1958-01-15

[Stage Direction]
TABLING OF PUBLIC ACCOUNTS AND AUDITOR general's REPORT
Hon. Donald M. Fleming (Minister of Finance):: Mr. Speaker, may I inform the
house that I have this morning tabled the annual report of the Auditor General and the public accounts in two volumes, English version, for the fiscal year ended March 31, 1957. I am sorry the French version of the report is not available yet and may not be available for another two or three weeks, due to the problem of translation and printing, but in view of the importance of the documents it was thought desirable that it should be tabled now without waiting until the French version was ready to be tabled.


Hon. J. W. Pickersgill (Bonavisia-Twillin-gaie):: Mr. Speaker, I wonder whether I could ask the Minister of Finance if it is his intention to make the usual motion to refer these documents to the public accounts committee.


Donald Methuen Fleming: Mr. Speaker, I think any such motion would have little meaning at this stage of the session. My hon. friend is aware that such a motion is normally made in the regular session of the year of tabling. If we were meeting in a normal session this would be the 1958 session and the tabling would take place early in that session. We are engaged in what we hope are the concluding days of the second session of 1957, and I think such a motion should properly be reserved until parliament convenes in the regular session of 1958.


John Whitney Pickersgill: Needless to say I have no desire to press this point, because I am sure there is nothing wrong with the public accounts which are the accounts for our administration.


Donald Methuen Fleming: Mr. Speaker, may I add to
what I said earlier concerning the tabling of the public accounts. I have received a note asking if copies of the accounts are available for distribution. They are, Mr. Speaker; arrangements were made that copies will be available for distribution this morning upon request to hon. members and to the press gallery.

On the orders of the day:


Mr. Stanley Knowles (Winnipeg North Centre):: Mr. Speaker, may I direct a question to the Minister of Finance. Does the report of the Auditor General for the fiscal year 1956-57 which he tabled today contain reference to any unusual transactions or irregularities requiring comment by the government? If so, has such comment been prepared?


Mr. Speaker:: Order. I submit to the hon. member for his consideration that he is asking for information which is readily available to all hon. members by perusing the document. It seems to me the question is not in order.


Stanley Howard Knowles: will ask my question after I have seen the document.



STARRED QUESTIONS


Mr. Hansell: 1.	Was a treaty signed making Canada a partner in the "atoms for peace"? If so, when was this signed and by whom?
2.	Who are the other signatories to the pact?
3.	Was this brought before parliament for approval?


Hon. Sidney E. Smith (Secretary of Slate for External Affairs):: Mr. Speaker, the answer to the first part of the question is yes; Canada is a party to the convention establishing the statute of the international atomic energy agency signed at New York on October 26, 1956. The signatories for Canada were: Mr. M. H. Wershof, in his capacity as head of the Canadian delegation to the conference on the statute of the international atomic energy agency; Mr. W. J. Bennett, as deputy head of the delegation; and Dr. R. A. MacKay, then permanent representative of Canada to the United Nations in New York.
In answer to the second part of the question, may I say that there are 77 other signatories, that is 78 including Canada. I could read the list, Mr. Speaker, but since it is rather long I wonder whether I might be permitted to present it to the Clerk to be printed in Hansard, as part of my answer?


Mr. Speaker:: Has the hon. member leave
to have this part of his answer printed?


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.

Questions


Sidney Earle Smith: The list is as follows:
List of signatories, other than Canada, to the convention establishing the statute of the international atomic energy agency:
Albania	Korea
Afghanistan	Laos
Argentina	Lebanon
Australia	Liberia
Austria	Libya
Belgium	Luxembourg
Bolivia	Mexico
Brazil	Monaco
Bulgaria	Morocco
Burma	Netherlands
Byelorussia	New Zealand
Cambodia	Nicaragua
Ceylon	Norway
Chile	Pakistan
China	Panama
Colombia	Paraguay
Costa Rica	Peru
Cuba	Philippines
Czechoslovakia	Poland
Denmark	Portugal
Dominican Republic	Roumania
Ecuador	Spain
Egypt	Sudan
El Salvador	Sweden
Ethiopia	Switzerland
France	Syria
Federal Republic of	Thailand
Germany	Turkey
Guatemala	Ukraine
Haiti	Union of South Africa
Honduras	Union of the Soviet
Hungary	Socialist Republics
Iceland	United Kingdom
India	United States
Indonesia	Uruguay
Iran	Vatican City
Israel	Venezuela
Italy	Vietnam
Iraq Japan	Yugoslavia
The answer to the third part of the question is yes; the convention was approved by resolution of the House of Commons on April 12, 1957.


C.B.C.-REGULATION OF PRIVATE STATIONS
Mr. Hansell: 1.	Has the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation written to any independent radio or T.V. stations in the past year to the effect that those stations have (a) broken any of the regulations: (b) were not living up to their contractual obligations with the licensing authorities?
2.	If so, how many and to what stations?


Hon. G. C. Nowlan (Minister of National Revenue):: The answer to the first question
is yes.
The answer to the second question is that there were letters sent to 74 different independent radio stations from the commission complaining of their having broken regulations or not having lived up to their contractual obligations. The great majority of these infractions, Mr. Speaker, were of a very minor nature and were corrected immediately after the attention of the company had been drawn to the violation. I am in the
[Mr. Speaker.)
hands of the house, but frankly I would prefer not to give the names of these different stations because I do not think it would be fair to them to have publicized the minor violations they have committed.


Mr. Hansell:: I talked with the minister about the last part of my question, and I think we can quite understand that we do not wish to prejudice any of the stations by revealing the particular stations that may have been accused of breaking regulations. For that reason I think I should state I will be quite satisfied with the minister's answer.


CANADIAN FLAG-RECOMMENDATIONS OF PARLIAMENTARY COMMITTEE
Mr. Hansell: 1.	Has the government considered the recommendations of the joint parliamentary committee of 1946 on a design for a distinctive Canadian flag?
2.	If so, have steps been taken by the government to bring down legislation implementing the committee's recommendations?


Mr. W. B. Nesbitt (Parliamentary Assistant to the Prime Minister):: In view of the absence of the Prime Minister I was wondering if the hon. member would be good enough to permit the question to stand.


Ernest George Hansell: Yes, Mr. Speaker, I will be good enough to permit it to stand, but it was standing, not as a starred question, for two or three months. It was not answered, so I cancelled it and put it in as a starred question. I feel it should be answered soon, because it does not require any research or particular work to get the answer.


QUESTION PASSED AS ORDER FOR RETURN
Mr. Robichaud: 1.	What was the price paid by the government of Canada for the purchase of property or lot of land at the approach of the public wharf at Middle Caraquet, Gloucester county, New Brunswick?
2.	What was the area in square feet of the lot involved?
3.	Is any part of the said lot presently leased to Caraquet Packers Limited?
4.	If so, what percentage, and what is the yearly rental charged to Caraquet Packers Limited?
5.	Was a special appraisal made by the real estate branch of the Department of Transport? If so, what was the value established for the lot in question?



BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
John Whitney Pickersgill: Mr. Speaker, since five days have now elapsed since the Prime Minister promised to

tell us whether the grants to the Atlantic provinces would be available in the current fiscal year, would the Minister of Finance be prepared to give that information to the house today?


Donald Methuen Fleming: What I should like to give to the house first, Mr. Speaker, is a correction of the premise of the question asked by the hon. member for Bonavista-Twillingate.


John Whitney Pickersgill: I rise on a point of order, Mr. Speaker. I wonder whether it is in order for the minister to do anything except answer the question.


Donald Methuen Fleming: The Prime Minister did not say he would give that answer within a couple of days, as the hon. member has said.


John Whitney Pickersgill: He said it would be apparent.


Donald Methuen Fleming: Yes, that it would be apparent.


John Whitney Pickersgill: Crystal gazing, I suppose.


Mr. Speaker:: Order. I do not think we ought to enter into a debate on the background of this question. If the Minister of Finance does not wish to answer it, it might stand.


Donald Methuen Fleming: The answer of the Prime Minister as it appears in Hansard is correct and stands.


John Whitney Pickersgill: Just another broken
promise.


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh.


Donald Methuen Fleming: The hon. member has chosen to make a comment-I may say I am rising on a point of order-on an answer. That, of course, is clearly beyond the rights of the hon. member and is a breach of the rules of the house. Apart from that, however, on a question of privilege, may I say that there has been no breach of any promise at any time so far as this government is concerned. It has fulfilled its promises to the letter.



INQUIRY AS TO AMENDMENT OF CITIZENSHIP AND INDIAN ACTS

[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
John Whitney Pickersgill: Mr. Speaker, I wonder if I could ask the Acting Minister of Citizenship and Immigration whether it is the intention of the government to proceed with the amendments to the Canadian Citizenship Act and the Indian Act forecast earlier by the Prime Minister. My reason for asking is that it might make a good deal of difference to the nature of the debate later today if this information were available.
Inquiries of the Ministry Hon. E. D. Fulton (Acting Minister of Citizenship and Immigration): Mr. Speaker, we have had before us for decision the question which the hon. gentleman raises, but I regret that I am not able to give him a definite reply.



SLAUGHTERING OF ANIMALS-INQUIRY AS TO SECOND READING OF AMENDING LEGISLATION

[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. F. C. Christian (Okanagan Boundary):: Mr. Speaker, I wish to direct a question to the Minister of Justice. Is it the intention of the government to proceed this session with the second reading of Bill No. 241, to amend the Criminal Code with reference to the slaughtering of animals?


Hon. E. D. Fulton (Minister of Justice):: Mr. Speaker, as I made clear on the day the bill was given first reading, it is not the intention to give that bill second reading this session, for the reasons I then outlined.
INTRODUCTION OF REPRINT OF BILL NO. 237 On the orders of the day:


Mr. A. W. Stuart (Charlotte):: Mr. Speaker, I should like to direct a question to the house leader. In his opinion was it in order for the hon. member for Moose Jaw-Lake Centre to introduce last evening a reprint of Bill No. 237, at this stage of the proceedings?


Hon. Howard C. Green (Minister of Public Works):: Mr. Speaker, I am not deciding questions of order. That is Your Honour's privilege.



LEAD AND ZINC


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. H. W. Herridge (Kootenay West):: Mr. Speaker, my questions are always well based, but this one is based on solid rock foundations, namely on telegrams from miners' unions, municipalities, Canadian Legion posts and so on. I should like to direct it to the Minister of Trade and Commerce. In view of the daily growing concern over the possibility of the imposition of higher United States tariffs on lead and zinc, or the establishment of a quota system, would the minister inform the house of the response the government has received to its representations to the government of the United States on this question?


Hon. Gordon Churchill (Minister of Trade and Commerce):: We appreciate fully the importance of the question, Mr. Speaker, and of

Inquiries of the Ministry the problem involved. No action has been taken by the United States government up to the present moment.



RESTRICTIONS ON IMPORTS INTO UNITED

[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Ernest George Hansell: May I ask
a question of the Secretary of State for External Affairs. Over a week ago the former secretary of state for external affairs asked if an official note of protest had been sent to the United States respecting their cut-back of 15 per cent in oil imports from Canada. Would the minister tell us if that note has yet been sent; he stated it was in the course of preparation. Has it yet been sent?


Sidney Earle Smith: Mr. Speaker, it will be sent today.


Ernest George Hansell: A supplementary question. Would the minister care to lay on the table of the house a copy of that note?


Sidney Earle Smith: Yes, Mr. Speaker, subject to the usual reservations.



