships. I do hope the minister and his department will give some consideration to this matter.
I would also like the minister to do whatever can be done to remove the restrictions in order to permit the importation of used trawlers for our fishing industry which can be obtained in other countries at a fraction of the price that would have to pay for them in Canada. Either the government must subsidize our own shipbuilding industry or some other means must be found so that these ships which are essential for the development of the fishing industry may be obtained without the outlay of too great a capital expenditure.
At this juncture I should like to say a few words about the Newfoundland railway. The function of any railway is to integrate the economy of the area it serves. In Newfoundland it has two functions because Newfoundland can be divided into three separate economic sectors. There is the Avalon peninsula which is almost an island, as the hon. member for St. John's East pointed out this afternoon; there is the western end of Newfoundland; and, in between, we have the central part of the island. Each of these divisions has a separate economy and one function of the railway is to integrate these separate divisions into a single provincial economy. But since Newfoundland is a part of Canada, the railroad has another function.
Having integrated the three different portions of Newfoundland, it must also integrate the whole province into the economy of Canada. This could and should be done in such a way that no part of Newfoundland would be more than 24 hours away from the mainland. This cannot be done, however, as long as the railway follows its present route no matter how much money the government or the management of the C.N.R. are prepared to spend. I said a moment ago that in no other province do transportation

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costs play so large a part in the cost of living as they do in Newfoundland and to support this contention by way of illustration I should like to quote a paragraph from an article which I have just discovered in the Sunday Herald dated August 31, 1958. This article speaks about a decision of the A and P chain stores not to set up branches in Newfoundland and it goes on to explain why.
The A and P officials said that on visiting Newfoundland they discovered that it was almost impossible to ship in perishable goods without the resultant loss being so large as to make the product too expensive to sell. They point out that fresh vegetables, for example, such as tomatoes, lettuce, arrive in their warehouses in Toronto or Montreal one day, and are shipped out direct to their own stores within a matter of 24 hours. In other words, all products are turned over in a 24-48 hour period.
If they were involved in Newfoundland, they pointed out to the Sunday Herald, it could be seven days from the time the products were shipped from their Montreal warehouse to the time they were received in St. John's stores, and this delay alone would result in tremendously increased overhead.
That illustrates very clearly the handicap under which the people of Newfoundland have to labour because of the difficulties in their transportation system and it also illustrates the handicap that businessmen must undergo in comparison with their mainland counterparts. Since Newfoundland is an island, everything must go in by water and because we do not have a rail car ferry we are precluded from buying in carload lots. A firm in Halifax can buy a carload of bananas or oranges from Florida and have them shipped almost to the door but a load ordered in Newfoundland has to go to North Sydney where it must be broken down, put on a ship, taken off again, put into another narrow gauge car, transported to its destination and then unloaded again. Moreover, goods brought in from central Canada have to be packaged as though they were intended for export and not only do we have to bear the cost of extra handling but we also have to pay extra packaging costs as well. That is a tremendous handicap and it is one which must some day be removed because it certainly cannot be allowed to continue indefinitely. I realize that this is a long term project because you cannot build a railway overnight. It is probably a 10-year project, but the time to start thinking about it is now, and I hope the minister will begin to give consideration to these matters which I have outlined.
There is one other point to which I want to bring the minister's attention in connection with the adjustment of freight claims for losses incurred on goods being carried by the railroad. As I understand it, if goods which are being carried by rail, or on the ferry

across the strait, which is part of the railway, should be lost in transit, any loss or damage that occurs is the subject of compensation by the railways. But the coastal steam service, which is not considered part of the railway, though it serves the same purpose as the railroad for those who are living around the coastline, is operated under a different system and a person to whom goods are consigned cannot enforce any claim should goods be lost in transit. I had a number of cases brought to my attention arising out of an accident in which a motor vessel ran aground in Placentia bay a year ago. As a result of that accident a large quantity of goods was damaged and when people sent in their claims to the claims division of the railway they were told: we cannot pay you anything because these ships are not part of the railway; they are just ordinary water carriers, and this was an act of God and the goods were carried subject to the conditions on the waybill. Therefore you have no claim. As a result, the people who live inland and who are served by the railway line are treated differently from those who live on the coast and who must depend on the coastal service which is the equivalent of the railway service in the coastal areas of Newfoundland. I hope the minister will look into this matter because it is important that the coastal boats should be considered part of the railway service in the same way as the ferry which crosses the gulf is considered to be.
My hon. friend from St. John's East referred to the William Carson this afternoon and I hope, as he does, that the minister will give us a full account of the recent trial runs. I hope, also, that he will find it possible to give us an exact breakdown of the cost of this ship, because so many stories have been told about the cost of this vessel that in the interest of telling the public the truth and setting the record straight I think this should be stated. If the minister cannot provide the figures at this moment perhaps he will be able to do so later on this evening, or tomorrow. I should like him to state exactly what the ship costs, what the terminals cost, what the harbour improvements cost and what the operating costs have been. My hon. friend from St. John's indicated that if the trial runs were not too successful this ship might be diverted to the ferry service between the mainland and Argentia.
I do not blame him for trying to get an improved service for his constituency. I would do the same thing if I were in his place. But I must point out to him-and I am sure the minister does not need to be reminded of this -that the terms of union between Newfoundland and Canada expressly stated that this ship was built for service between North

Sydney and Port aux Basques and for nowhere else. The minister and the government are bound by that agreement and by the terms of union to maintain that ship in that service and to see it is not diverted anywhere else.
With regard to Argentia as a terminal, I would disagree with the hon. member for St. John's East that it is suitable for this purpose. Perhaps it is suitable from the standpoint of harbour facilities and from the standpoint of the Canadian National Railways but it is certainly most unsuitable from the standpoint of public convenience because Argentia is a United States naval base. One can enter and leave there only with the permission of the United States authorities. I have personally had the experience many times. When I went to join one of the C.N.R. ships I had to secure a pass to enter through the gateway before I could board the ship. That is not a satisfactory state of affairs from the public standpoint. Furthermore, there is no place at Argentia to erect a waiting room, a snack bar or any kind of facility for people who have to wait either for the ship to arrive or for a train to take them back to St. John's. It may happen that in ten years' time the United States will not be interested in Argentia and perhaps the lease will be cancelled but as long as the lease is in force Argentia is not a suitable place from the public standpoint for a terminal of the C.N.R.
I have one or two minutes left at my disposal and I wish to refer to the reorganization of the department about which the minister spoke in his opening remarks. I could not gather from what he said just how far the reorganization had extended but if it has not already done so I hope it will extend down to the marine districts. It happens that part of the coast of Newfoundland and part or perhaps all of the coast of Labrador come under the agency of Prince Edward Island. That may be convenient for the department from the point of view of administration but it is not a convenient arrangement for the people of Newfoundland. We have our own marine district and that should comprise the whole coastline of Newfoundland.
The minister also referred to a reclassification of lightkeepers' salaries and I am happy to hear him make that announcement. I would urge him to also look into the salaries of assistant lightkeepers and see what could be done about having the latter brought under the civil service commission in the same way as lightkeepers are. At the present time there is a vast inequity between the salaries paid to lightkeepers and their assistants. As I pointed out to the Minister of Labour when the committee was discussing his estimates, the latter are paid on the basis of prevailing rates. I brought this to the
Private Bills
attention of the Minister of Labour on August 16 and I would draw the attention of the Minister of Transport to what I said at that time. My remarks can be found at page 3867 of Hansard of that date. I do not wish to waste time repeating now what I said on that occasion.
However, I wish to remind the minister that the Department of Transport as well as the hydrographic service is a big sinner in this respect. I understand that the crews of the ships operated by his department at Halifax which do the same work and carry the same responsibility receive 11 per cent less pay than their counterparts in western parts of Quebec. In the interest of equity something should be done about this. As a national employer, I would suggest to the minister that a department of the federal government should follow the principle of equal pay for equal service regardless of where the service is performed. But if that is too wide a principle to adopt then I would point out there should certainly be no discrimination against people in the eastern provinces who do the same work and carry the same responsibility as people elsewhere and who should receive exactly the same pay. I urge the minister to consider the situation and correct these inequities.
Before taking my seat I should like to support the plea of the hon. member for St. John's East for an alternate airport. We all know that at the present time passenger and mail, freight and air cargo are held jup for weeks at a time when the existing airport is fogbound. An alternate airport should be constructed in a suitable locality ^is convenient to St. John's as Torbay. With the increasing volume of freight traffic ari alternate airport is necessary in any case.; This is looking into the future, too, but I do wish to support the remarks of the hop. member for St. John's East in that respect.


The Chairman:: Order. It being five o'clock it is my duty, pursuant to section 53 of standing order 15, to leave the chair in order to permit the house to proceed with the consideration of private and public bills.



PRIVATE BILLS


Mr. Arthur Maloney (Parkdale):: Mr. Speaker, with leave of the house I wonder if I might be given permission to remove from its present location on the list of private bills Bill No. S-17, which is item No. 32 on the list of private bills. It is not contentious or controversial. It is simply an act to enable the board of trade of the city of Toronto to change its name to the metropolitan board of trade of the city of Toronto.

Private Bills


Mr. R. J. McCleave (Halifax):: I must oppose that motion, Mr. Speaker.


Mr. Speaker:: The hon. member for Parkdale asks for leave to call item No. 32 by unanimous consent. Do I understand the hon. member for Halifax to say he does not consent?


Robert Jardine McCleave: Yes, Mr. Speaker. Regretfully, I oppose the motion.


Mr. Speaker:: The hon. member for Parkdale knows that taking this item now can be done only by unanimous consent.


Lionel Chevrier: Mr. Speaker, may I make an appeal to the hon. member for Halifax in this respect. I believe this matter was discussed briefly with all parties by the hon. member who is sponsoring this bill. Surely there has been ample time to discuss divorce bills in this house and I mean not only during the hour devoted to private bills. The purpose of Bill No. S-17 is simply to change the name of the board of trade of the city of Toronto to that of the metropolitan board of trade of the city of Toronto which is a matter that should take only a few minutes. We on this side of the house would welcome the opportunity to assist the hon. member in presenting his bill.


Mr. Speaker:: Apparently the house is agreed, except for the hon. member.


Robert Jardine McCleave: If the house wishes to hear my reason I will be perfectly happy to give it.
Mr. (Speaker: I think it is not a matter for debate. If the hon. member does not agree we will have to proceed in the ordinary way. (



WILLIAM HARRISON TERRY

[Stage Direction]
The house in committee on Bill No. SD-199, for the relief of William Harrison Terry-Mr. McCleave-Mr. Chown in the chair.
On clause 1-Marriage dissolved.
Mr. Peters:: Mr. Chairman, I should like to say something about this case. The bill has already been before the house on previous occasions and was recommitted to the private bills committee for the second time. There was no agreement on the bill in the committee and the division was very close.
This case gives an opportunity to members of parliament to scrutinize very closely what is wrong with the handling of divorces by parliament. In this instance there were five professional witnesses on the one side and on the other side the co-respondent who testified on his own behalf. Members of parliament are going to have to judge whether

the five professional witnesses told the truth or whether the co-respondent spoke the truth. On the one hand, the co-respondent said that he definitely could not have been in such and such a place on such and such a date and on the other hand these professional witnesses gave testimony that he was.
Therefore it behooves parliament to make a decision whether these people are going to be allowed to continue to come before parliament and perjure themselves or whether we are going to do something about it. I think we should take a look at just what happens in these cases. The Senate deals with divorce bills first before a committee where a decision is made. The House of Commons has the right, and has exercised it in contested cases on many occasions, to hear the evidence again or part of the evidence or additional evidence. The House of Commons is not an appeal court and does not function as such but exercises its right to examine such bills as it would any other private bill and to go into all the implications.
One of the problems that immediately confronts the House of Commons committee is that it has no power to subpoena witnesses. When a lawyer can come before members of a committee of the House of Commons and say that he will not bring forward such and such a witness, while at the same time we have no right to subpoena witnesses, I think it is very foolish to ask parliament to rule on such cases when parliament has no right to ask for all the evidence. If the committee of the House of Commons is going to be able to act properly then we must have the right that any court has in this type of case, and that certainly involves the fundamental right to subpoena witnesses in order to make sure that the whole story is heard. If the House of Commons is going to continue to operate a divorce mill and wishes to be honest, fair and just in its dealings with the people involved in these cases we are at least going to have to have that right.
There are many other handicaps under which we operate that have been highlighted by the Terry case. We find that the House of Commons can grant a divorce for any reason at all. Adultery does not have to be proved. It does not even have to be intimated that adultery took place. We can grant a divorce if we wish because the husband did not like the looks of his wife or the colour of her hair. The committee is completely within its rights in granting a divorce on such grounds.
On the other hand, apparently certain grounds are set out for the direction of the Senate in the granting of divorces. The Senate committees have been constituted in such a way that they can call witnesses.


Gordon Campbell Chown: Order. I think that I must ask the hon. member for Timiskaming to stick to the actual bill under consideration by the committee at this time. It appears to me that in his recent remarks he has been leaving the subject matter of the bill before the house. Would he kindly come back to the bill itself?


