1958-08-04

Hon. Gordon Churchill (Minister of Trade and Commerce):: Mr. Speaker-


Hon. L. B. Pearson (Leader of the Opposition):: Mr. Speaker, I rise on a question of privilege.


Gordon Minto Churchill: Mr. Speaker, I was on my feet first.


Mr. Pickersgill:: A question of privilege.


Mr. Speaker:: I recognized the Minister of Trade and Commerce.


Gordon Minto Churchill: I am rising on a question of privilege in connection with various newspaper reports containing alleged statements attributed to me. These statements are without foundation. The Ottawa Journal of August 2 published an article by Richard Jackson with a subheading in quotation marks reading as follows: "Breach Civil Service Propriety". This statement I did not make. It is without foundation. Then there follows this paragraph in quotation marks:
"There is no doubt but that unauthorized access was allowed to the department's confidential files", said Mr. Churchill, "for the quotations from the report are both very copious and quite accurate."
That statement, Mr. Speaker, is without foundation. Further down in the article I am alleged to have said that I intend to run this thing down. The words "run this thing down" are in quotation marks. That statement is without foundation. Toward the end of the article occurs the following paragraph:
Mr. Churchill made it plain that while his investigation would be "thorough"-
The word "thorough" is in quotation marks.
-it would not be actually "tough".
The word "tough" is in quotation marks. That statement, Mr. Speaker, is without foundation. The Toronto Telegram of August 2 carries an article written by Peter Demp-son. The third paragraph of that article reads as follows:
Trade minister Churchill summed up his reaction to the leak in one word "violent"-
57071-3-192J
The word "violent" is in quotation marks. That statement is without foundation. Further on I am alleged to have said:
"Well I guess they are authentic all right"-
That statement is without foundation. The Globe and Mail of Monday, August 4, carries an article by Clark Davey in which he attributes to me the following statement which he puts in quotation marks:
"There is no doubt about it", he said, "the newspaper report is based on the actual report".
That statement, Mr. Speaker, is without foundation.



BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE


Right Hon. J. G. Diefenbaker (Prime Minister) moved:: That notwithstanding the provisions of standing order 15(3), the business and procedure on Monday, August 11, 1958, and on every Monday thereafter until the end of this session, shall be as for Monday (government day), and
That on Monday, August 11, 1958, and on every sitting day thereafter, until the end of this session, this house shall meet at 11 o'clock a.m., and in relation thereto that the provisions of standing order 2(1) shall be suspended.


Lester Bowles Pearson: So far as the first part of this motion is concerned, Mr. Speaker, the official opposition will not object to it. So far as the second part of the motion is concerned, the extending of the time of sitting as from Monday, August 11, so that we will meet every morning, including Saturday morning, we do take objection.
It will be recalled that a short time ago the leader of the house introduced a resolution extending the hours of sitting, and we did not object. In fact we supported it on the ground that we were, so we thought, approaching the end of the session and perhaps some provision should be made for extending the hours of sitting. The provision that was made on that occasion did not interfere with the work of the committees, at least to any alarming extent, so we supported it.
We now have a motion before us which would make committee work very difficult, if not impossible, in the sense that the committees could hardly meet except during the hours when the house is in session. Some committees have just begun their work and others are in the middle of their work. The

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committee on external affairs has just begun its work. It was meeting this morning, and it is now suggested that it should meet this afternoon also.
We object, therefore, to this second extension of the hours of sitting because of the effect it will have on our committee work. Perhaps by next Monday we would be in a better position to make an estimate of how the committee work is getting on and when it is likely to finish. Perhaps we would be in a better position then to relate the extension of hours to the work of the committees than we are at the moment.
We object also to this motion because it provides for parliament meeting morning, afternoon and evening, except on Wednesday and Saturday, for an indeterminate period. I suggest it certainly is indeterminate because we have no idea what legislation the government is going to introduce. So far as we know there has been no planning of the work for the remainder of the session. There is some important legislation forecast in the speech from the throne which is not yet on the order paper. We do not know in what form it will be on the order paper, and we do not know what length of time will be required to complete it. We may be here for weeks, and that is not a prospect that anyone contemplates with great pleasure, I am sure.
Until we get some indication as to the planning of the work ahead, the legislation which has to be passed this session, surely it is not right to ask the house to meet morning, afternoon and evening, with the exception of Wednesday and Saturday, especially when the committee work is continuing. This is the way we approach this particular resolution.
We have done our best on this side, by inquiries we have addressed to the leader of the house and the Prime Minister from time to time, to get some specific information on the planning of the work ahead. There have been occasions this session when at 10 o'clock at night we have asked about the work ahead and it has not been possible to tell us definitely and with assurance what would be done even the next day, let alone two or three days or a week or two ahead.
I recall-and I mentioned this point the other day when 1 was talking about this matter-how the former leader of the opposition, Mr. George Drew, used to rise in his place day after day and attack the government in vigorous terms because the government of that day, so he said, did not give the opposition sufficient advance notice of the work to come before parliament and did not plan ahead.
May I say, Mr. Speaker, that on the order paper today there is no evidence of planning

ahead. Until we get some notice of what we are going to have to do and how long it may be necessary to stay here to do it, and until we get further information as to the work of the committees and when that work is likely to be completed, it is not possible for us to support that part of this resolution.


Mr. Harold E. Winch (Vancouver East):: Mr. Speaker, we now have before us a motion moved by the government. It can be broken down into two principles. In the first section the principle means that starting next Monday, that day until the end of the session shall be government days. In the second section the principle is one which is going to quite radically change the hours of sitting of this house.
I desire to open my remarks in this way. Within your view, Mr. Speaker, I am going to hold in my hand, as I now do, a copy of the standing orders of the House of Commons, an edition which as revised came into effect in the year 1955. That revision of the standing orders was not introduced into the house until there had been a lengthy study by a committee representative of all parties of this house; and if my memory serves me correctly, it was brought in as an almost unanimous recommendation on the changes in standing orders. I am certain that Your Honour will remember the necessary resolution which was brought into this house and the speeches that were made at that time as to the meaning of the revision. It had a recognition of the responsibilities of government and a recognition of the responsibilities and the rights of minorities.
In particular I draw to Your Honour's attention the fact that when this revision of standing orders was introduced, the protection of minorities not only referred to minority groups in this house but also referred to minority rights in this house and minority rights in a number of particulars affecting the majority of the members of this house, namely the rights of private members irrespective of whether they sit on the government side, in the official opposition or in any other group in this house. Mr. Speaker, I should just like to refresh your memory, although I do not think it is necessary, and the memories of those who were here in 1955 and who now sit on the government side as to the fundamental meaning of standing orders. Keeping that in mind, and not forgetting what was said in 1955, we now have before us a motion introduced by the government to once again during this session-I repeat once again- ask this parliament to take action notwithstanding something which is contained in the revised standing orders of 1955, which we were told was put there basically for the

protection of minority parties, and most certainly for the protection of private members.
The first part of the motion is to remove any possibility after next Monday of a private member having any right whatsoever in this house, for the balance of this session, so far as bills or resolutions are concerned. Without reference to any record whatsoever I think I could make quite a speech on that subject, but I do not intend to do so. I am going to take a leaf out of the Conservative book while that party was the official opposition in this house, and will also refer to some things which have been said since that party has formed the government.
In referring to the record, Your Honour, I am going to ask the government and, since he seems to be so interested, the leader of the house, to answer a question when I have completed my remarks. Is there a difference so far as the government is concerned in the responsibility of the government and the responsibility of the official opposition, once that opposition takes office? If the government party is the party of principle and believe in what they said for over 20 years while they were on this side of the house, why do they this afternoon completely deny every expression of principle on an issue of this nature, about which they were so vociferous for over 20 years-


An hon. Member:: Twenty-two years.


Harold Edward Winch: -and in particular during the
past five years?
I do not often indulge in a great deal of quoting, but in respect to this motion I intend to do so; and every word I am going to quote will be taken from the official record of Hansard. You will see, Mr. Speaker, that I have the volumes in front of me and my references will be to the remarks of the former leader of the Conservative party, Hon. George Drew, the Prime Minister (Mr. Dief-enbaker), the Minister of Finance (Mr. Fleming), the Minister of Justice (Mr. Fulton) and the Postmaster General (Mr. Hamilton).


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh.


Harold Edward Winch: Mr. Speaker, hon. members should be very careful, because I have books under the desk in case any hon. member over there thinks he is being overlooked.
I desire to introduce this question of principle by means of what I believe is a most important statement, because it was made by an hon. gentleman who previously had the honour to sit in your place, Mr. Speaker, namely Mr. Speaker Fauteux. Both he and Dr. Beauchesne spoke on this subject. I wish to read a very short excerpt from the remarks of Mr. Speaker Fauteux, made with the assistance of Dr. Beauchesne, who at the time in
Business of the House
question was clerk of the house, when they presented a report to the House of Commons in 1947. This can be found in the Journals of the House of Commons for 1948. It is found on page 10, and this is what it says:
The mere object of shortening sessions must not be the aim of any revision of our rules.
In view of what the Leader of the Opposition said a few moments ago I ask that he take note of that. I continue:
The duties of a representative parliament are too important to be performed in a hurry. No question should be decided until it has been fully discussed. Yet no member of the house wants delays based on rulings or practice which may have been necessary when they were established centuries ago but which have no reason to exist at the present time. Conditions have changed. Although every effort ought to be made to economize time, every shade of opinion has the right to find expression and members who desire to give their views should not be prevented from doing so.
That statement, sir, as I pointed out is found in the Journals of the House of Commons for 1948, a submission made by Mr. Speaker Fauteux and Dr. Beauchesne. I say that this in itself negates the principle outlined in the first section of the motion now before us because this is a motion to deny from Monday next any opportunity for a private hon. member of this house, irrespective of whether he sits on the government or opposition side, to pursue any motion, resolution or bill that he now has on the order paper.
Having used that authoritative introduction, I wish now to take the minds of hon. gentlemen, who sit on the government side of the house, back just a couple of years or so and review what was said by some of them when they sat in opposition. I intend to refer them first to some remarks made by Hon. George Drew, who for many years was the leader of the Conservative party in opposition in this house. I refer hon. gentlemen to Hansard of February 3, 1954, at page 1728. Referring to the Liberal government that was then in power, Mr. Drew said on that occasion:
I hope the government will not suggest to us that private members can make no useful suggestions which they themselves have not already thought of. If they were to take that position it would surely be strangely inconsistent with the arguments which have been made in support of other measures still before this house for consideration. No; the government must, in view of the argument they have been making, support the argument that they believe that private members have an important place here and that private members have much to contribute.
I hope there are many hon. gentlemen opposite, and I think there are, who have much to contribute; because on reading the

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order paper I find that there are many motions standing in the names of hon. gentlemen who sit on the other side of the house. I continue:
They have been urging that private members have plenty of time-
May I repeat that phrase, "plenty of time"-
-to devote to the study of problems and, presumably, to the making of suggestions here in this house which would help the government. These motions, the private bills or the public bills are not put forward merely for the personal satisfaction of any individual member. They are put forward here as part of the legitimate and proper business of this house.
On page 1729 Mr. Drew went on to say:
-this is the time to change the trend and to get back to a position where private members in this house are afforded the opportunity to assist the government by placing before parliament suggestions which are in keeping with the status of members as emphasized by the Prime Minister (Mr. St. Laurent) in his remarks in this house on at least two occasions.
What I have read indicates that when Mr. Drew was leader of the Conservative party in opposition he held very definite views on this subject. He had even more than that to say. I should like to refer hon. members to Hansard of April 28, 1952, at page 1639, where Mr. Drew is reported as having said:
This motion will have the effect of further limiting the rights of private members, which already have been limited greatly. During the years of war and immediately after the habit grew of setting aside the rules; but surely now we have reached a time when we can abide by the rules.
That was Hon. George Drew, sir, speaking on April 28, 1953. Let us bring it a little more up to date. Let us not deal just with a former leader of the Conservative party in opposition; let us deal with a former leader of the Conservative party in opposition who is now the Prime Minister of Canada (Mr. Diefenbaker). I refer you to Hansard of July 12, 1955, at page 5989, where the present Prime Minister in discussing a motion of a similar nature said:
The hon. member who preceded me mentioned the decline in the power of private members. That is all too true.
That is how he felt when the Liberals tried to curtail private members' days and rights, but he had a bit more than that to say. At page 5990 of Hansard of July 12, 1955, we find this statement:
One thinks of the Lauriers and the Bordens, and one could name other great speakers of that time who carried on debate for weeks on end, as a debate was recently carried on, for whenever the privileges and traditions of parliament are invaded parliament should be vocal.
The house may think before I am through that I am being a little bit vocal, but I am taking the advice of the Prime Minister

who, when he was leader of the opposition, said that when there is a motion to change a standing order and remove the rights of parliament, members should be vocal.
Now, sir, can we not all remember the righteous indignation of the present Minister of Finance when he sat on this side of the house, and what he had to say when the Liberals had the unmitigated temerity to try to remove any of the rights of the opposition and of private members, or to change a standing order that would affect us? Well, sir may we at this time just remind the Minister of Finance what his opinions were not so long ago, as recently as July 12, 1955, as found at page 5999 of Hansard:
This house cannot function without rules. The rules should be broad and fair.
Through you, Mr. Speaker, may I ask the Minister of Finance to listen to the next sentence.
Their purpose should be to safeguard particularly the rights of minorities in the house.
I hope the minister will not be disturbed because I gave only one quotation from him, but there are so many others of import that must be noted that I should like to refer to another stalwart of the rights of opposition minorities, and "do not change standing orders", and that is the Minister of Justice.


Mr. Fulton:: We are all in this, apparently.


Harold Edward Winch: Mr. Speaker, all we on this side of the house are asking for now is that the Minister of Justice, as a member of the government, shall give the present opposition the justice that he demanded when he was in opposition. What did the present Minister of Justice have to say on January 27, 1955?


Edmund Davie Fulton: What were we discussing then?


Harold Edward Winch: He had this to say.


Edmund Davie Fulton: What were we discussing?


Harold Edward Winch: He said-


Edmund Davie Fulton: What were we discussing? Will the hon. gentleman tell us the occasion of the debate?


Harold Edward Winch: A matter similar in nature to what we are on now.


Edmund Davie Fulton: Was it not the revision of the rules? I would be interested to know.


Harold Edward Winch: Wait and hear it.


Edmund Davie Fulton: The voice of doom.


Harold Edward Winch: Perhaps I was unfair to the Minister of Finance in giving him only one quotation; I have two for the Minister of Justice:
Very often-and perhaps more so on this side than on the other-we members object to the way in

which the government seeks to control parliament, and to the way in which it ignores parliament.
You have the page number it you wish to check it. Or course you know, sir, when you ask for a suspension of standing orders to remove the rights of private members you are ignoring parliament. As I said, I have two quotations from the Minister of Justice but there are many more. My next quotation is found on page 5564 of Hansard of July 1, 1955, and reads as follows:
As a matter of fact, in connection with this whole matter I think the proper approach is that the rules are not a party matter. The rules do not belong to any party in the house and should not be changed by a majority vote of any party in the house.
This is a very important statement.


Edmund Davie Fulton: Will the hon. member permit an interruption? Is it not a fact that what was being discussed there was a change in the standing orders themselves, a change in the form of standing orders, a revision of the rules; and that in speaking of a change in the rules or to suggest that a change having permanent effect should not be imposed by a majority vote is very different from suggesting that a temporary suspension of a standing order be made without changing the rules, as is being done here?


Mr.. Winch:: Mr. Speaker, what was being discussed in the House of Commons on July 1, 1955 was the second report of the special committee on procedure and consideration in committee of the whole.


Edmund Davie Fulton: Yes, a revision of the rules.


Harold Edward Winch: That is right, but in my hon. friend's discussion of the rules he made this definite statement:
The rules do not belong to any party in the house and should not be changed by a majority vote of any party in the house.
If that principle is correct, Mr. Speaker, then we ask, on what basis does the same principle not apply to the changing of standing orders at the whim and the will of the government of which he is now a member? It is the same principle.


Edmund Davie Fulton: There is no change in the standing order.


Harold Edward Winch: Yes, there is.


Edmund Davie Fulton: There is a temporary
suspension.


Harold Edward Winch: The government is now going to make a change for their purposes in standing orders so that, starting next Monday, there will be no rights and privileges of private members in the house as far as their resolutions and bills are concerned. In other
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words the discussion of private members' resolutions and bills is off as far as their rights are concerned.
I have a couple of more quotations. I am awfully sorry that the hon. member for Greenwood, the Minister without Portfolio (Mr. Macdonnell) is not in his seat, because he was a fighter for the rights of minority parties and of private members. I hope the Postmaster General is not going to leave because I have a honey for him. I have always had great admiration for the hon. member for Greenwood, that wonderful person, outspoken and, I think, sincere. He had this to say on January 26, 1955, as found at page 559 of Hansard, when he was on this side of the house:
I stress again that what has happened is an almost complete negation of this principle. It is a kind of erosion of parliamentary rights. If we look at it clearly it is really a conspiracy against the principles of our constitution, and the Free Press is quite correct in what it states. We are told there is to be a further invasion of the rights of the minority. We are told that the rules are to be amended so that the rights we have had in the past will be drastically cut down. If this is attempted I can only hope that every member of the opposition, to whatever party he belongs, will resist to the utmost. I agree with facilitating the business in a sensible manner, but I think we should be astute to resist strongly anything which savours of merely cutting down the rights of the opposition, and I think we should do our very utmost to make the general public feel how important this is.
That was the view of the hon. member for Greenwood when on this side of the house at the time the standing orders were revised. I ask what is his position now, when we are faced with a further cutting down of the principles in the revised standing orders so far as the rights of minorities and of private members are concerned.
There is one more reference to the hon. member for Greenwood which I think is important. On February 8, 1955, as found on page 943 of Hansard, the hon. member for Greenwood said:
Let us remember this, with regard to ourselves in the opposition, that often we call ourselves watchdogs. But watchdogs should be able to growl and to bite. And if we are slipping into a situation where we do not growl and bite so well, then we ought to be very much on our guard, indeed.
We in this group, Mr. Speaker, are on our guard indeed in view of what we were told by the Prime Minister and other cabinet ministers when they were in opposition and defending minorities and private members against the taking away of rights by the Liberals who now sit on this side of the house.
I also said there was one other minister whom I desired to quote, and that is the Postmaster General. I like him very much but I think, sir, that if I were to use the words he

Business of the House
used when the Liberals were taking away certain rights you would call me to order promptly. But I am not going to take that chance; I am going to quote from Hansard, which puts me completely in order. In view of the stand the Postmaster General took at that time, and in view of the position that as a member of the government he is taking now, I am going to ask him now whether he has the morality of an alley cat which he said the Liberals had when they tried to restrict the rights of private members.


An hon. Member:: An alley rat.


Harold Edward Winch: "Alley cat" was the term. As found at page 788 of Hansard of February 2, 1955, the hon. member for Notre Dame de Grace had this to say:
Under the British system, which is the one we follow in Canada, such cabinet tyranny can be cloaked in many ways. It will depend largely on the cleverness of the party in power in dissimulating its intentions and misleading the public as to whether or not the people generally realize the dangerous course their government may be following. When you have a government-
I am quoting, sir.
-that has the political morality of an alley cat and the lust for power of a Genghis Khan, it behooves those of us-and that includes all of us Conservatives on this side-who hold democracy precious to be on guard for all the people.
Now, Mr. Speaker-


Some hon. Members:: Louder.


Harold Edward Winch: -I have tried to review not only the debates that took place in the house when the standing orders were revised in 1955 but also within the limits of time and to the best of my ability to review the statements as found in Hansard of such eminent men when in opposition as the former leader of the Conservative party, Mr. Drew, the present Prime Minister, the Minister of Finance, the Minister of Justice and the Postmaster General to indicate how they felt when the then Liberal government endeavoured to take away any of the rights of minority parties under the standing orders or the rights of private members as related to the powers of the cabinet. In all my studies, Mr. Speaker, I have found that when on this side of the house members of the Conservative party were the champions of the maintenance of the rights of parliament, the rights of minority parties and the rights of private members.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear.