HOUSING


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. W. J. Henderson (Kingston):: May I
direct a question to the Minister of Finance, arising out of a report in the Globe and Mail of today of a meeting of the Toronto builders' exchange entitled "Grim Picture for '58; 147 Firms Will Fold, Builder's Prediction". Included in the report is a prediction that there will be fewer jobs in 1958.


Some hon. Members:: Question.


William James Henderson: Just a minute and I will come to it.


Mr. Harkness:: If you have a question, ask it.


Mr. Gauthier (Portneuf):: Be a little more patient.


Mr. Speaker:: Order. The house seems to be in a hurry.


William James Henderson: If the Minister of Agriculture will look after the farmers he will have enough to do.


Edmund Davie Fulton: I rise on a point of order, Mr. Speaker. I ask you whether it is in order for the hon. gentleman not only to read from a newspaper report-


Pierre Gauthier: It is the Globe and Mail.


Edmund Davie Fulton: -instead of asking a question, and more particularly to read from a newspaper report which speculates on what may be the case in the future, and speculates quite probably or quite possibly inaccurately? I ask you whether it is in order to ask a question in that form.


Pierre Gauthier: Coming from the Globe and Mail surely it could not be inaccurate.


Mr. Speaker:: The hon. member, while he is entitled to lay a factual background for a question, went on to read expressions of opinion; and in reading expressions of opinion he is adopting them as his own. That is contrary to the practice of the house at this stage. I would ask the hon. member not to include the latter part of his statement but to complete his question.


William James Henderson: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My question is this. Would the minister give consideration to this report and indicate the relief to this industry which he contemplates?


Donald Methuen Fleming: I have not seen the report, Mr. Speaker. If my hon. friend's reference to it is a fair summary of the report, I question whether it is an accurate report.
As to what the government is doing in that respect, this government has done much. The provision of $150 million by this government for loans on mortgages for home construction under the National Housing Act last August has been completely taken up and did result this fall in a substantial increase in the number of housing starts for that period in 1957, over the housing starts in 1956. Unquestionably the infusion of that substantial amount of money into house construction channels was of tremendous advantage to the Canadian people and to the construction industry.
Furthermore, as the house will recall, an additional sum of a like amount was made available in the amendments to the National Housing Act which the house adopted in December. Not only has the first $150 million been fully taken up but already, notwithstanding the fact that we are in the winter months, no less than $35 million of that additional $150 million has already been taken up.
I think, Mr. Speaker, it must be quite evident to all hon. members that the government has done much to assist the house contraction industry and bring great benefits to Canadians in the housing field.


Mr, Henderson:: Then may I ask a supplementary question. Would the minister tell us if he disagrees with the report of the Toronto builders' exchange that it will be a grim year in 1958?


Donald Methuen Fleming: I think I have already commented on that. I have not seen the report-


Mr. Speaker:: Order. One of the rules which relate to questioning is that it is not proper to ask the ministry to verify the truth of a newspaper report which, in effect, is what the supplementary question does ask. That rule has been overlooked to some extent, but I think we should bear it in mind.



FISHERIES


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. G. R. McWilliam (Norihumberland-Miramichi):: Mr. Speaker, I would like to address a question to the house leader, in the absence of the Minister of Fisheries; and I would judge that the house leader may wish to take this question as notice.
In view of the loss of nets and gear suffered by Miramichi smelt fishermen recently and in previous seasons, will the government give consideration to including smelt nets as insurable items under the fishermen's insurance plan?


Howard Charles Green: Mr. Speaker, we will be very glad to look into this situation.



PUBLIC WORKS


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. Samuel Boulanger (Drummond-Artha-baska):: Mr. Speaker, I should like to direct a question to the Minister of Public Works. Has the minister received a request from the city of Victoriaville for a grant for the construction of a protection wall? If so, is the minister favourable to such grant, and when might it be expected?


Howard Charles Green: I will have to take this question as notice.



LABOUR CONDITIONS


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Herbert Wilfred Herridge: Mr. Speaker, I wish to direct a two-pronged question. The shorter prong is directed to the
Inquiries of the Ministry Minister of Citizenship and Immigration, and the longer prong is directed to the Minister of National Revenue in the hope of skewering him.
In view of the fact that the owners of idle construction equipment in British Columbia are complaining that United States mining companies are permitted to bring their equipment of various kinds into Canada together with the employees necessary to do this type of work, while Canadian equipment and employees remain idle, would the minister inquire into this situation and take action to safeguard the interests of unemployed Canadian citizens?


George Clyde Nowlan: Mr. Speaker, it shows the sporting instinct of the hon. gentleman that he should direct the longer prong toward the longer person. I, of course, have nothing to say with respect to the entry of United States workmen into Canada. That is a matter for another department. In so far as the reference to machinery is concerned, it is true that under our tariff act certain types of mining machinery are allowed entry into Canada free of duty, under the old principle that they are used for the development of Canadian natural resources. That, of course, is a matter of legislation.
The question confuses mining with construction, and I am not quite sure whether its terms cover construction machinery or mining machinery. If it is mining machinery then, as I have said, certain types enter free of duty. In so far as construction machinery is concerned, that does not enter free of duty and since my term of office began, at least, there have been no special concessions made to permit the entry of any construction machinery from the United States into Canada except on payment of the regular tariffs. A surplus of secondhand machinery overhangs the American market at the moment, and my officials are watchful to see that this machinery is very carefully appraised for customs duty before admission to Canada.


Herbert Wilfred Herridge: It is mining machinery that can be used on construction in Canada. I thank the minister for his explanation and I will let him know the facts later. If you could stop the machinery you would stop the men, because the men are brought in because they are necessary to work the machines.


Edmund Davie Fulton: Mr. Speaker, with reference to the second and shorter prong of the question, I know the hon. gentleman's

Inquiries of the Ministry concern, and I have on occasions expressed similar concern with regard to the general situation.
But I must say that the officials of the department are aware of the importance of not letting into Canada those who will take employment that should otherwise be available to Canadians, and are watchful to see that this is not done.
I cannot, of course, assert positively that there has not been any case in which someone has slipped past them. I can only say that in order to be certain of the situation it is essential that we should have any specific complaint drawn to our attention by name and location in order that we may deal with it. Without such information it is impossible to do anything more than give the general assurance that I now give.


Herbert Wilfred Herridge: I will get that information from the persons who complained.



UNEMPLOYMENT ASSISTANCE


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. T. A. M. Kirk (Shelburne-Yarmouth-Clare):: Mr. Speaker, I should like to direct a question to the Minister of National Health and Welfare. Has any agreement yet been signed by the province of Nova Scotia under the terms of the Unemployment Assistance Act?


Hon. J. W. Monteith (Minister of National Health and Welfare):: Frankly, Mr. Speaker, at the moment I cannot say. I will have to take the question as notice. I know Nova Scotia has indicated its desire to sign an agreement, but whether it has actually been signed I cannot as yet say.


Jay Waldo Monteith: Mr. Speaker, I am now in a
position to answer more directly the question asked by the hon. member for Shelburne-Yarmouth-Clare a few moments ago as to the signing of an agreement with Nova Scotia. Such has not been done.



PIPE LINES


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. D. M. Fisher (Port Arthur):: Mr. Speaker, I should like to direct a question to the Minister of Labour. Is the minister in a position to announce any upward adjustment of wage rates on the trans-Canada pipe line project? If not, is such an adjustment under consideration?


Hon. Michael Starr (Minister of Labour):: Mr. Speaker, I am not in a position as yet to announce any adjustment but I hope to be in that position tomorrow, and I will convey that information to the hon. member.



NATIONAL DEFENCE


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
William James Henderson: Mr. Speaker, may I direct a question to the Minister of National Defence. In his absence perhaps the parliamentary assistant will take notice of the question. Since it is reported that the role of the infantryman in the Canadian services is to be reassessed, possibly Monday, I wonder whether before the end of the session the minister will make a statement on the new role of the Canadian infantry in the Canadian services?


Mr. M. J. A. Lambert (Parliamentary Assistant to the Minister of National Defence):: Yes, Mr. Speaker, on behalf of the minister I will take the question as notice.



IMMIGRATION


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
John Whitney Pickersgill: Mr. Speaker, I should like to ask the Acting Minister of Citizenship and Immigration whether he is now in a position to answer the question I asked him about Christian George Hanna immediately after the Christmas recess?


Edmund Davie Fulton: Mr. Speaker, a decision has been made to extend the permit for a period of six months.


John Whitney Pickersgill: From what date?


Edmund Davie Fulton: From the date on which it was to expire, which was January 16. I might say, Mr. Speaker, that this has been done with a view to extending to this man the opportunity to establish whether or not he will become, or is potentially, a good Canadian for the future.


John Whitney Pickersgill: I have a supplementary question, Mr. Speaker. Perhaps I should refresh the hon. gentleman's memory by saying that what I asked was whether there was any truth in the story that was published by

the press that he had surrendered to the officers of the department and asked to be put on a ship.


Edmund Davie Fulton: Mr. Speaker, I think there is some truth in the story although not exactly in the form of the words used. I think the fact that Mr. Hanna came to the immigration department office in Vancouver and asked for help indicates a rather greater degree of confidence and friendship between him and the department under the new conditions than existed under the former administration. It is true that Mr. Hanna did come to the department in Vancouver and asked for help, and we are now looking into the question to see what help we can give him.


John Whitney Pickersgill: Will the hon. gentleman say whether Mr. Hanna is employed at the present time?


Edmund Davie Fulton: I am not able to answer that question as of today, Mr. Speaker. He came to us and asked help in obtaining employment at sea.


John Whitney Pickersgill: Is the hon. gentleman aware that the hon. member for Vancouver-Burrard guaranteed this gentleman employment, and guaranteed it to his department?


Edmund Davie Fulton: Mr. Speaker, I am aware of many facts in this case, and I am also aware that my estimates are about to be discussed later this day. I suggest to the hon. gentleman that with his knowledge of the rules of the house he will appreciate that it is not proper to ask these questions at this time.



PUBLIC WORKS


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Howard Charles Green: Mr. Speaker, yesterday the hon. member for Iles-de-la-Madeleine asked me this question, as reported at page 3291 of Hansard:
On January 7 last I drew the attention of the minister to damage to the wharf at Grindstone and the urgency of making repairs. I suggested that steel for the repairs should be ordered immediately. My question is, have instructions been given in his department for the steel to be ordered?
The answer to this question is that following the storm damage certain emergency repairs were undertaken to prevent further damage to the structure. These repairs are only temporary, and the reconstruction of the damaged area is being studied at the present time. It is not expected that this reconstruction can be completed before the opening of the navigation season.
Atlantic Provinces Power Development POWER



ATLANTIC PROVINCES-LEGISLATION RESPECTING THERMAL PROJECTS

Hon. Alvin Hamilton (Minister of Northern Affairs and National Resources) moved: the third reading of Bill No. 244, to provide assistance in respect of electric power development in the Atlantic provinces.


John Whitney Pickersgill: Mr. Speaker, I do not think any hon. member will be surprised to find that I am taking the rather unusual course of speaking once more on this measure on third reading.


Mr. Ellis:: You have a full gallery today.


John Whitney Pickersgill: That, I may say, is the kind of remark I would expect from the source from which it came.
I am speaking, sir, because I feel there is still time to appeal to the government to change their minds about the refusal they have made up to now to make this bill in any effective way applicable to one of the four Atlantic provinces. I was not able to be here yesterday at the committee stage because of the discourtesy of the government in refusing to hold this measure over in spite of the assurance we were given by the Prime Minister on Monday when we accepted the motion.