William Arnold Peters: Mr. Chairman, while my
remarks can be construed as being general they are also very pertinent to the Terry case because in that case the committee found that there were certain faults about which they had no power to do anything. The committee checked with the legal advisers of the House of Commons and found that it did not have the right to do the things to which I have referred.
Another factor that arose in this case has to do with the fact that when we hear evidence given on one side directly contradictory to evidence given by the other side we must have the right, which we did not have in this case, to investigate the circumstances surrounding that evidence. In this particular case the co-respondent testified that he assumed he had been in the Pembroke area. He assumed this because he had a gasoline statement indicating that on the day of the night in question he had purchased gasoline in Pembroke. I believe it was the evening of the tenth and the early hours of the morning of the eleventh that were in question. He established that it was his practice to go into an area such as Pembroke and spend two or three days there looking after his business. The man certainly is a very poor bookkeeper but I do not think that enters into the matter. He did have a receipt indicating that he was in the Pembroke area on the tenth and he did not say he did not have one that would indicate that he was there on the eleventh or twelfth.
The question boils down to the fact that his evidence is directly contradictory to the evidence given by the other witnesses in the case. They cannot all be right. Some of them must be wrong. Therefore I say that as a committee we are not functioning properly when we have not the right to send the R.C.M.P. to the Pembroke area to check the motels he may have stayed in-he also produced a motel receipt-and are not in a position to check the validity of his statements and the receipts which he produced. My experience is that when boards composed of laymen have been set up on a pseudo-legal basis they have checked immediately into receipts produced in evidence before them.
Private Bills-Divorce
When somebody has a signed statement, then that statement is immediately checked They have photostatic copies made anc checked for identification purposes. They have machinery set up that will allow them to function in a proper manner. If the exchequer court had been used to hear these divorce cases, as some hon. members of my party have suggested in the past, then that court would have been able to check into the evidence in a legal manner.
On the other hand, and I think this should be borne in mind, the evidence of private detectives is always in question when given in court. Defence counsel, Mr. McDonald, made a reference to this fact and backed it up with legal references which nobody questioned. I think, therefore, that statement will stand. It was pointed out in those references that these people are paid to do a certain job. We should take a look at the five men who were involved in this case under the direction of legal counsel. Some of them were on the job for nearly six months, and when you consider that these detectives receive $30 a day and expenses you can see that a great deal of money was put into this case. It would appear to me that the lawyer had told these men to either get the evidence or he would put somebody else on the job.
These men made certain statements which I believe should be checked by the R.C.M.P., especially when we consider that their evidence is always in question. A simple example of this was the matter of the driveway. On numerous occasions these detectives said the driveway would hold three automobiles. On the other hand, the defence said that it would hold only two automobiles, three if they were small English cars or if one were a small European sports car. This is a matter which could have been checked very easily. I feel this committee should have had the R.C.M.P. go there and measure the driveway to find out who was lying and who was not.
If we are going to accept evidence on face value, then why do we not recommend to legal counsel that they take their case to the Senate and let them hear the case? They do not care what happens over there, except when defence counsel gets up and says, we are going to contest this. Then, when the case comes to the House of Commons, defence counsel make their pitch. If this is the type of thing with which we are going to have to contend, then it is going to mean we would be well advised to tell the defence lawyer who is coming here to bring any theatrical witness he wants. He can make any statement he wants and can make as big a farce out of this committee as he wishes. Nothing will happen.

Private Bills-Divorce
We have not any right to commit these people for perjury. It has been said that we can ask the Ontario attorney general to investigate such a matter. According to my information it has happened once before, and the attorney general did exactly what I think he should have done. He said that he did not have time or it was not within his jurisdiction; he used some such method to by-pass it. He would have been very silly to bring a civil case from the province of Quebec into the Ontario courts and to have laid a perjury charge in connection with it.
Then we have the matter of the written evidence. We have here copies of the written evidence in these divorce cases in the Senate. This evidence was all taken down in the Senate, but when we heard this case we heard several witnesses that were not heard by the Senate. Now, the Senate has no desire to charge these people with perjury, and certainly they could not charge the people who did not give evidence before the Senate. We did not even have the evidence taken down because we were not constituted to do that. Would it not be a fine state of affairs if the private bills committee of the House of Commons were to go to the attorney general of Ontario and tell him that we would like to commit somebody for perjury on evidence which was not taken in a court of law and of which there is no transcript. I think it would be ridiculous to even suggest we would have the right to go to the Ontario court and ask for that type of charge.
These are some of the things that have plagued the House of Commons since it first started passing these divorce bills, and which have been highlighted in this Terry case. There are other things which have entered into this case. We have had a great deal of lobbying, and I understand that anyone who is going to lobby in the House of Commons must pay a fee and be registered as an official parliamentary agent. In many cases the people who have been doing the lobbying in this divorce case have been private citizens. I think we should have the right to prohibit these people from doing that type of lobbying. Other charges of intimidation have been made, and there are many other things that are better left unsaid, so I am not going to be put in the same category as the people who said them.
I think that we have in this bill probably all the fundamental problems that have faced the House of Commons since it started handling these divorce bills. I think it would not be out of order if I were to mention some of the things that could be done in the Terry case and in other cases to settle some of these problems. One of these things would

be the establishment of a committee at the next session to be charged with the responsibility of doing something about getting divorce out of the House of Commons. The committee could probably consider the bill that was introduced by a C.C.F. member on a number of occasions-


Gordon Campbell Chown: Order; I must take this opportunity to correct the speaker on something he said before, as well as the fact that he is off the bill again at the moment. He made a reference to the committee in the other place not caring about these particular cases, and I think that remark should be withdrawn. Any further remarks he makes on this bill should be confined to the bill itself.


William Arnold Peters: When I referred to the Senate not caring about this bill, I meant that the Senate had already ruled on it and expressed satisfaction with the evidence. When I said that the Senate did not care about it, I meant the Senate had finally disposed of this bill. The House of Commons is now considering it. I cannot speak for the Senate, but I doubt if they are going to review this bill. If they are, I would be very happy to have them do so. The chairman of our committee could suggest that the bill be withdrawn from our committee and be re-committed to the Senate. I do not think the remarks I made were out of order in that respect.
With all due respect, I would think that when we say something is wrong with this bill we should be given the right to say something constructive, and which would be advantageous to the procedure of this house. We should do something constructive towards moving these cases out of the House of Commons and into the exchequer court. If I am out of order in saying that, I will not say any more about it.
I think the committee has been faced with another problem, and that is when the committee makes a decision there is no fundamental right of appeal from that decision for the people affected.
If there were a court of law in the province, then they would have the right of appeal. We have had an appeal in the Terry case and we may have some more before this bill is finally satisfactory to a number of people. We may have appeals but they are strange appeals. They are just appeals where somebody recommits the bill to the committee after it has already been handled and a decision has been made. This may be an appeal, but in my opinion it does not satisfy the fundamental requirements or ensure the consideration that an appeal court presided over by a judge or judicial authority would give that type of appeal. The committee has

Private Bills-Divorce
not the right of sitting on appeal. Once the bill is passed, then there is no appeal from that decision as there would be if these cases were handled in any other manner.
I should like to make another suggestion, Mr. Chairman. We are all well aware of the reason why the Terry case and other cases go through the House of Commons. The reason this matter was not dealt with in the province of Quebec is to be found-and this is true of the province of Newfoundland -in their dislike of and their objection to divorce cases. That may well be and we do not want to discuss the grounds for that. But before the bills in many cases come into the House of Commons as private bills, there is litigation in the courts of Quebec for maintenance of children, for legal separation from the wife and in many of these cases- as in this one, I am quite sure-the adultery charge has been made. I would suggest that this may be another angle that the committee could investigate, namely that when the courts of Quebec rule-


Gordon Campbell Chown: Order. The hon. member has strayed away from the content of this bill on several occasions. I must ask him once and finally to confine his remarks to this bill or I shall be obliged [DOT] to ask him to take his seat.


William Arnold Peters: I am in agreement with the chairman of the committee who has said that we do not want to discuss personalities when we are discussing this bill. I am in agreement with him. I do not want to discuss personalities. I should like to make the statements general rather than refer to the persons concerned because I do not think such reference is fair. We are discussing this matter on a national basis and I do not think it is fair to the people concerned to discuss personalities. In many of these cases the defendant is going to be obliged to live in the community in which he or she is now living; and where children are involved, I do not like to see the children in the position of having had their names dragged through the mud, so to speak. But in cases where legal separation took place-and this is one of them-in my opinion it would have been much more advantageous if the courts in the province where the legal separation had taken place had proved or disproved the adultery charge at the same time they heard the rest of the case. Then we in the miscellaneous private bills committee would not be obliged to deal with this matter. The court would have already ruled on the legality of the adultery charge.
We are asked to make a decision on these adultery charges. The chairman would like me to refer to this case. This one is an
especially good one, if you wish to refer to personalities in this respect. The adultery charge itself in a few words is based on the following circumstances. On the night in question a number of people, five to be exact, came to the house; four of them came to the front door and one went to the back door. They tried to break down the front door. We smile at this. I think that that is something that any judge, if he were ruling on this case, would take exception to. They tried to break down the door. We are asked to condone this type of action. They tried to break down the door. They had no search warrant. They rapped on the door or rang the bell. There is a great deal of doubt in the evidence whether it is a bell, a buzzer or what it is. They make some kind of noise with a button anyway. Five minutes go by and the second time they make this noise with a button they hear footsteps. The man at the back hears footsteps. While they tried to knock down the front door, in the committee we find that the back door was open. All they had to do was to walk in. They did not need to break down the door. Then there were some footsteps coming down the stairs and five people ran around to the front door; there was a fight and there was a woman inside, and she got into the act and they had to fight her off. Then they were going up and down stairs and nobody knew whether they turned on the lights or not and the witnesses, in my opinion, were either very stupid or very smart. I consider that probably some of them are too smart for their own good, and if we could prove some of these perjury charges against them, maybe that would cool them off.
Anyway, no one seems to know whether the lights were on or off, and nobody tells the same story. They picked up clothes and they searched all through these rooms; they searched through the clothes closets in the two bedrooms, and all this takes place in only two and a half minutes. In that time they visited all the clothes closets and they found lipstick on the pillow cases. The two pillows had been mussed up and then they went downstairs and gave a cursory glance around the place. Then they went down to the basement and it was dark, but they found someone in the basement, and he had his shirt open.


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh.


William Arnold Peters: Frankly, I do not care if hon. members like it or not, this is what happened as I heard it in the committee.


An hon. Member:: You know what happened; everyone knows what happened.



Private Bills-Divorce


Mr.   Faiers@: I do not want to talk about it, but we are in committee. We go down -they go down the stairs-


An hon. Member:: We go down?


William Arnold Peters: I have been taken up and down those stairs so many times in this particular case that if I say "we" it is because of that fact. Next we are in a bedroom which is normally occupied by the owner's son, and we have a great deal of difficulty in finding out what kind of a bed is there; whether this 36-inch bed was a camp cot or whether it is a single bed or three-quarter bed, but in any event we are in the bedroom which has been fixed up and probably sound-proofed to a certain extent, and there is a man there who said he has taken a couple of aspirin and had been lying down to relieve himself of a headache.
In any event, these two people, the respondent and the co-respondent were supposed to have been together, but the committee members will recall that the nearest we could establish these two people had been found together was when they were in an automobile and that when they were in the house itself the nearest they were ever proved to be to each other was when one was in the basement and the other was in an upstairs bedroom. This is the evidence which was produced in the committee by five professional witnesses, which is supposed to prove adultery.


An hon. Member:: What about a little bit of order?


William Arnold Peters: On the other hand, I certainly did not appreciate the type of evidence given by the co-respondent, which was flamboyant and in many cases he ran away with the cross-examining lawyer. His evidence was not substantiated in many respects, it was contradictory, although it was given under oath. In some instances he was supposed to have been in the Quebec area for two or three days and in other cases in Pembroke, while the detectives had said he was somewhere else. All this evidence should have been checked by the committee and I also believe that the evidence respecting the car in question should have been checked. There was a great deal of talk about the kind of automobile which was supposed to have been taken from here to there and there to here, back and forth on different nights.
I think that if we had had the proper facilities at our disposal we could have examined the situation respecting this witness and could have found out whether or not he was telling the truth. I am quite sure that the counsel representing both the defendant and respondent in this case would

have been most happy if the committee had been able to decide which side was telling the truth, because we were faced with a problem as to which of the witnesses had lied. We knew these things were contradictory and we had to assume that these people were perjuring themselves. I think we are not being unfair in assuming that this committee next year may well have to hear this case again so that it should be able to call witnesses. If the committee exists as it does today-and I hope it does not-it should have the power to cite the people who are giving false testimony and it should have the power to do something about it when such people are cited.
The committee should also have at its disposal the Royal Canadian Mounted Police in order to investigate such matters as the committee itself decides should be investigated. If the lawyers are not in a position to prove or disprove, or do not make any attempt to prove or disprove evidence considered to be pertinent to the case, then the committee must have this right, and there must be the right to appeal.
There have been other cases, including the Gregory case, in respect of which the committee has leaned over backwards-


Gordon Campbell Chown: Order. * The hon. member's time has expired.