Harold Edward Winch: I think I have been quite honest in the quotations I have made, and I should like to ask those on the government side who applaud the stand the Conservative party took when in opposition how they,

with their terrific majority, can support the introduction of a motion which will take away certain rights and certain days provided for private members under the revised standing orders of the house. There is also a second part to the motion, but I am not going to go into any detail at the moment.


An hon. Member:: Hurrah!


Harold Edward Winch: Well, if you get funny and challenge me I will.


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh.


Harold Edward Winch: I refer to the stand taken by the Conservative opposition with regard to the difficulties of trying to do two jobs at one time, and the fact that the work of parliament should not be hastened.
I can remember, sir, and I know you can too, those speeches made on this side by Conservatives to the effect that our responsibilities did not have any time limit, and if we made laws they should have the proper consideration given to them.
Now, sir, I try to keep very closely to the record. I ask hon. members to consider what we have given them from the record. We ask also that the government give consideration to the withdrawal of the motion. But just in case they do not I should like to move an amendment. We will work extra hours if we have to, but we cannot go any further with the removal of the rights of parliament. I move, therefore, seconded by the hon. member for Burnaby-Coquitlam (Mr. Regier):
That all the words beginning with "That notwithstanding" and ending with "as for Monday (government day), and" be struck out.


Hon. Howard C. Green (Minister of Public Works):: Mr. Speaker, some weeks ago I had the privilege of following the same two hon. members who have spoken today in a similar debate. At that time I endeavoured to point out to the Leader of the Opposition-there was no need to point it out to the hon. member for Vancouver East-that one of the great assets to being effective in opposition was to have something to whine about. Now, a few weeks later, we find that he has not learned that lesson.
As for the hon. member for Vancouver East, 1 have heard him make many dramatic and melodramatic speeches, but never more so than the one today, and never did he have less about which to be dramatic. If he used this same force and this same flow of words in support of a worthy cause he might get somewhere. But listening to him today, with all this torrent of words and all these quotations which had to do with an entirely different type of motion, one realized how little he needs protection in so far as the right to

speak in the House of Commons is concerned. Certainly no member, whether he be a member on the government side or a private member in either of the opposition parties, has so little to complain about in so far as taking the time of the house is concerned. I have no doubt that whether the house lasts for another three weeks, as we hope, or for another three months, the hon. member for Vancouver East will have his full share and more of the time that is spent in debate.


Harold Edward Winch: Not on bills and resolutions, if this motion goes through; no.


Howard Charles Green: The amendment he has moved sets out so clearly just what the real feeling is across the way today. The last thing the members of either one of these parties across the way desire is to have the wishes they have expressed verbally carried out. They are more anxious than we are to get out of this house.


Some hon. Members:: Don't look at us.


Howard Charles Green: Some of those people who are shouting at me now have already told me that privately.


John Whitney Pickersgill: Would the minister permit a question?


Howard Charles Green: Yes.


John Whitney Pickersgill: Will the minister tell us what he has been told privately by his own backbenchers?


Howard Charles Green: The hon. member for Bonavista-Twillingate (Mr. Pickersgill) wants to get down to Newfoundland and sail his boat.


John Whitney Pickersgill: Unhappily, the minister is out of date.


Howard Charles Green: He has been wishing to get down there for weeks. The hon. member for Laurier (Mr. Chevrier) wants to go back to Montreal to get started in his law practice. The Leader of the Opposition wants to get across the country mending fences, and that is a real job. The hon. member for Essex East (Mr. Martin) wants to go to the Middle East and settle all the trouble there. I could go on-


Harold Edward Winch: After listening to all this, you cannot say that.


Howard Charles Green: Oh, sit down; you had your say. I could go on with member after member in the Liberal party and the C.C.F. party.


John Whitney Pickersgill: You have not answered my question.


Howard Charles Green: Your question was not worth answering, like most of the questions you ask.
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John Whitney Pickersgill: Does the minister mean to say they have such an effective gag that the backbenchers do not even dare say what they feel?


Howard Charles Green: I do not know of anybody in the house who would benefit more from a gag than the hon. member for Bonavista-Twillingate. It would increase his prestige immensely and at once.
Just look at the stand taken by these two parties, and this phony appeal they are making today. The Leader of the Opposition says, "Oh, it is quite all right to make further Mondays in this session government days; we have no objection." He is not worried about the rights of parliament or the rights of private members or the rights of anyone else when he is discussing the first part of this motion which is before the house today. He is objecting to sitting in the morning. The Liberals do not want to sit in the morning. Then we get over to the upper corner of the house-


Mr. Argue:: We are opposed to both.


Howard Charles Green: They do not object to sitting mornings.


Hazen Robert Argue: Oh, yes, we do; we do not like any part of it.


Howard Charles Green: Well, why did you move this amendment?


Hazen Robert Argue: We will explain that.


Howard Charles Green: This is going to take quite a lot of explaining.


Hazen Robert Argue: Oh, no.


Howard Charles Green: The hon. member for Vancouver East moves an amendment to delete only part of the motion which provides that further Mondays from now on will be devoted-


Harold Edward Winch: This debate is not over yet.


Howard Charles Green: -to government days. One group does not want to sit in the morning, and the other one wants to have a chance to deal with private members' motions. The hon. member for Vancouver East made several statements about these private members' Mondays which were not accurate and which really shake the whole foundation of his argument. He said that if you took away these private members' Mondays, the private members would have no more rights; they could not bring in bills; they could not bring in motions, and he left the inference they would not even be able to talk.


Harold Edward Winch: I did not.

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Howard Charles Green: What are they fighting against? Private members' rights to bring in bills will not be interfered with in any way if this motion is carried.


Harold Edward Winch: I did not say that.


Howard Charles Green: Wait a minute; give me a chance. Private members still have the hour on Tuesday and Friday.
The only business which could be dealt with on a Monday if that day were to remain available to private members would be "Notices of Motions"-


Harold Edward Winch: That is what I said; that is all day.


Howard Charles Green: -which appear on page 15 of today's order paper. As the hon. member knows, there are a number of these notices of motions on the order paper. That is the case in every session. Many of them are put there originally with the intention that they will get a little bit of publicity, but the members who put them there know very well that there will never be a debate on them.


Harold Edward Winch: Not ours; ours are for debate.


Howard Charles Green: Already there have been five days devoted to private members' notices of motions in this session which has not yet lasted three months, and that has not been doing too badly. All that could have been discussed if these three remaining private members' Mondays had been made available would be the first three notices of motions now standing on the order paper at page 15.


John Whitney Pickersgill: Oh, no.


Howard Charles Green: These motions can be discussed by the members when the estimates are up for consideration. For example, the first motion has to do with shipping Canadian goods through Canadian ports. There could be wide open discussion on that subject by the hon. member* for Halifax (Mr. Morris) if he wishes to discuss it when the estimates of the Department of Transport are before the house. The second one has to do with aid for education. That matter can be discussed when the estimates of the Department of Finance are under consideration, and I have not the slightest doubt that it will be discussed at that time and at great length.


Lester Bowles Pearson: That is right.


Howard Charles Green: The third one has to do with setting up a system of credit facilities for agriculture and for fisheries. I believe that matter has already been discussed during the debate on [DOT] the estimates of the Department of Agriculture, and it can be discussed further when the estimates of the Department

of Fisheries are before the house. Those are the only three resolutions which could come up even if there were three more private members' Mondays. When the hon. member for Vancouver East tries to make out that the government is riding roughshod over the rights of parliament and the rights of private members by the motion brought in today, he is just talking a lot of nonsense. The very fact that the Leader of the Opposition agrees that this is a reasonable course to follow I suggest makes the argument of the hon. member for Vancouver East look very weak.


Harold Edward Winch: Because they have not any resolutions; we have.


Howard Charles Green: Then as to the morning sittings, may I say this. I am heartbroken about one statement made by the Leader of the Opposition. He said that the house leader was not giving him and the other members of the Liberal party reasonable notice of the business that was to come up in the house.


Lester Bowles Pearson: Hear, hear.


John Whitney Pickersgill: Hear, hear.


Howard Charles Green: I hear them saying "hear, hear" to that statement, Mr. Speaker, particularly the hon. member for Bonavista-Twillingate. May I say that I have told him secrets all through the session. He has had more inside information than anybody else in the house.


John Whitney Pickersgill: The minister had better be careful about what he is saying.


Howard Charles Green: Why the hon. member should be shouting "hear, hear" today is more than I can say, except that he has acquired the habit. We have tried to give the opposition parties advance notice of the business that is to be brought before the house. I think in his heart each member across the way knows that is what we have been doing. I was the house leader for the official opposition for some years while Hon. Mr. Harris was the government house leader. We got along splendidly, just as do the hon. member for Laurier (Mr. Chevrier) and I.


Mr. Chevrier:: Wait and see. Don't speak too soon.


Howard Charles Green: If the hon. member has the nerve to rise in his place and accuse me of not letting him know what the business is to be, then I can say in advance that he will be talking through his hat.


Harold Edward Winch: Read some of your own
speeches that you made when you were over here on this side.


Howard Charles Green: The hon. member did not quote my own speech. I do not think he has one.
The Leader of the Opposition has commented on the fact that committees are still sitting. He will agree, I am sure, that most of the committees have already reported. I do not believe that better committee work has ever been done than that which has been done in the present session. We took a new *course. We have referred the estimates of nine different departments to standing committees of the house. This is something that has never been done before. I do not believe there have ever previously been more than four or five departments whose estimates have been referred to committees. From my observation the members of the house serving on those committees, no matter to what party they belong, have done a splendid job. I believe this has been one of the finest accomplishments of the present session. It has been done in spite of the fact that a large proportion of the members of the house have had very little experience in parliamentary affairs.
It will be noted that we are not interfering with the committees during the whole of this week. The proposal is that the house start to sit on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday mornings next week, not this week. By that time all the committees will have reported, perhaps, with the exception of the public accounts committee and a special committee which will have to be set up to consider broadcasting legislation and possibly the committee on external affairs, although they have already had several sittings and I am hoping that they will be able to get their report in before the end of the week. We have very carefully deferred calling morning sittings until the work of the committees would be practically completed.
I do not believe there can be much real complaint about that course. Hon. members will notice further that we are not asking for a sitting on Wednesday evening. That time would be free even should this motion carry. I am sure I am expressing the belief of the majority of the members of each of the three parties in this house when I say the responsibility of this House of Commons now is to get the business of the session concluded just as quickly as possible, thereby letting the members get back to their constituencies.
This is not a regular type of session, as I pointed out on another occasion.


John Whitney Pickersgill: Hear, hear.


Howard Charles Green: Oh, I do not suppose we shall ever have a regular type of session as long
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as the hon. member is here. We hope to get the House of Commons back on a basis where a session can be called early in the new year and can deal with the business for that year before July 1. I see no reason why that could not be done in 1959.
I am hoping in spite of this debate today, which I know is not a debate from the heart so far as those across the way are concerned and, as the Minister of Finance (Mr. Fleming) has just said, neither is it a debate from the head-he said that, I would not have said it-that we can get down to business this week and finish everything off within the next three weeks. That would give members the opportunity to get home a week or ten days before-


An hon. Member:: Before the snow flies.


Howard Charles Green: -before the first of September. And I think it would be in the interests of every member and of the country as a whole if this were to be the result.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear.


Lionel Chevrier: Mr. Speaker, the leader of the house was quite wrong when he said a while ago that he did not think I would rise to protest the motion which has been made by the government as set out in the notice of motion now before the house. I am not rising to protest against the first part of the motion but certainly against the second part and to give my reasons for so doing.
The first part of the motion has to do with the amendment of standing order 15(3), and the house leader has indicated why he thinks there would be no objection to that. I believe I gave the house leader the reason for that decision on an earlier occasion; but my purpose in rising now is to protest-and to protest as vigorously as I can-that it is unconscionable, in my opinion, to begin sitting during the mornings, afternoons and evenings when the house has not before it a detailed plan of what the business is going to be from now until the end of the session. Are we going to sit for three weeks or six weeks under these conditions.
I think before this motion is passed we are entitled to know what the business is going to be. I am surprised that the house leader would refer to some of the private conversations which have taken place between us but, since he has done so it gives me an opportunity to refer to one of those conversations. Some time ago I said to the house leader, "What is the legislation which now remains to be dealt with before the end of the session", and without divulging his reply in detail he said there is this item

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and there is that item; in other words, two items. I jotted them down, but a little later on he came back and said "I forgot; there are two more" and I jotted those two down. Still later he came over to my desk and said, "Oh, I forgot another one." That makes five.
What, then, is the position? I think it will be agreed that, when the hon. members who are sitting on the other side of this house now sat on this side and asked the then leader of the government what the business of the house was under circumstances such as these, the then government leader put the business on the record in Hansard, so that we knew what it was. It is one thing to say "Everything that is in the speech from the throne" is the remaining business; and quite another to detail what that legislation is to be.
As I say, I think before we are asked to approve this motion we should be told item by item, what the motions and these bills are to be, and we should not be told in a general way, such as we have been told by the Prime Minister when he was asked this question by the Leader of the Opposition, that "it is everything contained in the speech from the throne". We are entitled to greater detail than we have been given.
The leader of the house began by stating that we on this side of the house had nothing to say, that we were whining. I do not know of any greater whiner than the leader of the house, particularly when he sat on this side of the house.


Howard Charles Green: Oh, but it was good whining.


Lionel Chevrier: I will not do him the discourtesy of referring to what a former colleague of mine ascribed to him, because while I think the words fitted him accurately it would none the less depart from the general spirit of this debate to do so. I will however refer to something else, because the house leader has said as part of his great oration that the hon. member for Bonavista-Twil-lingate wanted to get back to his ship. He does not have a ship; he has lost it.


Mr. Fleming (Eglinton):: That is not all he
has lost.


Lionel Chevrier: He has also said the hon. member for Essex East wants to go to the Middle East. I do not know whether or not that is true, but I do know one thing; if he did go there he would do an excellent job.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear.


Lionel Chevrier: He as also said the hon. member for Laurier wants to get back to his law practice.


Mr. Stinson:: That would be a good idea.


Lionel Chevrier: I shall not comment on that other than to say that one of the friends of the house leader told me one day "You know this man Green does not want to get out to his constituency at all. He likes the house so much he wants to sit here morning, afternoon and evening. There is nothing he loves better than the House of Commons. Why should he go back to his constituency?" I am beginning to realize now that this friend of his was quite correct when he made that statement, but let me tell the leader of the house that we on this side of the house are prepared to stay here as long as it is necessary to do the business of the house.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear.


Lionel Chevrier: Furthermore, much as I would like to get back to my practice which I have not looked after now for many, many months, I do not wish to do so until the business of the house has been terminated. Let me further tell the leader of the house that if we knew that from now until the end of the session we would have certain definite pieces of legislation to face and exactly what was going to be brought down, then I think it would make our position much easier and much clearer with reference to this motion.
This we have not been told. Our position the other day with reference to the first morning sittings was entirely different from our position today, because we then saw that the end of the session was in the offing. Now that we are getting nearer to the end of the session, surely we should be told what is the business of the house. That is why we on this side of the house protest the second aspect of this resolution and will continue to do so until we know the business of the house.
Furthermore the leader of the house said something about the work of the committees. I am not in a position to know what is the progress of that work. The house leader has not told us. All he did was make a sweeping statement that the work was proceeding well, but I do not know that I can agree with him.


Howard Charles Green: Most of them have reported.


Lionel Chevrier: I do not think I can agree
with the statement he has made that this new idea is working out so well. As a matter of fact I do not think it is, and I may say that I hope he will not repeat the mistake which I respectfully suggest was made in submitting the estimates to the committees. I do not want to go into the details of what happens in some of those committees, but

I do not think they are doing efficient work.
I think if the estimates had remained in the house and if ministers had been here to reply, rather than having their officers reply in their stead in committee it would have been much more efficient, and I believe the work of the house would have proceeded much faster.
The house leader has said that he has taken us into his confidence and repeatedly told us what the business would be. Yes, he has, for one or two or sometimes three days, but I cannot remember-and in this I may be mistaken-one occasion during this session when he has given us notice of what was going to take place for one week in advance. That was something which often was done by the former minister of finance-


Some hon. Members:: Oh, no.


John Whitney Pickersgill: Over and over again.


Lionel Chevrier: I say without fear of contradiction that when I sat on the other side of the house the previous minister of finance repeatedly gave the business of the house for a full week in advance. We are now being denied knowledge of what the business will be from now until the end of the session. We are told for one day and two days and we are often told, as the house leader has said, to use his own words "I will give you notice for Monday and Tuesday, but I do not know what it is going to be on Wednesday". It is difficult enough for a group such as we are in the opposition to get ready for the business with a week's notice in advance. How much more difficult is it going to be when we have only one or two days' notice?
I conclude by saying that before this motion passes the house is entitled to far more information on the business that lies ahead of us from now until the end of the session than it has received up to the present time; and until it gets that information I submit, as others have stated, that this motion should be withdrawn.


Hazen Robert Argue: Mr. Speaker, I feel that this motion is wrong in two aspects. If it is passed it will wipe out three private members' Mondays, and will also call for morning sittings every day. We have been asked today whether or not the arrangements for the various committees of this house are working well. There have been slated for this afternoon meetings of the committee on external affairs and the committee on agriculture, while the house is meeting. As long as the government has a great many committees meeting while the house is sitting I submit it is impossible for hon. members to do an efficient job in the committees as
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well as in the house. The practice now being suggested makes a farce not only of the committees but also of parliament itself.
I listened with a great deal of interest to the speech by the Minister of Public Works, who is a most entertaining speaker. If the Prime Minister has an understudy in terms of his particular method of speaking, an understudy who has learned his part well, it is the Minister of Public Works. By making use of his excellent sense of humour and by displaying his wide smile when he is really putting it to you, the Minister of Public Works is apparently able to argue effectively on both sides of the question.
When he started to roast the members of the official opposition he said, "Ah, I know why you are in favour of the first part of the motion. The hon. member for Bonavista-Twillingate wants to go sailing a boat, the hon. member for Laurier wants to go back to his law practice and the hon. member for Essex East wants to go over to the Middle East"-for the hon. member for Essex East to be going to the Middle East seems strangely fitting-"and the Leader of the Opposition wants to go on a political tour that is very much needed." The Minister of Public Works was making extremely important points in his humorous fashion.
When he came to the other part of the matter and explained why the government was doing this, what did he say? He said it is the responsibility of the government to get the session concluded as quickly as possible so that hon. members could get back to their constituencies.


Howard Charles Green: Mr. Speaker, may I point out that I said it was the responsibility of the members.


Hazen Robert Argue: That is not the way I took it. The minister may feel it is the responsibility of the members, but here we have a motion which has been introduced by the Prime Minister and which has been spoken to by the house leader. The motion bears the stamp of approval of the government, and its purpose as explained by none other than the Minister of Public Works is to enable hon. members to get back to their constituencies, and to help the four hon. gentlemen in the Liberal party to whom he referred with such humour to do the very things he was scolding them for wanting to do.


Howard Charles Green: You want to get back too, do you not?


Hazen Robert Argue: Mr. Speaker, my first interest here, as I believe is the first interest of all hon. members of the C.C.F. group, is to see that we do our part in promoting

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legislation which we believe is in the best interests of the ordinary people in this country-
Mr. Pallet!: The C.C.F. members are great promoters, all right.


Hazen Robert Argue: -and in conducting the affairs of this house efficiently and in accordance with the rules. In order to efficiently conduct the affairs of the nation in this house it is not necessary that we put on a steamroller in order to wind up the session within two or three weeks. No less an authority than a former speaker of this house who has already been quoted said, as reported in the Journals of this house for December 1947, that a two-month session if it is mismanaged is more wasteful of time than a six-month session during which no time has been lost.


Mr. Martin (Essex East):: Who said that? Was that the Minister of Public Works?