Mr. Bell (Saint John-Alberl):: The hon.
member is entitled to talk about discourtesy as well as anybody in this house.


John Whitney Pickersgill: Well, I shall not endeavour to compete in the realm of discourtesy with the hon. member for Saint John-Albert, who is a past master.


Thomas Miller Bell: You are
competing with your friends in the Coliseum right now.


Mr. Speaker:: Order. I would ask hon. members to allow the member who has the floor to continue, and I would hope that he will not follow the trend he has been following.


John Whitney Pickersgill: Mr. Speaker, it is evident that there are quite a few members on the back benches of the opposite side of the house who were not in the last parliament, and therefore they would not know that the very mild and courteous remarks that are made from this side of the house now represent no discourtesy.


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh.


John Whitney Pickersgill: They should have heard the Minister of Finance when he was over here. They should have heard the Minister of Public Works persisting when he was over here.

Atlantic Provinces Power Development


Mr. Speaker:: Order. I think the hon. member has forgotten the title of the bill.


John Whitney Pickersgill: I think perhaps, sir, it is the government that has forgotten the title of the bill. I thank Your Honour for drawing it to my attention so that I may draw it once more to the attention of the government. The purpose of the bill purportedly-and I borrow the word of the hon. member for St. John's West, the Minister without Portfolio-is to assist the four Atlantic provinces, but the government have been most careful to make sure that it will give no effective assistance to one of these four provinces.
That is why I am rising at this stage of the measure to protest the conduct of the government, to protest the fact that they did not accede to the request made by the premier of Newfoundland to have a very small amendment made in the bill which would have made it possible for the government to help the province of Newfoundland, and to ask if they would not consider postponing third reading and referring the bill back to committee in order to make that amendment even at this late stage.
Although I believe it might be in order, it seems to me that it would be useless for me to move an amendment to that effect. I think probably I will be more likely to succeed in my appeal if I attempt to show how completely this measure will fail to be of any effective assistance to Newfoundland, and appeal to the government to make this one change which would commit them to no specific project but would enable them to consider specific projects and not have to come back to parliament for authority to carry them out.
That is the very modest request that was made by the premier of Newfoundland to the Prime Minister, about which the Prime Minister apparently did not think it worth while to inform his colleague, the Minister without Portfolio, and which we were told the other day had never been discussed in the cabinet.


Mr. Browne (Si. John's West):: On a question of privilege, Mr. Speaker, I do not know where the hon. member gets that statement. He has made it several times before. I did not say the matter was not discussed in the cabinet and I could not say anything about what was discussed in the cabinet. The hon. member, a member of a former government, knows I could not say anything about what was discussed in cabinet, so I wish he would not make references of that kind.


Mr. Speaker:: The hon. member has made his point, but it is really not a question of privilege. It is a correction of a statement. May I remind members of the house that the

proper procedure is to allow the member who has the floor to finish his speech and then rise to make corrections.


John Whitney Pickersgill: I thank Your Honour, and I may say in explanation and in fairness to the hon. member that I think he has a point. He did not say this matter had never been considered in the cabinet. He did not say he had not received a copy of the telegram from the Prime Minister. I inferred both these things, and I inferred them from the statement he did make in the house, which is on Hansard and which the hon. gentleman remembers well, that the only way he heard about this matter was through receiving from Newfoundland what purported to be a copy of a telegram from the premier of Newfoundland. If that does not suggest to any unprejudiced mind that my conclusion is correct I do not know what would.
I do not think there is any useful purpose in pursuing that matter any further. The Minister of Northern Affairs and National Resources, when I was unable to be in the house
yesterday-


An hon. Member:: Why?


Pierre Gauthier: You know why.


Thomas Miller Bell: He was fighting with Paul Martin.


Pierre Gauthier: You were not decent enough to adjourn for the convention. You know why.


John Whitney Pickersgill: I was not able to be here for good and sufficient reasons having to do with the choice of the person who will be the second most important officer of this house. It does seem to me that is just as adequate as the excuses that used to be accepted by Mr. Walter Harris when he led the house for postponing business to oblige hon. members when they were on this side, a courtesy which we do not get now.


Howard Charles Green: Mr. Speaker-


John Whitney Pickersgill: I suppose we are going to have another phony question of privilege.


Howard Charles Green: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker, no one can have any objection to the hon. member dealing with the merits or demerits of this measure, but repeatedly this morning he has dragged in other things which are not material and which are merely the cheapest kind of political tub thumping.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear.


Howard Charles Green: I submit that he is out of order.


John Whitney Pickersgill: The hon. gentleman is out of order now.


Mr. Speaker:: The minister has a point. There has been a departure from the subject matter of the debate on third reading. On the other hand there has been a certain amount of provocation, and I ask members on both sides of the house to try to stick to the matter under discussion.


John Whitney Pickersgill: Well, sir, as I think any unprejudiced hon. member will admit, I have always tried to do so since I came into this parliament-


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh.


John Whitney Pickersgill: -and I will endeavour, so far as I know them, to abide completely by the rules. I want first, sir, to refer to the statement made by the Minister of Northern Affairs and National Resources yesterday when he said, as found on page 3304 of Hansard:
I feel It is clear also from the Prime Minister's remarks that the aid will be for publicly owned systems.
Then he went on to suggest that these publicly owned systems might, under some arrangement made by the provinces, be associated in some way with private companies, but that there would be no direct aid to private companies. I am trying to save time by merely summarizing what he said, and if my statement is not correct I will be very glad to read his words. The point I am making is that the hon. gentleman said that under this bill no aid to a private company would be possible. Is that correct? If it is not correct, I should like to be corrected, because I want to be completely fair in this matter. I assume, therefore, it is correct.
The hon. member for St. John's West spoke on this subject on Monday, and what he said will be found at page 3262 of Hansard. I think I had better quote the hon. gentleman's words so as to leave no doubt as to the accuracy of what I am saying. He said:
Let us see what this government is going to do for Newfoundland.
Well, we would certainly like to see it. I am quoting the hon. member for St. John's West, the Minister without Portfolio.
In Newfoundland, as I stated, we have private companies which have developed power which they are anxious to sell. They can increase that power by using their own resources and without looking for any loan at all.
Now, sir, that is precisely what we are objecting to. The hon. member said the Newfoundland Light and Power Company, if that is the correct name of the company, was planning an extension of its thermal plant in St. John's, and he says now that company has plenty of resources to do it on its own and therefore does not need any help under this bill.
Atlantic Provinces Power Development
The hon. gentleman said later in his speech that it would, of course, make power cheaper in Newfoundland, or anywhere else, to get a loan at the advantageous rate of interest that was available under the Beechwood measure. It would certainly be an even greater advantage, one would have thought, to obtain assistance under this measure for that thermal plant in St. John's. But because this government will not, as we intended to do, give any assistance to private companies but insist upon power projects being publicly owned, this aid is going to be denied to the company in Newfoundland.


Mr. Small:: When did your government intend to do it?


Pierre Gauthier: When the hon. member was asleep.


Robert Hardy Small: I have never been as asleep as you have been.


John Whitney Pickersgill: The hon. gentleman, who as we all know is one of the most alert and interested members in the house, must have been out of the house when my colleague the hon. member for Montmagny-L'lslet was speaking the other day and pointing out the differences between the government's measure and the very much more liberal measure we proposed last April.


Robert Hardy Small: I was in the house, and he did not say when they were going to do it.


John Whitney Pickersgill: It is in this respect that there is a most important difference. In spite of the fact that the Liberal government was prepared to give this assistance to privately owned companies, and was in the process of doing it-


Edmund Davie Fulton: Would the hon. gentleman permit a question?


John Whitney Pickersgill: Certainly.


Edmund Davie Fulton: I understood from him it was the policy of his government to give aid to privately owned companies. May I ask him why, when in March of last year the minister of fisheries, as he then was, made a statement in Vancouver that the government was prepared to extend aid to British Columbia for the development of the Columbia river, the condition was made that it must be a publicly owned development?


John Whitney Pickersgill: Well, sir-


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh.


Mr. Hodgson:: Take another drink.


John Whitney Pickersgill: The reason was probably, and indeed was certainly, that the Liberal government at that time had made a decision which was announced in the budget, and
3344	HOUSE OF
Atlantic Provinces Power Development which was elaborated upon by my colleague on April 9, if I remember the date correctly, to assist the Atlantic provinces in this special way. There was no plan at that time to extend this beyond the Atlantic provinces. This particular policy-


William Joseph Browne: May I ask
the hon. gentleman a question?


John Whitney Pickersgill: Certainly.


William Joseph Browne: Will he indicate any evidence to show that the Liberal government, prior to June 10, was prepared to do anything along this line for Newfoundland?


John Whitney Pickersgill: I can say, sir, that we did not go about making any empty promises before the election, and we are not making any empty promises now.


An hon. Member:: No?


John Whitney Pickersgill: We think the Canadian people have had enough of that for a while. They will want, before very long, to get something like responsible government again.


Clayton Wesley Hodgson: They sure had enough of the Liberals.


John Whitney Pickersgill: In the light of the fact that the Liberal government was prepared to extend this assistance to private companies in the Atlantic provinces, as well as to publicly owned operations, and the Tory government is not, the minister had the effrontery to say that this Tory legislation confirmed the suggestions of many political observers that, in fact, during the last few years in Canada we have had a Liberal socialist government.
Here are the facts, sir. As the minister himself admitted, we were prepared to extend this aid to private companies.


William Joseph Browne: What private companies?


John Whitney Pickersgill: To private power companies in the province of Nova Scotia. The Tory government refuses to do that. It does seem to me, sir, that by any definition of "socialist" or any extension of that definition I have ever heard, in what is already becoming a rather long life, it has never been suggested that a policy that supports private companies is socialist, and a policy that refuses to support them is non-socialist. Perhaps this is just another of the many evidences we have had since this parliament began this session on October 14, of the confusion and misunderstanding that exists in the minds of hon. members on the treasury benches, and to an even greater degree amongst the backbenchers on the other side.


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


John Whitney Pickersgill: I should be delighted to find out if the hon. gentleman is capable of asking a question.


Donald MacInnis: I am on my feet to find out if the hon. gentleman can answer one. Would the hon. gentleman please tie in his remarks with the remarks of the former fisheries minister and the former prime minister in the maritimes to the effect that maritime coal mines should be closed and the coal should be left in the ground?


John Whitney Pickersgill: To the best of my knowledge and belief no such statements were ever made by either of these gentlemen. I know absolutely and positively that no such statement was made by the former prime minister.
All this cheap Tory propaganda we have heard is based upon a speech the former prime minister made in Fredericton. I was present on the platform and heard every word of it. There was no such statement in it. The hon. member for Inverness-Richmond read the relevant paragraph the other day from a shorthand report of that speech, and this report did not bear out any such nonsense as that. However, this is characteristic in my experience, and it is now becoming quite a long one, of the normal way in which Tory political campaigns are conducted.


Clayton Wesley Hodgson: Typical Liberal wind and water.


John Whitney Pickersgill: I want to go on, sir. If hon. gentlemen opposite could just desist, and I include the Minister of Justice, from bringing in matters that are totally irrelevant to this bill and allow me to give my attention to the measure itself, I would be very happy to go on with what the hon. member for St. John's West had to say about the way in which this particular measure would be helpful to Newfoundland. I think I will put in the record a great deal of what the hon. gentleman said, because I want-


William Joseph Browne: It is on now.


An hon. Member:: You cannot think of anything of your own.


Mr. Gauthier (Porineuf):: Why don't you keep quiet for five minutes?