Robert Jardine McCleave: The hon. member has stated that five professional witnesses in this case have committed perjury respecting adultery, and yet at the end of his statement he also told the committee that he did not know whether or not the co-respondent was telling the truth.
The fact of the matter is that either the five witnesses are not telling the truth, and are therefore committing perjury, or the two witnesses, the wife and the co-respondent, are not telling the truth and they are therefore committing perjury.
This matter was thrashed out with the help of a great deal of evidence for over a day and a half and, as the hon. member has pointed out, there was a good deal of argument in the committee about the conflicting evidence and the eventual decision of the committee was very, very close. I do not intend to give my own views this afternoon but rather to draw to the attention of this committee as briefly as I can the evidence, both pro and con, so that the committee in its own time can make its decision in this matter.
Firstly, the hon. member stated that there was lipstick on the pillow of Mrs. Terry. On reading the evidence and checking my notes I do not believe any such evidence was presented. If it had been so presented that would be a very telling point against her

but, in fairness to the respondent in this case, I do not believe there was any such evidence.
The hon. member has mentioned the conflicting evidence of the five professional witnesses-a mixed bag of detectives-and in that regard he is perfectly correct. There was firstly the question of the door bell, as to whether it was a door bell with a regular ring or a gong; secondly, the position of the stairway in the house, which was of some importance, and whether the stairway had treads; thirdly, there was the question of the light in the basement; and, fourthly, whether footsteps were heard pounding downstairs from the bedroom; there was conflicting evidence on all those points.
On the other hand, we have the allegations of the petitioner that on five different occasions the co-respondent was found in the home of the respondent. According to the two detectives, they took up surveillance there on the night of May 21, when the two parties, the respondent and the co-respondent, were in the house. The detectives remained until 1.20 the following morning, when the Pointe Claire police came along and cleared them out of the area. On July 10 two of the detectives took up surveillance and the two parties were inside the house when the detectives left at 3.30 the following morning. At least, if the co-respondent had left the home before that time they had not seen him leave.
The two detectives kept up surveillance during the night of July 31 and when the detectives left at 8.00 a.m. on August 1 they had not seen the co-respondent leave. On August 13 they again kept surveillance and on this occasion the two professional witnesses saw the co-respondent leave the home of the wife at 7.40 the next morning. Then we come down to the date of August 30, which is the date about which most of the evidence was presented, and my friend has already given the committee a very good synopsis of the evidence concerning that particular evening.
These were the problems facing the committee. We heard these professional witnesses give conflicting evidence on the points I have mentioned and there was conflicting evidence, perhaps, on other points as well. Perhaps one might expect this to be the case or, on the other hand, if they all told the same story we could very well say they told a patched up story. It is a very difficult problem, as the closeness of the committee's decision would indicate. One could not really tell who was telling the truth and who was telling a lie. I do not think anyone in his heart of hearts could have said definitely "That fellow is telling the truth and that fellow is telling a
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lie." You have to draw your suppositions or inferences from the evidence as to who seems to be presenting the better case and whose story seems to hold water.
In that connection may I quote two remarks made by the co-respondent under cross-examination. First, when he was asked about kissing Mrs. Terry he said, in answer to the question, "Did you kiss Mrs. Terry?" "Not to my knowledge." Secondly, he was asked a question arising out of the detectives' evidence that on August 31 he was seen bare-waisted in the lady's bedroom. The question was asked after a great deal of conflicting testimony as to whether the nearby street was 50 feet, 75 feet, 125 feet, 150 feet, 300 feet or 500 feet away from this particular bedroom window, and was as follows: "Were you ever bare to the waist in the woman's bedroom?" And his answer was, "I don't think I was ever in that bedroom stripped to the waist. Also I don't think you could see into that bedroom from the street."
This was the difficulty we had with the witnesses, and it is unfair to quote just two examples of their evidence and to say that they are not to be believed because of the type of evidence they gave. My hon. friend will probably agree that we also had a good deal of trouble with the co-respondent. He tended to be too rapid with his answers and time after time for his own protection I had to try to slow him down and to tell him to think about his answers, not to try to rationalize them but not to blurt out something for which he would be sorry.
There was evidence one way and the other, and I might say that from the wife's standpoint and that of the co-respondent they both appeared before us and denied under oath that they had had sexual intercourse. When you have such a denial under oath you have to pay very great attention to it, and you cannot dismiss it lightly. As the hon. member who has just spoken remarked, we had suggestions from the respondent's lawyer, Mr. John McDonald of Ottawa, who is a very experienced counsel, that we must be very careful in the way in which we look at the evidence of professional detectives. He quoted from an old English case, and also from a more recent one, Sopwith versus Sop-with, and that is perfectly proper. That is the law and we have those directions to guide us. We were also very fortunate in having Dr. Maurice Ollivier, the law clerk in constant attendance upon our committee, and he was available for questions about the probability of certain matters with respect to inferential law, which was an important guide to the members of the committee before making up their minds. After a couple

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of days of hearings under our belts we finally made our decision and reported it to the House of Commons.


Chesley William Carter: Mr. Chairman, as this is probably the last occasion when divorce cases will be discussed during this session I should like to say a few words on this case.
I have been a member of the committee on miscellaneous private bills for a great many years. As one hon. member has pointed out, this was a most difficult case-one of the most difficult cases I can ever remember-and one which illustrates the difficulties under which the committee labours in discharging its duties. This is certainly one committee from which I would be most happy to be excused, but I serve on it because I accept it as part of my parliamentary duties. This committee has responsibility to this house because it is set up by this house, and it also has a responsibility to the parties who appear before it and who will be affected by its decisions. In cases such as this it also has another responsibility, namely to see that our traditions of justice are maintained. The history of this case shows very clearly as the hon. member for Timiskaming pointed out, that the miscellaneous private bills committee cannot possibly discharge its responsibilities as it is presently set up.
If we go back through the history of this case we find it came before the Senate divorce committee and then it came before the miscellaneous private bills committee. In that committee we heard arguments from lawyers on behalf of each Of the parties. On the basis of those arguments we decided not to grant this divorce. I may say here that our responsibilities to this house are greatly increased by the fact that there is no written record. Every member of this committee will have to say yea or nay and vote on this bill depending largely upon what we tell the committee in order to form an honest opinion. Having heard this case for the first time and having rejected this application for divorce the bill came before you and was recommitted to the committee in order that further evidence might be heard.
On the first occasion we heard only the arguments of the lawyers for each of the parties but this time we called witnesses. Here, again, we have to depend on our memories, for there is no written record of what was actually said. One of these witnesses was on his feet for nearly two hours being grilled by a lawyer and while I did not regard him as a very good witness and while there was lots about him I did not like I must say that if I were in his place and on trial there being grilled for two hours I am afraid I would get tripped up with regard to some of the things I might say.
[Mr. McCleave.l
Having heard the evidence and having had an opportunity to size up the witnesses personally and to arrive at a better judgment, because we had the opportunity to judge not only the words that were said but the people who said them, we made another decision and recommended that a divorce be granted. That points up one of the weaknesses of the miscellaneous private bills committee in that we do not have any fixed set of rules or procedures. Here is a decision which affects people's lives-the most serious decision that this house can make because it affects the lives of these people and the people connected with them, their relatives and so on 

and yet that decision was made on the basis of a simple majority. Members know that attendance at a committee of that kind is never 100 per cent perfect; there is always someone missing, and I get the horrible feeling inside me that if those who happen to be absent were there in the committee and if somebody else was absent the decision would be different, and one of the things which I think this house must consider in cases such as this is that decisions should be based not on a simple majority but on a two-thirds majority-certainly not on a simple majority, at least-to offset the factor of people coming in late, of people who attend only part of the hearing and so on, and to offset also the factors that work inside ourselves, because when we hear evidence we like to be objective-we like to set ourselves apart altogether and be totally impartial, but because we are human beings we cannot do that. There is in each one of us a propensity, I suppose, to believe the worst of anyone and this is very hard to get out of your mind, and it is hard to be absolutely impartial when you are hearing evidence.
There is in everyone of us a tendency, also, to react against other individuals. A certain witness will say something, and say it in a way which will sort of rile you; you react against it, and that is something we cannot help. And there is in most of us, I suppose, a propensity to sympathize with the underdog. These are all factors which interfere with the balance of our judgment. There must be factors in this committee to offset all the other factors which are likely to offset our judgment in matters like this. We are all sincerely endeavouring to do our best and do what we believe is right but we have a haunting fear that whatever we do we have a 50 per cent chance of being wrong.
There was only one witness in this case who, I believe, did not tell one lie, and that was the son of Mrs. Terry, a young boy of 17 or 18 years of age. He was straightforward and very convincing. In the evidence of all

the other witnesses there were flaws and it is not right to pick out one and say one was more reliable than another. There are flaws in all their evidence. However, when we come to make our decisions we have a responsibility to uphold the tradition of justice on which we have prided ourselves down through the centuries and that tradition is that a person is innocent unless proved guilty. We must be certain, the proof must be convincing and it must relate to certain days specified.
There is any amount of suspicion in cases like this, but suspicion is not enough. You cannot judge a case on suspicion. There must be proof, and opportunity is not enough. As the chairman pointed out this afternoon there were five occasions when the respondent and the co-respondent were together in the house. There was opportunity, but there was no proof, and on four of those occasions there was no proof that they were alone in this house. There could have been other people present, children or visitors. All we know is that these people were alone in the house at the time the detectives broke in but they were found in separate parts of the house and we do not know who was present prior to the break-in. You cannot say that proof of adultery lies in the fact that two people are alone in a house. Reference was made to the fact that the gentleman was bare to the waist but even if that were true it is no proof of adultery because the woman might not have been in the room with him at any time. The argument was pinned on those circumstances on the night the detectives broke in to secure the evidence.
The very fact that people in their desire to secure evidence of adultery will go to the length of violating the law and breaking down a person's door and invading their privacy causes me to place little reliance on whatever evidence they give. I am suspicious because they were prepared to go to such lengths to secure the evidence.
We also must consider what will be the results of granting this divorce. If I vote for or against it I have a 50-50 chance of being wrong because it is almost impossible to reach an accurate decision on the basis of the evidence presented in this case. Also I must as an individual consider what will be the results of my voting for this bill and I must attempt to take the course of action that will produce the least harmful results. If I were to vote in favour of the preamble of this bill carrying I must consider some of the following results. In the first place if the committee votes for the bill it will have taken a step that cannot be retraced. Once the divorce is granted the marriage is
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terminated. If we do that we are in effect reversing the tradition of British law by saying that because a person is suspected of misconduct he is guilty and he has to prove his innocence and that because he has not proved his innocence he is guilty. But we have no positive proof of actual adultery. This couple were found in the same house but in different parts of it when the detectives broke in. Although the detectives had been following these people for a number of months they had witnessed no open display of affection between them.
All hon. members know that a great deal of the evidence that comes before us in these cases is evidence that is contrived, set up or manufactured. People arrange to be found together in compromising circumstances but in every other case of which I have knowledge at least the two parties concerned were found in the same room and there was supporting evidence in that a bed was ruffled or there was underwear strewn about or some other supporting evidence. If because two people are found in the same building, one in the attic and one in the basement, they are guilty of adultery, we are establishing an extremely bad precedent and making it easier in future for people who want divorces to manufacture evidence.
On the other hand, however, hon. gentlemen must consider that if we do not pass the bill the situation will remain as is and the marriage will not be dissolved. If the wife has been guilty of misconduct she will no doubt persist in it and there will be another opportunity provided for her husband to secure more substantial evidence to place before us. For the above reasons I cannot support the carrying of this preamble.


Mr. Martin (Timmins):: Mr. Chairman, the hon. member for Halifax who serves very capably as chairman of the committee on miscellaneous and private bills highlighted one of the most important features of the work of the committee when he referred to the difficulty of the committee particularly in cases of this nature to reach an honest and sound decision. I have been bothered a great deal by the fact that difficult cases of this nature are rendered even more difficult when hon. members of the committee are as rushed as we have been during this session. I speak from personal experience, one which I am sure is shared by most hon. members serving on that committee, when I say I find great difficulty in concentrating on these cases because other thoughts keep going through my mind. One thinks of a speech one must prepare for a certain time, one wonders if a certain report is yet available and one remembers a couple of letters one should have answered the day before but overlooked. I submit that

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hon. members are in no position to reach sound decisions with respect to difficult cases when they are as busy as we have been this session.
The history of this case has been outlined by the hon. member for Burin-Burgeo. The case came before the committee of the other place, was passed by the other place, reached the house, was rejected and referred back to the committee. When it concluded its discussions the committee was split down the middle. One side was as convinced they were right as they were that the other side was wrong.
An important fact to bear in mind is that if we pass this bill we are establishing an extremely bad precedent.


Some hon. Members:: Six o'clock.


Murdo William Martin: We can all see what this will inevitably lead to in the future.