Hazen Robert Argue: No; Mr. Speaker Fauteux, who was the speaker of this house at that time.
I was exceedingly disappointed in the official statement made by the Leader of the Opposition to the effect that his party would not object to that part of the motion which would eliminate the three private members' Mondays. The right of private hon. members to present motions under the heading of notices of motion and to expect a substantial number of these motions to come up during the course of a session is a tradition of long standing in this house. This is the first session in my memory when it has apparently been the official position of the government to talk out all private members' motions. We might be able to deal with more than three motions before the session concluded if the house leader did not take the attitude he took this afternoon, that only three motions could be dealt with on three further private members' Mondays.
Although this government has the greatest majority that any government in the history of this country has had it is apparently more terrified than were governments in the past of having motions or bills introduced by private members brought to a vote. No matter what the motion may be, no matter how innocuous its wording may be, no matter if it comes from a government supporter, the official position of this government is to put on one Conservative speaker after another to talk out the motions. That is the situation no matter how government members may attempt to paint it.
The greatest folly of all is that the government by this device is seeking to take away from the House of Commons the right of private hon. members to three private

members' Mondays, a right which is embodied in the rules of this house. I was amazed and disappointed at the argument advanced by the Minister of Justice to the effect that the government is not taking so much away because this does not represent a revision of the rules. It is certainly to be hoped that this is neither a revision of the rules nor a precedent, because hon. members of the government as well as many hon. members of the Liberal party in this house know that over the years there have often been more than six private members' Mondays or two private members' Thursdays, and that the rule in the rule book today was placed there because it was the recommendation of a committee of this house representative of all parties, which met in 1955. By agreement and unanimous vote the committee decided that it would be better to provide for a fixed number of private members' Mondays than to leave it to chance.
What is the government attempting to do? The government is introducing a motion to take away the right of hon. members of this house to three further private members' Mondays. This motion interferes with an important right of private members. Something the government should avoid like the plague is any suggestion that the cabinet is dictating the rules of procedure and the rights of this house. The motion before us this afternoon is more than a motion standing in the name of the Prime Minister. This motion is the result of a cold, calculated decision on the part of the cabinet to eliminate three private members' Mondays.
I say to the Minister of Public Works (Mr. Green) and to the members of the government that standing order 15 has become the plaything of the cabinet; that the whole rule book and our whole procedure in this house are in jeopardy.
I had thought the Minister of Public Works, when he made the strong statement which he made when in opposition, would carry those beliefs into the cabinet, but apparently they were to be just statements from the sounding board of the opposition, and once the party has landed in the seats of the mighty then the means by which they obtained power cease to have little concern, because the Minister of Public Works is doing now precisely what he condemned for so many years.
I think it goes even farther than that.
I think the minister indicated this afternoon that he does not know exactly what is in the rule book because he said that as far as this is concerned all it will do is wipe out three private members' notices of motions. Well, of course, that is not all it does because

the fourth, fifth and sixth Mondays are different from the first, second and third Mondays. They are different in this respect. In addition to the notices of motions for the production of papers on the fourth, fifth and sixth Mondays, private bills are next in the order of precedence. Therefore, the government is not, as the minister says, merely taking away the motions of three private members.


Howard Charles Green: On a point of order, may I point out these are not bills introduced by private members; these are such things as charters to private companies, as the hon. member well knows. A private member cannot bring in a public bill under that provision.


Hazen Robert Argue: The minister said that this was the only thing that was being affected by these rules. He said all that was being affected were the motions of three members. Of course, the motions of private members and private bills are different; but "B" of the standing order states that for the fourth, fifth and sixth Mondays there shall be private bills in advance of notices of motions. Therefore, what the Minister of Public Works is doing is taking away those three days for private bills, for such things as pipe line bills or extension of charters for church organizations or insurance organizations.


Howard Charles Green: You are not worrying very
much about that, are you?


Hazen Robert Argue: I am not worrying about a lot of the pipe line bills, although the minister may be worrying about them; I do not know. I am just suggesting the minister was not nearly as careful as he should have been in the language he used when he introduced this motion when he said that all it did was to take away the motions of three private members. He has taken away the possibility of three full days' debate on the Trans Mountain pipe line bill. I am not opposed to that bill being defeated but even if I am opposed to the measure passing this house, the rules of the house should be maintained. If in the maintenance of the rules a private bill passes this house to which I am opposed, then that is the way it should be. I do not think we should have any back-door methods or any shortcuts by either blocking the things which we are opposed to or taking away private members days.
When the Minister of Public Works sat in another position on this side of the house he said this on March 23, 1954, as reported on page 3216 of Hansard:
The Progressive Conservative party stands for the supremacy of parliament. That has been one of our fundamental beliefs down through the years. We believe in parliament being supreme rather than
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the cabinet, and we believe that only in that way can we have a free parliament in Canada.


Howard Charles Green: We still do.


Hazen Robert Argue: The Minister of Public Works speaks of parliament being free but this motion was presented to parliament following a cabinet meeting. Is that the way to keep parliament free, to destroy the rule book, to destroy our standing orders, because the cabinet has decided that the first responsibility of members should be to get back to their constituencies. I think that is an untenable position; I think the government is making a grave mistake in presenting this motion at this time.
In spite of the statement which was made hurriedly by the Leader of the Official Opposition (Mr. Pearson), I suggest that the official opposition will be sorry indeed in the days that lie ahead if on this day they share with the government the responsibility of taking away some of the fundamental rights of this parliament as incorporated in the motion of the Prime Minister brought in at this time. The only position for any opposition group to take is to say that the rule book by which members' rights are guaranteed shall not be tampered with except by agreement, except by unanimous consent. But when any party or any members object there should be no motion of the cabinet to turn on the party whips and force such a motion through the House of Commons.
The Prime Minister has been most eloquent in his stand in opposing closure, and I agree with him. I think a motion to abolish closure is one that should be put through this house and become part of our rules; but if it were possible to apply a closure motion to a private member's notice of motion it would not kill the motion, it would not destroy it; it would merely say that at one o'clock in the morning following the day of debate the vote shall be taken. But this motion which is now before us places private members' motions in a much inferior position. Closure is not being applied which limits debate and brings on a vote. This kind of closure is an eradication of the debate; it is a removal of the notice of motion on the order paper.
In an important publication entitled "Parliament and the People", issued by the Progressive Conservative party national headquarters, 141 Laurier avenue west, Ottawa, Ontario, the following quotation is found on page 9. It is entitled "No Pipe Dream" and reads as follows:
I have seen the progressive restriction of the supremacy of parliament in the last 10 years. I have seen parliament bludgeoned, and I say that is no pipe dream. Bludgeoned by a majority. I have seen the hands of the cabinet directing members and disciplining them into an abject servility.

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That is the Prime Minister. I ask him to take off the party whip, to remove from the motion that part of it which eradicates three private members' Mondays, and therefore helps destroy the very foundation of the House of Commons, namely our rules and procedures.


Mr. H. W. Herridge (Kootenay West):: Mr. Speaker, I want to take only two or three minutes to deal with one aspect of this problem which has not been mentioned to date. I might say briefly that after listening to the Minister of Public Works this afternoon I think he has become quite skilled in the use of the axe, the shovel and the rake. No wonder he is Minister of Public Works.
Other members of this group have dealt with the constitutional, the procedural and the legal aspects of the loss of the rights of parliament in this motion doing away with private members' days. They have all done very well indeed and I am not going to repeat what they had to say, but I do want to say that as far as my experience in this house is concerned over a period of 13 years it seems to me that the parliament of Canada has been in existence for 91 years and to date has failed to organize its business and its work in a logical and satisfactory manner.
With respect to the hours, I want to make two points. The lengthened hours of the sitting of this house make it impossible for members to attend to their duties properly, to give satisfactory attention to legislation on the order paper, legislation that may come forward or to the estimates. I think this argument is of double force, Mr. Speaker, in view of the fact that at the present time we still have a number of committees sitting and one or two of those committees are sitting two or three times a day while the house is sitting.
But I rise, particularly, Mr. Speaker, to say that those lengthened hours over a long number of weeks are particularly unfair to the staff of the House of Commons.
The disorganized manner in which our business is being handled means that the staff of the House of Commons have had their holidays completely disorganized. Many of them are without the opportunity to enjoy summer holidays with their children during the months when their children are on holiday from school. Other members of the staff are required to put in unnecessarily long and unfair hours, but before resuming my speech I want to mention particularly the strain that these very long days impose on the Hansard reporters. We all know that repeatedly they are required to stay here until after midnight preparing the typescript so
'Mr. Argue.]
that Hansard can be published the next day. In addition, it is very unfair to what I term our Hansard angels, the ladies who type for the Hansard reporters. These young ladies find it a very difficult time because of the lengthening of the hours over a long period. I do think that in future sessions we must consider the welfare of the staff of the House of Commons. Finally, I hope that the situation that exists today and the debate we are having will result in better organization of the business of the House of Commons in the future.


Mr. Erharl Regier (Burnaby-Coquiilam):: Mr. Speaker, I want to assure the house that I too will only be a limited number of minutes. However, I think this is a vital matter. The last time a motion extending the hours of sitting was presented I think the reason was possibly understandable. However, the present motion invades the rights of private members with respect to notices of motions and I feel that the opposition would be failing in its responsibility if it did not sound a warning.
The Minister of Public Works (Mr. Green) claims that he knows the wishes of the opposition members and that those wishes are identical with the wishes of other members, that opposition members also would like to reach an early end to this session. If such is the case I must ask the Minister of Public Works why he did not consult with the opposition before the government made the decision it obviously has made.


Paul Joseph James Martin: I think that was done.


Erhart Regier: No, it was not. The opposition was advised of the decision of the cabinet. The opposition was not consulted before the cabinet made its decision. If there must be amendments to our standing orders I feel that there should be rather wide consultation because they are very important rules in our parliamentary institution. There should be such consultation before the cabinet makes up its mind and not consultation afterwards.
I was also very alarmed by the statement of the minister, which I hope was made inadvertently, that at the most three resolutions would be dealt with. If he meant what he said it indicates that the government has made up its mind that it is going to use the weight of a political party in the determination of what is to happen to private members' motions. I cannot fail but be alarmed when I see in country after country, even in Canada, the growth of power of political machines. I think we should watch that very carefully. I know that the Conservative party is not alone in having such a fault. I think

it obtains in all political parties in Canada. A belief is developing that the party in power and the party machine and organization must have their way and in my opinion that is regrettable regardless of where we find it. The minister's statement that we could take only three resolutions in three days is an indication that the government is also afflicted with the power of the party concept.
The minister made a considerable point of the fact that we can discuss these problems when the estimates are dealt with. With reference to federal aid for education he said that he did not doubt at all that we would be taking a good deal of the time when discussing the estimates of the Minister of Finance (Mr. Fleming) to discuss federal aid for education. If the minister is sincere in his contention that all these subjects can be amply aired on the estimates, then I must ask the minister why we need this motion at all because it is obvious that the number of motions we will be able to deal with will be limited by the mere fact that only three more Mondays are available. Yet if the minister is inviting members of the house to speak on the subject matters of all the various motions when considering estimates I can assure the minister that he will lose far more than the three days he is now hoping to gain. Surely if he says to members of the house that the government is going to take away three days but members can spend all the time they like on the estimates he is not arguing very successfully for any progress in the direction that it is indicated is desirable.
I should like to point out to the house that the subject matters of these motions are important indeed. The government introduces its ideas in the speech from the throne and other members of the House of Commons should have a chance to air their views. I have looked over the list of notices of motion and most of them deal with very vital matters that need airing. Federal aid for education is only one. Others include pensions, the difficulties of the textile industry, the need for further amendments to the Unemployment Insurance Act, human rights, conservation of our natural resources, highways, the marketing of coal, a coast guard service, industrial decentralization, the elections act, the dumping of foreign agricultural products on our markets, Canada's one hundredth birthday, a municipal loan fund, lotteries and the employment of men over the age of 45.
Finally, I must remind the house that this year the house sat for the first month, January, and then reconvened in the middle of May. If the minister's wish is realized it will end about the middle of August. This adds up to a total of four months. This urgent
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need to complete the business of parliament and get home is not going to be looked upon very kindly by the people of Canada when they realize that we were at our job in parliament for only four months of the whole year while still collecting our pay for 12 months. I can quite understand that when the house begins to sit in the first month of the year, members then work for seven or eight months and the end of July is passed and we reach the middle of August, as has happened before, members should feel that they should end the session and go home for a while to consult with their people. However, when we have only spent four months here and there are so many urgent matters needing the attention of parliament as indicated in these notices of motion, then I feel that we are neglecting our duties.


Mr. Speakman:: Would the hon. member for Skeena permit a question?


Mr. Howard:: I will permit any question you like except that I have not said anything yet.


Mr. Speaker:: Is the house ready for the question? The hon. member for Timmins.


Mr. M. W. Martin (Timmins):: Mr. Speaker, most of the matters I intended to deal with have already been covered and as a result I am going to make my remarks very brief. However, there were two points raised in the remarks of the Minister of Public Works (Mr. Green) and also intimated in the remarks and interjections of the Minister of Justice (Mr. Fulton) that I believe give rise to some cause for concern.
Those remarks were to the effect that the matter raised today is not exactly similar and so does not fit in with their remarks when they were in opposition. Are we to believe from that, Mr. Speaker, that they were only interested in the rights of parliament as they pertain to a certain subject? Does their belief in the rights of parliament cover the whole field? If would seem that is the only assumption we can draw from the remarks of the minister today.
I noticed also that the minister, first of all, made remarks to the effect that the Liberals were apparently no more interested in the rights of parliament now than when they sat on the other side of the house. However, in the next breath he said that this resolution must be all right because the Liberals supported it. This is a contradiction of views which I find it difficult to understand. It appears that the major reason for this resolution today is that it is not convenient to carry on with the rules as they apply to private members' days for the balance of this session. Perhaps members on the government side will

Business of the House
be horrified at being compared with the gentleman named in this press clipping, but I should like them to stop and think for one moment about how big a step they are taking along the road outlined in this clipping by the present resolution. This press clipping is from Lisbon and reads:
Portuguese dictator Dr. Antonio de Oliveria Salazar in a recent televised speech here said that "it is not convenient to have an opposition party."
I will grant you that no member on the government side has suggested or even contemplated that it is not convenient to have an opposition party now. However, I maintain, Mr. Speaker, that we have taken the first little step along that road when we say it is not convenient to have private members' days during the balance of this session.


John Whitney Pickersgill: I believe that if the Prime Minister (Mr. Diefenbaker) speaks he will close the debate and I would therefore like first to make two very brief observations. We voted against the amendment because, among other things, we felt that by voting for the amendment we would have been implying that we were in favour of the second part of the proposition which is that part of which we have an unalterable objection. It seemed to us, therefore, that we would have looked rather ridiculous to vote for the striking out of one half of the proposition leaving the other.
So far as the main proposition is concerned-the second paragraph of the motion- we continue to be thoroughly opposed to this at the present time. It may be that before the end of the session it will be appropriate to do as was done when we were in office at a point where it was really possible to see the end of the session, and that is to ask the house to sit on every morning of the week.
We do, however, have many items of major legislation, according to all the indications, which have to be introduced in this house; items of legislation which, if the government carries them out, certainly ought to go to the

committees to receive very careful consideration. That would mean that this session will continue four or five more weeks, at the very least, if we are to do our duty conscientiously. It would seem to me quite ridiculous, therefore, to ask the house at this very early date to do something which the previous administration did only at the very end of the session when virtually nothing remained to be dealt with but the estimates.
As the hon. member for Laurier (Mr. Chevrier) said, we do not even know what legislation the government intends to introduce and I hope the Prime Minister will, if he speaks, give the house a detailed account of that legislation. Unless the government is going to throw overboard practically its whole program, I still think it is far too early in the session to be asking us to undertake hours of this kind and I hope the Prime Minister will indicate to us what legislation is still forthcoming and that he will leave no doubt in our minds that this session will not be closed without the implementation of the report of the royal commission on the revision of the terms of union with Newfoundland.


Frank Howard: Mr. Speaker, I have just one slight comment to make-


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh.


Frank Howard: Listen to the applause. After listening to the hon. gentleman who has just spoken I have come to the conclusion that while he may not be learning very much from the Minister of Public Works (Mr. Green) with respect to whining-and there is no doubt that the minister is the greatest possible teacher we could have in that respect -he is certainly learning from the minister how to wiggle out of what might be an embarrassing situation-and again the Minister of Public Works is the greatest teacher we could have in that regard.
I merely want to say, however, that this is one more indication of a changed attitude. We do not have a Progressive Conservative party on the other side of the house, we have a party developing in this country which is changing from what it was to merely a party of defectors.
Mr. Pallet!: A party of what?


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


John George Diefenbaker: Mr. Speaker, this has been a most interesting debate, one that has revealed many intriguing facets of the beliefs of the parties opposite with respect to parliament
Business of the House
and the manner in which parliament should discharge its responsibilities.
I am not going to go into a great deal of detail, but I would like to say that I would have placed before the house at the very beginning the entire legislative program but, before I was in a position to rise-and there is no criticism inherent in these words I am about to utter-the Leader of the Opposition (Mr. Pearson) rose and commenced his address.
I must say, however, that as I listened to the hon. gentlemen sitting to your immediate left-the members of the C.C.F. party and in particular as I listened to their authorities on the constitutional system of this country quoted by the hon. member for Vancouver East (Mr. Winch)-I thought how applicable were the words of the hon. member for Skeena (Mr. Howard) when he inferentially referred to inconsistency. I could not help but recall, while the hon. member for Vancouver East was enunciating those great principles of parliamentary government, a speech he made on November 10, 1943, in which he said when they get power they are going to "scrap the British North America Act".


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear.


John George Diefenbaker: And when it was suggested to him that he may have been misquoted, he made it very clear that he had not been misquoted. The hon. member for Burnaby-Coquitlam (Mr. Regier) spoke of the few days during which parliament had sat and how much there was to do. The reason why I rise to deal with that particular matter is that I do not want to allow the people of Canada to conclude that parliament has not been sitting very continuously since October 14 last, or that there has been any neglect of responsibility on the part of parliament. Even making due allowance for the election and the campaign of several months which intervened, of the 295 days since October 14, 1957, parliament has sat on 142 days. That answers the hon. gentleman who tried to leave the impression that parliament had but one concern, namely to go home, when as a matter of fact I doubt that there has been any period of 295 days, except during wartime, in which parliament has sat for 142 days.
It has been very interesting to listen to my hon. friends to your immediate left, Mr. Speaker, for they have endeavoured by constant repetition to delude the people of Canada into believing that they are in fact the true opposition because each and every one in that group speaks on each and every occasion and opportunity. I realize the difficulty of my hon. friends over there. They

Business of the House
speak of how difficult it is to attend the various committee meetings but certainly we cannot accept the responsibility for the diminution in the degree to which the representation in that quarter since March 31 does not permit membership on all the committees of the House of Commons.
I was so much surprised to hear the suggestion made that the committee system was not working out very well. The hon. member for Laurier (Mr. Chevrier) said that but whether he was going into the question with the same degree of care that he usually employs, I do not know. All I can say is this. In my experience-and while I did not come to this house as early as did the hon. member for Laurier-in the time I have been here I have never seen any group of parliamentarians apply themselves with a greater care and attention in the committees of parliament than I have seen this year. As a matter of fact, I speak as one who is not a very good committee man. Over the years I have more or less cast out on the efficacy of the committee system. However, others whose experience is wider as committee members than is my own were able to convince me that the committee system could indeed be incorporated into our system without borrowing anything from the constitutional position of the congress of the United States. I think the committee system has worked out very well.
My hon. friend said that if we had not had the committees on estimates we would have discussed these things in the house. I would point out that there has never been any delay here. There has never been a day on which parliament has not been in control of the order paper. There has always been legislation and there have always been the necessary estimates available from the very beginning of the session. When the Leader of the Opposition speaks about organizing parliament, all I can say is that if there has been any lack of organization it has not been on this side. We have had legislation available and ready for the house at all times. We have had the estimates available. It has been difficult I know in connection with the estimates to put into one session almost the complete estimates of two years but always there has been a legislative program. When the hon. member for Laurier said that in the past we used to know a week in advance what was coming, I can only comment that I do not think I was here in those days.