Thomas Miller Bell: Everybody picks on "Pick".


John Whitney Pickersgill: If the hon. gentleman has any doubt about my capacity to think up a few more things to say I could relieve him of that doubt. Here is what the Minister

without Portfolio said, out of his great knowledge of power and his apparently great knowledge of Newfoundland, as reported at page 3262 of Hansard for January 13, 1958:
What we need at the moment in Newfoundland is transmission lines. The private companies hesitate to extend their lines to areas which they believe will not be profitable. These companies have already built electric power plants to supply areas in which they feel the business they are going to receive justifies the expenditure. I know that the power company operating on the southern shore, which is part of my riding of St. John's West, has during the past year extended the "lights" as we call it down there up as far as Renews.
Then the hon. gentleman went on to mention a number of other settlements farther down the shore to which power has not been extended. The hon. member for St. John's West was apparently trying to give this house, his constituents and anyone who may read Hansard the impression that the extension of distribution lines down the south shore was something that would come within the provisions of this bill. I could not believe that was correct. I was sure the hon. member was mistaken, because my recollection was that the hon. member for Montmagny-L'Islet, in a question to the minister sponsoring this measure, had made a clear distinction between transmission lines and distribution lines; that was in my mind.
I do not pretend to be an expert about these matters, and I try in the house not to make assertions when I am not in possession of all the facts. I therefore did not immediately challenge the observations made by the hon. member for St. John's West. But as soon as the hon. member for Mont-magny-L'Islet came back to the house I asked him about this matter, and yesterday in committee he asked the minister about it. Here is his question and here is the minister's answer as reported at page 3305 of Hansard. Here is the question of the hon. member for Montmagny-L'Islet.


An hon. Member:: Order.


John Whitney Pickersgill: I am reading for the benefit of the hon. gentleman:
I have two or three questions I should like to ask the minister at this stage. Would he tell us what he understands by the term "transmission lines"? Does he distinguish between transmission lines and distribution lines? Does he understand by "transmission line" one that goes from the power plant to the distribution stations and substations or between distribution stations and distribution substations but does not include the lines going from those distribution stations or substations to the domestic or industrial users?
This is the answer given by the minister;
My understanding of "transmission line" is exactly the same as that of the hon. member for
Atlantic Provinces Power Development Montmagny-L'Islet. It goes from one plant to another or from one plant to a substation and so on and does not include distribution lines.
What the hon. member for St. John's West was talking about were distribution lines, which do not come within the scope of this bill at all. Hence his statement that this bill would enable the government to do what he said they could do for the southern shore in his own constituency is in error. I assume that the hon. gentleman made that statement out of ignorance and without any intention of misleading. I think perhaps that is the most charitable assumption it is possible to make about his statement.
The fact is, Mr. Speaker, that even if these transmission lines were, as the hon. gentleman says, the real need of Newfoundland, this measure would do no good at the present time. Since the subject was last before the house I have taken the trouble to discuss this matter with several members of the provincial government, certain officials in Newfoundland, and others who are well acquainted with the power situation in Newfoundland; and I assert without fear of successful contradiction that there is no power available in Newfoundland at the present time that is not committed for consumption at the present time, and that there is in fact a very great power shortage.


William Joseph Browne: May I ask
the hon. member a question?


John Whitney Pickersgill: Yes.


William Joseph Browne: Does he know how many industrial plants started by the Liberal government in Newfoundland have been closed down? Who is using their power now?


John Whitney Pickersgill: I think I am probably as well informed on that subject as is the hon. gentleman. I would not think it would be very relevant to what we are discussing now.


William Joseph Browne: Why did you
make the assertion?


John Whitney Pickersgill: I am dealing with facts, not with hypotheses. The fact is this, and I repeat it; and I suggest that before the hon. gentleman challenges this statement he also get some facts for a change. There is a power shortage in every part of Newfoundland. Does the hon. gentleman think if there were enough hydro power to satisfy St. John's there would be in contemplation at the present time this extension to the thermal plant there? Is the company just doing it for the sake of having it there to look at? Or is it because there is a shortage of power which they want to satisfy?

Atlantic Provinces Power Development


William Joseph Browne: They are expecting a greater expansion of business under a Conservative government.


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh.


John Whitney Pickersgill: This, Mr. Speaker, from a member of the government that is boasting about the economic pause they have brought about in this country; and I refer to the year end statement of the Minister of Trade and Commerce. I think that economic pause is one of the things we are going to want to get rid of, and that the people of Canada are going to get rid of, along with the government that brought it with them.


Michael Starr: They got rid of it last June.


John Whitney Pickersgill: I can well understand why the hon. member for St. John's West wants to bring in these distractions. He does not want his constituents to find out that he was endeavouring to mislead them.


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh.


An hon. Member:: Shame.


Mr. Speaker:: I do not think the hon. member would like to let that statement stand.


John Whitney Pickersgill: I would not, Mr. Speaker; Your Honour is perfectly correct. I come back to what I said earlier. I do not think the hon. gentleman would want his constituents to find out that he did not know what this bill was all about. It seems to me that is abundantly clear from what I have already had to say on this subject.
Yesterday the minister boasted, in the usual empty fashion to which we are so accustomed, from the treasury benches, and to which we have been so accustomed since a certain event in December of 1956 when this country was endowed with a new political leader who believes that words are an effective substitute for action-


An hon. Member:: Look at the record.


John Whitney Pickersgill: I am willing to debate the record with the hon. gentlemen and debate it with them any time they want to do so, but I think Your Honour would not permit me to do it on the discussion of this bill.


Mr. Argue:: Why ask for help?


John Whitney Pickersgill: I do not want any help. Here is what the minister boasted, as reported at page 3307 of Hansard of yesterday:
X think this government has demonstrated its philosophy in listening-[DOT]
That is the first time I ever heard that listening was a philosophy; but as a matter of fact, Mr. Speaker, there does not seem to be any philosophy here.
-to the wishes of the provinces and in providing what they wanted.

What the government of Newfoundland wants is a small amendment to this bill so we can get something that will give us some cheap power. That is what we want. That is what the premier of Newfoundland asked for last December, and it would have cost this government nothing but perhaps a slight deflation of their pride to accept that request. It is certainly piling on the agony when, after deliberately turning down what was asked for by the provincial government and having the minister from the province say the bill would do something else that the government of the province does not want, the minister then gets to his feet and boasts that they are doing it. It seems to me that this is carrying things rather far.
I think the minister must have made a slip, as I think he will agree if he will look at page 3307 of Hansard. He explained why this bill was limited in the way it is. I think he must have made a slip when he said this:
We wished however to work with the governments of these two provinces of Newfoundland and Prince Edward Island in this instance and I think the desire was sincerely indicated and sincerely met.
I am going to be charitable with the Minister of Northern Affairs and National Resources and assume that there he meant New Brunswick and Nova Scotia; because there is certainly not the faintest evidence of any kind of any working with the governments of Prince Edward Island and Newfoundland. In fact the Prime Minister himself said there would be no truck or trade with those two island provinces unless they made requests, that the federal government did not intend to initiate anything there.


William Joseph Browne: I think the hon. member is being very unfair when he puts in that expression "there would be no truck or trade with those two provinces." That is an interpretation he is putting on which is not justified.


Mr. Speaker:: I would ask hon. members to make these corrections and comments at the end of the speech rather than during the course of it.


John Whitney Pickersgill: I thank Your Honour. I should be delighted to have the hon. member for St. John's West, the Minister without Portfolio, rise in his place and join with the Liberal members from Newfoundland in trying to get something for Newfoundland which he is doing his best in one way or another- or seems to be doing his best-to prevent us from getting, or at least to prevent us from asking for.


William Joseph Browne: What did you do about it when you were in office for four years? What did you do to help Newfoundland get electric power?


John Whitney Pickersgill: Well, Mr. Speaker, it
would take more than the 40 minutes which were at my disposal at the beginning of my speech to recount all those things to the hon. gentleman, but I would be happy to do so on another occasion, in the town of Bonavista or in any other place in my riding, if the hon. member knows where those places are.


Stanley Howard Knowles: Does the hon. member not realize that he is the first member speaking in reply to a minister who has moved a government order, and that that carries with it a certain awful right?


John Whitney Pickersgill: I defer to the hon. gentleman's superior knowledge of the rules. I thank him for his friendly interest, and I will relax and avail myself of that right; so hon. gentlemen opposite might just as well begin to possess their souls in patience.


Some hon. Members:: Relax.


John Whitney Pickersgill: And if any hon. member opposite wishes to interrupt me, so long as you permit it, sir, I shall be happy to listen to their interruptions.


Robert Hardy Small: We shall accept the invitation.


John Whitney Pickersgill: I am under no restriction whatsoever.


An hon. Member:: You are very modest.


John Whitney Pickersgill: Oh, yes, I am very modest.


Robert Hardy Small: You have a lot to be modest about.


John Whitney Pickersgill: I think that is the hon.
gentleman's first wisecrack in the house, and I give him full marks for it. I am now going to return the courtesy of the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre by quoting him from page 3307 of yesterday's Hansard. In a friendly fashion, which I appreciate as a fellow Winnipegger, the hon. member when I had to be elsewhere, as a friend-


An hon. Member:: A fellow traveller?


John Whitney Pickersgill: -not a political friend but a personal friend-I very much appreciate the fact that the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre put this question;
If the aim of the government was to put forward sincere plans meeting the desires of the province of Prince Edward Island and the province of Newfoundland, and in view of the minister's statement that the desire of the government was to meet the wishes of the provincial governments, how does he square that with the refusal of the government to meet Premier Smallwood's request that this bill be amended to provide for assistance in the case of hydroelectric projects?
Atlantic Provinces Power Development
I may say I am very glad that when I was not able to be here the hon. member was good enough to put that question, which I think I would have been the first to put had I been present. Here is the minister's answer;
Mr. Chairman, there is a misunderstanding of the grossest magnitude here. The statement that we have refused Premier Smallwood's request in one sense is true-
This is apparently really "higher philosophy".
-in one sense is true, in so far as a change in this bill to add the word "hydro" is concerned, hut it is certainly not true by any stretch of the imagination to claim that anything we have said or done could be understood to be a refusal of a request to help Newfoundland, either in respect of hydro plants or transmission lines and thermal plants under this particular bill.
I have read that over two or three times this morning and I still cannot find any meaning in it. It appears to be another example of the habit, which is apparently contagious among the few Tories from the province of Saskatchewan, of assuming that words have some connection with deeds. Now to continue the words of the hon. gentleman:
Because this is a matter of vital government policy-
Vital, I believe, means alive. If it is alive why cannot we be told about it? That is what we want to know; just what is this vital policy?
Because this is a matter of vital government policy expressing our point of view to the premier of the province of Newfoundland, a letter will be received soon by the provincial premier expressing our opinion on his wire.
I do not know, sir, whether that means a letter has already been sent. If so, it seems to me that statement constitutes one of the most shocking examples of contempt of parliament I have witnessed since I began looking at this parliament from the galleries 20 years ago. If that letter has been sent on a subject we have been debating in this house for the best part of a week and the hon. gentleman did not communicate its contents to the house, then I would say the rights of members of parliament and particularly those of the opposition are being treated in a fashion which, I believe, even the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre would agree never happened under the previous administration.


Stanley Howard Knowles: Don't go too far.