Gordon Campbell Chown: Order. It being six o'clock, shall I rise, report progress and request leave to consider this bill again at the next sitting of the house?


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.
Progress reported.


Mr. Speaker:: The hour for the consideration of private and public bills having expired, the house will revert to the business which was interrupted at five o'clock. It being six o'clock I do now leave the chair.

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



DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORT

[Stage Direction]
414. Departmental administration, $162,855.
At six o'clock the committee took recess.

AFTER RECESS

The committee resumed at eight o'clock.
Mr. Brassard (Lapointe):: Mr. Chairman,
although I almost committed myself to the minister that I would not participate in this debate I hope he will forgive me for taking a few minutes of the time of the committee to say a few words in French on this item.
(Translation):
First, I would like to say what a happy choice it was when the Prime Minister (Mr. Diefenbaker) appointed Mr. Hees as Minister of Transport. It is true that it is not too easy to follow in the footsteps of men like the member for Laurier (Mr. Chevrier) and Mr. George Marler; but I must say that the present Minister of Transport knows his job, 
and that you will never find a more affable person. But knowing how very modest he is, I suppose he would not take issue with me when I say that even the passage of time will not give him the profound knowledge possessed by his predecessors.
On that note, I wish him the best of good luck-and that does not mean I hope he has to spend too long burdened with the administration of the Department of Transport.
I shall conclude these opening remarks by saying that he can consider it an honour to be appointed Minister of Transport. My personal experience has very often given me first-hand insight into the high standard of efficiency and the conscientiousness of senior officials and personnel in the Department of Transport. I am revolted at the childish and baseless charges made in the press by the one whom I must still call the "honourable" member for Brantford (Mr. Wratten).
Mr. Chairman, I wish to thank the minister and congratulate him for his speech when he introduced his estimates. Considering the short time he has been in office, I think he has shown that he has really "gone to it" and that while he has perhaps not solved all the problems of Canadians in this field, he has grasped them. May I also pay tribute to the hon. member for Laurier (Mr. Chevrier) who held the portfolio of transport for 9 years and who personally announced the construction of the Beattyville-Chibouga-mau railroad.


Louis-Joseph Pigeon: By the skin of his teeth.


Augustin Brassard: Oh, "by the skin of his teeth"! May I ask why? Of course, the jab comes from a government member; there are a few of them who like interjecting, which is just about all they're able to contribute to the debates of the house. Just the same I will-


Mr. Parizeau:: Come to the point, assuming you have a point.


Augustin Brassard: If the member for Lake St. John (Mr. Parizeau) wanted to get up and say something perhaps we could reply to him-even regarding the Lake St. John airport in Alma.
I thank the former administration for having given us the Chibougamau-St. Felicien railway. Many things were said during the last elections, and even during the 1957 campaign, about the Chibougamau-St. Felicien railroad. I have no doubt that several members in the opposition, even my predecessor

and Mr. Gagnon, the hon. member for Chicoutimi, have made inquiries in this house and took some steps in order to intercede with the minister. I do not deny that they made some effort, but I also want to commend Mr. Andre Gauthier, the distinguished predecessor of the hon. member for Lake St. John and also the former hon. member for Roberval, Mr. Georges Villeneuve, who urged my former employer, the Hon. George Marler, to proceed with the project. And I am all the better in a position to know what I am talking about because at that time I was Mr. Marler's humble secretary, and Messrs. Gauthier and Villeneuve pressed Mr. Marler so much that at one time the former minister of transport told me: "Now, you'll just have to tell them to stop bothering me; I know we must build a railway between St. Felicien and Chibougamau, and we are going to build it."
If I say this, Mr. Chairman, it is because many electors of the constituencies of Lake St. John, Lapointe, Chicoutimi and Roberval have heard another story. I do not in the least intend to minimize the merit of all those who spoke in favour of the railway between Chibougamau and St. Felicien. Mr. Gagnon spoke about it; my predecessor in the constituency of Lapointe, Mr. Girard, spoke about it, but the fact remains that the Liberal government gave us the Chibougamau-St. Felicien railway.
During the last election campaign and even during the campaign of 1957, I heard a candidate state that it was through the intervention of members of the opposition that the construction of the Chibougamau-St. Felicien railroad had been decided. No doubt the committee will allow me to recall a witty remark made over television by a former Liberal member who said: "If you are willing to give credit to the Quebec Liberal opposition for the Talbot boulevard in our area, we are ready, on our part, to give credit to the Conservative opposition for the construction of the Chibougamau-St. Felicien railroad".
In that connection, Mr. Chairman, I also wish to pay tribute to Mr. Grenier, the late lamented secretary of the Conseil economique de I'orientation du Saguenay. Before he died, over a year ago, he had made great efforts and had pleaded on several occasions with Mr. Marler for the construction of the Chibougamau-St. Felicien railway.
The Minister of Transport will perhaps allow me, and I believe this is about all I
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am going to say on the first item because I do not want to take up all the time of the committee, to read a letter that was sent to me by the president of the brotherhood of railroad employees of my riding, about the lay-offs which have been made in that organization, respecting the number of miles for the section men in the Lake St. John-Saguenay areas.
Mr. Chairman, I beg your pardon, but I will only read a short part of this letter into the record. I hope that the minister will avail himself of the good offices of his deputy, who speaks French very well, or of those of the marine services where there are quite a number of people quite conversant in that language. As a matter of fact the minister himself speaks French very well indeed. I would like, then, to read a passage from a letter I have received from the chairman of the railway employees union of my area:
At the regular quarterly meeting of the Brotherhood Maintenance of Way Employees' local 417, held at Jonquiere on April 5 last, it was proposed and unanimously carried that a letter should be sent to you to congratulate you on your election-
In this instance I am not alone. There are three other members from the area who were elected along with me. I continue:
-and to wish you a long life in the service of Canadians.
Mr. Chairman, there is no doubt that I will have a long life in the service of Canadians.
I have also been asked to acquaint you with the facts and to ask your help to stop a project which high officials of the C.N.R. have been considering for a fairly long time, a decision which would not be very beneficial to our area since it would tend to lower the standards of security and speed, and to curtail the service and improvements on the ''Laurentian" division. Under this project, the sections which now are 7 to 8 miles long and are manned by three sectionmen would be increased to 12 to 15 miles for about the same number of men, thus causing the dismissal of 50 or 60 regular workers out of a total number of 300 who look after 600 miles of railroad.
As you are not acquainted with the work of regular sectionmen who look after the maintenance and upkeep of the railway line, I may tell you that a section crew is made up of a foreman and two men who have from 7 to 8 miles to maintain, which means that they have to patrol the area, inspect the rails, change them when necessary, change the sleepers, mend the fences, level the line, keep it straight, take care of public and farm crossings, of ditches, sideways, switches, in short maintain everything belonging to the C.N.R.
Moreover, our winters with snow, ice and frost considerably increase the amount of work to be done.
I shall add that the dieselization did not reduce our task so that, as in other departments, this changeover to another form of power cannot be invoked as a reason for decreasing the number of regular employees. Mr. Gordon once said that sectionmen were the backbone of the railways.

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Consequently, their number cannot be reduced without endangering the security of the passengers, the employees and the equipment. People may say that in other divisions such a rearrangement of sections actually did take place, but I can assure you that ours is not comparable to any other.
I perfectly understand the attitude of the C.N.R. management in this respect. I do not want to criticize Mr. Gordon, because I have seen too many hon. members in the opposition, including the present hon. Minister of Transport, putting the blame on the National Railways authorities. I had the pleasure of working with several C.N.R. officials and I know-and to my mind the hon. Minister of Transport knows it too-that Mr. Gordon and his colleagues are doing a tremendous job for the Canadian National Railways. They do so in a spirit of devotion and competence, which is second to none among the employees to that of other crown corporations in our country.
I am not questioning the decision of the authorities. I merely note the fact that from 30 to 40 employees were laid off on account of that decision. I shall certainly not criticize the president of the Canadian National Railways for trying to administer the company intelligently and on a business-like basis. He is a very competent man and, I repeat, he is second to none in the country as far as competence is concerned in the exercise of his duties. However, the government will perhaps admit that there is a problem there, because among those who are laid off, there are married people with families to bring up, and who have worked 10, 12, or 15 years for the Canadian National Railways. They learned a trade that they cannot exercise in private industry, elsewhere than in the Canadian National Railways or in the Canadian Pacific Railways. That is a grim situation. I also ask the hon. minister, when the session is over, to have my speech read to one of his officials and to communicate with the C.N.R. authorities to see if there is no way of overcoming this thorny problem.
At the beginning of my remarks, I said I would not take up too much of the committee's time. I will just say this: I know the member for Saguenay (Mr. LaRue) complained this afternoon about the former Liberal administration not having done much for his constituency. Of course, he was careful not to refer to what they actually did; he simply concentrated on what they had not done in his riding. I do not reproach him for trying to help his riding, but regarding the former Liberal administration, he could have been a little more objective and could have tried to grant some credit.

I call upon the hon. minister to be good enough to have my speech read by one of his officials, so that he can tackle this problem; I thank him in advance for his kind attention.
(Text):


John Richard Garland: You are about to see an example, Mr. Chairman, of the benefit of an extended discussion. I came into the house last evening prepared to speak for at least 40 minutes. This morning, I changed my mind and cut that down by 50 per cent. This afternoon, as the discussion wore on, I threw away my speech. Tonight, I am only going to detain the committee for a short time to discuss one matter that is of real importance in my district and that is the problem that arises from the conflict of interests between navigation and the lumber interests in our district. It is a matter that is the result of what I might call the lack of teeth in the Navigable Waters Protection Act.
I am going to outline the problem as briefly as I can, then I should like to say what has been done about it and what I think should be done about it. It is a problem that can be fully corrected only by action of this parliament. It is brought about by what I might call the misuse of the Sturgeon river by certain companies, and in this case I have in mind one company, in the movement of logs down that river. The river is very important to the people of my district. There is the tourist industry, which is tremendously important; there are other activities across the lake and there are the local people who like to enjoy the facilities that the river provides. All of these people are handicapped by what I call the misuse of this river in these logging operations.
In the past when the drive was on in the spring the logs were shot down the river with complete disregard for the people who normally use those waters. The matter usually came to the attention of the council or chamber of commerce, and they in turn perhaps discussed the matter together and then went to the offending firm. Sometimes results were obtained. In later years, the matter generally came to the member of parliament. I know this process has been going on for the last 30 years. The member then would appeal to the minister. Until three or four years ago the member usually went to the minister of public works and members of the engineering branch, most of whom worked at that time out of Ottawa, used to visit the area. All of this takes time,

and by the time the engineering branch visited the area, nature or the offending company had usually corrected the problem. However, there was no permanent solution.
Time went along, and in 1955 we were able to get the two companies that now use the river together with the Sturgeon Falls council and the members of the chamber of commerce. At that meeting there was a recognition of the problem and a promise that this misuse would not be committed in the future. Since that time the one company has been most co-operative and has avoided moving logs on holiday week-ends or when there was insufficient water in the river. They have had a regard for the interests of other people using these waters. The other company, it seems, still continues to disregard their responsibilities in this area.
As recently as a few days ago I received another telegram which I should like to take the time to read to the committee. This is a telegram from the Sturgeon Falls chamber of commerce and is directed to me. It reads: Contractor for J. B. Smith Company started moving logs through sluice about ten days ago. Loose logs in Minniha-Sa bay and Sturgeon river makes navigation most dangerous. Conditions last weekend were the worst in past ten years. Tourists trying to go across the lake had to detour to Lavigne. It is evident that the contractor is deliberately disregarding safety of those travelling on the river. Several thousand logs were released last week-end even when it was apparent that waters above dam would not be released because of shortage. Please pray the Minister of Transport to see that conditions are remedied as soon as possible. Gordon Lumber Co. gave us full co-operation this year.
Mr. Chairman, I have stated the matter. I have brought it to the attention of the minister personally, and I know he is giving it his attention. Part I of the Navigable Waters Protection Act has to do with permits for construction of things in and on navigable waters. Part II of the Navigable Waters Protection Act deals with the use to which these waters can be put. I raised this matter when the Navigable Waters Protection Act was amended in 1956. At that time I thought perhaps an amendment could be made to part I. However, upon reflection, I think this legislation can only be amended as to part II. There could be a solution to this problem if teeth were put into this legislation. In the past, when officials of the department have gone to the area it would depend perhaps on how hard they stamped their feet whether or not they obtained desirable results. However, if teeth are put into this legislation this problem can be solved. I should like to suggest an interdepartmental committee. I had this suggestion close to realization at one time. I am now suggesting it again. I suggest that perhaps an interdepartmental
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committee could be set up of representatives of the Department of Public Works and the Department of Transport to study this problem with a view to bringing in an amendment to the Navigable Waters Protection Act that would specifically spell out this problem and the corrective.
Before I take my seat I should like to thank the Minister of Transport for the kind and sympathetic attention he gave to a request earlier this year in connection with the relocating of the administration or terminal building at the North Bay airport. I would not want this opportunity to pass without thanking the minister on my own behalf and particularly on behalf of the chamber of commerce and the other people in my district who are so greatly interested. I wonder whether the minister has anything further to say as to the progress on that project.