Lionel Chevrier: I was and I remember it quite well.


John George Diefenbaker: After all, all that anyone asks is that he knows reasonably well, within a matter of two or three days, the general

program and that course and that objective have been the objective and course of this government. It has not been due in any way to indolence, a lack of diligence or a lack of placing the legislative program before parliament that in a period since October 14 we have sat in session 45 per cent of the actual sitting days.
I know there are changes that could be made in parliament. The hon. member for Vancouver East referred to a speech that I made in the House of Commons on July 12, 1955. That was when the special committee on procedure was before the house for discussion. We were dealing with the necessity of preserving under general rules the conduct of parliament in a proper way. I pointed out on that occasion, and I am not going to say today that I have changed my views in that connection, that it is difficult with desks before us to achieve that degree of perfection in debate, cogency in argument and lack of prolixity which is so necessary for effective debate. We are all guilty. I know that someone will say if I did not have a desk before me at this moment I should not be able to have these two books before me.
The fact remains that one of the major reasons the British parliament has been so effective is that there are no desks before the members of that house that permit of an extensiveness in extemporaneousness aided and abetted by manifold documents on a desk. They speak there after preparation. They have no space on an individual desk before them on which to lay voluminous notes or great volumes. When a speaker has to bend every now and then in order to remove books and papers from under the seat upon which he was sitting prior to his rising to take part in the debate he is less inclined to have copious reference to voluminous documents.
When my hon. friends to the left of the Speaker say that the rights of parliament are being interfered with because each and every one of them will not have the right to speak over and over again, may I invite them to take a look at the parliament at Westminster and realize the degree to which that parliament has a wide complexity of subjects with which to deal and also realize the fact that there in debate a number are chosen of those who will speak on the basis of the motion of the Speaker after discussion with the Whips and there is no unnecessary repetition or redundancy. There are no 40-minute speeches. And yet the gentlemen in that parliament in the course of a session get through a tremendous amount of legislative enactment and discussion.
If it is to discharge its responsibility parliament must be more than a place where repetitious utterance masquerades as wisdom. I

think there is a great deal to be said in favour of the suggestion of my hon. friend the Leader of the Opposition that we can do much to reorganize parliament to make it effective. There is much that all of us can do in this regard for if we really give our testimony truly not all of us are free from being offenders. We can make this house more effective not by extending to the point of view of having parliament sit throughout the entire year but in another way.
I believe that consideration might be given at the next session, after consultation, to adding to the changes that were made in 1955. On the basis of experience, without in any way interfering with the freedom of speech which must remain in parliament actually as theoretically, we might achieve an increased degree of efficiency through reorganization along the lines I have suggested to bring this parliament and the discussions of this parliament generally in consonance with the experience and practice of the mother of parliaments. There the voice of freedom has never been silent as a result of that political experience which is peculiarly that of the British and which ensures the maintenance of freedom through speech while at the same time preventing unnecessary repetition which can only lengthen the sessions of parliament without in any way contributing to the benefit of legislation.
I think some effective changes were made in 1955. I just look back at some of the remarks I made at that time. There was a time in the old House of Commons when members spoke for four or five hours. They did not by speaking at that length really add too much after the first 20 minutes to assist in the solution of problems. Some hon. members will recall that in 1912 a very famous member from the city of Montreal spoke for 11J hours. Then he said, "Mr. Speaker, I am coming to the essence of what I want to place before this house." Those were the happy days. In 1885, at the time of the rebellion, great debates took place in the old House of Commons. As I recall it-and I am speaking entirely from recollection-the first four or five who spoke took no less than four hours each. That did not make parliament any more effective.
When the discussions took place at the time the rules were changed to provide for speeches of 40 minutes as a maximum for members other than those designated, there were many who said that this was a grave interference with the freedom of parliament. Again, a couple of years ago, when speeches in committee were reduced to 30 minutes, there were some who might have felt that
Business of the House
the reduction would make some difference in the solution of our problems; but in the light of experience I do not think that has been found to be so.
When hon. members say that parliament has not had a chance to speak and that we have changed since we came over here I simply give this answer once more. There have been 295 days since October 14, and parliament has sat 142. When they say that it is really terrible, the loss of private members' days, I say that there have been five so far and there were private members' days last fall as well. Members of the opposition were perfectly willing at that time to reduce the number of private members' days. As I recall it, the hon. member for Laurier said that it was only late in the session that similar motions were made before. I have the record here. In 1956, morning sittings continued from July 16 to August 14, four weeks and two days. I think, generally, that has been approximately the time at which the adoption of morning sittings has been accepted by the house.
I have been asked to say something in regard to the program in general. I am not going to read over the list on the order paper, except to say that the items on the order paper will be taken up and, I hope, passed by the house. With regard to those matters that appear in the speech from the throne, in view of the degree to which there has been some controversy in northern Alberta as to the site of the railroad to Slave lake, we feel further consideration should be given to that and will not have that legislation in respect of the building of a railway before the house at this session.
What is the remainder of the record? There is the bill of rights, the bill to amend the broadcasting act, the legislation respecting agriculture in general and the South Saskatchewan dam, the bill to provide for the building of the Campobello and Maine bridge by sharing among the United States government, the province of New Brunswick and the government of Canada; the bill to amend the Customs Act in one detail referred to in the budget speech; and, of course, a bill respecting supply in 1957-58, in pursuance of the undertaking given by myself during the recent election campaign, as well as an amendment to the citizenship act.
Now, sir, good progress has been made-


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


John George Diefenbaker: Yes.


John Whitney Pickersgill: Is the government not
contemplating implementing the report of the royal commission?

Business of the House


John George Diefenbaker: I noticed by the manner in which the hon. gentleman interceded in the debate that that was a matter which greatly concerned him and 1 intended to come to that.


John Whitney Pickersgill: I beg the Prime Minister's pardon.


John George Diefenbaker: No; I appreciate being
asked the question because sometimes one forgets what one intends to do. In that connection I can say that consideration is being given to the matter and as yet there has not been that final decision which will enable me to give to the hon. gentleman the answer which will conclude the matter one way or another. I realize his interest in this and the interest of the people of Newfoundland. I can assure him that the fullest and most careful consideration will be given to the recommendations as well as to the question as to when this legislation should be brought before parliament.
As the Minister of Finance (Mr. Fleming) says, in addition to what I have referred to there will be further supplementary estimates. In view of the general recital and the fact that on past occasions there has been generally accepted by the house the necessity of morning sittings, I ask hon. gentlemen opposite to join with us in this. I do not want at any time even to appear to be trying to press the House of Commons. I realize, with the division that exists today, one could act arbitrarily. That is not the spirit in which I try to see parliament conducted. I want to see parliament effective, efficient; I want to see freedom maintained. Having regard to the experience of the past, I ask the members of Her Majesty's loyal opposition to join with us in supporting this motion. No one knows better than I do how tiring the onerous responsibilities of being a private member are, as one goes from a committee to the house and from the house to a committee and how, during the last few weeks of the session, that tired feeling comes over one, not dictated by a desire to get over the responsibilities that are ours, but simply resulting from the fact that there are no directed hours of service as a member of parliament.
We do not have any 10-hour days or 8-hour days or 12-hour days if we discharge our responsibilities. I realize how difficult it is for members to be able to do these things but I am saying, with regard to the experience of the past and the fact that the rights of parliament have been assured and maintained, that a record of 142 days out of 295 gives the answer to those who prate-


Harold Edward Winch: And this is a new parliament.


John George Diefenbaker: -of how they love the House of Commons and how the House of Commons is being denied rights. When the question of organization is raised by certain members of the opposition, my answer is, "physician, heal thyself", and arrange that one or another will have a knowledge of the subject and deal with it. That will assure the presentation of every viewpoint and it will remove one thing that is a subject of discussion today in every one of the free institutions in the free world, namely how to maintain that degree of freedom for parliamentary institutions without at the same time denying progress because of prolixity.



CANADIAN NATIONAL RAILWAYS


Donald Methuen Fleming: that the house go into committee at the next sitting to consider the following resolution, which has been recommended to the house by His Excellency:
That it is expedient to bring in a measure to authorize the Canadian National Railway Company to make capital expenditures in the year 1958 not exceeding $330,623,000 and to make certain capital expenditures and enter into certain contracts prior to July 1, 1959; to authorize the national company to issue securities to provide amounts required for the authorized expenditures; to provide that, except as expressly provided, the aggregate principle amount of securities outstanding at any time shall not exceed $307,493,000; to authorize the governor in council to guarantee the principal and interest of securities issued by the company for the purpose aforesaid; to authorize the Minister of Finance to make loans to the said company secured by such securities and not exceeding $307,493,000 in principal amount to enable the said company to meet such expenditures and with authority to give financial aid and assistance to other companies of the national system.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to.


[Stage Direction]
Motion No. 28-Mr. Pickersgill (for Mr. Benidickson):
Inquiries of the Ministry
For a copy of all contracts or agreements, or letters related to contract between the government or the Bank of Canada and advertising and promotional agencies, relating to the advertising and promotion of the conversion loan plan.
Donald Methuen Fleming: Perhaps I might say to the hon. member for Bonavista-Twillingate, who makes this motion on behalf of the hon. member for Kenora-Rainy River in his absence, that there are no papers or documents falling within the scope of this motion.
I therefore suggest that he drop it.


John Whitney Pickersgill: I am sure that course would be agreeable to the hon. member.


Mr. Speaker:: Is it agreed that this order be dropped?


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.
Order discharged and motion withdrawn.



MRS. A. E. WOODMAN

[Stage Direction]
Motion No. 31-Mr. Mcllraith:
For a copy of all correspondence since June 21, 1957, exchanged between the Minister of Northern Affairs and National Resources or any officials of the department, and any other persons concerning the employment by the government of Canada of Mrs. A. E. Woodman, of Jasper, Alberta.
Motion agreed to.


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Lester Bowles Pearson: Mr. Speaker, on Saturday I asked the Minister of Trade and Commerce whether he could comment on the accuracy of certain excerpts from a report of his department "Canada's Economic Outlook for 1958". He was not able to do so the other day. I am asking now whether he can comment on the accuracy of the excerpts printed from that report?


Gordon Minto Churchill: Mr. Speaker, I judge this is the question which the Leader of the Opposition asked me on Saturday. His question was:
If so, can he say whether these excerpts are accurate?
My reply on Saturday was as follows:
My attention has been drawn to a report in the Toronto Star in regard to what the headline calls a secret report. I have made no further examination of the alleged excerpts quoted in the Star, as to whether or not they are from some secret report of the department.
That answer holds at the present moment.


Lester Bowles Pearson: I have a supplementary question. Am I to understand from the minister

Inquiries of the Ministry that he has not yet checked the accuracy of these excerpts with the report in question?


Gordon Minto Churchill: Mr. Speaker, there is nothing in the Toronto Star story to indicate what report of the various reports that I receive was being referred to.


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh.


Paul Joseph James Martin: I should
like to ask the Minister of Trade and Commerce, in view of the statement he made earlier today on this matter of the secret report, whether or not the distinguished newspaper man from the Toronto Globe and Mail, Mr. Clark Davey, is correct in what he attributed to the Minister of Trade and Commerce as reported in the issue of the Globe and Mail this morning?


Gordon Minto Churchill: Mr. Speaker, I judge that I dealt with that matter, unless the hon. member has some specific reference to make.


Paul Joseph James Martin: Did my hon. friend give an interview to Mr. Clark Davey with regard to this matter on Friday or Saturday?


Gordon Minto Churchill: Not to my knowledge, Mr. Speaker.


Paul Joseph James Martin: Do I understand that the minister states that he did not talk to Mr. Clark Davey who wrote in today's Globe and Mail that Trade Minister Churchill on Friday had told reporters that the newspaper stories indicated they were based on direct quotes from the report. Is that an accurate quotation?


Gordon Minto Churchill: That is without foundation, Mr. Speaker.


Paul Joseph James Martin: Then Mr. Clark Davey is not telling the truth, according to the minister?


Hazen Robert Argue: I should like to direct to the Minister of Trade and Commerce a question which I believe is supplementary to the one asked by the Leader of the Opposition. Does the minister know what the report referred to in the Toronto Star is when it is referred to as a report of Canada's 1958 economic prospects? Is that report known to the minister?


Gordon Minto Churchill: Mr. Speaker, I receive quite a number of confidential reports from time to time from members of my department with regard to Canada's economic prospects.


Hazen Robert Argue: I should like to ask a further supplementary question. Is there a report in the hands of the minister entitled "Canada's 1958 Economic Prospects" or "Canada's Economic Prospects, 1958"?


Gordon Minto Churchill: Which one would you like, now?


John Whitney Pickersgill: That is not very clever.


Hazen Robert Argue: Has the minister in his hands a report entitled "Canada's 1958 Economic Prospects".


Gordon Minto Churchill: I will check the reports in my possession to see if any one of them bears the title mentioned by the hon. member.


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh.


Lester Bowles Pearson: Does the minister receive more than one report from his department entitled "Canada's Economic Prospects, 1958"?


Gordon Minto Churchill: Mr. Speaker, I will have to look at the various reports which I received to see if I have one that is in accordance with the question of the hon. member.


Lionel Chevrier: May I ask the Minister of Trade and Commerce if he gave a statement to the Toronto Telegram concerning the report which appeared in the Toronto Start


Gordon Minto Churchill: No, Mr. Speaker, I gave no statement to the Toronto Telegram.


Lionel Chevrier: May I ask a supplementary question. With respect to a press clipping under the title "Government violent at leak in security" as published by Peter Dempson of the Toronto Telegram as follows:
Trade minister Churchill summed up his reactions-


Some hon. Members:: Order.


Lionel Chevrier: The minister is quoted as saying that his reaction to this report was violent and I ask the minister if he denies making that statement.


Mr. Speaker:: I am not sure whether the hon. member was in the house at the beginning of today's sittings when the Minister of Trade and Commerce dealt with a number of reports in the newspapers-


Donald Methuen Fleming: Including that one.


Mr. Speaker:: -and as I recall it his remarks covered the one to which the hon, member is now referring.


Lionel Chevrier: I was here, Your Honour, and I listened very carefully to what was said by the minister when he made a denial, seriatim, of those articles in question. I have now asked him if he in fact made this statement to the Toronto Telegram and he said he did not so I was following this up with a supplementary question as to whether he had used the word "violent".


Mr. Speaker:: Perhaps the hon. minister could tell me whether his previous statement covered the question now asked.


Gordon Minto Churchill: I thought, Mr. Speaker, that the answer I made earlier covered this question. I do not normally use the word "violent" and I have no recollection of having used it in this connection on any occasion whatsoever. It is not a word of which I make use.


Lionel Chevrier: May I ask a supplementary question. Did the minister use the word "violent" in referring to "The Canadian Economic Outlook" for 1958", as reported in this article.


Gordon Minto Churchill: I did not use the word
violent.


Herbert Wilfred Herridge: Could I ask the Minister of Trade and Commerce whether he makes a distinction between the words "without foundation" and "is not true"?


Howard Charles Green: On the point of order, Mr. Speaker, may I suggest that the only proper questions which may be asked on orders of the day have to do with urgent matters. Many questions have already been asked with which the Minister of Trade and Commerce dealt in his statement on privilege and now he is being subjected to cross-examination. There is no provision in the rules for conduct of this kind.


An hon. Member:: You mean he is in trouble.


Paul Joseph James Martin: On the point of order just raised by the Minister of Public Works, it is true that the Minister of Trade and Commerce, as a matter of privilege, denied the stories but the questions which have been put today do not in any way contest the right of the Minister of Trade and Commerce to rise, as he did this afternoon, on a question of privilege. The questions put thus far simply asked the minister if he gave interviews to certain gentlemen of the press and the minister has denied having given these interviews. Surely we are entitled-


Some hon. Members:: Order.


Paul Joseph James Martin: -to ask-


Mr. Nowlan:: Order.


Lionel Chevrier: Don't make so much noise.


George Clyde Nowlan: Who is making noise?


Lionel Chevrier: You are.


Paul Joseph James Martin: -whether or not he has given these interviews so that we may be in a position of having, on the one hand, the assertions of gentlemen of the press that they did have these contacts with the 57071-3-193
Inquiries of the Ministry minister and, on the other hand, the minister's statement that he did not give any such interviews at all. Then the house will have to judge and the country will have to judge which is correct.


Some hon. Members:: Order.


An hon. Member:: Sit down.


Mr. Speaker:: I will have to ask the hon. member for Essex East to confine himself to the point of order-


Paul Joseph James Martin: That is exactly my point.


Mr. Speaker:: I thought he was making a statement about the country judging something and so on.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear.


Mr. Speaker:: The point is whether or not the questions which are being asked at this time are in order and I shall hear him on that point.


Edmund Davie Fulton: Mr. Speaker, on that point-


Murdo William Martin: Mr. Speaker-


Mr. Speaker:: I would like to hear the Minister of Justice next.


Edmund Davie Fulton: The hon. Minister of Trade and Commerce rose when the sitting opened this afternoon and made a statement of privilege in which he dealt with a number of alleged quotations appearing in press reports. As I recall it, he referred to some half dozen such quotations and in each case he said that the quotation and the statements surrounding it were without foundation.
On at least two occasions hon. gentlemen opposite, by purporting to ask questions on orders of the day, have raised matters which directly challenge the accuracy of the statement of the minister when he said the statements and quotations were without foundation. I submit, sir, that such a line of questioning is completely out of order because it clearly indicates that the word of the Minister of Trade and Commerce, given in his place in this House of Commons, is not accepted; and no hon. gentleman has the right to pursue that line of questioning.


Lester Bowles Pearson: Mr. Speaker, on the point of order, no one is refusing to accept the word of the Minister of Trade and Commerce but the minister got up this afternoon on a question of privilege and denied certain statements attributed to him by the press. We are now asking him whether or not he in fact had interviews with these particular pressmen from these particular newspapers in regard to the matter about which the

Inquiries of the Ministry newspapers reported and surely, sir, we are entitled to the denial of the minister on our questions as to whether such interviews in fact took place.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear.


Mr. Speaker:: Normally scope is given for supplementary questions in order to clarify answers given but I do not think any minister is required to be subjected to cross-examination under the guise of questioning.


An hon. Member:: It is not cross-examination at all.


Mr. Speaker:: Order. For that reason I allowed the questions to continue, thinking they were asking for points of fact which had not been covered by the minister's statement. I think the house will appreciate, however, that if members are unable to elicit a clear answer by four or five questions that is about as far as the matter can be pursued at this stage o.' the proceedings.
I would like, however, to clarify something which I have said. I may have done the Minister of Trade and Commerce an injustice when I said "if an hon. member had been unable to elicit a clear answer." What I intended to say was "an answer satisfactory to the questioner." I was not trying to judge whether or not the answers of the minister were clear and I am sorry.


John Whitney Pickersgill: Mr. Speaker, I wonder if I could direct a somewhat different kind of question to the Minister of Trade and Commerce. I should like to ask the minister if he has received from the officials of his department a report or document entitled "The Canadian Economic Outlook for 1958"?


Mr. Speaker:: My recollection is that that is the same question that was asked earlier.


John Whitney Pickersgill: Mr. Speaker, the hon. member for Assiniboia (Mr. Argue) asked about a report or document with a somewhat different title. I believe an examination of Hansard will show that.


Edmund Davie Fulton: Mr. Speaker, I should like, if I may, to give a supplementary answer-


Paul Joseph James Martin: Mr. Speaker, surely before the Minister of Justice replies we ought to have some comment in answer to the question.


Edmund Davie Fulton: I am sorry, Mr. Speaker, but I did not know there was any proper question before the house.


John Whitney Pickersgill: Mr. Speaker, on a point of order I submit there is a proper question before the house.


Mr. Speaker:: It is not a point of order that a minister does not answer.


Paul Joseph James Martin: It is common decency to answer.


Gordon Minto Churchill: Mr. Speaker, the hon. member for Essex East will have to withdraw that expression.


Lionel Chevrier: Why should he?


Hazen Robert Argue: The minister claims he does not know if there is a report.