John Whitney Pickersgill: No; I was watching the hon. member's face and my own words very carefully. If this letter has been sent and the minister, in spite of having sent it,

Atlantic Provinces Power Development deliberately refuses-or I should not say deliberately, but he has refused tacitly-to explain his policy to us when we have been asking for it to be explained all along, then as I say that is a simply shocking example of contempt of the rights of parliament.
If, on the other hand, the letter has not been written but this vital policy has come alive-and that is what vital means-then why can we not see it? Are they so ashamed of the little worm that they do not want to expose it to the public gaze? It would appear that the government did not understand, and they did not bother to consult the minister from the province, in fact they have admitted they did not consult the minister from the province about this matter. They did not understand what the government in Newfoundland really wanted and then, having come in to this house without having acceded to the request of the government of Newfoundland, their pride would be hurt if they accepted a suggestion from this side of the house to improve this bill, thereby carrying out what they professed to be the object of the bill, namely to give equal benefits to all the Atlantic provinces.
There does not appear to me to be any reason why even at this late stage either the Minister of Northern Affairs and National Resources or the Minister without Portfolio- and I say this with regret, but it becomes increasingly clear why that hon. gentleman is Minister without Portfolio-could not get up, as a member of the government, and tell us what is going to be put in the letter to Mr. Smallwood in the event that they have some alternative way of satisfying the needs of Newfoundland which would be satisfactory to that province. However, I suppose this is one of the instances where in the words of their own slogan, they have to "follow John" and they do not know where he is going.


An hon. Member:: I like Mike.


John Whitney Pickersgill: So do I.


Mr. Murphy (Westmorland):: If you fellows brought George Drew back we would not have to worry at all.


John Whitney Pickersgill: I want to go back again to the speech made by the Minister without Portfolio and just say a little more about what he said about the needs of Newfoundland and how they were going to be met. I am quoting from the speech made the other day by the hon. member for St. John's West, at page 3262 of Hansard, where he was telling the house of the great benefits Newfoundland would derive from this legislation. This is the hon. member for St. John's West, the Minister without Portfolio, who does not

seem to like what I have to say or to want to listen to it. I can assure the minister that if he will speak in this debate I will sit here and listen to him.


An hon. Member:: It will be worth your while.


John Whitney Pickersgill: It has been worth my while up to now, because when the minister spoke the other day we found out what was really in his mind and how confused he was about this bill; how little he knew about it, and how obvious it was that he did not know what could and could not be done under the measure. Here is what he said:
It seems to me that the government of Newfoundland should now avail itself of the generous conditions offered under this legislation and ask the federal government to build these transmission lines.
He was referring, of course, to so-called transmission lines down to Trepassey on the southern shore, which on the minister's definition is not a transmission line at all but a distribution line which does not come within the sphere of the bill, and which the minister would have to refuse when the hon. member for St. John's West presented a request to him, unless, of course, the government adopted some new policy and brought it in, with all the attendant delay that would be involved.
The Minister without Portfolio went on to say:
They would have 40 years in which to pay for them. No province, and certainly not Newfoundland, has such credit that it could get a loan at these terms, 4g per cent, the same rate at which the federal government borrows money. There is a tremendous advantage in part of my district being supplied that way.
What the advantage is, I wish the minister would come back and explain to the house; because in the first place the kind of line he envisages is not covered by the bill, as the minister sponsoring the bill has said, and in the second place even if it were covered by the bill there is no electric power to transmit. These are the "tremendous advantages" for the people of Trepassey, held out for them by the Minister without Portfolio the other day. Then he went on to say:
There are settlements around St. Mary's Bay which have no electricity at all.
St. Mary's Bay, I may say, is in the hon. gentleman's constituency. It is a part of Newfoundland which, I regret to say, I have not had the pleasure of visiting. But it is undoubtedly true that it is an area which is without any electricity at all. I continue to quote the Minister without Portfolio:
What is necessary is to bring transmission lines from the United Towns Electric power lines going

to Placentia from Whitboume and bring it down to Colinet and then across to the more populous parts around St. Mary's Bay.
That, of course, is perfectly correct geographically. That is where the distribution line would go if one were built and if there were any power to send over the line when it had been built. Then he went on:
Although there may be 15 or 20 settlements around St. Mary's Bay at the present time, none of them has electric light.
What the premier of Newfoundland wants is a small hydro plant in St. Mary's Bay so that power can be provided on the spot instead of being brought over an expensive distribution line running a long distance from a power plant which has no power to furnish. That is cold comfort. These are the lights the hon. member for St. Mary's West was offering his constituents in St. Mary's Bay.
When I said the other day it was widely rumoured in his constituency that the hon. gentleman, when he was home during the Christmas recess, had told his constituents that if the provincial government would apply for power for them the federal government would grant it, he did not deny that statement; he admitted it. They asked for bread and he offers them a transmission line over which there is no power to go. It may well be that his constituents in St. Mary's Bay will not forget this charity.
Mr. Speaker, the hon. gentleman then began to wander outside his own constituency to places in Newfoundland where he did not know the geography. He said:
The problem for the Newfoundland government or the Newfoundland power commission-I shall speak of that in a moment-is to weigh the cost of building power plants against the cost of extending transmission lines.
He means distribution lines, not transmission lines.
If they do build the power plants they still have to build transmission lines.
Again the hon. gentleman means distribution lines.
It seems to me, therefore, that the cheaper thing to do is to ask to have transmission lines built to carry the electricity from the high tension lines owned by United Towns Electric Company.
I suppose that would be best if you wanted to deprive some place in the constituency of the hon. member for Trinity-Conception of power in order to give it to people in the constituency of the hon. member for St. John's West, but I do not think that would be very popular in other parts of Newfoundland. I go on to quote the hon. member:
In that way electric light could be delivered, as I said, up to Trepassey and into St. Mary's Bay and into Placentia Bay; that is so far as the riding I represent is concerned.
96698-212J
Atlantic Provinces Power Development
Maybe it could be distributed in that way if there were any power to distribute, but there is no power available. It is the production of new power and additional power that is necessary, unless the government believes that the economic pace is going to become so slow that the demand for power will fall so rapidly that more power will not be needed until a Liberal government comes back and starts the economy progressing again. If that is the proper interpretation to be placed on the words of the Minister without Portfolio, maybe I would not quarrel with it too much. The hon. gentleman went on to say:
The same thing could be done in the constituencies of the hon. member for Trinity-Conception and the hon. member for Bonavista-Twiilingate.
Though he has lived in Newfoundland practically all his life I do not think the hon. member for St. John's West could teach me any lesson about the geography of the constituency of Bonavista-Twiilingate. I have visited every settlement in that constituency, however small, over and over again. I have flown over it back and forth; I have travelled on every mile of road in that constituency. I think I know every wharf in that constituency by heart, and I certainly know where the power plants are not; and that is the operative word in that constituency.
To suggest that you could build a transmission line from Lockston in Trinity bay all around through the national park" and up through Glovertown, Gambo, Hare bay and Dover and on up to Cape Freels and then presumably along the straight shore is so preposterous that I see the hon. member for St. John's East leaving the house.


Edmund Davie Fulton: A preposterous speech, too.


An hon. Member:: Everybody else is leaving.


John Whitney Pickersgill: I do not think it will bore the people in Newfoundland who want electric lights and who want power, and they are the people we are concerned about, not the amusement of the Minister of Justice.


An hon. Member:: You let them down for eight years.


John Whitney Pickersgill: If the hon. gentleman was paying attention to my speech, which he usually does, he would get a good deal of illumination which the government has demonstrated it badly needs, indeed, about this power problem in the province of Newfoundland.


Mr. Anderson:: You will see the light after the next election.
3350	HOUSE OF
Atlantic Provinces Power Development


John Whitney Pickersgill: Perhaps. I think, sir, there will be a lot of light seen after the next election, but I fancy it will not be the kind of light it is proper for me to be debating with the hon. member for Waterloo South, whose constituency I remember and whose face I can now no longer forget.
I asked the Minister without Portfolio where did he think the power would be derived from, for example, in the northern part of Bonavista bay, from which company or which plant, and he said, "We could get it from Lockston". Well, the power at Lock-ston is all overcommitted. What we need are more power plants in all that area of Newfoundland. To my knowledge the only one that is being developed at the present time is the one at Rattling Brook. I would be interested in the Minister without Portfolio telling us just how he would go about building a transmission line, or a distribution line, to New World island, to Twillingate-


William Joseph Browne: How would you put a power plant there?


John Whitney Pickersgill: There would be no difficulty whatsoever, sir. If the capital were available there would be no difficulty whatsoever in building small power plants in both those areas.


William Joseph Browne: On New
World island?


John Whitney Pickersgill: No. A power plant is going to be needed, and needed very badly, in Twillingate.


William Joseph Browne: How would you build a power plant on New World island?


John Whitney Pickersgill: I would not attempt, sir, to build a power plant on New World island. I do not pose as an expert in these matters, and I would leave that to those who are. It is possible that power for that area would have to be produced in part at certain seasons of the year from means other than hydro, because some of the streams are rather small a" mere would be some need of standby plants. That I would admit; but there are some streams on New World island which would be capable of producing a small amount of power if it could be produced cheaply enough. The real problem there, as elsewhere, is the problem of financing. But I ask the hon. member from what place would he build a transmission line to St. Anthony? Perhaps I should leave that subject-


William Joseph Browne: Incidentally, I think they have electricity, have they not?
(Mr. Anderson.]


John Whitney Pickersgill: I will leave that subject to my colleague the hon. member for Grand Falls-White Bay-Labrador, who is much more familiar with what goes on in St. Anthony than I am; but I was assured by a member of the government of Newfoundland two days ago that the power commission of Newfoundland, to which the hon. member referred, at the request of the government, had made a survey of the St. Anthony area and had a plan all ready for a hydroelectric development there, and that the only thing that was preventing that plan from being carried out was finance. That is precisely why I come back to it again.


William Joseph Browne: Why did the
Liberal government not give them the finances?


John Whitney Pickersgill: I will tell the hon. gentleman. It probably would not take the provincial government very long to do so if the Prime Minister and the Minister of Finance would carry out their undertaking to tell this house whether the Atlantic provinces grants are going to be made in the current fiscal year and how much they are going to be.
I cannot understand their refusal. The hon. gentleman knows perfectly well that the only reason the government is proposing these additional fiscal grants to the Atlantic provinces is that the Atlantic provinces have not enough revenue to do these things. That is what they are for. If the hon. gentleman is suggesting that the government of Newfoundland is in a financial position to embark on a hydro development program, with its present restricted budget, and that it does not need the help that the provinces of Nova Scotia and New Brunswick need, if that is his view I leave it to him. It is not mine.


William Joseph Browne: Why does the hon. member put it in that way? The hon. member is suggesting-


John Whitney Pickersgill: I wonder, sir, whether I have not the floor?


William Joseph Browne: The hon. member is asking a question, is he not? Does he not want an answer?


John Whitney Pickersgill: I am making my speech. If the hon. member is asking a question I shall be glad to answer it.


William Joseph Browne: I submit that the hon. gentleman on the other side of the house has been completely out of order all morning. He is debating second reading all over again.


John Whitney Pickersgill: I assume, sir, that the point of order is purely rhetorical, and I shall proceed to exercise my undoubted right, as

the first speaker in opposition to the government motion, to speak as long as I like.


Edmund Davie Fulton: On the point of order, Mr. Speaker, I wonder whether I might draw Your Honour's attention to this. It is true that the hon. member has the right to speak for more than 40 minutes; but I think I should perhaps suggest to Your Honour that you should remind the hon. gentleman that there is citation 246 in Beauchesne's Parliamentary Rules and Forms, third edition, which says that a member while speaking must not:
Use his right of speech for the purpose of obstructing business of the house.
The hon. gentleman indicated pretty clearly, when he was reminded of it by the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre, that that was exactly what he intended to do; and I suggest to you, sir, that he has in fact used his right of speech several times this morning for no other purpose than to obstruct the business of the house. I think the hon. gentleman should be reminded of that rule.