George Harris Hees: I might just answer the hon. member now on that matter. I should like to assure him first of all that we are looking into the question that he first raised. I can tell him that we shall do our very best to work out the best possible solution for that very real problem which the people he has mentioned are running into.
Second, with regard to North Bay airport terminal building, I am glad to be able to report that a new civil area for development of civil terminal facilities has been selected quite separate from the military installations. Engineering planning is proceeding now and we hope that we may be able to commence some clearing during the winter this year and that with further development the construction contract can be let next year.


Mr. Stanton:: Mr. Chairman, I will not take up too much time of the committee at this stage. I am going to take a cue from the minister in past years. He always said what he had to say in about ten minutes. It has always been my considered opinion that it should not take a person 30 minutes to build up what he had to, say in ten minutes.
At this time, Mr. Chairman, I wish to thank the minister for his kindness in the grant that he has given us in Leeds county and the city of Brockville for the municipal airport. I should like to bring to the attention of the committee something about which I have spoken frequently in past years, namely the condition of the railway station which we have had to put up with now for a good number of years. This station in Brockville is outdated and outmoded and if it stands much longer it will be outlawed. It was built shortly after the Grand Trunk railway was completed between Montreal and Toronto. I feel that it was built to accommodate the

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people of Brockville at a time when Brock-ville was a very small town. But I might say the population of Brockville has increased about 100 per cent in the past 18 years. It is now a thriving city. I believe that the people of Brockville are deserving of a station in proportion to the prospects for the future and that the industry which is thriving there at the present time merits nothing less. The city of Brockville is on the eastern outskirts of the Thousand islands and is indeed in what I might call Leeds the lovely.
I have another problem which I wish to bring before the committee this evening, namely the level crossing on William street in Brockville. It is extremely inconvenient. Not only that, but it is dangerous. Brockville is expanding to the north. That is the only way it has to expand. William street, which crosses the double tracks of the C.N.R. from Montreal to Toronto and also the main C.P.R. line from Brockville to Ottawa, is closed off by the several trains that pass over those tracks during the 24 hours of the day. It is a serious matter. We have schools in this vicinity and another large school is being built at the present time north of those tracks which children are obliged to cross. Not only that, but these tracks are closed off by passing trains and trains which are stationary at the station, sometimes for intervals of quite some duration.
I should like to give a good illustration of that situation. Not too long ago an ambulance was hurrying a patient to the hospital-a catastrophe patient-and it did not get there in time for medical aid. Not only that, but it has been known in the not too distant past that a maternity ambulance had to stop at this crossing and I might say that the results were rather regrettable. There are three highways passing over this street, namely highways 29, 42 and the road from the new highway 401, which bypasses Brockville. Increased traffic to Brockville will come over that route. Within another year traffic will be terrific and I say without hesitation that it is time that something is done with regard to this level crossing in order to make it less hazardous and more convenient for the people.
I have spoken on this matter on several occasions in this house but apparently what I have said has fallen on deaf ears. I am happy to state now that negotiations are under way at the present time between the three levels of government, namely the board of transport commissioners, the provincial department of highways and the municipal government of the city of Brockville. I am hopeful that no stone will be left unturned in an effort to bring about immediate improvements and that a subway or overpass may be

constructed on this street which will make passage more convenient and less hazardous. I hope the minister will use his influence in every way he can to eliminate this obstacle and to further the building of this subway which will be much appreciated by the residents of the area which I have the honour to represent.


Mr. Regier:: Mr. Chairman, I wish to present to the new Minister of Transport a problem which I hope in the months ahead, when the pressure of work will not be so urgently upon him, he will very seriously consider and which I hope he will bring to the attention of his colleagues in the cabinet and to the attention of interested parties in the lower mainland of British Columbia in order to see whether or not a new approach can be instituted. I have in mind the problem of the Fraser river. We now have a new government and a new minister and I am hoping that he can restore a bit of order out of the mess of confusion which exists in the mouth of that river.
As the minister knows, we have in New Westminster what is known as the New Westminster harbour board; in south Burnaby we have the north Fraser harbour board, and we also have the national harbours board administering most of the other waters in and around the mouth of the Fraser river. Large areas of water and shoreline are really nobody's business at all, although technically speaking all of what used to be the wilderness areas of the waterfront were at one time assigned to the national harbours board and therefore come under the jurisdiction of the harbour master in Vancouver. Actually these areas have received no attention from the government, from the harbour master or from any of the harbour boards for a very long period of years, and with the upset of the government many of the municipalities concerned are very, very optimistic for the future and they are now hoping that out of the tens of millions of dollars voted annually for the purpose of looking after the mouth of the Fraser river a little bit of development will come their way.
There are many conflicting interests involved in the administration of the waters of the Fraser river and I believe it is not by evil design but that it is primarily because of these conflicting interests that many matters have not received attention which should have received attention and that very large sums of money now being voted each year are an absolute waste. The federal government has a number of ministers who are involved. When it comes to taking the water off the land, the Minister of Agriculture is

concerned; when it comes to making surveys the Minister of Northern Affairs and National Resources is concerned, and he has a large vote with respect to the Fraser river in his estimates; when it comes to taking sand out to enable ships to navigate and to building the breakwaters the Minister of Public Works is concerned. The Minister of Transport is concerned with the harbours in the area and the Minister of Agriculture is concerned with the problem of erosion of the rich agricultural land. The Minister of Fisheries is very much concerned with what happens in and around the mouth of the Fraser river and in an emergency, such as that which happened a few years ago in British Columbia, the whole cabinet is involved. On that occasion, in 1948, it had to vote many, many millions of dollars to augment the even greater number of dollars spent by the British Columbia government to alleviate the conditions caused by the flooding of the river. The Minister of Public Works is also involved with respect to this river when it comes to the building of bridges across it.
Our British Columbia government also has many ministers involved in what happens on the Fraser river. The minister in charge of highways has to look after the bridges, and the minister of fisheries in British Columbia is concerned. Another minister deals with the building of dikes along the river banks. The British Columbia government is vitally concerned that the river should be adequately used by the lumber interests and we have in the heart of my riding the largest sawmill in the British commonwealth, which is situated on the banks of the Fraser river. The government of British Columbia is also concerned that this river may be an important source for the development of hydroelectric energy. There are others who are concerned, it will be seen, besides the Minister of Transport. There are the farmers, the fishermen, the shipping interests, the longshoremen, the industrial concerns and those who are interested in the recreational possibilities of the shorelines of the lower mainland.
I remember the Minister of Public Works, when he was in the opposition, for some time advocating to the then minister of transport that that minister should accept the establishment of an advisory committee to the national harbours board and I believe that what the Minister of Public Works had in mind was that on this advisory committee might be found representatives of the various, and at times, conflicting, interests. The then minister of transport, after hours of coaxing, eventually agreed that there was merit in the
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suggestion of an advisory committee composed of local interests who were concerned with the matter, somewhat similar to that which existed in respect of the harbour board at Halifax. I understand, however, that such a committee has never been established; it was left more or less in the hands of one of the aldermen of the city of Vancouver, who apparently did very little about it.
I wish the minister would look into that possibility, particularly to see if an advisory committee established to assist the national harbours board in the administration of harbour facilities in the lower mainland could have on it adequate representation from the municipal corporations affected. I would like to go much further and to see established a Fraser river board or a Fraser river authority, having a board composed of representatives of all municipalities from the mouth of the Fraser all the way up to Hope. The federal and provincial governments might then reach an agreement whereby they could through their various authorities supply the technical and administrative personnel necessary. However, this Fraser river authority, constituted of all the interests concerned, would lay down the general policy as to how, when and where things were to be done along this vital river.
This river is of vital importance to most of the people of our province. On this Fraser river board should be, primarily, representatives of municipal bodies, of the shipping companies, of industrial interests-in particular, lumber and fisheries-of labour-the longshoremen's and fishermen's unions and the agriculture organizations.
What kind of work would this Fraser river board do? First of all it would do the work now being done by the national harbours board, the New Westminster board and the North Fraser harbour board. This board would replace these local boards and would undertake a much more comprehensive organization, an organization which would be much wider in its interests than the interests being served at the present time.
The first responsibility of a Fraser river board would be to undertake a complete survey of the potentialities of the river. This has been recommended to the Minister of Public Works and, I believe, to the Minister of Transport by the lower mainland regional planning board. This is an organization which has very excellent advisers. They have technical men on their payroll and they have received the active support of the municipal corporations along the banks of the Fraser, bodies from which they derive most of their income.

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This lower mainland planning board has asked that the potentialities of this river be explored. We cannot have proper and economic development of this river unless a survey is made of all its potentialities. This would avoid much of the overlapping which now takes place. It would ensure that shipping interests would not be hampered from time to time by the lack of an adequate dredging program. For several weeks in almost each and every year ocean-going vessels cannot load grain because the federal government has not adequately carried out its responsibilities on this river. We would be able to obtain full utilization of all the resources that this river can afford. We would see a little harbour development in Burnaby, along the Pitt river and along the eastern end of the Fraser river. Up to now this river has been developed in a slipshod and haphazard manner; there has been no element of design attached to it. However, it is now time that we should realize we are either going to continue the mess we are in now or we are going to begin to utilize the river in such a manner as the ingenuity of the people concerned can best accomplish.
I should like to pass on two other thoughts. I hope the minister will at some time consider asking that the corporation of Burnaby, which has a railroad running through the centre of it, be supplied with a railway station if for no other purpose than to load and unload passengers and take on express. After all, the city of Toronto has all kinds of places where the trains stop on the way to and from the city. Montreal has the same facilities. We are asking for the same thing in Burnaby. We do not like to go through heavy traffic for many miles to the railway stations at New Westminster or Vancouver.
I should like to thank the department for deciding against locating an auxiliary airport in my riding. The people in my riding have long been apprehensive lest the quiet of their homes be disturbed by the noise and by the danger which is involved in living next door to an airfield. I understand that the department has now developed an auxiliary airport in the Pitt Meadows area and I should like the minister if possible to give a report on the progress being made in the development of that airfield.


George Roy McWilliam: Mr. Chairman, I know the committee is anxious to pass this main item. I will therefore move directly to the local matter I wish to raise.
In the constituency of Northumberland-Miramichi there has been a continuing problem facing the department in connection with the dominion government telephone line which
[Mr. Regier.l
serves the area from Black river bridge to Escuminac on the south side of Miramichi bay.
There is a heavy concentration in this area of people who are engaged for the most part in the fishing industry and who reside, in the main, along the Chatham-Escuminac highway. Their only means of telecommunication is the federal government telephone line. This telephone line was constructed many years ago, primarily as an aid to navigation as a connection link between Chatham and the marine lighthouse at Escuminac point but also for the dispatch of pilots from shore to ship to guide ocean going steamers to inshore ports along the Miramichi river for cargoes of lumber, and to relay notification of the steamer's arrival at point Escuminac to transport and customs and excise officials at Chatham.
This telephone line has never been properly equipped to a point that assured services under all conditions, despite the concentrated efforts of the maintenance crew and the diligent work of the board operators. Over the years the department has expended moneys for the upkeep of the line but expenditures were never sufficient to bring it to the standard of other telephone systems operating in the province.
The department's expenditures may have been based on the revenue derived from this line. I know that revenues have decreased of late years and that collections have been difficult. One reason why collections have been poor and why patrons whose accounts were always promptly paid have discontinued the service is the poor service rendered, particularly at nights.
In the first place the equipment is not adequate to provide uninterrupted service. Many times there has been no service for periods of two and three days and on occasions for a full week. Another reason-and a very important one- is that the service is operated only during day time. During the night it is not possible to contact a clergyman or doctor or nurse. When medical care is required during the night there is no way to contact the closest doctor at Chatham, up to 30 miles away, except by driving over the highway and during storms in the wintertime that is almost impossible.
For several years I have made representations to the department outlining existing conditions and urging that the line be adequately equipped. The situation is becoming worse even to the point of a curtailment in the hours during which operators are on duty. The department should either provide adequate service or offer their franchise and equipment to a public utility company, as a solution which I previously advanced to the

department. Even if the department turned over the entire equipment gratis and granted a subsidy in respect of the telephone service for the lighthouse and pilots, the government would save money.
Telephone service in this area is away out of step with the standard enjoyed in other places. It is an important fishing area and adequate telephone connections are essential for this and other obvious reasons. Even the British empire lightweight champion, Yvon Durelle, who lives in this area has to drive to Chatham to make his telephone contacts. It is difficult to realize that in the year 1958 a well-populated area settled hundreds of years ago is so inadequately served. I trust the minister will see to it that this area receives telephone service in keeping with modern day requirements and that this problem will not be sidestepped further by small annual expenditures that only put salve on the sore.