Paul Joseph James Martin: Mr. Speaker, the Minister of Trade and Commerce said I should withdraw my comment. I say that any minister to whom a question has been put should know that the house deserves to be treated with the same respect as that expected by members who put questions.


Mr. Speaker:: All hon. members know they have the right to ask questions but they cannot insist on answers and if they cannot insist on answers they have no right to comment on the presence or absence of a satisfactory answer at this stage of the proceedings.


John Whitney Pickersgill: But there was no answer at all.


Donald Methuen Fleming: There was not only comment but an improper comment from the hon. member for Essex East.


Paul Joseph James Martin: Mr. Speaker, I said that if a question has been put to a minister the minister owes it to the house in decency to give a reply.


Donald Methuen Fleming: That is not what you said at all. You are wriggling now.


Mr. Speaker:: That is why I took exception to what the hon. member for Essex East said because that is just what he is not entitled to do.


Lester Bowles Pearson: With respect, Mr. Speaker, the reason the question was put in this form is because the minister himself commented on the form in which it had been put previously and quibbled over the exact nomenclature of the report. That is why we are trying to get the exact truth in this matter without quibbling over the title.


Mr. Speaker:: The question was asked. If the minister does not see fit to answer it, no comment can be made on it.


Mr. Harkness:: It is mere repetition.


John Whitney Pickersgill: Mr. Speaker, I should like to ask the Minister of Trade and Commerce whether it is true that he has ordered an investigation into the circumstances surrounding the story which appeared in the Toronto Star on Friday, to which previous questions were directed?


Gordon Minto Churchill: No, sir.


John Whitney Pickersgill: I should like to ask a supplementary question, sir. Can the minister say whether or not he gave an interview on this subject to Mr. Mackie of the Winnipeg Free Press?


Gordon Minto Churchill: No, I gave no interview to Mr. Mackie of the Winnipeg Free Press. He phoned to ask me if he could have a copy of a report and I said no.


John Whitney Pickersgill: Did the minister not tell Mr. Mackie that he had ordered an investigation?


Gordon Minto Churchill: No, Mr. Speaker, I did not say that to Mr. Mackie and did not order an investigation.



COMBINES INVESTIGATION ACT


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Harold Edward Winch: I should like to direct a question to the Minister of Justice. Has the minister been notified that the United States federal trade commission has charged six major drug companies with fixing the prices of the so-called wonder drugs at arbitrary, artificial, non-competitive and rigid levels? As some of the companies named are major distributors in Canada of antibiotics, will a study be made to see if similar illegal practices are being followed in our country?


Edmund Davie Fulton: The report referred to by the hon. member has not as yet been drawn to my attention but I will make inquiries in the department to see if it has come to the attention of my officials; and if the report discloses anything which indicates that it is desirable that the matter should be followed up in Canada I can assure the hon. gentleman that that will be done.
Inquiries of the Ministry


Edmund Davie Fulton: Mr. Speaker, may I continue with the statement I attempted to make earlier. Information has come to my attention since I answered the question asked by the hon. member for Vancouver East (Mr. Winch). I understand that certain inquiries have now been instituted by the director of investigation and research into the question of antibiotics which was raised by the hon. member earlier.


EXTERNAL AFFAIRS
[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
John George Diefenbaker: Mr. Speaker, the Leader of the Opposition (Mr. Pearson) asked a question of the Secretary of State for External Affairs (Mr. Smith) as to whether or not the government had received an appeal from Canadians of Polish descent through the Canadian-Polish congress of Canada, and had protested to the Polish government concerning the violation by their police of the holy Catholic shrine at the monastery of Czestochowa.
A communication dated August 1 has been received which reads as follcws:
Toronto, Ontario August 1, 1958.
Right Honourable John Diefenbaker,
Prime Minister of Canada,
Ottawa.
Profoundly moved by the information received about the search of the monastery of Czestochowa, July 21, and recent campaign against the Catholic church in Poland, we appeal to you on behalf of the 250,000 Canadians of Polish descent to raise on behalf of the Canadian government and in parliament a most serious protest against the brutal attack upon the most holy shrine of Poland and religious freedom by a totalitarian and godless regime.
Head Executive board, Canadian Polish Congress.
News reports indicate that since Saturday and also during the previous few days discussions have been carried on between the state of Poland and the church authorities in Warsaw and that certain agreements have been reached. Naturally this action by the Polish police is disturbing and the appeal that is directed to me is one that has my utmost sympathy. However, in view of the fact that this matter is now being considered as between the authorities to which I have referred the Canadian government does not propose to take any action which might have the

Inquiries of the Ministry appearance of interference with the arrangements which apparently have been made or are about to be arrived at. Naturally, too, the government wants to be assured that there shall be no impairment of that degree of tolerance and truce that has prevailed between the church and state in Poland in recent months and we hope that as a result of these communications that are passing between those I have mentioned, the state and the church, the future result will be a maximum degree of religious freedom.
I feel that at this time any action taken by this government by way of protest would add nothing to the solution of the problem when a solution is apparently being arrived at in consequence of deliberations as between the interested parties.



LEBANON


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Lester Bowles Pearson: Mr. Speaker, may I direct a question to the Secretary of State for External Affairs and ask if he could inform the house about the nature and strength of the United States troops which have landed in Lebanon within the last 48 hours.


Hon. Sidney E. Smith (Secretary of State for External Affairs):: Mr. Speaker, hon. members will recall that on Saturday morning I assured the house that I had, as is the customary practice in the diplomatic field, addressed a question through our embassy in Washington with respect to the nature and scope of the forces that had been landed in Lebanon by the United States within the last three days. This afternoon we received with respect to this matter information to the effect that the landings are regarded by the United States government simply as part of the original planned movement of troops and equipment. At the time of the initial landing by air in Lebanon of units of United States forces there were dispatched to Lebanon, by sea, men and material to support those units. Some of these have arrived in the past few days. They are considered part of the original program and their arrival does not indicate any recent decision to increase the strength of United States forces in Lebanon. I am very happy to report that to the house.


Hazen Robert Argue: Mr. Speaker, may I ask a supplementary question. Can the minister say whether or not Canada is opposed to this kind of continuing addition to United States troops in Lebanon?


Sidney Earle Smith: Mr. Speaker, I have no comment to make. I have given my answer.



DOMINION-PROVINCIAL RELATIONS NEWFOUNDLAND    STATEMENT ON DISPOSITION OF CANADA HOUSE

[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Howard Charles Green: Mr. Speaker, on July 31 as reported at page 2891 of Hansard of that date the hon. member for Trinity-Conception (Mr. Tucker) asked me the following question:
Is it the intention of the government to sell the house now occupied by the premier of Newfoundland, known as Canada house?
My information is that Premier Smallwood will shortly be moving into a house of his own and accordingly Canada house which is rented to the government of Newfoundland will be turned over to Crown Assets Disposal Corporation.
At six o'clock the house took recess. AFTER RECESS
The house resumed at eight o'clock.



ADMINISTRATION OF JUSTICE


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Frank Howard: Mr. Speaker, I should like to direct a question to the Minister of Justice (Mr. Fulton) but, in his absence, perhaps he can take it as notice, when it is drawn to his attention. Can the Minister of Justice make a comprehensive and detailed statement regarding the activities of the R.C.M.P. and of the United States coastguard, as those activities relate to certain incidents which are reported to have taken place in Prince Rupert over the week end?


Donald Methuen Fleming: Is that not a matter for the estimates of the Department of Justice, if my hon. friend wishes to bring it up?


Frank Howard: Mr. Speaker, if the Minister of Finance had been following the news reports he would not have raised that question.


Mr. Speaker:: There is not enough information in the question to indicate what it is about.


Frank Howard: If I may rephrase it now that the Minister of Justice is here, I just inquired whether the minister could make a detailed statement regarding the activities of the R.C.M.P. and the United States coastguard and the twice reading of the riot act by the mayor of the city of Prince Rupert, with respect to certain incidents which happened there over the week end, which the minister is quite aware of?


Edmund Davie Fulton: Mr. Speaker, the R.C.M. Police, as the house is aware, has contracts with eight provinces in Canada, and under those contracts and arrangements pursuant thereto they are also responsible for the policing of some 120 municipalities. I think that normally it would not be expected that the Minister of Justice here would enter into detailed replies on the orders of the day with regard to incidents in connection with the policing of a municipality which is governed by the contract in effect in that regard. However, in this particular case, because of the unusual nature of the incidents, I think it is appropriate that I should give an answer.
I am informed that the strength of the R.C.M. Police in Prince Rupert, as governed by the terms of the contract, is 18 men from April 1 to September 30, and 16 for the remainder of the year. That is the number of men devoted to municipal policing. Saturday, August 2, marked the windup of the British Columbia centennial celebrations in Prince Rupert. I should also say I am advised that the fishing fleet was in harbour. Altogether, according to my advice, there were some three or four thousand visitors in the city on that day. During the evening, some 10 arrests were made by the police, and with the final two arrests for drunkenness and fighting a crowd of some 800 gathered and started to throw bottles and stones at the police. This uproar continued and a crowd followed the police to the police station and the city hall area. They continued to demonstrate there and to shout and throw stones. At 1.15 a.m. on Sunday, the third of August, the mayor read the riot act. It had no effect. He read it a second time, with apparently the same results.
In the meantime the crowd continued to shout and throw stones and bottles which broke windows in the city hall, in the police station and in some of the stores. At 1.30 in the morning the police, feeling that further action was necessary, moved in with tear gas. At about 2.30 in the morning, as a result of this action, they had managed to get the
Inquiries of the Ministry crowd dispersed and the situation under reasonable control. In the course of those incidents some policemen were injured, but only two in any serious fashion. There were also two people amongst the crowd that had taken part in the demonstration who were hurt sufficiently seriously to be hospitalized. I am advised, however, that they were not seriously injured.
In the course of these incidents 22 people were arrested for unlawful assembly and I am advised that the prosecuting attorney is now drafting charges. I am further advised that conditions today are quiet and have been ever since the crowd was dispersed. I am further advised that the city council met in emergency meeting immediately after the riot and fully endorsed the action taken by the police.
Now, with regard to the alleged activities on the part of the United States coastguard, I am advised that the U.S.S. Balsam had brought the mayor and some other dignitaries from Ketchikan, Alaska, to take part in this final day of the celebration. The ship was in harbour at the time but it is not clear, on the basis of the most recent information I have been able to obtain, whether the shore patrol from the Balsam were engaged in their normal patrol activities regarding the supervision of their own personnel who were on shore or whether in fact they participated, or were requested to participate, to any greater extent in controlling the outbreak. I would therefore prefer not to make any further statement on that matter until I have more detailed reports.



ST. LAWRENCE SEAWAY INQUIRY AS TO NAMING OF NEW LAKE

[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. Hubert Badanai (Fort William):: Mr. Speaker, I wish to direct a question to the Minister of Transport in connection with a letter which appeared in the Saturday edition of the Ottawa Citizen. Is the government 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? If the house would allow me, I should like to read the letter.


Some hon. Members:: No.


Mr. Speaker:: I think it is not necessary. Perhaps if the hon. member would indicate the name suggested it would complete the question.


Hon. George H. Hees (Minister of Transport):: Mr. Speaker, I have not seen the letter. If the hon. member will send it to me I will study it and give him an answer.

Canadian Economic Outlook


Hubert Badanai: The name suggested is lake Chevrier.
(Translation):



REQUEST FOR BILINGUAL ANSWERS TO QUESTIONS ON ORDER PAPER

[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
['Oh, you are not\ngoing on tomorrow, surely.\nOn motion of Mr. Fleming (Eglinton) the debate was adjourned.']
Mr. Guy Rouleau (Dollard):: Mr. Speaker, I should like to direct a question to the Secretary of State. Is he now in a position to reply to the question I put to him last Wednesday, as to whether he is in a position to intervene with his colleagues so that regard may be had for the bilingual character of this country and that, accordingly, answers to our questions may be obtained in the two official languages of this country?


Hon. Henri Courtemanche (Secrelary of State):: Mr. Speaker, I shall see to it that
the wish of my hon. friend is fulfilled in the future.
(Text):


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



Lester Bowles Pearson: Mr. Speaker, this is the last occasion under the rules when we will have the opportunity on this side of moving a motion before we go into supply criticizing the conduct of the government in some particular respect, and I hope that in rising in my place on this occasion I will be able to avoid those repetitious utterances which the Prime Minister (Mr. Diefenbaker) warned us against this afternoon.


Edmund Davie Fulton: We hope so too.


Lester Bowles Pearson: Indeed, as he spoke this afternoon I could not help but think that one part of his remarks was very reminiscent of the kind of friendly, admonitory observation that occasionally used to come from the Right Hon. C. D. Howe who also did not like, and perhaps with better reason than my right hon. friend, repetitious utterances. As he spoke this afternoon I thought he might be directing some of his advice in that regard to the members of his own party in connection with their statements on private bills and resolutions in this chamber. Like the Prime Minister, I do not believe that repetition is necessarily refutation but with your permission, Mr. Speaker, I will take a certain amount of time this

evening to deal with the matter I have on my mind.
The Prime Minister also made some very interesting observations this afternoon about changes in the atmosphere, in the procedure, in the physical facilities of the chamber which might speed up our debates and make them more effective, and for that purpose he thought that there was perhaps something to be said for taking away our desks. He was good enough the other day to offer me, and perhaps one or two other privileged members, loudspeakers in our offices so we could do two jobs at once, the work in the office and the work on the floor of the house, but I hope he is not making that offer on condition that if we accept it it will be a kind of compensation for losing our desks. I confess with some mild depression, Mr. Speaker, that a good many of us in this party lost our seats recently but I hope we here are not going to lose our desks now or at least until we lose our seats.
I know, of course, as the Prime Minister pointed out, how tempting it is to pile up book on book on our desks but I assure my hon. friend that the books I have piled up here are for the purpose of making my notes a little easier to read and not to quote from. I will do my best on this occasion to reconcile what he called the necessity for progress with the temptation to prolixity, and my right hon. friend speaks, I think, with some authority on that matter.
I was, I confess, tempted in introducing this motion, to talk about something which is of longer range importance perhaps than some of the subjects which have been troubling us in the last week or so in the house. I was also tempted, I confess, to bring up the question of one, Mr. Walter Mitchell, who has been charged in this house with criminal conduct by a member of the government without having had an opportunity, and this is the real principle involved, of appearing before any investigating body or agency or committee of the civil service to defend himself or find out what he was charged with.
But the events of the last day or two seem to me to make it necessary to discuss on this occasion, and in due course I will move a motion in connection with the matter, the hidden report, Canadian economic prospect, 1958. That report has not been tabled and the government refused to table it when the matter was brought up in the house but some part of it, with every appearance of accuracy and authenticity, has now leaked into the press. When this happened at the end of last week the reaction of the Prime Minister

according to the press, and he can correct me if this press report is also inaccurate, was "good for them".


John George Diefenbaker: Mr. Speaker, I will correct that immediately. The only observation I made was: "I haven't seen the story so there is nothing more I can say."


John Whitney Pickersgill: Another misquotation.


Lester Bowles Pearson: Well, Mr. Speaker-


John George Diefenbaker: Mr. Speaker, when I rise on a question of privilege and say that is the entire statement I made I do not want to hear my hon. friend-


Lionel Chevrier: You will just have to abide by the rules.


John George Diefenbaker: -endeavour to read into the record what he desires to in order to make his case, having nothing else upon which to make it.


Lester Bowles Pearson: Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister has just said that he has not read the story which he denies as being accurate.


John George Diefenbaker: No, I did not say that. Even my hon. friend should keep within the truth.


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


John George Diefenbaker: I never made any such statement.


Mr. Speaker:: In order that I may be clear on this matter, I understand that the Leader of the Opposition (Mr. Pearson) refers to a press quotation attributed to the Prime Minister (Mr. Diefenbaker)-


John George Diefenbaker: No.


Mr. Speaker:: -and the Prime Minister, rising in his place on a question of privilege, says that he did not make that statement.


Lester Bowles Pearson: Mr. Speaker, I was referring to a story that appeared in the Ottawa Citizen of August 2 saying that the Prime Minister's initial reaction to the newspaper story was "Good, good for them". The Prime Minister has denied and, of course, we accept his denial, that he made any such observation on this occasion. That is one additional denial to add to the number we have already received in the house this afternoon. When this matter came before the house on Saturday last the Prime Minister did say, as found on page 3007 of Hansard for August 2, 1958:
I think the hon. member for Vancouver East answered himself when he said there were "alleged excerpts in the press".
He went on:
If on every occasion alleged excerpts in the press were made the basis upon which privilege could be raised in this house, privilege would be an almost daily occurrence.
Canadian Economic Outlook
So he does not accept the accuracy or authenticity of the excerpts. The Minister of Finance (Mr. Fleming) took the same position on page 3008 of Hansard where there is the following:


John Whitney Pickersgill: May I ask a supplementary question? May I ask the minister if they are or if they are not?
He was referring to the question of accuracy.


Donald Methuen Fleming: I do not know, Mr. Speaker. I have not made a point of reviewing all the conjectures that appear in the Toronto Daily Star. That would be a full time job.
The Minister of Finance, who must have been interested in this story because it had a very direct bearing, as I hope to point out later, on his budget speech and the indices from which he drew his conclusions at that time, surely would have been interested enough to have had a look at this story which purported to quote from this report. But he indicated that he had not read it or bothered to read it.
Then, Mr. Speaker, we asked the Minister of Trade and Commerce (Mr. Churchill), who has, I think, obtained a graduate degree in the house this afternoon as a master of misquotation, whether these excerpts were accurate. Saturday he said he did not know whether or not these excerpts were accurate, and today he indicated he knew nothing about not only the excerpts but he had no knowledge of the report itself, a report with which we are all quite familiar and so is the minister, from the Department of Trade and Commerce. When the minister feigned ignorance this afternoon about this report, he will perhaps forgive us if over here we did not take his ignorance very seriously. On July 18 of this year on pages 2410 and 2411 of Hansard, when we were dealing with the trade and commerce estimates, I asked the minister what about the report for this year? Is it in a different category? I was talking about this report, "The Canadian Economic Outlook for 1958". The minister replied, and this is in Hansard:
The economic survey for 1958 will be studied very carefully, and has been studied very carefully, and the government, in its judgment, will act in accordance with that report, as we thought the former government should have done.
This afternoon the minister indicated he did not know anything about this report.


Gordon Minto Churchill: I said no such thing.


Lester Bowles Pearson: There is only one conclusion that can be drawn from the words the minister used this afternoon. He was trying to give us the impression, when we asked him about this report to get information about it to which we were entitled, to find out whether or not the excerpts from it were accurate,

Canadian Economic Outlook that he had no idea what report we were talking about.


Edmund Davie Fulton: You were not very clear yourselves.


Lester Bowles Pearson: We were clear enough that it the minister had wanted to take this house into his confidence, and I say this with respect, as it was entitled, he would have answered the question. He knew all about the report to which I referred in Hansard. Indded, this report has been referred to previously in Hansard. On June 18, 1958 there was a notice for the production of papers concerning it. At page 1391 of Hansard for that date the Prime Minister had this to say:
Mr. Speaker, the government finds It necessary to oppose this motion, on the ground that "The Canadian Economic Outlook for 1958", is a confidential document.
Presumably the Prime Minister knew something about it, and so did the Minister of Trade and Commerce, when on July 18 he made the statement to which I have referred. If, indeed, there is no such report, as the Minister of Trade and Commerce tried to indicate this afternoon-


Gordon Minto Churchill: I must raise an objection to that remark. It is quite untrue, and I hope the Leader of the Opposition (Mr. Pearson) will withdraw that remark.


An hon. Member:: What a laugh!


Lester Bowles Pearson: There were questions asked about this report.


Howard Charles Green: Which you had no business to ask.