John Whitney Pickersgill: I would like to say a word on the point of order raised by the Minister of Justice. In doing so I want to congratulate the Minister of Justice on his honesty. The Minister of Justice is the only member of the government who is man enough-no, I make one other exception; I would except also the Minister of Labour-to admit that he may have been wrong when he was on this side of the house, and man enough to change his views when he has responsibility. I intended to say that later today. I have a great admiration for the Minister of Justice. The minister is the kind of man whose abilities are such that I would be happy to see him in a Liberal government if he had slightly different ideas, and I can pay him no higher compliment than that, though he may not consider it a compliment.
As for the Minister of Labour, I would take him even with his ideas because I think he is just a displaced Liberal.


Michael Starr: I object to that, Mr. Speaker.


John Whitney Pickersgill: The fact that he has a sense of humour, sir, is additional evidence on my side.
Now, sir, if I may come back to the point of order raised by the hon. gentleman, I would like to say that I have a number of points that I wanted to make in a good deal of detail this morning and I had thought erroneously I was restricted to 40 minutes. I was attempting, under great pressure and under some provocation, to constrict and restrict my remarks so I would complete my
Atlantic Provinces Power Development speech within the 40 minutes; but since I was reminded of my undoubted right I am still doing what I intended to do from the start.


Edmund Davie Fulton: Obstruct the house.


John Whitney Pickersgill: And that is to make, in the most effective way of which I am capable a case for extending this bill in fact as well as in theory to all four Atlantic provinces; and to do so, sir, it is surely essential to point out that it is not in any way effective for that purpose as it stands at the present time.
If I may recapitulate the main points in order to convince the Minister of Justice, whose attention I am glad to have, that I am strictly within the rules, I would say in the first place that the bill does not give the government of Newfoundland what it asked for. In spite of the fact that the minister claimed yesterday when I was not in the house that all the government was doing was trying to accede to the wishes of the provinces, the only request made by the government of Newfoundland has in one sense been turned down. The minister did not tell us in what sense it had not been turned down, but he said that in one sense it had been turned down.
In the second place his colleague the Minister without Portfolio justified turning it down on the ground that Newfoundland did not need any more power, that all it needed was transmission lines.


William Joseph Browne: On a point of personal explanation, may I remind the hon. member that I did point out that in accordance with the statement of the Prime Minister on November 14, if the government of the province of Newfoundland brought forward a proposal similar to Beechwood it would receive the consideration it deserved.


John Whitney Pickersgill: Well, sir, whenever I attempt to raise the subject of Beechwood it is suggested that I am out of order. If Your Honour would permit the debate to be extended to that point perhaps that would settle the whole matter very quickly. If the Minister without Portfolio would only get up and tell us what that answer of the Prime Minister means, what kind of proposition is similar to Beechwood, what is an equally good case, it might mean that the argument for doing something for hydro plants under this bill would fall to the ground.
The Minister of Finance sat in the most extraordinary silence for that loquacious minister all through the debate on Beechwood. He refused to answer any of our questions. In no way has it been possible to get the faintest glimmer of light, the
3352	HOUSE OF
Atlantic Provinces Power Development faintest vestige of light, electric or otherwise, as to what an equally good case to Beechwood would be. We have been told certain things that it would not be. We have been told that if it were a private company applying for aid it would not get it, that if the purpose were to refund in order to reduce the cost of power to the poor people of Newfoundland the government would not consider it.
Therefore I drew the conclusion that it must be a new project; yet when we try hard to get the government to do something, to give us the new projects, they just say no. They say they are writing a letter, have written a letter, or are about to write a letter to the premier of Newfoundland telling him why they will not do it, but they will not tell us why. That is the situation with which we are faced, and it does seem to me that if I were to pursue my argument very much further I might be in danger of repeating myself.
Som


a hon. Members:: Oh, oh.


John Whitney Pickersgill: I would not wish to offend against the rule forbidding repetition, because I endured so much of it when I sat where the hon. gentlemen on the treasury benches are sitting now.


An hon. Member:: Another commercial.


John Whitney Pickersgill: I am not a vindictive type, I am not a revengeful type; I do not want to inflict upon them the horrors they used to inflict upon us. I do not want to obstruct the business of the house. I do not want to delay the passage of the bill.


An hon. Member:: What are you doing now?


John Whitney Pickersgill: What I am doing now is simply appealing to the government-


An hon. Member:: "Simple" is right.


John Whitney Pickersgill: -to do in fact what they pretend to be doing in this bill. I am appealing to them to send it back to the committee, to make an amendment in the committee, to take out the words relating to thermal power or to put in words relating to hydro, so the people of Newfoundland can get some real benefit out of this legislation as well as the people in the maritime provinces. I am making that appeal in as forceful a way as I know how.


Mr. Campbell (The Batilefords):: Will the hon. member permit a question? Did he ever lead a horse to water?


John Whitney Pickersgill: Well, sir, as the hon. member for The Battlefords well knows, I have had a lot of experience in that regard. I was brought up on a farm in northern Manitoba. My father gave me a horse to ride to school
TMr. Pickersgill. 1

when I was seven years old. I have a lot of experience with balky horses, but I never saw a horse so balky as the one over there now.
It is not horses we want; it is horsepower. It is horsepower that the government is refusing to the people of Newfoundland. To build transmission or distribution lines to carry power to places when there is no power to distribute is not going to help Newfoundland very much, even if the Minister without Portfolio thinks it would. The provision of more horsepower would help them a great deal. It would transform the life of the settlements on the northeast coast. I daresay it would transform the life of St. Mary's Bay, Trepassey and the settlements in the hon. gentleman's riding.
I would be very glad to see that happen, because the more light they have in that riding the more likely they are to return a Liberal member at the next election. I say, sir, that it would transform life in the out-ports. Next to roads there is nothing the people in my constituency want so much as electric power.


An hon. Member:: Oh, oh.


John Whitney Pickersgill: Perhaps the hon. gentleman, who is going to have a pretty rough time in his own riding at the next election, would prefer to contest mine against me. I would not be worried.


Donald MacInnis: Is Manitoba where you are going to run?


John Whitney Pickersgill: No, but I have a pretty fair idea where this government is going to run. As far as I am concerned I do not intend to run anywhere. I intend to stand in exactly the same place I have stood before, and to stand with confidence. My attempts to be relevant, Mr. Speaker, to be strictly in order to oblige the Minister of Justice, are constantly frustrated by his political friends.


Stanley Howard Knowles: You
frustrate easily.


John Whitney Pickersgill: The hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre suggests that I frustrate easily. If that were really true, sir, I would long ago have been dead.


Mr. McCleave:: Perhaps you are.


John Whitney Pickersgill: Well, sir, the hon. member for Halifax says perhaps I am dead. What I do say, sir, is that many of the people in the outports of Newfoundland are going to be dead before they get any electric power if this government stays in office-


George Clyde Nowlan: What about your government?


John Whitney Pickersgill: -and only brings in this kind of legislation. We on this side of the house are doing our utmost to reach them. Perhaps we are making a mistake in doing so. Perhaps we should let them blunder into this thing. Perhaps we should let them go ahead and pass the bill in its present form and then take it to the voters. But we are trying to be fair with the government; we are trying to give them some chance to make some kind of appeal in Newfoundland by doing something that will be of some real help to the people of Newfoundland.
But what do they do? The Minister without Portfolio does his best to prevent that being done. He does his best to give the impression that the bill is all right as it is, and that it will satisfy the needs of his constituents. I think, sir, unless the needs of his constituents are satisfied, and relatively soon, the hon. member is very apt to be somewhat disillusioned on some future occasion.
Now sir, I intend to conclude by appealing once more to the Minister of Northern Affairs and National Resources, to the Minister without Portfolio, to the Minister of National Revenue, who represents one province that will benefit by this good Liberal legislation-


George Clyde Nowlan: It is good Conservative
legislation.


John Whitney Pickersgill: -and to the members of the government generally, and to the hon. member for St. John's East who used to be very persuasive before June 10 but who has been rather more evasive than persuasive since. I appeal to the generosity of all hon. members-there are a few of them on the other side of the house from the Atlantic provinces-to join with us from the Atlantic provinces on this side of the house to make this bill applicable to all the Atlantic provinces and not just three out of the four.


Mr. T. G. W. Ashbourne (Grand Falls-While Bay-Labrador):: Mr. Speaker, I rise not to oppose the third reading of the bill but to go on record as stating that in my opinion the value of this bill for Newfoundland would be vastly increased if provision had been made in it for the inclusion of hydroelectric developments. It well may be that as the result of future research and development the day will come when the cheapest way of developing electrical power will be by the use of atomic energy. It is most important for Newfoundland that the cheapest possible power be made available. At the moment we have a great lack of atomic energy, but we have a surplus of water power which could be utilized for the development of hydroelectric power.
Atlantic Provinces Power Development
There are places in my riding where electricity is developed, some by hydro such as at Bishop's falls where the electricity used by the great Anglo-Newfoundland Development Company in their paper mill at Grand Falls is generated. Many people in Newfoundland have to depend on small motors to develop sufficient electricity for home use. These motors are run either by gasoline, which is quite expensive, or by diesel fuel oil. We are all aware of the great benefit to be derived from electrical power, and how it raises the standard of living. We are aware also of how electrical power enables industries to operate.
I believe provision should have been made in this bill so that sufficient capital could have been made available to those companies which wished to develop hydroelectric power. In Newfoundland and Labrador we have a great number of lakes, powerful rivers and waterfalls, the waters of which could be utilized for generating electrical energy. In the past the main obstacle in the way of this development has been a lack of capital to provide the necessary generating stations, transmission and distribution lines. I regret very much that the bill has not been amended to include a provision covering the generation of electrical power by means of water power.
I should like to support the suggestion which has been made by the hon. member for Bonavista-Twillingate that the matter be given further consideration by the minister and the government in order to see whether or not the bill could be amended so the people of Newfoundland could derive some benefits from it. There are places in Newfoundland where the people have to light their homes with kerosene lamps. Those of us who are aware of the benefits of electric light know what a great disadvantage that is. Today the people are looking for more electrical power so they can use this great source of energy in order to raise their standard of living.
All the coal we use in Newfoundland has to be brought in by ship from Nova Scotia, the United States of America, and in some cases from Wales. We know this measure provides one way in which the great benefits to be derived from electrical energy could be distributed to the people who would benefit in a real way. We want the cheapest power that can be provided in order that we may survive. I trust, Mr. Speaker, that consideration will be given to amending this bill.


Stanley Howard Knowles: May
I call it one o'clock, Mr. Speaker.
At one o'clock the house took recess.
3354	HOUSE OF
Atlantic Provinces Power Development AFTER RECESS
The house resumed at 2.30 p.m.


Stanley Howard Knowles: Mr. Speaker, one of the interesting sidelights of the speech that was delivered this morning by the hon. member for Bona-vista-Twillingate (Mr. Pickersgill) was the mix-up in political philosophies that seemed to develop during the course of that speech. I may be wrong but I always thought that Liberals were a little bit closer to the concept of public ownership than were Tories. But this morning the hon. member for Bona-vista-Twillingate was complaining because the Tories have before the house legislation which in his opinion favours public ownership as against private ownership.


John Whitney Pickersgill: Perhaps the hon. gentleman, would permit me to say a word.