Hazen Robert Argue: Mr. Chairman, on the first item of the estimates of the Department of Transport I should like to inquire of the minister whether or not it is his intention to proceed at this session with the resolution standing on the order paper in his name to amend the Transport Act to provide for the appointment of a transport controller. I ask this in view of the great interest that has been taken in the Bracken royal commission on boxcars and their distribution. As people who are acquainted with this problem well know, if any major step is to be taken to provide a fair basis for the distribution of boxcars at elevator points in the prairie region it is quite possible and indeed almost likely that authority such as is requested in this resolution would be required.
I can see no reason the government might have had for placing this resolution on the order paper other than its belief that this power was needed as a result of the pending report of the Bracken commission. If it is needed or if it is likely to be needed then I feel the legislation should be passed during this session. If on the other hand the government knows that Mr. John Bracken in his report will not be suggesting anything that will require such power or will not be making any recommendation that will require such power before the next session of parliament then I do not feel there is any reason for the government to go forward with this resolution. In other words, if the government believes the power that would flow from having passed this measure is required, I for one am fully prepared to support it. If on the other hand the government believes that this power is not necessary between now and the next session of parliament then 57071-3-274
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I can see no reason for proceeding. I should like the minister to tell me whether it is needed in the light of any report that may be made by the Bracken commission.


George Harris Hees: I am very glad to answer that question, Mr. Chairman. Since introducing this legislation I have looked into the matter very carefully and I can see no indication of any need for such legislation between now and the next session of parliament and so I have withdrawn the legislation. If at some future time it appears that a controller is needed then legislation to appoint one will be introduced.


Hazen Robert Argue: I believe the minister has taken a very reasonable position. I am not asking the minister to comment on this but it would suggest to me very definitely that Mr. John Bracken will not be reporting anything to the government that would require this type of power between now and the next session of parliament. I realize, of course, that other powers may be available, for example, under the Canadian Wheat Board Act or that a solution could be found through some measure other than the one to which the minister referred.
I wish to support all those organizations, provincial governments and members of this house who have impressed upon the government the need to provide a toll-free seaway. The people of the prairies and industries in eastern Canada have looked forward to the establishment of the St. Lawrence seaway as a means of providing great savings to their industries and have shared the hope that on the completion of the seaway it would be made toll-free. They are disturbed not only by the report of the minister that tolls will be levied on the seaway but also by the reported possibility that tolls may be levied on the Welland canal. They believe this is a retrograde step and something the government should resist. Knowing the many statements made by hon. members of the Conservative party in the past to the effect that they would support Canadian interests when they came into conflict with United States interests, I express the hope that the Canadian government will exert its influence to make the seaway toll-free.
I have examined a number of submissions that have been made in this regard by many organizations and I find the body of opinion supporting a toll-free seaway is very substantial indeed. Representations have been made by the Canadian Federation of Agriculture, by the interprovincial farm union council and by a well known and important newspaper of this country, the Globe and Mail, which, in spite of a few screwball editorials and a recent one in particular which comes to my mind, is in my opinion a newspaper of very

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high stature in Canada. I believe it is becoming, as it were, Canada's New York Times. In a thoughtful editorial in the Globe and Mail in the issue of July 29 it is pointed out that there should be no tolls on the Welland canal.
Also in opposition to tolls on the Welland canal are the great lakes fleet owners, the Steel Company of Canada, the Niagara Peninsula communities, the province of Saskatchewan and the province of Manitoba. Indeed, a very large percentage of the Canadian public as represented by these organizations and provincial governments believe that Canada's policy should be a toll-free seaway.
The Minister of Transport in the past has given his version of what a system of tolls might save in the way of lower freight rates on grain. The people of the prairies are naturally interested in the St. Lawrence seaway in the hope that it will reduce their freight rate burden both on goods being shipped to the west and on goods being shipped to the east and particularly on grain shipments. They have noted with a great deal of concern as I am sure the government also has that the route through Port Arthur and Fort William, through the great lakes and the St. Lawrence river, in relation to the west route through Vancouver, in recent years has become relatively uneconomical for the movement of grain.
When appearing before the agriculture committee of this house during this session the chairman of the Canadian wheat board W. C. MacNamara gave figures relating to the cost of shipping through various routes. We were informed that to ship wheat from Fort William to Montreal cost 22\ cents a bushel. To trans-ship this wheat to the United Kingdom from Montreal costs 14.4 cents a bushel. On the other hand, the total rate out of Vancouver to the United Kingdom is only 18 cents a bushel that is compared with the total eastern rate of more than 36 cents a bushel.
The minister said that the St. Lawrence seaway would result in a saving of 4 cents a bushel to the shippers of wheat. In the agricultural committee I asked the chairman of the wheat board the following question:
Do you know whether or not the saving might be in the neighbourhood of 4 or 5 cents a bushel?
To this question the chairman of the Canadian wheat board replied:
No. I think that is anybody's guess. I will be pleasantly surprised if it results in a saving of 4 cents per bushel for our producers.
I should like the minister, if he can, to give the committee the assurance once again that the use of the St. Lawrence seaway will result in a minimum saving of 4 cents a bushel. I know that the minister must have

had very good grounds for making this statement but I also believe that the chairman of the Canadian wheat board is an expert on all matters relating to wheat and it was disturbing to me to hear him state that he would be pleasantly surprised if the seaway results in a saving of 4 cents per bushel. I repeat my suggestion to the minister that in so far as possible the St. Lawrence seaway should be toll free.
There is another matter I wish to raise on item one of these estimates. I refer to the whole question of C.N.R. lay-offs and the policy of the C.N.R. with regard thereto. On previous occasions I have raised during this session the matter of lay-offs by the C.N.R. at various shops across the country and in reply to my questions the Minister of Transport has always said that he would be quite prepared to discuss the matter with the C.N.R. management. While I have no doubt that the minister has always discussed this matter with the C.N.R. following requests in the house, little seems to have been gained by these discussions and the lay-offs are continuing.
The lay-offs seem to be taking place at a large number of points across Canada. I have in my hand a letter from the Moncton and district labour council sent to me on June 13 of this year which reads in part as follows:
Commencing a short time after the election, layoffs in the C.N.R. have been constant-small, but constant. There is every indication that the eventual padlocking of the C.N.R. shops in Moncton is on the planning board.
That is a very strong statement made by J. E. McAllister, secretary of the Moncton and district labour council. He goes on to say, and I believe this has been discussed before in the house, that the Minister of Transport, according to newspaper reports and in statements made during television appearances, had assured the people of Moncton that this thing would not happen in the future. I think it is time that the C.N.R. and the minister gave the people who are employed by the railway company some indication whether or not they can look forward to a reasonable degree of security in their work in the months and years that lie ahead.
I know it will be said that nothing can stop progress and nothing should stop progress, and that these people are merely casualties because of technological improvement. That may be an answer that satisfies some people but it does not satisfy the men who are affected. If Canada had a full employment economy at the present time these men could look for comparable opportunities in other industries and the complaint would not be

nearly so serious. But there is every danger, in spite of anything that has been said, that as these men are laid off they will be added to the unemployed rolls in the country. Perhaps I might make reference to an article that appeared in the Winnipeg Free Press of Saturday, July 15, 1958. The writer is Michael Harris and he is dealing with a statement made by Mr. George D. Battigelli, secretary-treasurer of district lodge No. 2, international association of machinists, railroad division. The article reads in part as follows:
As eh example of progressive reductions, he cited the proposed lay-offs at the Stratford, Ont. shops- 150 men at July 11, 70 at August 1, 70 at September 1, 60 at October 1, and 200 between April 1 and October 1, 1959-making a total of 550 shop craftsmen. These cuts will involve machinists, electricians, pipefitters, painters, carpenters, sheet metal workers, blacksmiths' helpers and other helpers and apprentices. Mr. Battigelli thinks the Stratford shops will be closed down before those at Fort Rouge.
Earlier in the article it is pointed out that C.N.R. employees at Winnipeg are very concerned about the rising lay-offs at the C.N.R. shops, particularly the Fort Rouge shop, and the report that this shop will be entirely closed in the future. I have merely given these examples of C.N.R. lay-offs to impress upon the minister again the importance of giving the House of Commons and these employees something more tangible by way of an answer than the answer we have heard heretofore, namely that the minister will discuss the matter with the C.N.R. management, without any indication being given that anything was done as a result of his representations.
If these changes are necessary in the future it would seem to me that as long as we have widespread unemployment the lay-offs should be postponed until employment picks up. From the national standpoint I can see no advantage in putting these people on the unemployed rolls now merely to draw unemployment insurance or to be a burden on the country in some other way. It would seem to me that it would be logical at this time for the government to do everything possible to see that these people retain their jobs. When the minister replies I hope he will be able to give the men who have been or may be affected greater encouragement than he has been able to give in the past.


Edmund Leverett Morris: Would the hon. gentleman permit a question before he resumes his seat?


Hazen Robert Argue: Yes.


Edmund Leverett Morris: Does the hon. gentleman, who is the leader of the C.C.F., not think that the interests of organized labour in the east, which he alluded to in his reference to the railway workers at Moncton, would be severely 57071-3-274j
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harmed if the government were to take his advice and institute a toll-free St. Lawrence seaway? Would that not affect labour in the east seriously?


Hazen Robert Argue: I do not think that at all. I for one do not feel that you can play the interests of one part of Canada against the interests of another. I am in favour of steps being taken that will improve the economic standards of people in all parts of Canada. One of the main reasons there is widespread unemployment across the nation today is the fact that the prairie grain producers are in a state of recession. I know that members of the government, including the Minister of Transport, have given very careful consideration recently to some help for the grain producers.
But I would suggest with great respect to the government that they should do a whole lot better in this regard than has been indicated by certain leaks in the newspapers to date. If they did that, it would take care of some of the problems to which my hon. friend has referred.


George Harris Hees: I should like to answer the two questions which the hon. member for Assini-boia put to me. First, he was asking me to guarantee a saving of four cents a bushel on grain being moved from the lakehead to Montreal. This, of course, I cannot do and never intended to do. When I was asked I said the best estimate I was able to make, based on the best economic information I was able to obtain, was that it was hoped and expected that the saving on a bushel of grain being transferred from the lakehead to Montreal would be four cents. Naturally, I cannot guarantee anything of that kind. All I can do is to give the best estimate available to me to make.
Secondly, the hon. member asked me to give some assurance to the workers on the Canadian National that their jobs would remain intact. This, of course, is another thing, as I think the hon. member knows, but it is impossible for me to do. The management of the railway is, by statute, responsible for all matters to do with the running of the railway. I have, as I have told my hon. friend and other members in this house when questions about Canadian National employment have been brought up, in every case brought these cases to the attention of the management and have discussed them with the management. The management has assured me, as I have informed the house, that wherever it is possible to keep an employee working, that is done. Employees are only let out very reluctantly and when there is absolutely no work for an employee to do. I am afraid I cannot give the hon. member or the house any more

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information about future employment possibilities on the Canadian National than that.


Hazen Robert Argue: I think that if it is impossible for the minister, through his negotiations, to give us any more assurance than he has been able to do tonight, then surely it is the responsibility of the government to provide in Canada an economy in which there is full employment. We have gone over the cabinet ministers, almost one by one, during this session to try to find out if one of the cabinet ministers or the government itself had any plan or any program to provide full employment in this country. I, for one, have heard nothing of any program that would suggest to me that full employment was something to which we could look forward in the near future. As a matter of fact, there has been no indication yet that the government has a winter employment program, and without an adequate winter program the fears of the people who may face lay-offs from the Canadian National shops are, of course, greatly increased.
I wonder if I may ask the minister a question as to whether, as a result of his discussions with Canadian National management, he can assure the house and the workers involved in Winnipeg that the report by Mr. A. J. Crofts and the Winnipeg Free Press of July 15 to the effect that, the Fort Rouge shops at Winnipeg will be closed by 1960, is not correct? Apparently the newspaper has some information as to the planning and program of the Canadian National. I would think the minister would be able to get, without difficulty, information from the Canadian National about its plans for the shops in Winnipeg, the Strathcona and Fort Rouge shops. Apparently the chief concern at this time is that further lay-offs will be made and that by 1960 there will be a complete closing of the Fort Rouge shops.


George Harris Hees: In answer to that question, I may say that I am aware of no such plan. I shall be glad to speak to the management of the Canadian National to ascertain if any such plan exists, but I have not heard of it.


Hazen Robert Argue: I wonder if the minister, either in the house or by letter, would communicate to me the result of his discussion with the management?


George Harris Hees: Yes, I shall be glad to do that, Mr. Chairman.