Lester Bowles Pearson: We had every right and duty to ask them. I know it may be disagreeable to my hon. friends opposite to be pressed in this way in connection with a matter with which they are not anxious to be concerned at the present time. We had every right to ask those questions. When the hon. member for Bonavista-Twillingate (Mr. Pickersgill) asked questions on this very point earlier today the minister preferred to remain silent. He did not even rise in his place and give him the courtesy of a negative reply. I think we are entitled to say, in the situation in regard to this matter of the report itself and the excerps from the report, that now confusion is worse confounded.
It is certainly incumbent upon the government at this time to make this report public, the whole report public. I think it is regrettable that this should have to be done in the interests of clarifying this situation. In the past these reports have been considered as confidential, secret documents from expert civil servants to their ministers. For many years, they were treated as such. In the past, the previous government had not made these reports public, and for very good reasons. But

certainly now the circumstances are very different. There have been excerpts published, with at least the appearance of accurary, which have not been denied as being accurate by any representative of the government. There have been excerpts from this report in the press; there has been speculation and misunderstanding created by the attitude of the government in connection with the appearance of those excerpts. Surely in those circumstances the only way in which this matter can be cleared up is by making public at this time the report in question.
Mr. Speaker, how can they in common decency keep this report secret, in the light of the stand taken and the words used with terrific vehemence by the Prime Minister on January 20 last? The attitude of the government in respect of this particular report, and in respect of the excerpts from that report which have appeared in the press within recent weeks, demonstrates beyond any shadow of doubt the spurious, hypocritical, and purely partisan nature of the Prime Minister's attack on the previous government last January, and to an even greater degree during the election campaign. We remember the vehemence and vigour with which that attack was pressed on January 20 against the former administration for not disclosing the 1957 report. This attack was on the basis of carefully selected excerpts from that report of 1957, which were produced in the house


Douglas Scott Harkness: This vulgar abuse does not take the place of facts and reason.


Lester Bowles Pearson: My hon. friends had their day on January 20. They howled with glee on that day. Perhaps tonight they will only howl.


Douglas Scott Harkness: I say this vulgar abuse does not take the place of facts and reason.


An hon. Member:: Facts or whining?


Lester Bowles Pearson: There were two charges levelled in connection with this 1957 report. The first one was that we did not take the report into consideration when we were producing our budget in 1957.


Howard Charles Green: You have never even read it.


Lester Bowles Pearson: That charge, Mr. Speaker, has no basis of truth or, to use words popular today, no foundation in fact at all. Not only did the previous minister of finance take this report into consideration, he studied it and the government studied it.


Howard Charles Green: May I ask the hon. member a question? Did he not say in the house he had never even read the report or seen it?


Lester Bowles Pearson: No. If the minister makes that statement, will he point to any reference in Hansard where I said it?


Howard Charles Green: I thought that I heard you say it.


Lester Bowles Pearson: The minister should not make interjections of that kind on the basis that he thought he heard me say something.


Howard Charles Green: Will the hon. member answer the question? Did you read it or did you not?


Lester Bowles Pearson: Of course, I read it. I have read that report from beginning to end, and so did the other ministers of the cabinet.


Howard Charles Green: When?


Lester Bowles Pearson: The minister of finance took that report into consideration when he drew up his budget. He did not take certain excerpts from that report to prove a particular case; he took the whole report into consideration. I have wanted to say this for a long time, Mr. Speaker, The excerpts which the Prime Minister carefully selected from this report gave a completely inaccurate and distorted picture of what the report contained. The second charge was that we hid it. The hon. member for Victoria-Carleton (Mr. Montgomery) who I do not think is in his seat at the moment, rose in his place a few weeks ago with some indignation to say that that charge had never been made during the election campaign; that all that we were accused of -we in this party-was of not using the report in the developing of our economic and financial policies and in our budget of 1957 we thereby deceived the people because we did not use this report for that purpose. But there is abundant evidence to show that the main charge levelled against us in this house on January 20 and all over the country during the election campaign was that we hid the report, that we concealed the report. It became famous as the "hidden report". I do not want to say that without putting on the record some evidence to prove what I am saying. I now quote from Hansard of January 20, 1958. The first quotation is to be found at page 2536, when the Prime Minister said this:
-but I put it to the hon. members opposite- every one of them in the official opposition-that they hid the facts; they concealed the record; they did not let the Canadian people know what was taking place.
Then again at page 3527, the Prime Minister said:
We were on the slide,-
He was talking about the economic picture a year ago last spring.
-really on the slide,-
There are a great many people in this country at this moment who would like to be on that slide today.
-when they left power on June 21. and now, for political purposes, having concealed this document, they have the effrontery to pretend to the Canadian people that we are responsible.
57071-3-194
Canadian Economic Outlook
Then again at page 3528 we find that the Prime Minister had this to say:
Why did hon. members opposite, in the idealistic vein of the hon. Leader of the Opposition, not reveal these facts?
And again:
Mr. Speaker, why did they not reveal this? Why did they not act when the house was sitting in January, February, March and April? They had the information.
Later, as found in that column:
Warned in March of 1957, what did they do to meet that? Silence gives the answer.
Then he went on to tell how we had kept this report secret and as reported at page 3529 of Hansard he ended up by saying this:
Did they give us such information?
That is the information in this 1957 report on economic prospects.
They had it in the report but they did not give it to parliament.
And again at page 3530:


Mr. Knowles (Winnipeg North Centre):: The
Prime Minister did not hear my question. Has this document which the Liberals concealed been tabled? If not, will the Prime Minister table it so we can all see it?


John George Diefenbaker: I do not know that it has been. I would take it that it has, surely. If it had not been tabled my hon. friend has added one more example to the record of concealment by my hon. friends opposite.
Surely that is enough, Mr. Speaker, to prove beyond any shadow of doubt that the main charge levelled at us in connection with this important matter was that of concealing or hiding what became known as the "hidden report". The Prime Minister made a great deal of that point during the election campaign, especially in a speech he made in Edmonton.


John George Diefenbaker: Are you not making the same speech you made in the election campaign?


Lester Bowles Pearson: No.


An hon. Member:: None of the ministers can observe the rules of behaviour.


Lester Bowles Pearson: On that occasion-and I am quite sure the Prime Minister will not accuse me of misrepresenting what he said-he attacked us very vigorously indeed for hiding this report from the Canadian people. He went on to say that not only had we hidden it but that not a member of the cabinet had even bothered reading it. Then he concluded his observations-


John George Diefenbaker: Where do you get that
statement?


Lester Bowles Pearson: From the Edmonton Journal. I am looking for it now. I thought I had it
3074	HOUSE OF
Canadian Economic Outlook on my desk. Perhaps I will find it in time to read it to my hon. friend. He will remember it, of course; and I am sure he is not going to deny that because that speech must be very clear in his mind. He accused us of not only having concealed it but not having read it. Perhaps he will remember that statement. Then he went on to say, "When I tell you the facts, they are the truth". The facts on that occasion, Mr. Speaker, in connection with the 1957 report are that this report was treated as every such report had been treated since these reports were instituted in 1946; that the cabinet had read it; and that the cabinet had used it as a basis for economic and financial policy. However, that kind of attack served its purpose. Nevertheless, I suggest that the people are not likely to be fooled again-in the light of what has happened in the last two or three days-by such mock and manufactured indignation as the Prime Minister displayed on January 20 last and during the election campaign in respect of this matter. I know some of my friends on the Conservative side say that this matter was all decided in the election, that we were badly beaten in the election and have no right to talk about such matters; that it is all finished. The events of the last few days, Mr. Speaker, have shown that it is far from finished because now we have another report, namely the report for 1958 from which excerpts have appeared in the press.


Douglas Scott Harkness: How do you know?


John Whitney Pickersgill: Are they or are they not
excerpts?


Lester Bowles Pearson: It is a very simple matter to decide. All the minister has to do-or any one of the ministers-is to read the Toronto Star, and then to say that the excerpts are inaccurate and are not from the report.


Douglas Scott Harkness: Your only stock in trade is the Toronto Star and newspaper stories.


John Whitney Pickersgill: They would do it quickly enough if they were not correct.


Douglas Scott Harkness: Without the Toronto Star you would not have a word to say.


John Whitney Pickersgill: We would always have the Minister of Agriculture.


Mr. Speaker:: Order. Hon. members on the right will have their turn.


Lester Bowles Pearson: My hon. friend should be greatly relieved that I am not talking about Walter Mitchell.


Douglas Scott Harkness: I should be delighted if you would talk about Walter Mitchell. You have nothing to talk about there.


An hon. Member:: Judge and jury.


John Whitney Pickersgill: The lord high executioner.


Lester Bowles Pearson: We have had these excerpts from this report Mr. Speaker, and not one member of the government, not one member on the treasury benches has risen in his place and said that these excerpts are not from that report, or that they are entirely inaccurate. We have a right to assume then that they are accurate.


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh.


Lester Bowles Pearson: This afternoon we asked the minister whether they were accurate and he refused to answer. I will give him a chance right now. If he will tell us that there is not a word of truth in any of these excerpts that have appeared in the press, I shall be glad to give him the opportunity to do so.


An hon. Member:: Put up or shut up.


Lester Bowles Pearson: In the face of this shrieking silence, Mr. Speaker, there is only one way to find out; and it is regrettable, as I said before, that this is the thing that has to be done. This report should now be tabled; it should be published. I think that is regrettable, as I have said, because these reports are secret and confidential to a minister from officials and they should be kept as such. But the publication of these excerpts which have not been denied by any member of the government certainly prompts certain observations and certain reflections. The first of these-and it is important-is that, by this publication and by the reaction of the minister to this publication, at least as it appears in the press and making full allowance for his denial this afternoon, this publication has brought the whole civil service under suspicion. That is the most regrettable aspect of this regrettable business and it is, I suggest, made worse by the statements attributed to the Minister of Trade and Commerce regarding searching inquiries, investigations, et cetera. These alleged statements, some of which the minister denied this afternoon-and we accept his denial-


John Whitney Pickersgill: Some he did not deny.


Lester Bowles Pearson: -are made all the more damaging because of other observations made in this house by hon. members of the party in power respecting the impartiality and objectivity of the civil service. Therefore, in the light of those statements some of which were made in this house the other night, the situation in regard to this report is bound to be misread, misunderstood and to be related to these earlier criticisms. I suggest that they

will have a bad effect on the morale of the civil service and this matter should be cleared up.
So far as the origin of the leak is concerned, there has been a good deal of speculation and I can assure you, Mr. Speaker, that we on this side of the house have had no access whatsoever, direct or indirect, to this report or to any of its parts before these excerpts were published in the Toronto Star.


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh.


Lester Bowles Pearson: So far as we are concerned the report remains a hidden report and all speculation on that score can be silenced.


Gordon Minto Churchill: Would the hon. member permit a question. Has he seen the report since its publication, so-called, in the Star?


Lester Bowles Pearson: No, Mr. Speaker, I can assure my hon. friend that I have not seen the report before or since the publication of these excerpts and furthermore I have no desire to see it until it is made public now in the proper, official way, because of the circumstances surrounding it.


Gordon Minto Churchill: May I ask a supplementary question; have any of the hon. member's colleagues seen the report?


Lester Bowles Pearson: I have discussed this matter with my colleagues and none of them have seen this report.
I do not know how this report got out- there is a good deal of interesting speculation in the press that it might have come from one side or the other, from political sources or from official sources, and by political sources I include cabinet ministers-this is all speculation. I recall that a friend of mine some years ago left the civil service to join the cabinet and after he left his first cabinet meeting he was accosted by one of his friends high up in the civil service who said to him "remember, from now on you are not an official source, you are a cabinet leak".
But far more important than that is something of a very important and serious nature. More important than how the leak occurred is the fact that the events of the last few days, when they are related to what happened on January 20 last, mean that economic forecasting by officials in Canada, to which the Canadian governments have become accustomed and upon which they have come to rely, has now for all practical purposes been weakened and prejudiced.
These annual reports, which as I said earlier have been made without interruption since 1946, have proved to be most valuable
57071-3-194J
Canadian Economic Outlook to the Canadian government in the elaboration of their proper economic and fiscal policies. From now on I am afraid the government will have to define its policies and determine its budget without nearly as much useful and objective independent expert assistance as they have secured in the past.


Edmund Davie Fulton: Why do you not blame the Toronto Star for that?


John Whitney Pickersgill: The person to blame is right there.


Lester Bowles Pearson: The usefulness of this kind
of report has been prejudiced. In view of what the Minister of Justice (Mr. Fulton) has just said by way of interjection it must be quite clear, or it must be made quite clear, that the person who must bear the greatest share of responsibility for the weakening and perhaps even the ultimate destruction of this most valuable government economic service is not the man who was responsible for the leak-reprehensible though that might have been-but the Prime Minister himself because of what he did last January.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear.


Lester Bowles Pearson: Because of the improper use he made of the so-called hidden report last January and during the election campaign, he now has to accept the responsibility for the most regrettable fact that Canadian official economic forecasting which has been a confidential, valuable, and independent service to the government during the past 10 years have now become or are in danger of becoming a political football, hot news. As a result of that action of January 20 it looks as if leaks are far more likely to happen in the future. I remember at that time, and perhaps the Prime Minister will also remember, that I among others warned him that the consequences of his action might be serious.
My final comment is that if these excerpts are accurate-and there is no evidence that they are not 100 per cent accurate because the government would have given us their assurance if this had not been so; they are certainly under an obligation to let us know if these reports are inaccurate after the discussions this afternoon-then there are substantial and important differences between the comments made by the Minister of Finance during his budget speech and these excerpts from the hidden report on the Canadian economic situation. These differences have to do with very important matters such as the probable gross national product, prices, employment and unemployment. The minister said that this really had nothing to do with him because he is the man who

Canadian Economic Outlook takes the responsibility for making the decisions in regard to his budget and his budget speech-and that is perfectly right. That, however, is not the position taken by the Prime Minister when he accused us of not basing our budget in 1957 on selected excerpts from the report of 1957. It is quite true that the minister makes his own budget speech and takes his own responsibility for it but it is also true that any minister of finance should take into consideration whatever expert advice he can get and this report is one of the most important sources of such advice and was used as such by his predecessor.
I would like to ask the Minister of Finance whether he has seen this report. The Minister of Trade and Commerce may not have seen it, but has the Minister of Finance seen it and did he use it in the calculations for his budget statement? It will be very interesting indeed if, the Minister of Trade and Commerce having expressed a rather cavalier attitude of ignorance with regard to this report, the Minister of Finance in another department than that in which the document originated had studied it very carefully before he prepared his budget. I would like to ask the minister if he would be interested in answering whether this was the case, whether he had access to this report before he drafted his budget statement. Perhaps he will answer during the course of this debate.
There are, however, some very important discrepancies between the excerpts from the report and the statements of the Minister of Finance with regard to these important matters I have mentioned. These discrepancies have a most important bearing on the present situation in Canada with respect to economic and financial questions, I think we should be told in order to clear up doubts and uncertainties as to where we stand in regard to these differences. We were in a great deal of doubt last spring because we had had no national accounting or any indication concerning the budget. We are rapidly approaching a period of doubt, uncertainty and confusion now because of the contradictions between the excerpts from this report and the statements made by the Minister of Finance in regard to some very important matters. For instance, the Minister of Finance-and I am quoting from his budget speech-


Donald Methuen Fleming: Page?


Lester Bowles Pearson: I do not have the page numbers of all of these quotations but surely the hon. member must remember this speech.


Donald Methuen Fleming: There were 20 pages of it you know. It might be helpful to have the page numbers.


Lester Bowles Pearson: I am paraphrasing at the moment and if the Minister of Finance objects-


Donald Methuen Fleming: I can tell my hon. friend right now that I will object to his paraphrasing. He has access to the record of my speech and he should use the exact words and not resort to paraphrasing.


Lester Bowles Pearson: Perhaps the minister will let me proceed. The Minister of Finance said that once again the latest figures are encouraging, showing a rapidly narrowing gap in the percentage of unemployed as compared with a year ago. I am sure the minister will agree that that is an accurate indication of what he said, but the trade and commerce report forecast average unemployment during 1958 would be up 67 per cent over 1957.


John George Diefenbaker: From what is the hon. gentleman quoting?


Lester Bowles Pearson: The minister's budget speech.


Edmund Davie Fulton: What report?


Lester Bowles Pearson: I am quoting from excerpts of the report of the Department of Trade and Commerce which appeared in the Toronto Star and which have not been denied as to their accuracy by any member on the other side.


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh.


Lester Bowles Pearson: If the Prime Minister has read the Toronto Star report and if he has read the trade and commerce report itself will he now rise in his place and tell me that those excerpts are inaccurate.


John George Diefenbaker: I have not read the Toronto Star.


Lester Bowles Pearson: The Minister of Finance in his budget speech said there are hopeful signs that we have reached the end of the recent decline. Moreover, he added, the problem has moved more clearly into the domestic field. The excerpts from the report in the press with relation to this point indicated that the key weaknesses underlying the present contradiction seem likely to persist for the current year and probably beyond.
The Minister of Finance said, and I am sure he will remember this portion of his budget speech, that assuming normal crops, stable prices and no untoward external events he was basing his revenue forecasts on a gross national product of $32 billion which is about 2 per cent above the level achieved in 1957. I take it that that is an accurate statement of what the minister said. But the report from the Department of Trade and Commerce-


Howard Charles Green: In the Toronto Star.


Lester Bowles Pearson: -in the excerpts that appeared in the Toronto Star and which have not been denied by members of the government forecast a gross national product rise of only .7 per cent or $350 million less than that forecast by the Minister of Finance.
The minister in his budget speech said he expected that in the absence of immediate inflationary pressures there would be no general increase in prices during the balance of 1958. He estimated that the cost of living would remain stable during the current year and on that assumption he based his budgetary calculations and his deficit while the trade and commerce report as it appeared in the excerpts in the Toronto Star indicated that the cost of living index is still edging upward with no indication of an early change in this trend in sight. These are important differences in regard to vital indices governing economic and financial calculations that will be made by the government during the current year and if the appraisal in the excerpts from this report prove to be right-


Howard Charles Green: From the Toronto Star.


Edmund Davie Fulton: Alleged excerpts.


Lester Bowles Pearson: Excerpts that appeared in the Toronto Star from the alleged report of the Department of Trade and Commerce which after three days have not brought forth a word of denial from any minister.


Douglas Scott Harkness: Why not save time by citing the Toronto Star?


Edmund Davie Fulton: Alleged excerpts.


Lester Bowles Pearson: If these excerpts are accurate in the face of no denial from any member of the government or if no member of the government has been sufficiently interested in this very important press report to check the excerpts against the original report to be in a position to inform us whether they are accurate-


Edmund Davie Fulton: We do not attach the same importance to the Toronto Star that you do.


Lester Bowles Pearson: In either case, Mr. Speaker, the government is condemned for gross negligence in a matter of the greatest possible importance to the economic and financial situation in the country.


Douglas Scott Harkness: Condemned by the unreliable Toronto Star.


Lester Bowles Pearson: My hon. friends keep returning to that point-condemned by the unreliable Toronto Star-but no hon. gentleman on the other side of the house has denied the report and it is interesting to note that during the dinner hour they did not get the
Canadian Economic Outlook Toronto Star, read the press report and check it against the original report of the Department of Trade and Commerce. Why did they not do that?


Douglas Scott Harkness: Was there ever a time when the Toronto Star did not condemn us?