Stanley Howard Knowles: Do
not mix it up any more.


John Whitney Pickersgill: May I say that I was not complaining because it was one as opposed to the other. I was complaining because, unlike ours, it did not include both.


Stanley Howard Knowles: In
other words, the hon. member was complaining that the Tories went too far in the direction of public ownership.


John Whitney Pickersgill: I did claim that we are not the socialists.


Stanley Howard Knowles: The
Minister of Justice felt it necessary to reply. He could not sit there and hear his party being accused of being exclusively a public ownership party. His reply to the hon. member for Bonavista-Twillingate was that last spring, when there were discussions regarding the development of power in British Columbia, the federal government took the position that any such development would have to be on the basis of public ownership if there was to be federal assistance.
I remember very distinctly some of the things that transpired in British Columbia during the election campaign prior to June 10 of last year. As a matter of fact, I was in British Columbia taking part in that same campaign myself helping, by the way, to elect as many C.C.F. members as any other party elected in British Columbia, indeed five more than the Liberals got. I remember that the former minister of trade and commerce and the former minister of fisheries were both in the province at the same time and that both made comments on the development of power on the Columbia river. The former minister of fisheries, the hon. member for Coast-Capilano (Mr. Sinclair), said that so far as the Liberals were concerned, they would
[Mr. Knowles (Winnipeg North Centre) .1

give assistance only if it were on the basis of public ownership and public development. The former minister of trade and commerce, Mr. Howe, came along and was shown in the press what the hon. member for Coast-Capi-lano had said. What was his reply? His reply was, "Jimmy went too far". As far as he was concerned, federal assistance would be available to private development as well as to public development.
I therefore suggest that the two old parties are rather mixed up so far as their attitude is concerned toward private or public development of power. I suppose, Mr. Speaker, that these bits of confusion as to political philosophy are understandable this week in view of some things that are going on in other parts of this city.
However, I wanted to say a few words with regard to this bill, now that debate has been opened up on third reading. We have made it clear several times that we support the government's desire to render assistance to the economy of the Atlantic provinces and on that basis we shall vote for this bill. We have also made it clear that in our view it would have been better to present to parliament legislation either by way of amendment to the Northern Canada Power Commission Act or by way of some other bill that would make for a national policy in terms of power development and would make possible assistance to power projects of any kind. Our main complaint against this bill is that it is too narrow in that it provides assistance to only four of the provinces of Canada and that it provides assistance only in respect of thermal projects. However, that point has been passed.
We are now left with a bill which, as the minister puts it, is an Atlantic provinces bill by design and by desire of the government. Hence from here on any remarks that I make are based on the government's own premise, namely that what we are now dealing with is not the question of whether we should have a national policy but simply the question of an appropriate bill to assist the Atlantic provinces. We insist, as we have on other occasions, that there are four Atlantic provinces and that, on the very premise upon which the government is operating at the present time, this bill falls short of its title and falls short of its purpose as it is spelled out in the explanatory note which is appended to the bill. That note reads as follows:
The purpose of this bill is to assist in making available in the Atlantic provinces electric power for industrial purposes in a suitable quantity and at lower cost.
That note suggests that the assistance is to be available to all of the Atlantic provinces

and there is in the note no suggestion that there is any limitation as to the kind of power envisaged. It has been made demonstrably clear that this bill, in the terms in which it is drawn, makes available assistance to only two of the four Atlantic provinces. Prince Edward Island has not figured too largely in the discussions in the house thus far but Newfoundland has figured in our discussions quite prominently.


Francis Alvin George Hamilton: I should like to point out to the hon. member that the Prince Edward Island premier has said that he is going to be asking for assistance.


Stanley Howard Knowles: appreciate that fact. What I said was that Prince Edward Island had not figured too largely in the discussions in this house, that most of the discussions in this house have related either to what is being done for New Brunswick and Nova Scotia or to what is not being done for Newfoundland. However, I accept the correction of the minister in that it is true that there is discussion between the government and the premier of Prince Edward Island, and we hope that in due course the advantages of government policy in this field will be extended to all four of the Atlantic provinces.
The case of Newfoundland is fairly clear. The premier has indicated that he would like to have an amendment to this bill so that it would provide for assistance to power projects of any kind, including the only kind that are feasible and of any help to the situation in the province of Newfoundland. Let me go a step further and treat the minister on the best terms possible. I may say to him that I accept at full value his statement to me the other day that if there is a request from the premier and government of Newfoundland for assistance in connection with a hydroelectric project that request will be given consideration. As reported at page 3308 of Hansard for January 14, I asked the minister this question:
Do I take it from that that the federal government is going to make an offer to Newfoundland to help that province with its hydro projects?
The minister replied as follows:
We have received no specific request from Newfoundland. As I have mentioned, there was a request to alter the bill to which I have prepared an answer, and it will be submitted formally because this is a matter of wider government policy, in the form of a letter to the premier of that province expressing our point of view in this matter.
Then there follows this paragraph:
The situation therefore stands as follows:
I may say that this is the minister speaking.
3355
Atlantic Provinces Power Development
If they put forward a specific proposal either on hydro, transmission lines or thermal plants, it will be considered in the light of the criteria set forth in this bill and in respect of the Beech wood project.
I pursued the matter with another question:
Mr. Chairman, if such a proposal is made-and I am not the one to judge whether such a proposal has not already been made by Premier Smallwood, although I understood this had been done-and if the government decides to agree to it, will it then have to amend this legislation? If so, why not amend it now and provide for the wider basis?
This is the reply of the minister:
If it is a question of a transmission line or thermal plant it comes under this legislation.
That is quite clear. We are in complete agreement in our understanding of the situation up to that point, but I like the next sentence and I give the Minister of Northern Affairs and National Resources full credit for it:
If it is a matter of a hydro project, a special bill will be brought in, or I imagine that is the way it would be handled.
The rest of that paragraph relates to the fact that possibly such a request from Newfoundland could be handled under the Northern Canadian Power Commission Act, but the minister made it clear that the government would rather not use that act for this purpose since it was set up mainly to deal with power development in the northern parts of the country.
Therefore in the sentence I have just read there is a clear-cut promise by the minister on behalf of the government that if Newfoundland requests assistance for a hydro project a special bill will be brought in. That is clear-cut, that is definite and I am sure the premier and the people of Newfoundland will be glad to know it. Furthermore I give the minister full credit for making such a favourable reply and for making it in such categorical terms, but it is precisely because the minister is so definite in respect to the willingness of the government to assist Newfoundland in connection with a hydro project that we made the point that it would be the course of common sense to amend the present bill so that such a request could be made without another bill having to be brought in.
All that needs to be done to the present bill in order to meet such a request from the premier of Newfoundland would be to take the words "by steam driven generators" out of line 16 on page 1 of the bill. There is perhaps one other change which might be considered if Newfoundland were to request assistance in the construction of distribution lines as well as transmission lines and it would simply mean that where the words now read:
Facilities for the control and transmission of electric energy.
3356	HOUSE OF
Atlantic Provinces Power Development
They might be changed to read as follows:
Facilities for the control, transmission and distribution of electric energy.
Mr. Speaker, if these two changes were made they would not detract by one iota from the promises made to New Brunswick and to Nova Scotia, but they would widen the terms of the bill so that the government would be in a position to meet a request from Newfoundland for assistance in hydroelectric projects or assistance in the construction of distribution lines which the minister, speaking as a responsible member of the government, has said this government is prepared to meet if such a request comes from the premier or the government of the province of Newfoundland.
Therefore we urge, even at this late stage in the progress of this bill, that the government give consideration to making such an amendment.
I want to say to my hon. friend and fellow Winnipegger, the member for Bonavista-Twil-lingate-and I appreciate his reference to me this morning as a fellow Winnipegger-that if I were a member for a Newfoundland constituency, as he is, I think I would have done something other than speak for a full hour today and let it go at that. He had the right this morning to speak without time limit and he almost did it.


Donald Methuen Fleming: He did. He took an hour and a half.


Stanley Howard Knowles: But
he also had another right of which he did not avail himself and I remind him of this now because there are other Newfoundland members in the house and I gather one or two of them may yet be speaking in this debate and perhaps they can do what he failed to do.
Actually if the members from Newfoundland, want, in the words of the hon. member for Bonavista-Twillingate, to do the most effective thing they can do to extend this bill to all four of the Atlantic provinces, they should be moving an amendment. It is a very simple one and if they would like it I will draft it for them. I do not want to take this away from them because after all I still live in Winnipeg, but my friend of the old days in the United College has gone down to our tenth province-


An hon. Member:: He has gone down.


Stanley Howard Knowles: -and it seems to me that if any amendment with regard to this matter is going to be moved he or one of his colleagues from the province of Newfoundland should move it. I will tell him what the words are and he can take them down and perhaps the member for Burin-Burgeo (Mr. Carter) or the


member for Trinity-Conception (Mr. Stick) or the member for Humber-St. George's (Mr. Batten) or even the member for St. John's West (Mr. Browne)-


John Whitney Pickersgill: Or St. John's East (Mr. McGrath).


Stanley Howard Knowles: Yes
-may wish to move it and I will give it to them without any copyright or any charge whatsoever.
In other words, the member for Bonavista-Twillingate could, if he had really wanted to take some action on this instead of merely speaking for an hour, have simply stood up and moved that Bill No. 244 be not now read a third time but that it be referred back to the committee of the whole house for the purpose of re-considering the provisions of clause 2 (d) and clause 3 (1) thereof.
I remind my hon. friend that if he was reluctant to move such an amendment because he was afraid it would be regarded as a motion of want of confidence in the government-I do not know why he would be reluctant to do that-but just in case that was the reason, that he wanted to speak at length-


Mr. Hamilton (York West):: A very appropriate day.


Stanley Howard Knowles: -rather than move an amendment, may I remind him that this question was answered last night. I drew the attention of the Minister of Finance (Mr. Fleming) to the fact that a companion bill to this one-the Beechwood bill-ran into a procedural vote over in the other place and, believe it or not, the Liberals stood up and voted, defeating the Tories on this matter in the Senate. I asked the Minister of Finance if that was a defeat of the government and he said "No", that it was only a procedural matter over in the other place.
That makes it pretty clear that if all we had now was a procedural proposal to refer this bill back to committee to reconsider the clauses in which power projects are defined it would not be a vote of non-confidence in the government. In fact Newfoundland members on the Conservative side of the house could vote for it and that would give us the chance of making this bill what the title says it is supposed to be, the Atlantic Provinces Power Development Act.
I will give the amendment free of charge to any Newfoundlander, Liberal or Tory, who wants to move it on behalf of his province. I think the right thing to do is to appeal to the government even yet to take this bill back into committee and to strike out the words "by steam driven generators" so that

this bill will in tact as well as in name be a basis of providing assistance to the economy of all four of the Atlantic provinces of this country.


Mr. C. W. Carter (Burin-Burgeo):: Mr. Speaker,-


Stanley Howard Knowles: Do
you not want this amendment?


An hon. Member:: Go on take it.


Chesley William Carter: I am not sure that any decision arrived at in the other place would be regarded as a precedent for this chamber, and in any case I think the hon) member for Winnipeg North Centre (Mr. Knowles) would agree we did move an amendment to this legislation, and that we did not have much success with it.


Stanley Howard Knowles: Yours was out of order.


John Whitney Pickersgill: The hon. gentleman did not think so.


Stanley Howard Knowles: The
chairman did.


Chesley William Carter: The hon. gentleman maintained that the amendment we moved was in order. We on this side of the house have established a reputation of abiding by the rulings of the chair.