Mr. Batten:: I just want to take a few moments of the committee's time to bring to the attention of the minister one or two points concerning my own riding. I should like, first of all, to talk about the city of Corner Brook and the facilities which are needed

there. Corner Brook is the second city in Newfoundland. It is the site of, if not the largest the second largest integrated newsprint mill in the world. In addition to that, it is also a transshipping point for the northern coast of western Newfoundland. For these two reasons, there is within that area a great deal of shipping, by rail and by boat.
I know that at the moment improvements are being made to the railyard, improvements which I believe will add much to the facilities of the area. However, there is one fear that the people within the city have, and that is that it is possible to have this yard expanded, then have some type of dock built there, and to arrive at a position where there is a good dock and a railyard and yet the one is not complementary to the other because of the locations. I wonder if, when we come to the proper item of the minister's estimates, he would be able to give some information regarding the Canadian National railyard at Corner Brook.
The Canadian National now maintains the old public building which exists in the city of Corner Brook. I believe they rent part of it to the provincial government. I should like to suggest to the minister that he, in turn, suggest to the Canadian National that one improvement that could be made in the Canadian National service within the city is to have a ticket office installed in that old public building. Actually the railway station is a little out of the way. It is down on the waterfront, which is a very busy section. I think it would be extremely convenient to the travelling public if they were able to go to an office in the public building, which is in the central part of the city, and there buy railway tickets or make reservations which they want to make. I seriously make that recommendation to the minister in the hope he will, in turn, make it to the officials of the Canadian National.
Undoubtedly, the minister is aware, and I am sure the officials of his department are, that at various times within the port of Corner Brook we have a serious icebreaking problem. Following the winter of 1956-51 it was well into the month of June before ships were able to move newsprint from the port of Corner Brook to the markets of the world. Various representations have beer made by the company, by the unions anc by other bodies, both to the minister and tc the officials of his department for icebreaking service in that area. In the spring of 1957 th< mill was completely tied up because it wa: impossible to ship by boat. We were fortunah at that time in being able to secure th< services of a United States navy icebreaker the U.S.S. Edisto, which was able to comi into Corner Brook and break the ice there

Afterwards, we were able to look after it ourselves. In the meantime we also had the service of the icebreaker N.B. McLean, which did a fine job around that section of the coast in breaking the ice and starting off spring transportation. May I digress here for a moment to pay tribute to the captains and crews of both the U.S.S. Edisto and the N.B. McLean for the fine job that was done at that particular time.
May I once again urge the minister that in making his plans for icebreaking both in the lower St. Lawrence and on the west coast of Newfoundland particular attention be given to a problem which can be a serious one if the port is blocked by ice during the winter period. If the port is blocked for any prolonged period the company is not able to ship its paper. Neither are the various commercial concerns able to bring in commodities as cheaply as they can by water. The result is that in the paper industry, where the market is very competitive at the moment, 12 per cent is added to the cost of the paper. Considering the many other transportation costs in Newfoundland this added expense results in a cost which is very restrictive in the paper industry of Newfoundland. I would therefore urge the minister to give consideration to this problem of icebreaking within bay of Islands and the port of Corner Brook.
Before I leave the C.N.R. there is one other thing I should like to say. Dotted along the railway line in Newfoundland are small flag stations. These stations are not looked after by a caretaker. The station is just a small building where people can wait to board a train or where a small quantity of freight can be taken off a train or where freight can be put to be loaded on the train upon its arrival. These small flag stations dotted across the country are sometimes found to be in a state of serious disrepair. It would cost very little to have these small buildings kept in good repair all the year round. I should like to suggest to the minister than an effort be made to have these small flag stations repaired and painted. That procedure would add to the appearance of the C.N.R. property along the line.
We have down the northern coast of Newfoundland an area which, over the past few years, has had very little telegraph and telephone communication. The service there now is not only incompatible with present day needs but it does not even measure up to the standard which was experienced by people 30 years ago. Many representations have been made to the Canadian National Telegraphs and every time the reply is given that the cost of installing the necessary equipment is so great, compared with the revenue which
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could be derived, that they feel they are not prepared to make the necessary outlay.
I would suggest to the minister that somewhere between the aims of a commercial body trying to make a profit and a government body trying to operate a service for the people there arises the question of service. I would hope that the minister would either get the Canadian National Telegraphs to look into this problem or the Department of Transport itself to take over this area and service the telegraph and telephone services as it is doing in some other places. The area to which I refer is the area on the west coast of Newfoundland north of Bonne bay on the Port au Port peninsula and the area from St. George's west to the Codray valley. These areas are very poorly served by telegraph and by telephone. If there is no other solution, if the Canadian National Telegraphs is not able to handle the problem I would hope that some arrangement can be made with the Department of Transport to have this matter looked into and promptly dealt with.
Last year the Department of Transport was able to build on Kepple island near Port Saunders on the St. Barbe coast a very fine lighthouse and fog horn and a residence for the keeper. To date however this installation is not working. I should like to recommend to the minister that this installation be put into operation at the earliest possible date. It is an important one. Many of the ships that travel up and down the coast such as the C.N.R. boats have their navigation aids such as radar and so on. However the smaller boats have no navigational aids and they need the services which this lighthouse and the fog alarm are able to give.
During the debate on this first item of the estimates of the Department of Transport we have heard on more than one occasion today mention of the motor vessel William Carson. I understand that the William Carson went into Port aux Basques yesterday. I would hope that when we come to that particular item the minister will be able to give us some report on that trial run. Although it has not been stated it has been intimated that possibly it will be found that the harbour at Port aux Basques is not suitable for the William Carson and that maybe some other port will have to be found.
Let me first say-and here I agree with my colleague the hon. member for Burin-Burgeo-that in the terms of union between Newfoundland and Canada it was agreed that this ferry should operate from North Sydney to Port aux Basques. If, however, it should happen that the harbour at Port aux Basques is not found to be suitable for the William Carson, it is my belief that the only alternative port for the William Carson would be

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that of Corner Brook. Here there are rail facilities. For those who are travelling by boat there are hotel facilities. It would be an admirable solution to a difficult problem should the port of Port aux Basques be found unsuitable for the motor vessel William Carson.
I have a number of other small questions, Mr. Chairman, but I think I shall leave those until we come to the particular items.


[Stage Direction]
Item agreed to.
415.	The St. Lawrence river joint board of engineers-Canadian section, $132,090.
Lionel Chevrier: May I ask just one question. Are the duties of the St. Lawrence river joint board of engineers completed now or will they be completed soon?


George Harris Hees: We expect that their duties will be terminated with the completion of the seaway early next year.


[Stage Direction]
Item agreed to.
Canal services-
416.	Administration, $162,855.
Lionel Chevrier: On canals, perhaps I could bring to the attention of the minister one matter. With the opening of the seaway will disappear the Soulanges canal and the Ontario-St. Lawrence canals, thereby putting out of work many hundreds of people. I know that a committee had been established, even when I was occupying another position, to deal with this problem. I would simply bring to the attention of the minister the fact that in so far as the Soulanges canal is concerned, I believe there are perhaps not a sufficient number of positions on the Beauharnois canal to look after them but certainly a large number of them could be looked after, and I hope that will be done. However, the position is not quite the same with respect to the Ontario-St. Lawrence canals. I think the minister said the other day some 70 people would be out of work. May I make this suggestion to him. With the headquarters building at Cornwall there will be, with maintenance staff, elevator operators and so on, perhaps some 14 or 15 positions; I do not know how many. But it seems to me that those men who are out of work in the canal services should be given preference for those positions. I hope it will be possible for him to do that on the new Iroquois lock and that the employees of the St. Lawrence canals will be given preference.


George Harris Hees: I want to assure the hon. member that this matter is receiving very intensive study at the present time. We are working with the St. Lawrence seaway

authority on the matter. Everything possible will be done to place these displaced employees.
418. Construction or acquisition of buildings, works, land and equipment, including payments to provinces or municipalities as contributions towards construction done by those bodies, $2,531,177.


William Hector McMillan: The minister was asked several questions and I thought probably he intended to reply to some of those questions. We do not want to repeat them all over again if the minister has the answers.


George Harris Hees: I will be very glad to answer the questions put a little earlier by the hon. member for Welland. First, he asked me if the government agreed that pilotage is necessary in restricted waters, and I am very glad to assure him that the government agrees that this is so. In reply to his second question, I assure him the government is not taking any sides in the great lakes dispute. We have no jurisdiction in the matter and are taking no sides. Thirdly, I wish to advise him that the Welland ship canal will be taken over by the seaway by means of an order in council early next year.
In reply to his next question, tolls on the seaway are still under consideration and the toll structure will be proclaimed by order in council when it is finally decided upon.
The fifth question had to do with the commencement of work on the old canal clean-up. This work will be started this autumn.
Finally, the hon. member asked if in my opinion we had too many men employed in his district during the last election, and I am very glad to assure him that we did not have too many men employed there but that we had too few shovels.


Lionel Chevrier: I take it that this means the operation and control of the Welland canal will now be entrusted to the St. Lawrence seaway authority.


George Harris Hees: Yes, that is correct.


Lionel Chevrier: I wish to bring to the attention of the minister a matter which was forcibly brought to my own attention just yesterday, and that is that the Department of Transport has built a new asphalt road on the north side of the Lachine canal which is being used, I am told, exclusively by the Montreal transportation commission for the operation of the buses which are now taking the place of the Montreal tramways. These buses serve Lachine and the surrounding municipalities.
This road was originally known as Le Chemin de Touage, and it was opened to the public, but since this asphalt road has been constructed it has been closed and it

is only by means of a pass that persons who, for instance, want to get to work at the Turcot yards of the Canadian National Railways or at Ville Saint-Pierre can get through. The point I am making is that although it is true that this is not public property but is owned by the Department of Transport, it does seem to me that it should not be closed to the public but rather that it should be used by the public as it was in the past. I know that the minister cannot be aware of all these things, but perhaps he would be good enough to bring it to the attention of his officers with that end in view.


George Harris Hees: Yes, Mr. Chairman, I will be very glad to do so.


Maurice Bourget: Could the minister give us a breakdown of item 418, just for construction?


George Harris Hees: Mr. Chairman, there are a great many items here, I think too many to give in any complete detail, but if the hon. member wishes I will be glad to give him the total monetary values by systems.
For the Cornwall system, $152,000; for Williamsburg, $142,500; for St. Peter's, Nova Scotia, $6,400; for Canso, Nova Scotia, $180,000; total covering Ontario, St. Lawrence and Nova Scotia systems of $465,400.


Maurice Bourget: In order to save the time of the committee, perhaps the minister might tell me if there are any big projects involved so far as construction is involved, let us say over $200,000?


George Harris Hees: Yes, the Lachine canal project is $500,000, but that is the only single item of any size.


Maurice Bourget: May I ask the minister if the plans and specifications are prepared for these works in the department or are they prepared outside of the department by consulting engineers or architects?


George Harris Hees: For large jobs such as the project I have just mentioned we employ an outside firm of engineers, but in the case of the smaller jobs the work is done by our own engineers.


[Stage Direction]
Item agreed to.
Marine services-
421.	Construction or acquisition of vessels and equipment, $22,230,000.
Lionel Chevrier: Mr. Chairman, this is a pretty large item, and I presume it has to do with the icebreakers which the minister mentioned earlier. Would he give us a breakdown of the number of vessels and the marine districts in which they will be used?


George Harris Hees: Yes, Mr. Chairman. The lighthouse supply and buoy vessel for St. John's Newfoundland agency has an estimated cost
Supp ly-Transport
of $2,500,000-in this year's estimates the figure is $1 million. For the lighthouse supply and buoy vessel for Halifax agency, the estimated cost is $3,250,000-this year's estimates $1,850,000. The lighthouse supply and buoy vessel for Charlottetown agency, estimated cost $2 million-in this year's estimates $1 million. The lighthouse supply and buoy vessel Saint John, New Brunswick agency, estimated cost $1,500,000-in this year's estimates $900,000. An icebreaker for our northern areas, estimated cost $12 million-this year's estimates $5 million.


Lionel Chevrier: Based where, please?


George Harris Hees: It will be based in the lower St. Lawrence area.


Lionel Chevrier: Is that Halifax or Quebec?


George Harris Hees: We have not yet decided on the home port. An icebreaker, diesel electric, estimated cost $3,200,000-this year's estimates $2,050,000.


Lionel Chevrier: What district is that one
for, please?


George Harris Hees: That will be based in the lower St. Lawrence and the gulf area, but we also have not as yet decided on the home port for that ship. Further details along the lines requested by the hon. gentleman are as follows: a lightship for the Quebec agency, estimated cost, $720,000-$600,000 in this year's estimates; a service vessel for the St. Lawrence ship channel service, estimated cost, $1,300,000-$1,150,000 in this year's estimates; a lighthouse supply and buoy vessel for the Sorel agency, estimated cost $1,500,-000-there is a mistake there-the estimated cost for that ship is $700,000-$600,000 in this year's estimates; a survey and service vessel for the Sorel agency, $1 million- $600,000 in this year's estimates; a lighthouse supply and buoy vessel for the Parry Sound agency, $2,400,000-$1,500,000 in this year's estimates; a lighthouse supply and buoy vessel for the Prince Rupert, B.C. agency, $3,900,000-$2,340,000 in this year's estimates; a lighthouse supply and buoy vessel for the Victoria, B.C. agency, $2 million -$1 million in this year's estimates; work-boats for Fort Smith, Northwest Territories Agency, $190,000 in this year's estimates; conversion and refit of the Labrador, $500,000 in this year's estimates: lightering equipment for northern resupply operations, $3,420,000 in this year's estimates; construction or acquisition of equipment, $30,000 in this year's estimates. That total amounts to $23,730,000, less $1,500,000 short fall, giving a total of $22,230,000.