Lester Bowles Pearson: The fact is, Mr. Speaker, that in the absence of any denial on the part of the government concerning the accuracy of the press report the people of this country will accept these excerpts as genuine and accurate, and the fact that they contradict in some respects the economic and financial prospects for 1958 made by the Minister of Finance in his budget speech is going to cause a great deal of uneasiness in this country. I suggest that it is time for the government to clear up this matter. I repeat that the only way this can be done, the only way the government can show it has good faith and can brand these excerpts as inaccurate, if it wants to, is by tabling this report. I have said it twice before and I will say it again. It is regrettable because this is not the course that should be followed in connection with a report of this kind, a confidential and secret report from government officials to their ministers. But I also-say once again that the person on whom the blame must rest for the fact that the report should be tabled and that it should be done in this way and for the fact that the whole system of economic reporting is now prejudiced is the Prime Minister himself.
The damage was done last January, Mr. Speaker. It was done for partisan, political purposes when carefully selected excerpts from a confidential report which had not up to that time ever been made public were read by the Prime Minister in this house. The foundation of confidence in the procedure that had existed over the years was weakened as a result of that. What followed since January 20 was a depressing but natural development stemming from that original misdeed. And the result of that, has been that a system of economic reporting confidential, admirable, essential for the formulation of economic policy has been weakened, I hope not beyond repair. The entire system of economic reporting has now been prejudiced. That, Mr. Speaker, is the main burden of our attack on the government in this matter. That underlines their irresponsibility.
It was easy for the Prime Minister last January 20 to pick up this report and remove the cover which was marked confidential and take out a few excerpts to prove his particular points and thus make contents of the report public. He knew perfectly well- and if he did not he should have known it-

Canadian Economic Outlook that this was a report that was not meant to be made public. He knew perfectly well-and again if he did not he should have known it-that it was a confidential report used by the government in making its economic calculations. If it was right for the Liberal government to maintain the confidential character of the 1957 report at that time it is right for this government to maintain the confidential character of the 1958 report. But if the Liberal government erred-and that is a mild word-and if the Liberal government is to be condemned and castigated for not making the report of 1957 public, what can we say about a government that in the light of all the existing circumstances and in the light of all the speculation, misunderstanding, uncertainty, doubt and confusion that has been caused by the excerpts that have appeared in print from this report refuses to make the original report public; when the members of that government deny any knowledge of the report let alone any excerpts in the press from it? And so, Mr. Speaker, I move, seconded by the hon. member for Laurier (Mr. Chevrier):
That all the words after "That" to the end of the question be deleted and the following substituted therefor:
"this house is of the opinion that the actions of the government in connection with 'The Canadian Economic Outlook' have seriously weakened the value of confidential advice from civil servants with resultant damage to the proper formulation of economic and fiscal policies."


Donald Methuen Fleming: Mr. Speaker, history repeats itself. Those who sat in this house on the 20th day of January cannot fail, I am sure, to recall the complete similarity of circumstance that we are confronted with at this moment, a roaring, volcanic speech from the Leader of the Opposition (Mr. Pearson) and behold, the amendment, a puny, forlorn, ill-begotten runt.
Is your mind not transported back, Mr. Speaker, to the 20th day of January, the Leader of the Opposition making his maiden speech in the house after his election at the Liberal convention the week before, leading charge after charge against the treasury benches, charge after charge? Then, Mr. Speaker, you remember that he followed it up with an amendment that was so extraordinary that he could not even keep a straight face himself in reading it to the house. And, Mr. Speaker, what we have seen in this house tonight is a repetition in kind of that sorry spectacle.
You will remember that amazing episode, Mr. Speaker, the Leader of the Opposition- and those of us who have known him a long time were hoping for something better on that occasion, in fact, something a whole lot
IMr. Pearson.]
better from him, and then to everybody's chagrin-and I am sure most of all to the chagrin of his friends and followers-what was brought in, that monumental amendment to a supply motion just like today, Mr. Speaker, in which he asked that:
His Excellency's advisers should, In the opinion of this house, submit their resignation forthwith.
Mr. Speaker, he made constitutional history that day and it was not very good constitutional history, either, and what he has done today is not very much better. We have heard from the hon. gentleman this night statements that would, if taken seriously by anyone in this house,-and I am sure they will not be-condemn this government fore and aft, foot, horse and artillery, everything, and yet, Mr. Speaker, does he say that His Excellency's advisers should submit their resignations as being unfit to hold office? No. That one apparently is taboo now. That one is not to be repeated since the 20th day of January. The effects that time were not of a kind to be desired ever again by the hon. gentleman. One would have thought that there might at least have been room in the amendment for some denunciation of His Excellency's advisers after the cascades and torrents of, I shall not say abuse but at least of invective, invective hurled at the head of the Prime Minister (Mr. Diefenbaker), hurled at the government. Mr. Speaker, it was a great opportunity for the hon. gentleman to match his brave words and his accusations with something at least manly and courageous in the amendment. But what do our disappointed eyes behold? This is the squib:
This house is of the opinion that the actions of the government in connection with "The Canadian Economic Outlook"-
This is in quotations, Mr. Speaker; there is no date given to it. I continue:
-have seriously weakened the value of confidential advice from civil servants with resultant damage to the proper formulation of economic and fiscal policies.
This is so forlorn it is obviously a product of a combination of disappointment, frustration and fear, Mr. Speaker. I wonder whether the hon. gentleman drafted this. It looks again like the handwork of the hon. member for Bonavista-Twillingate.


John Whitney Pickersgill: Mr. Speaker, I think perhaps I have a question of privilege. I deny the authorship, and the hon. gentleman knows what the rules are with respect to denials; but I would like to ask the minister a question. What would be the effect of the passage of this motion?


Donald Methuen Fleming: Mr. Speaker, I withdraw from the hon. gentleman the credit

that I was giving to him for at least having the confidence of his leader to draw an amendment.


Lester Bowles Pearson: Mr. Speaker, since the minister is seeking the author of this amendment, I may tell him that I am the author and it is a vote of no confidence in the government. What more does he want?


Donald Methuen Fleming: It is interesting to have the assurance of the Leader of the Opposition that this is intended to be a vote of want of confidence in the government. I tell you it would take somebody reading this with a fine tooth comb and a magnifying glass even to guess that it was a want-of-confidence motion in the government.


John Whitney Pickersgill: Will the minister permit a question?


Donald Methuen Fleming: I hope, Mr. Speaker, that in the course of time when hon. members opposite adjust themselves to the realities of the situation, that when they come to draft motions of want of confidence in the government, they will speak out bodly and let everybody know that they have no confidence in the government, and have the courage at the same time to set forth the reasons why and not, as we have seen tonight, to start off with bold charges running east, west and north and then finish up with a poor little squib headed south.


John Whitney Pickersgill: Will the minister now permit a question? I should like to now ask the minister whether it is a fine tooth comb that the Minister of Trade and Commerce uses when he reads his reports?


Donald Methuen Fleming: Mr. Speaker, many times in this house I thought a fine tooth comb would be of great assistance to my hon. friend.


Lester Bowles Pearson: That is not a very good retort.


John Whitney Pickersgill: I would accept an ordinary comb.


Donald Methuen Fleming: Mr. Speaker, this ill-begotten and almost fatherless amendment refers to the Canadian Economic Outlook. It puts it in quotation marks but it does not identify it; it does not say it is a publication; it just says:
-the actions of the government in connection with "The Canadian Economic Outlook"-


Lester Bowles Pearson: Don't you know what it is?


Donald Methuen Fleming: Hon. members
opposite seem to have some trouble identifying this and I suppose it is another thing to be taken on assumption. I do recall that
Canadian Economic Outlook there was a Canadian Economic Outlook that was referred to in the debate on January 20, and I can only assume-


John Whitney Pickersgill: Also on June 18.


Donald Methuen Fleming: -that the Leader of the Opposition is referring to that. I can well understand, Mr. Speaker, why the Leader of the Opposition sought, however vainly, to fight Waterloo over again. Waterloo is still Waterloo, Mr. Speaker, and the 20th day of January, 1958 is still Waterloo to the Leader of the Opposition, and all of this refighting, this sham battle that has been fought by the Leader of the Opposition tonight, the charges that he led over the field, do not change the fact of Waterloo, or what Waterloo meant to the Leader of the Opposition on that day. When at the end of the day he looked about over the stricken field and when-


An hon. Member:: He walked alone.


Donald Methuen Fleming: -he walked out of this house alone there was not one of his followers who even stood by him as he walked out of the house that night.


Lester Bowles Pearson: Cheap.


Donald Methuen Fleming: I am talking about what we saw. It is unfortunate-


Lester Bowles Pearson: Very cheap.


Donald Methuen Fleming: -that the Leader of the Opposition-


John Whitney Pickersgill: There was no flag.


Donald Methuen Fleming: -chose to make the stand that he did that day but he has not succeeded in refighting the field.


Mr. Creslohl:: Why don't you deal with the facts?


Donald Methuen Fleming: Waterloo remains Waterloo.


John Whitney Pickersgill: You said that before.


Donald Methuen Fleming: The hon. gentleman said at the outset of his remarks-


Harold Edward Winch: Why don't you get down to the point?


Donald Methuen Fleming: -that this was the last motion to resolve the house into committee of supply at this session. That is true and I am beginning to think that hon. members opposite must heave a sigh of relief that this is so when they have to go and scrape the bottom of the barrel, as the Leader of the Opposition did today, to find something to form a motion that he says is intended to be a motion of want of confidence in the government. Now, Mr. Speaker, if the hon. gentleman wishes to pursue the tactics that

Canadian Economic Outlook have become so familiar during this session of seeking to fight the battles of the election all over again, I suppose we will have to do that as long as supply motions last in succeeding sessions.


Erhart Regier: Order.


Donald Methuen Fleming: I thought this was a place of free speech. I thought the government was permitted to speak but apparently those hon. gentlemen to your left, Mr. Speaker, are making the rules of order and trimming down the rights of free speech in the house.


Harold Edward Winch: How about that report?


Mr. Speaker:: If there is any point of order, will the hon. member please rise and state it.


Erhart Regier: I am very pleased to do so, Mr. Speaker. I have listened to the hon. member for 14 minutes, I believe, and he has not mentioned the report which is the subject matter of the amendment.


Donald Methuen Fleming: Mr. Speaker, I hope someone will provide the hon. gentleman with an alarm clock. What we were asked to reconsider, to revise in the light of history, indeed, to rewrite history in connection therewith, was the introduction on the twentieth of January into this house by the Prime Minister of a report. That is the issue that has been raised here this night.


Harold Edward Winch: No, it isn't.


Donald Methuen Fleming: We were told by the Leader of the Opposition tonight that the former minister of finance had read that report. Mr. Speaker, that is the issue that arose at that time and it will not be forgotten that in the debate on that occasion mention was made of the fact that the minister of finance at that time had, in introducing his budget speech, made a statement as follows:
I come now to consider the economic prospects for the coming fiscal year. On the present evidence-


Paul Joseph James Martin: What page?


John Whitney Pickersgill: What page?


Donald Methuen Fleming: I continue:
-I think we can expect a continuation of the current high level of economic activity throughout the coming year.


Paul Joseph James Martin: What page?


Donald Methuen Fleming: That was the statement. You will find it in Hansard of March 14, 1957 and it was quoted in the debate on January 21, 1958, at page 3568.


John Whitney Pickersgill: What page is it in Mr. Harris' speech?


Donald Methuen Fleming: If the hon. gentleman can still read he will find it in Mr. Harris' speech of March 14.


John Whitney Pickersgill: Would the minister do us the courtesy of giving us the page reference so that we can see the context?


Donald Methuen Fleming: If the hon. gentleman will come to my office at ten o'clock I will be glad to look up the page for him-


John Whitney Pickersgill: I can look it up long before that myself.


Donald Methuen Fleming: -if he has lost all ability to look it up himself.


John Whitney Pickersgill: I have it. It is page 2216.


Donald Methuen Fleming: Well, the hon. gentleman knows it.


John Whitney Pickersgill: I have found it now.


Donald Methuen Fleming: What do you make of that? Isn't he foxy, Mr. Speaker? He had it there all the time.


John Whitney Pickersgill: Yes, I rather anticipated this red herring.


Donald Methuen Fleming: Oh, but he is bright!
Mr. Speaker, we are told by the Leader of the Opposition that such reports are confidential and should not be disclosed but in the face of having said that he now says that the proper course is that some report, which he does not identify in this amendment but which he kept talking about in his speech at times, should be tabled now.


Lester Bowles Pearson: Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point
of order. That is an entirely inaccurate statement. The report which I said should be tabled now is the report which I identified as "Canadian Economic Prospects, 1958".


John Whitney Pickersgill: Outlook.


Lester Bowles Pearson: "Outlook", and the reason I said it should be tabled now is that it has already been given out.


Donald Methuen Fleming: It is too bad that the hon. gentleman cannot still make these amendments that he has in his mind but his own motion has not identified the document about which he is talking. Let us have this perfectly clear. I do not believe this house will ever hear a more extraordinary example of self-contradiction than it has heard from the hon. gentleman tonight who says that some document or other about which he talks should not be disclosed because it is confidential and then spends half of his time arguing for the disclosure of some document.


Lester Bowles Pearson: After it has leaked out to the press.


Donald Methuen Fleming: I want to make this abundantly clear. We on this side of the house are quite prepared to meet the attack that the hon. gentleman has made on the budget forecast in the course of his speech but not in his amendment. Mr. Speaker, the thing that irks the hon. gentleman and his followers in connection with the budget forecast is that it was not pessimistic enough. You see, Mr. Speaker, the whole speech that the hon. gentleman has made tonight in essence simmers down to this, that if the budget forecast had been very pessimistic there would have been no occasion for him to make a speech tonight. There would have been nothing for him to talk about. His objection is that the budget forecast was not pessimistic enough.


John Whitney Pickersgill: That is exactly what the Prime Minister said on January 20.


Donald Methuen Fleming: That is the whole story. As we said to the hon. gentlemen opposite a few weeks ago in the course of the budget debate, which they evidently wish to start all over again, in their whole attitude and in their remarks they are prophets of gloom and their words are calculated to do harm to the best interests of Canada.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


John Whitney Pickersgill: All we want is the truth.


Donald Methuen Fleming: Now, Mr. Speaker, I wish to talk about the basis of the charge that the Leader of the Opposition has made. He has resorted to a newspaper report, a report in a newspaper not renowned for its accuracy nor animated by any desire to be fair to anybody who calls himself a Conservative. I will tell you at once, sir, that I have a very soft spot in my heart for the Toronto Star. When I was in municipal life in Toronto they always gave me solid support but the moment I went into federal politics in 1945 and became a Conservative candidate the editor told me very frankly that they would support me no longer. I had not changed. I was the same individual that day as the man they had supported the day before, but it was because I was a Conservative candidate and therefore the support they had been prepared to give me was automatically withdrawn.
All right, Mr. Speaker, that is fair enough. If a newspaper wishes to follow a party line this is a free country and that is perfectly fair. But I hope that when the house is called upon to vote condemnation in the government and to find a foundation for the kind of arraignment that has been delivered tonight by the Leader of the Opposition the house will have something better to base it 57071-3-195
Canadian Economic Outlook upon than the overdrawn assumptions that have been made tonight by the Leader of the Opposition.


Lester Bowles Pearson: Do you deny the report?


Donald Methuen Fleming: I deny the right of any responsible member of this house to base condemnation of the government on an assumption of the kind to which he resorted tonight.


Lester Bowles Pearson: Do you deny the report?


Donald Methuen Fleming: I might as well relieve the minds of hon. gentlemen now. You see, he has been trying by these cute little tactics all afternoon and this evening to draw out of members on this side of the house some reference to a document, something that can be used by him to found an argument to you, Mr. Speaker, that we had, somehow or other, referred to some document or other, and then of course he would demand the tabling of it. I do not intend to have the rules of this house wrenched around that way to suit the whims and convenience of the hon. gentleman. I do not propose, therefore, to make any comment upon these things that the hon. member keeps talking about, and about which he wants someone on this side to make a comment, so he can then say, produce the thing that he keeps talking about. I wish to make it quite clear to him that if he wants to base a motion for the tabling of some document or other that he apparently is especially anxious to see, he will have to go about it in a frank, straightforward way, and in doing so face the fact that such a motion would be out of order, and would have been put out of order by the fancy stratagems of the hon. member for Bonavista-Twillingate (Mr. Pickersgill).


John Whitney Pickersgill: May I ask the minister a question?


Donald Methuen Fleming: If it is a little more sensible than some of the others, yes.


John Whitney Pickersgill: May I ask the minister if he was not in the house when we passed a motion this afternoon wiping out private members' time and taking my motion off the order paper?


Lester Bowles Pearson: Just ignore that, too.


Donald Methuen Fleming: When my hon. friend talks about "wiping out", I think he had better come a little closer to the meaning of the expression he uses.


Lester Bowles Pearson: Why don't you answer the question?


Donald Methuen Fleming: There have been several statements made by the hon. member

Canadian Economic Outlook and other hon. members opposite which I propose to wipe out now. The responsibility for the fact that this question had not been submitted to the house for a decision during this session rests with the hon. member for Bonavista-Twillingate.
On June 18 this hon. gentleman, in his eagerness, introduced a motion under the heading "Notices of Motions for Production of Papers", in which he asked for a copy of "The Canadian Economic Outlook for 1958" as published by the Department of Trade and Commerce. I do not know whether this is the document that is referred to in the amendment now before the house, but if it is-


John Whitney Pickersgill: It is certainly the document referred to in the Toronto Star.


Donald Methuen Fleming: -then the responsibility for the question not being determined by the house rests upon the shoulders of the hon. member for Bonavista-Twillingate. It will be remembered by those who wish to remember the facts, and here I offer this reminder by way of contradiction to hon. gentlemen opposite, that the Prime Minister did not refuse to table the report referred to in the notice of motion of the hon. member for Bonavista-Twillingate. What he said is recorded at page 1391 of Hansard for June 18, 1958, and then he was interrupted by the hon. member for Bonavista-Twillingate and prevented from completing his statement. The Prime Minister said:
I was going to say we will produce it immediately after this year ends. It is a current report, publication of which would be detrimental until January 1959.


Mr. Mcllrailh:: I wonder if the minister would permit a question? Just to clarify the record, would he mind reading the whole answer on that occasion, starting at the first. It is at the top of page 1391.


Donald Methuen Fleming: Yes.
Mr. Speaker, the government finds it necessary to oppose this motion, on the ground that "The Canadian Economic Outlook for 1958", is a confidential document.
Then, there was an interjection from the hon. member for Bonavista-Twillingate-


George James McIlraith: No, Mr. Speaker.


Donald Methuen Fleming: -and he raised a point of order. He sought to prevent the Prime Minister from even making a statement of his position.


John Whitney Pickersgill: From making a statement to which no reply could be made.


Donald Methuen Fleming: It has been the practice of this house, as the hon. gentleman knows, to permit a short statement to be made.


Mr. Speaker:: Order. The hon. member for Ottawa West (Mr. Mcllraith) wants to raise a point of order, as I understand it.


George James McIlraith: No, it was a question of privilege. I had asked the minister to read the Prime Minister's answer, and he then proceeded to read another part of the Prime Minister's statement in answer to my request. Hon. members in the house were being led to believe that he was reading the answer of the Prime Minister on that occasion.


Donald Methuen Fleming: I am certainly leading the house to believe that what I am reading now is the statement of the Prime Minister on that occasion, for which I thought the hon. member for Ottawa West had asked. I am going on to read the balance of that: I went right to the beginning of the Prime Minister's statement at the top of the page. If I had not done that my hon. friend would have been jumping up and stating that I had not started at the beginning. I am starting at the beginning, and I am going to give him full value so he might as well possess his soul in patience because he is going to hear the whole thing.
The hon. member for Bonavista-Twillingate had jumped in and tried to stop the Prime Minister from speaking. You will see, Mr. Speaker, that his interjection on this occasion is longer than the three short remarks which, in the aggregate, the Prime Minister was permitted to make amongst the various interruptions by the hon. member for Bonavista-Twillingate.


John Whitney Pickersgill: Of course, it was a point of order to which the hon. gentleman used to pay some attention.


Donald Methuen Fleming: Yes, when we were raising points of order they were serious, and not these silly, vapid points of order that are raised nowadays by hon. gentlemen.


John Whitney Pickersgill: Mr. Speaker, I was never suspended by the Speaker.


Mr. Speaker:: I suggest that the minister proceed with the speech he intended to make. The exchange of points of order is becoming too rapid for me to keep up with them.


Donald Methuen Fleming: 
John Whitney Pickersgill: I am rising on a point of
order.


Donald Methuen Fleming: -of having this motion transferred-


John Whitney Pickersgill: I am rising on a point of order. I think the hon. gentleman is now embarking upon a subject upon which Your Honour made a ruling on that particular day. I believe it is against the rules of this house to discuss Your Honour's ruling.


Mr. Speaker:: It seems to me that a
reference to the action of the government with respect to the report is pertinent to the amendment, and I cannot stop that.


John Whitney Pickersgill: No, the hon. gentleman was embarking upon his version of what I had done.


Mr. Speaker:: As long as he does not question what the Speaker did, it will be all right.


Donald Methuen Fleming: I was not questioning what anybody did. I simply wished to put the record straight, and hon. gentlemen opposite with it. The hon. member for Bona-vista-Twillingate is no reader of my mind, I can tell him, if he thinks I am embarking upon some sea of his choosing. It was at that point he demanded the right to exercise his option to have this motion transferred to private members' notices of motion. This right you accorded to him, and that is the reason the house was deprived of the opportunity to make its decision on that motion. It was at the instance of the hon. gentleman that that motion was transferred to notices of motion, and his instance alone.
Although the hon. gentleman opposite has chosen to base his attack upon conjecture, since in one of his fleeting references in the course of this phantom speech of his he talked about the budget and the bases for the budget forecast, I propose to meet him on that ground. With apologies for trespassing upon its patience, I shall ask the house patiently to recall what were the bases of the budget forecast and to judge whether the house and country were given a fair, reasonable and straightforward foundation upon which to base their views with regard to the budget forecasts that were submitted to this house by the government.


An hon. Member:: The answer is no.


Donald Methuen Fleming: I shall ask the house to have regard to the tenor of the 57071-3-1951
Canadian Economic Outlook speech and not the individual sentences wrenched out of context by my hon. friend or others, nor to be guided in their judgment as to what were budget forecasts or bases by statements that have been distorted beyond recognition. What we ask for is that the house consider all of the budget forecasts and all the bases upon which those budget forecasts were founded.


John Whitney Pickersgill: Will the minister permit a question?


Donald Methuen Fleming: Oh yes; ten more.


John Whitney Pickersgill: Would the minister tell us which statements he said had been distorted?


Donald Methuen Fleming: If my hon. friend will wait and exercise that patience which I, with apologies, asked of him, I think he will have an ample answer to his question. I do ask him, a generous if somewhat foxy member of the house, not to ask for the conclusion before he has heard the evidence. We on this side of the house believe in presenting evidence, not conjecture.


John Whitney Pickersgill: Not the Minister of
Agriculture.


Lionel Chevrier: The Minister of Agriculture
does not understand what evidence is.


Donald Methuen Fleming: In the budget
speech the budget bases, the bases of the budget forecasts, are all there in Hansard at pages 1230 to 1250. It is very plainly written. In addition, let me remind the house that all the pertinent statistics upon which the budget is based are recorded in something like 100 pages of statistics in the white paper. How can any serious and responsible member of this house talk about being misled? If he is misled, it is because he has not taken the elementary precaution of doing what is the simple duty of any member of this house, namely to inform himself on the facts, the statistics, which are a matter of record here,-


John Whitney Pickersgill: And were in Mr. Harris'
budget.


Donald Methuen Fleming: -so that he will then be in a position to bring an intelligent opinion to bear upon the issues.


Lester Bowles Pearson: Why did you pillory your predecessor? He had the same information.


Donald Methuen Fleming: The previous minister of finance will stand responsible, in the light of his statement as to what was the outlook on the basis of what he said was all the evidence, when if all the evidence had entered into his budget forecast it would have been a very different story and the people of this country would have known

Canadian Economic Outlook that which the former government did their best to prevent the people of Canada from knowing.


John Whitney Pickersgill: That statement is not true.


Donald Methuen Fleming: And what is more, this house then would have had the opportunity which hon. gentlemen opposite, when they were in the government, sought by their most strenuous efforts to deny to the house; the house would have had the opportunity of assessing the utter failure of hon. members opposite to prepare for a condition of unemployment and recession which that report warned that government was coming if they took no steps to prevent it.


John Whitney Pickersgill: And which the Minister Of Labour said in December did not exist.


Donald Methuen Fleming: That is the issue that the people of this country fully understood on March 31. All this talk tonight on the part of hon. gentlemen opposite is not going to change that fact. The people of this country are intelligent people. They are not going to be misled by statements of the kind made tonight by the Leader of the Opposition into thinking that they misjudged the situation. The people of this country judged that situation clearly, fairly and thoroughly and I do not think they are going to relish being told now by the Leader of the Opposition that they made a mistake and that they did not know what they were passing on. The people of this country are still masters of this country. Our responsibility is to them,


Lester Bowles Pearson: Why don't you deal with the issue?


John Whitney Pickersgill: Until the next election your responsibility is to this house.


Donald Methuen Fleming: Let us look at what it is that we are accused of. You see, Mr. Speaker, this whole show that was put on here tonight, like the show that was put on here this afternoon by hon. gentlemen opposite, was just a bogus exhibition. It would have done credit to a side show in some of the exhibitions that will be opening within the next three or four weeks.


Lester Bowles Pearson: Order.


Donald Methuen Fleming: This demonstration in the house I am sure will convince no one, not even those hon. gentlemen themselves. What they seek to do, Mr. Speaker, was somehow or other to say things that would, by one means or another coax out of this side of the house the production of some document or other or some reference to some document that would enable them to say, "Well, you 
have referred to it and now you must table it". It therefore was just a smokescreen.
Let us deal with the issues that have been raised here, Mr. Speaker. We are told, for instance, that we did not give the people of Canada sufficient pessimism in the budget forecast. Here is the story, Mr. Speaker, and hon. gentlemen can judge now, in the light of the assumptions that were referred by the Leader of the Opposition tonight, whether this budget forecast was based upon a sound estimate of all the factors at work in the Canadian economy on June 17 when the budget was delivered in the house. For instance, as found at page 1231 of Hansard, I began with this reference in the four pages of review of the economic situation to be found at pages 1231 to 1235. I began, Mr. Speaker, with this statement;
During the past eighteen months Canada shared with most of the rest of the world some slackening in the pace of economic growth. Business activity declined in the United States, and the rate of expansion slowed in western Europe. In Canada unemployment emerged as a serious problem and declining business capital investment as a significant developing tendency. Nevertheless, it would be a mistake to forget that there were solid achievements on the economic side and developments which augur well for the future.
Will anyone say that is an unbalanced statement or that the government turned its back upon the less favourable features in the economic situation as of that time? Then further along on the page I refer to the fact that the rate of economic growth slowed noticeably during 1957. Then as found at page 1232, I said:
The most important change which emerged during 1957 was the decline in the importance of business capital investment as a dynamic force in our economy, particularly investment in our resource industries.
Yet the Leader of the Opposition tonight has the temerity to say that the Minister of Finance in his budget speech did not take account of the decline in the amount of business capital investment in the economic life of this country. It is unfortunate that the hon. gentleman did not read the speech but contented himself with reading some excerpts from my speech that were quoted in the Toronto Star. If he is talking about excerpts, why does he not read the full document that was open to him to read? He has given an example here of a man who is very selective about excerpts when they serve his purpose. Again, Mr. Speaker, as found at page 1232 of Hansard, I said:
Early in 1957 many commodity markets moved into a position of over-supply.
And again:
By mid-1957 the value of large capital projects being started began to run behind the value of projects being completed.

Then again I make this reference:
In 1956 capital expenditure rose by 20 per cent and together with increased inventory accumulation accounted for almost one-half the very large increase in total demand. In 1957 there was a much more moderate rise of nine per cent in capital expenditure. More important was the fact that during 1956 capital expenditure was rising at a rapid rate while in 1957 investment outlays as a whole first levelled out and then declined slightly. The slow-down in the rate of capital investment was accentuated by the inventory liquidation which developed toward the end of the year. This reduction in inventories continued into the first quarter of 1958, which has meant that to some extent the demands for goods is being met out of stocks rather than giving rise to new production.
And again:
Although business capital investment ended the year on a weaker note than it had begun,-
And again:
Consumer expenditure was an important sustaining force in 1957, and at the end of 1957 was running about four per cent higher than a year earlier. Expenditure on durable goods, however, showed practically no increase over the previous year, reflecting in part the slower growth of incomes but also the rapid expansion in 1955 and 1956 which was based upon large increases in consumer credit.
And again, Mr. Speaker, at page 1233 we find the following:
The combination of somewhat less favourable employment opportunities with a rapidly expanding labour force resulted in an increase in unemployment. As employment was higher through 1957 than through 1956, so also was unemployment.
For 1957 as a whole the average number of persons without jobs and seeking work was 254,000, an increase of 75,000 over 1956. As a percentage of the labour force, unemployment in 1957 averaged 4.3 per cent, equalling the rate in 1954.
Again in the second column on page 1233 I said:
Corporate profits declined by 11 per cent as costs rose and markets became more competitive.
And again:
Personal saving was down about 5 per cent-
Does this suggest that in this budget presentation we ignored the less agreeable facts of the situation? Does this suggest any attempt to gloss over the unfavourable factors? On the contrary, I believe it shows that the assessment of the forces at work in the Canadian economy was fair, balanced and frank. It was not the kind of assessment which the hon. Leader of the Opposition was tonight trying to persuade the house to believe it was but, of course, he was selective. He was not looking for any opportunity to give a balanced presentation-


John Whitney Pickersgill: How could one?


Donald Methuen Fleming: -or a fair presentation of the budget speech to this house. He sought to approach the matter with an extraordinary degree of selectivity-
Canadian Economic Outlook


Paul Joseph James Martin: Would the minister permit a question?


Donald Methuen Fleming: Always for my dear friend the hon. member for Essex East.


Paul Joseph James Martin: In respect to the forecasts on which my hon. friend planned his budget my recollection is-and I would like to be corrected on this-that the hon. gentleman made no reference to the unemployment situation as it would develop in the period ahead in so far as he was able to ascertain the evidence.


Donald Methuen Fleming: I did not attempt to catalogue month by month the course of the estimated figures on unemployment because I did not think anybody could possibly be persuaded to look at such a forecast as having any very great accuracy. The people of this country, after all, had had some experience with the hon. gentlemen opposite in that respect. They remembered, for instance, that at the Liberal national convention last January my hon. friend from Essex East, the Leader of the Opposition and others were bandying about fantastic figures which were never true figures of unemployment in this country. The most recent accurate figures were 380,000 and they were bandying around the figure of 800,000 unemployed which they were talking about as though it were a fact. I know how they arrived at this figure. What they did was a simple arithmetical process. They took the most recent authentic government figure and multiplied it by two and then, for good measure, they added 40,000. The budget speech gave the facts to the house and I know my hon. friend opposite would apply the same arithmetical formula to any figures put forward. I suppose he will do the same thing as long as he is in opposition.
To pursue the subject of giving a balanced presentation in the review of the budget, however, with respect to the factors at work in the Canadian economy I should now like to continue quoting from the bottom of page 1233 of Hansard for June 17 last:
Thus, the consumer price index, which began to rise in mid-1956, continued upward until last October, and experienced another short period of increase in the first four months of this year. Wholesale prices, on the other hand, reached a peak in January, 1957, declined 1.4 per cent during the succeeding 10 months, and have risen again moderately since November. The rise in consumer prices offset about half the increase in average wage rates so that advance in real income during the year was about two per cent.
Does that sound in the ears of any responsible member of this house like an attempt to gloss over the disagreeable facts of the situation? I think on the contrary that to any fair-minded Canadian it is evident, even
3086	HOUSE OF
Canadian Economic Outlook on this incomplete review of the budget speech, that the Minister of Finance bent over backwards to give to the house and to the country a balanced presentation of the facts, whether they were agreeable or disagreeable. That being so, I have no apology to make; I make no apology that this was a balanced presentation. I make no apology to the hon. gentlemen opposite that, after weighing the unfavourable factors against the favourable factors, I came to the conclusions which were set forth in the budget speech. It is evident that hon. gentlemen opposite would have been happier if the Minister of Finance in his budget speech had limited himself and had confined his speech simply to the unfavourable factors in the Canadian economic situation and had not at the same time sought to give a balanced presentation which included the favourable factors as *well. The people of Canada have shown what Ihigh esteem they have for the honourable prophets of gloom opposite.
I wish to say a word on the subject of the selectivity practised by the hon. gentlemen of the opposition. I have said that I think it is the responsibility of the minister to give a balanced presentation; I have already referred to a number of statements which I took from the four pages of the budget speech containing the review of the present economic situation in Canada but I did also say in approaching the conclusion of that review- and I put this before the house in the interests of balance-as recorded at page 1235 of Hansard for the same date:
The policies of this government are assisting the growth in housing and social capital. The expanded role of social capital is illustrated in the 1958 Outlook for Private and Public Investment published by my colleague the Minister of Trade and Commerce.
The hon. gentlemen opposite should have jumped to their feet and asked for the tabling of that document-


John Whitney Pickersgill: It has been tabled.


Donald Methuen Fleming: It has been tabled. They are right but, Mr. Speaker, see how foxy they were. This report has been tabled. It is evident that they have not read it because they have not absorbed any of its contents. What is the use of placing reports before them when they approach the reading of them with such selectivity? Here is a document which was tabled and which should have been read by these gentlemen but they apparently do not know very much about its contents. The contents certainly did not appear in any of their speeches in the budget debate.
And then I proceed:
; Present investment intentions of business for capital outlays in 1958 are about 11 per cent below


the 1957 level. Planned outlays for housing, government departments and institutional services on the other hand are 14 per cent higher.
And now, Mr. Speaker, again in the interests of balance I would turn to a later point in the budget speech by way of emphasizing the pains that were taken to put before the house and the people all of the facts whether favourable or unfavourable. I read from page 1243 of Hansard:
-the main factor in bringing about the slackening in our rate of expansion has been the decline in the export demand for some of our basic resources.
And further:
To go still further into deficit financing at this time could create conditions in which overt inflation of a degree very difficult to control might re-emerge. Indeed even now we have the somewhat paradoxical situation of simultaneous symptoms of both recession and inflation. If we go too far in the measures we take to combat what is, after all, a fairly mild recession, we might find that we had planted an inflationary time bomb which might later go off with a dangerously explosive effect. Admittedly, it is not an easy matter to judge just the right degree or balance in these matters; but in the present circumstances, it seems to me that we have, for the time being at least, a fairly sensible balance of fiscal policy, investment policy and income maintenance policies.
Mr. Speaker, was there any suggestion there of trying to bring the house down on one side of the question or to make the house think that all the factors facing the Canadian people and at work in the Canadian economy were favourable? No. I think that fair-minded hon. members will appreciate that this was an attempt to state to the house and to the Canadian people all of the factors that are at work in the Canadian economy. I hope it will not be forgotten that I ended my budget speech on-


Lester Bowles Pearson: A note.


Donald Methuen Fleming: -a note that blended confidence with stern warnings.


John Whitney Pickersgill: It certainly is not forgotten.


Donald Methuen Fleming: Here were the words I used in my concluding remarks, Mr. Speaker as reported at page 1250.


John Whitney Pickersgill: Oh, spare us!


Donald Methuen Fleming: I said:
Moreover, I confess my concern over costs of production and prices in Canada. Only by keeping our costs of production in line with those of our competitors can we hope to achieve expanding employment and progressive improvement in our standard of living.
We are in danger of becoming a high cost economy.


John Whitney Pickersgill: Four and one half per cent bonds.


Donald Methuen Fleming: I continue:
Such a prospect is particularly perilous in the case of a country like Canada which must sell so

much of its production in markets abroad. Moreover, Canadian producers are encountering increasing difficulty in retaining their domestic market in the face of keen competition from abroad. Many of them under these circumstances turn to the government for a solution of their cost problem.
In a free society there is no simple formula by which the government can maintain stable prices and there is a limit to what governments can do to assist producers to hold down their costs of production. A wise government can, of course, help to promote an environment which is conducive to price stability and this government gives a high place to that duty; but to an important extent prices are the result of competition among the various economic groups which compose our nation, each striving for a greater share of the national product. I echo the warnings issued by the Prime Minister (Mr. Diefenbaker) to all sections of the Canadian people in appealing to all, whether employers, employees or self-employed, to have regard for the general interest in the returns they seek for their services and products. In a free society there is no omnipotent arbitrator who can set prices and wages at stable levels. One must depend upon the sense of responsibility of free men and women not to demand more than their fair share of the national income. As I have said on other occasions, increases in incomes can be justified by increased productivity and by increased productivity alone.


John Whitney Pickersgill: Mr. Speaker, I am rising on a point of order. Is it not contrary to the rules of the house to quote at length from a debate on a subject that has been concluded?


Douglas Scott Harkness: It took you half an hour to find it out.


Mr. Speaker:: I was hoping that the minister who has the floor would not find it necessary to repeat the entire budget address in order to make his point.


Donald Methuen Fleming: Mr. Speaker, it is evident that my hon. friends opposite did not absorb some of the things that were said in the budget speech; otherwise they would not have been making distorted statements such as have been made in this house today by the Leader of the Opposition. I am reading these excerpts-


Lester Bowles Pearson: You are repetitious.


John Whitney Pickersgill: Pure narcissism!


Donald Methuen Fleming: -not because I derive any particular satisfaction out of it and I am sure all intelligent hon. members of this house are well aware of the contents of this speech, but rather for the sake of my hon. friends opposite-


Harold Edward Winch: Mr. Speaker, would the hon. gentleman permit a question. I listened very carefully to what the minister said just now concerning the appreciation of the contents of his speech on the part of intelligent hon. members of this house. Would the minister tell us now that he will file the report that is under discussion so we can also have an understanding of it?
Canadian Economic Outlook


Donald Methuen Fleming: You see, there it is again, Mr. Speaker. Hon. gentlemen opposite are so coy and foxy, but we on this side of the house propose to follow the constitutional course in these matters.


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh.


Lester Bowles Pearson: Mr. Speaker, would the minister permit one question. I have not before broken in on his very interesting, repetitious and prolix statement. If we cannot get any information about tabling the report would the minister tell us if the excerpts from the report are accurate?


Howard Charles Green: What excerpts?


George Harris Hees: Yes, what excerpts?


Lester Bowles Pearson: The excerpts that appeared in the Toronto Star.


Donald Methuen Fleming: Mr. Speaker, my hon. friend knows full well that if I were to accede to his request I would be required to table all the documents he is asking me about and I have just no intention of accommodating that wish on his part.


Lester Bowles Pearson: Mr. Speaker, just to clear up that matter I would be glad to forego that right if the hon. gentleman will only answer the question.


Howard Charles Green: Why do you not table the Toronto Start


Paul Joseph James Martin: How is the investigation coming along?


Donald Methuen Fleming: There is one more paragraph in the budget address which my hon. friends badly need to hear.


John Whitney Pickersgill: I am serious about my point of order, Mr. Speaker.


Mr. Hamilton (York West):: I find it difficult to take you seriously.


Some hon. Members:: Ten o'clock.


Mr. Speaker:: I think it is ten o'clock. I will deal with the point of order in the morning.


Donald Methuen Fleming: Mr. Speaker, I move the adjournment of the debate.


Paul Joseph James Martin: Oh, you are not
going on tomorrow, surely.
On motion of Mr. Fleming (Eglinton) the debate was adjourned.



BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE

Lionel Chevrier: Mr. Speaker, I presume we will continue this debate tomorrow?


Mr. Hardie:: What do we do on Wednesday?


Howard Charles Green: Mr. Speaker, after we finish this debate we are going to take item No.

Business of the House 4 on today's order paper, the act respecting the taxation of estates; then item No. 13, the Loan Companies Act which is to be referred to the banking and commerce committee; and then item No. 14, an act to amend the Trust Companies Act which is also to be referred to the banking and commerce committee; and then the resolution concerning the Customs Tariff amendments.


Lionel Chevrier: What numbers, please?


Howard Charles Green: That is item No. 22. And then we will take item No. 6, an act to amend the Excise Tax Act; item No. 15, second reading

of the act to amend the Financial Administration Act; and item No. 11, second reading of an act to amend the Income Tax Act. We hope to finish all of this tomorrow.


Lionel Chevrier: What does the house leader intend to do on Wednesday?


Howard Charles Green: On Wednesday we have to ask for interim supply and then we would take any of these measures I have mentioned which had not previously been dealt with.


[Stage Direction]
At ten o'clock the house adjourned, without question put, pursuant to standing order.
[Stage Direction]
Tuesday, August 5, 1958