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Lionel Chevrier: I notice there is no supply or buoy vessel for either Quebec or Montreal districts.


George Harris Hees: We have just completed two ships for that area, the Montcalm and the Montmorency, and one of the new icebreakers which we are building will probably be used in that area.


Maurice Bourget: Looking at the details of this item on page 547, am I right in assuming that for all those ships tenders have been asked in the previous fiscal year?


George Harris Hees: All have been called by tender but some have been called in the present fiscal year.


Maurice Bourget: Can the minister give us a list of those ships for which tenders have been called this fiscal year?


George Harris Hees: I am advised that six were called last winter. The expenditure starts in the present fiscal year but they were actually called in the past fiscal year.


Lionel Chevrier: May I ask if any of these have been allocated through the Canadian maritime commission and the defence purchasing board?


George Harris Hees: No, Mr. Chairman.


Maurice Bourget: I remember that the minister some time during the last session gave us a list of ships for which tenders were asked-I think it was in February last. So I am wondering if the department had a new program for new ships in this present fiscal year.


George Harris Hees: There will probably be five new tenders called in this coming winter.


[Stage Direction]
Item agreed to.
Aids to navigation-
422.	Administration, operation and maintenance, including a contribution to the international association of lighthouse authorities in the amount of 2,000 Swiss francs, notwithstanding that payment may exceed or fall short of the estimated equivalent in Canadian dollars that is detailed in the estimates, $5,868,450.
Herbert Wilfred Herridge: Because of the rapidly increasing traffic in small craft from the Grand Coulee dam on the Columbia in the United States to as far north as Revelstoke I would urge that every consideration be given to installing aids to navigation. There has been some improvement in recent years, but the minister probably knows the channel between the international boundary and Castle-gar. In that channel there is a nine knot current with rocks at various places in the river and one has to follow a careful course in order to keep out of difficulty. There is also a need for good markers between

Cottonwood point in the Narrows and West Demars also between Arrowhead and Revelstoke. I mention this on behalf of a number of local organizations and also on behalf of an increasing number of United States tourists who are using small craft and, in some cases, quite large cruisers on these waters.
About four years ago at the request of one of the captains on the steamer I took a trip down the whole river. I know the river like a book. He was interested to find out how many buoys and reflectors were missing. I found 11 buoys out of place in one very bad channel, and a number of shore reflectors were gone. The person who had been paid to do the work had apparently not been on the job for a year; he had not been near the buoys or the reflectors. That situation has now been corrected but I suggest that a thorough survey be made of the river in view of the increasing traffic and satisfactory aids to navigation should be put in which would be understood by persons operating small craft. I was wondering whether any chart is provided for the guidance of persons operating small craft coming from the United States containing information as to the meaning of the buoys-black, red or striped-or as to the meaning of certain reflectors, because a 100-foot deviation from the true channel could mean the wrecking of any one of these small vessels.


George Harris Hees: I will have to consult the Department of Mines and Technical Surveys who are in charge of the hydrographic survey to find out if such charts are available.


Herbert Wilfred Herridge: In view of this very interesting and rapidly increasing traffic, if no chart is available could the minister see that some simple chart is provided for people coming up the river so they would know what the different markings mean?


George Harris Hees: I will ask about that.


[Stage Direction]
Item agreed to.
426. Steamship inspection service, including the carrying out of the provisions of the conventions for the safety of life at sea and load lines and contributions as detailed in the estimates, $999,901.
Herbert Wilfred Herridge: I am sorry to interrupt again, but I have been asked to bring this question to the attention of the minister. I want to speak on lifesaving equipment very briefly and ask a question or two. We all know that because of the great increase in the number of small craft on all the rivers and lakes of Canada there has been a necessity for legislation providing for regulations and licensing. This has created a very improved situation, and I want to compliment the minister and his officials on "Safety Afloat". I have distributed a goodly number around the

constituency to launch clubs and boat owners and people of that sort and they appreciated it very much.
However, I do want to say this: The present life jackets that are approved by the Department of Transport are not altogether satisfactory. They are satisfactory on large vessels where you have time to put them on and adjust and tie them but they are not satisfactory for use on small craft. In the first place they are most uncomfortable to wear all the time. Secondly, accidents in small craft occur very quickly and there is little or no time to tie the blasted things on. In addition to that I want to point out I have been informed by some ladies that they are most uncomfortable to wear in the boat and most difficult to adjust at times-to put it as delicately as possible-owing to the contours of their bodies. I have some experience in that field-I mean boating. I mention that seriously.
There is a type of jacket or vest without sleeves that can be worn with comfort. I make a point of having the family put these on. Not only are they comfortable but, as far as I know, they are practical and safe but I understand these vests or jackets are not approved or recommended by the department at the present time. I suggest that there should be some further study made of the value of these jackets and with regard to their being recommended to the public at large as well as with respect to their improvement.
In recent months in Canada there have been a number of cases where persons were found drowned on account of accidents in small boats and who were discovered in the water wearing the standard type of life jacket but put on improperly; their heads were in the water, and so on. It is a serious matter and I believe the department should give further consideration to it and educate the public to understand that these vests or jackets are approved by the department and are the best thing to wear. The department should urge people to wear them when boating. If this were done I believe we would reduce the number of deaths through boating accidents.


George Harris Hees: Mr. Chairman, I should like to answer the hon. member on that question.


Lionel Chevrier: I shouldn't!


George Harris Hees: I believe the answer is that if people are going out in small craft in dangerous weather that is rough or windy they should put on their life jackets before they go out. Secondly, we try to bring this to the attention of the public in our booklet entitled, "Safety Afloat". Thirdly, we have a committee of the department which is working constantly with the boating industry and the 57071-3-275
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manufacturers of life-saving equipment in an attempt to work out better designs for life jackets and life-saving equipment.


[Stage Direction]
Item agreed to.
427. Marine reporting service, $157,734.
Maurice Bourget: Mr. Chairman, before we complete the marine service item I wonder if the minister could tell us if it is the intention of the department to build an extension to the King's wharf in Quebec city which project was commenced under the program of the previous administration?


George Harris Hees: It is the Queen's wharf, Mr. Chairman, and the answer is yes.


[Stage Direction]
Item agreed to.
Railway and steamship services-
432. Newfoundland ferry and terminals, $3,637,000.
Mr. Tucker:: Does this item include Bell Island in Newfoundland?


George Harris Hees: No, it does not include the Bell Island service. This is a service carried out by the C.N.R. for the government.


Chesley William Carter: Mr. Chairman, what is the relationship between vote 432 and vote 436? Would the minister explain that?


George Harris Hees: Mr. Chairman, vote 432 is the operating deficit for those ferries; vote 436 is the construction vote.


Chesley William Carter: That is what I wanted to get at, Mr. Chairman. Vote 432 is the operating deficit. That deficit is charged to the Newfoundland ferry but it covers payments other than for the William Carson. Any one glancing at this item would assume that $3,637,000 was the deficit on the William Carson and it is nothing of the sort. I should like the minister to clarify that further.


George Harris Hees: It covers the deficit on 15 different ships, Mr. Chairman.


Chesley William Carter: Mr. Chairman, earlier today I asked the minister if he could give a breakdown of the cost of the William Carson and the harbour improvement at Port aux Basques.


George Harris Hees: Yes, Mr. Chairman. The cost of the William Carson was $10,959,429. The cost of the new Port aux Basques dock and terminal facilities is $5,538,131 and for the North Sydney dock and terminal facilities, $3,572,236.


Chesley William Carter: And the harbour construction and improvements at Port aux Basques?


George Harris Hees: That comes under the Department of Public Works. It does not come under the votes of this department.

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James Roy Tucker: Mr. Chairman, I understand the William Carson made a trial run last Tuesday. Could the minister inform the committee if the run was successful and when the ship will take up her scheduled run?


George Harris Hees: Mr. Chairman, the first run of the Carson was a success but it was carried out in calm weather and it will be necessary to conduct further trials in all types of weather. If these trials prove successful it is hoped to start the regular service later in the year and just as soon as possible.


[Stage Direction]
Item agreed to.
Strait of Canso-
433. Transportation improvements and facilities, $15,000.
Lionel Chevrier: Mr. Chairman, I have a question with reference to this and the three following items, the strait of Canso, the enlargement of the dock and terminal facilities at North Sydney and the other little item. Is this the last amount required for the Canso causeway, the enlargement of the docks at North Sydney and the like?


George Harris Hees: This is the maintenance vote which we are required to pay to the province of Nova Scotia and we expect to carry some of it next year. It is a three-year agreement. That will be the end of it.


[Stage Direction]
Item agreed to.
The Aciing Chairman (Mr. McGee): Shall 438 carry?
Some hon. Members:: Ten o'clock.


George Harris Hees: Let us carry on.


Some hon. Members:: Ten o'clock.


George Harris Hees: Might it not be possible to carry on for a little while? Things have dragged pretty heavily today.
The Aciing Chairman (Mr. McGee): Is there unanimous consent to continue for a reasonably short period of time?


Some hon. Members:: Ten o'clock.
The Aciing Chairman (Mr. McGee): If there is any question in anybody's mind, the last item that carried was 437.
Resolutions adopted in committee of supply this day reported and concurred in.



BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE

Lionel Chevrier: Mr. Speaker, may I ask the acting house leader what the business will be tomorrow and also what legislation we will take up on Monday?


Mr. Churchill:: For tomorrow, Mr. Speaker, we will carry on with estimates, taking the Department of Transport followed by the Post Office Department, the remaining items under trade and commerce and public works and then the Department of Finance. On Monday the legislative program will be as follows: The first item will be No. 9 on today's order paper, the resolution dealing with the South Saskatchewan river project; next will be item No. 1 on today's order paper, Bill No. C-52, an act to amend the Railway Act; that will be followed by item No. 5 on today's order paper, Bill No. C-57, an act to approve certain expenditures relating to the financial year which ended on March 31, 1958; and then item No. 4 on today's order paper, Bill No. C-51, an act to amend the Customs Act.


[Stage Direction]
At ten o'clock the house adjourned, without question put, pursuant to the order of the house passed on August 4.

[The following items were passed in committee of supply]:

[Stage Direction]
A-Department-
414.	Departmental administration, $2,144,060.
415.	The St. Lawrence river joint board of engineers-Canadian section, $132,090.
Canal services-
416.	Administration, $162,855.
417.	Operation and maintenance, $7,265,295.
418.	Construction or acquisition of buildings, works, land and equipment, including payments to provinces or municipalities as contributions toward construction done by those bodies, $2,531,177.
Marine services-
419.	Marine services administration Including agencies, $812,360.
Marine service steamers-
420.	Administration, operation and maintenance, $13,689,553.
421.	Construction or acquisition of vessels and equipment, $22,230,000.
Aids to navigation-
422.	Administration, operation and maintenance, including a contribution to the international association of lighthouse authorities in the amount of 2,000 Swiss francs, notwithstanding that payment may exceed or fall short of the estimated equivalent in Canadian dollars that is detailed in the estimates, $5,868,450.
423.	Construction or acquisition of buildings, works, land and equipment, $3,681,000.
424.	Nautical services-administration, operation and maintenance, including grants and contributions as detailed in the estimates; rewards for saving life from vessels in distress; subsidy to a salvage company; and the payment of expenses, including excepted expenses, incurred in respect of Canadian distressed seamen as defined in section 306 of the Canada Shipping Act, $546,871.
Supply-Items Passed
425.	Pilotage service-administration, operation and maintenance, including authority for temporary recoverable advances not exceeding $20,000, $720,258.
426.	Steamship inspection service, including the carrying out of the provisions of the conventions for the safety of life at sea and load lines and contributions as detailed in the estimates, $999,901.
427.	Marine reporting service, $157,734.
Ship channel service-St. Lawrence and Saguenay
rivers-
428.	Administration, operation and maintenance, $2,014,946.
429.	Contract dredging, including acquisition of land for ship channel improvement, $4,094,685. Railway and steamship services-
430.	Repairs and expenses in connection with the operation and maintenance of official railway cars under the jurisdiction of the department, $59,820. Payments to the Canadian National Railway Company (hereinafter called the company) upon applications approved by the Minister of Transport, made by the company to the Minister of Finance, to be applied by the company in payment of the deficits, certified by the auditors of the company, arising in the operations in the calendar year 1958-
431.	Prince Edward Island car ferry and terminals, $1,963,000.
432.	Newfoundland ferry and terminals, $3,637,000. Strait of Canso-
433.	Transportation improvements and facilities, $15,000.
434.	Causeway maintenance, $10,000.
435.	Enlargement of dock and terminal facilities at North Sydney, Nova Scotia, $65,000.
436. Construction of new dock and terminal facilities at Port aux Basques, Newfoundland, $185,000.
437. Construction or acquisition of auto-ferry vessels and equipment as listed in the details of the estimates, provided that Treasury Board may increase or decrease the amount within the vote to be expended upon individual listed projects, $1,025,000.
57071-3-275^
[Stage Direction]
Saturday. August 30. 1958