An hon. Member:: Since when?


Chesley William Carter: I think the government now realizes that they made a mistake when they introduced this legislation as part of a national policy. As the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre pointed out, not only is it not a national policy but it does not even represent a policy for the Atlantic provinces. What this legislation is, is special legislation for two maritime provinces. The Minister of Northern Affairs and National Resources (Mr. Hamilton) let the cat out of the bag when he spoke yesterday as reported on page 3320 of Hansard and said:
I think I have made it clear once or twice before but in so far as hydro plants in Nova Scotia and New Brunswick are concerned-I am speaking of one in particular-it was at the insistence of the premiers of these provinces that these hydro projects were kept out of this bill. This matter was discussed between the two premiers and myself. Possibly X would have advanced the same argument as my hon. [DOT] friend had it not been for the insistence of the two premiers.
I think that proves conclusively that this legislation was never intended to be part of a national policy, and was never intended to benefit any of the maritime provinces except the two provinces to which the minister referred when he made that statement. If the government had wanted to bring in a national policy, the proper method of doing 96698-213J
Atlantic Provinces Power Development it would have been, as the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre has so clearly stated, to have moved an amendment to existing legislation which is already on the statute books and which would require only a simple amendment to permit agreements with the provinces concerned. The minister has admitted that a separate bill must be brought in in respect of every province that wishes to make an agreement, under the present arrangements, and surely it is not good legislation to be cluttering up the statute books with eight, nine or ten bills when a simple amendment to an existing one would be sufficient.
We have been told by the minister and also by the hon. member for St. John's West (Mr. Browne) that the most Newfoundland can expect to get from this legislation is assistance in the construction of transmission lines, and from an earlier statement the minister made on second reading, and which he repeated on the resolution stage, this is something he envisages might take place at some time in the far distant future. The terms of the bill do look far into the future, because I see it sets a period of 30 years and sometimes 40 years for the repayment of funds under this act.


Francis Alvin George Hamilton: I wonder if the hon. member would permit a question? Am I to assume that he is saying we are not willing to help the thermal plant at St. John's.


Chesley William Carter: It is not at all clear what assistance the thermal plant at St. John's could get from this measure because that plant is privately owned, as I understand it, and I notice that last night, in reply to a question which the hon. member for Mont-magny-L'Islet (Mr. Lesage) asked at my request, the minister was very vague as to the basis on which any subvention would be paid on coal consumed in thermal plants in Newfoundland. The question of water transportation charges was also brought up and the minister carefully avoided it on the grounds that it was a hypothetical question and, also, when he was asked on what basis cost would be equalized-whether the cost of coal used in thermal plants in Newfoundland would be equalized with the cost of coal in a similar plant in New Brunswick-the minister again gave an evasive answer.
So we are still waiting for the minister to tell us what assistance we can hope to get from this act, other than assistance in the construction of transmission lines. Even this is something that is envisaged only in the dim and distant future. If we are going to look into the future, I think we should take into consideration the statement made
3358	HOUSE OF
Atlantic Provinces Power Development by the hon. member for Vancouver East (Mr. Winch) on January 9, as reported on page 3100 of Hansard. The hon. member for Vancouver East, who is something of an authority on matters of this kind because he is an electrician by trade, told us that the methods of transmission of electricity are undergoing very rapid change. He said, and I am quoting now from page 3100:
In electricity, today is not yesterday. Today not only are we changing from copper to aluminum above ground but the same thing applies to undersea cables. In the past they were seventy-two thousand volts and 220,000 volts but now they are 750,000 volts, and this has changed the complete idea of the distribution of electricity. Therefore, it might be better to produce electricity 750 miles away and distribute it.
Thus, at the rapid rate at which technological progress is taking place, I think that before 30 years are over it is safe to assume that not even this kind of cable will be in use but that, possibly, electricity will be transmitted from some huge generator such as might be located on the Grand falls of the Hamilton river in Labrador and transmitted from there, possibly by radiation. Would it be wise for any private company to commit itself to huge expenditures on transmission lines which might become obsolete before they could become fully amortized?
On second reading I pointed out that this bill could have a serious effect on the fishing industry in my province and particularly on the processing phase of that industry. 1 pointed out that efforts were being made to develop our salt fish and our fresh fish industry in Newfoundland in order to provide employment for our increasing population. I pointed out also that we were in direct competition with plants producing a similar product in Nova Scotia, and that Nova Scotia already enjoyed certain advantages with regard to transportation and amortization costs which are much lower than those we have to face in Newfoundland. These are two distinct advantages which Nova Scotia possesses over Newfoundland. Now the federal government by means of this legislation is making a direct intervention in private enterprise, and is providing assistance to fish processors on the mainland which it is denying to similar processors in Newfoundland. That could have two effects, and neither of them would be very satisfactory.
One effect could be to put the fish processing plant in such a position that it could stay in business and compete with Nova Scotia plants only by lowering the price paid to our fishermen for their fish, and goodness knows that price is already too low, and far below a subsistence level. The other effect could be even worse, because it could put our


Newfoundland plants out of business altogether and that would mean that Newfoundland fishermen would be condemned by this legislation to be hewers of wood and drawers of water for fish plants in Nova Scotia.


Mr.  A. W. Siuarl@Charloite: Mr. Speaker, I hope my remarks on third reading of this bill will be brief. Yesterday in my absence certain statements were put on the record by the Minister of Northern Affairs and National Resources (Mr. Hamilton) and by the Minister of Veterans Affairs (Mr. Brooks), to which I should like to reply briefly.
The one point I hope to be able to make is this. It would appear to me that there has been an effort in this house to try to convince members on this side and the citizens of New Brunswick that what is before the house now, and the bill that was passed a few days ago, mean cheap power for the province of New Brunswick. I believe we must all agree that the project with which we dealt the other day, and this project, do not mean cheap power to the province of New Brunswick. We must recognize that fact. In speaking yesterday the Minister of Veterans Affairs had this to-say, as reported at page 3301 of Hansard:
The reasons given for this discrepancy were the fact that the maritimes lacked industry and that our transportation system worked to the detriment of the development of those provinces. Many reports have been made on this subject including the Duncan report and more recent ones which indicated two important reasons for the failure of the maritime provinces to keep abreast of the development in the other provinces. The first reason was the lack of cheap power to develop industries and the second was the high cost of transportation in the maritime provinces.
The minister did not say there that this is cheap power but implied that this development in New Brunswick means cheap power. I can go back to the submission which was made to the government in 1956, in which it very plainly points out that
50,000	kilowatt thermal plants in New Brunswick, burning bunker oil can develop power for exactly the same price as it is estimated the Beechwood power will cost. It certainly is not cheap power, and I feel the people of the province should know that it is not cheap power, because when this program has been completed and put into operation in New Brunswick it will still not provide cheap power.
During his remarks yesterday the hon. member for Royal made another statement to which I wish to refer. He referred to me and he said, as reported at page 3302 of Hansard:
The other day the hon. member for Charlotte (Mr. Stuart) complained because Grand falls in New Brunswick was developing power for private concerns. I might point out to the house that in

Atlantic Provinces Power Development
Newfoundland about 95 per cent of the power produced is produced by private companies. Those private companies are willing to develop electric power from the rivers, and so on.
When I referred to the Grand falls project the other day, the hon. member for Royal interrupted me and said that my reference to Grand falls was not correct. My reference to Grand falls was to the effect that in 1925 the engineering work in connection with Grand falls had been completed; the storage rights had been obtained from the state of Maine and the province of Quebec. Tenders had been called to complete the power project. It was estimated at that time that it would cost $10 million and would provide
380,000	horsepower in the province of New Brunswick, much greater than any single development anywhere else in the maritime provinces. But when the provincial government changed in 1926-the Minister of Veterans Affairs was a member of the provincial legislature at that time-they decided not to go ahead with that project. It was sold to the Gatineau Power Company and the project was built and has been operated and maintained by the Gatineau Power Company ever since. I said the other day, and I repeat, that the development of electrical energy in my province was retarded for 10 or 15 years by the action of the provincial government of that day. That is why we are power-hungry to the extent that we are at the present time.
I do hope that my friends from Newfoundland will gain some consideration for the plea that they have put up in this house. I must agree that if the matter was reversed, if this assistance was to be provided for the province of Newfoundland and we in the province of New Brunswick were to be ignored, I would use exactly the same tactics in presenting my views to the House of Commons as have been used today by the members from Newfoundland. I believe they have every right to expect that any assistance that is provided for one of the Atlantic provinces should be provided for all four.
I just wish to mention an idea that I have thought a lot about recently and during this discussion. Someone asked a question this morning-I think it was of the hon. member for Bonavista-Twillingate (Mr. Pickersgill) who was speaking at the time-whether he thought thermal plants could be developed successfully in Newfoundland. I think that was a most reasonable question to ask. We all know that they just do not mine any coal in Newfoundland. They are in this position. If they were to develop thermal power, whatever fuel would be used would have to be taken there by water and in some instances at great distances.
A few years ago the federal government decided to go ahead with some experimenting in the development of power from atomic energy. After several months of consultation with the provinces, the province of Ontario agreed to go in with the federal government, together with the General Electric Company of Canada, to experiment with an atomic energy station here in Ontario. I believe that station has been in the process of building for about two years. I think it will be completed sometime next year. I would think that in Newfoundland there is a great possibility of carrying out such a development. We would get away from the transportation of fuel which costs an enormous amount to start with. If there is one place in Canada where atomic energy might be taken into consideration as a power development it is in the province of Newfoundland. I hope the government will give consideration to this, if they are able to obtain full information as to the progress made in the development here in Ontario and the prospects for the future.
I wanted to point these things out to the minister, to the house and to the people in my province to show that this development, or any other development that has been suggested in this house in the past six months, in no way will decrease the cost of electrical energy by one cent to the domestic users in the province of New Brunswick. Some sort of an arrangement or agreement may be worked out whereby industry might be able to get power at some reduction, but there is no indication on the part of the provincial government, when this program is completed, of a cut in the cost of electrical energy to the domestic users in my province.
Before I resume my seat I again wish to emphasize the fact that in no way will this plan-I endorse it; it is a help to my province-produce cheap power because cheap power just cannot be produced in this way. You cannot produce cheap power from coal; you cannot produce cheap power from oil. As far as the development of hydro power is concerned, in the submission made to the provincial government-I know the minister has a copy of it-the admission is made that in order to develop Beechwood, to borrow money at five per cent means energy at seven mills.
Right after that they say they can build
50,000	kilowatt thermal plants burning bunker oil and develop power for seven mills. So hydro power is no cheaper than thermal power, and in my estimation and I believe the estimation of most people in my province that this plan or any other plan we have
3360	HOUSE OF
Atlantic Provinces Power Development ever had under consideration will not produce cheap energy for the province of New Brunswick.


Mr.  H. M. Bailen@Humber-Sl. George's: Mr. Speaker, we have come to the final stage of this 'bill and in the final stage I must, as I did on the resolution stage and on second reading, make my plea to the minister to amend the bill so that the benefits which will accrue to the provinces of New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island and Nova Scotia will also accrue to the people of the province of Newfoundland. I say again, sir, as I have said on two previous occasions, that I am going to support the bill. To do otherwise would be to deny to New Brunswick, Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island the very advantages which I now seek for my own province.
In talking the way that Newfoundland members on this side of the house have talked, I do not want to leave the impression that there is very little electrical development in Newfoundland because such would not be the case. In the report of th dominion bureau of statistics for the month of August, 1957 figures are given as to the totals generated by the provinces for the month of August 1957. The total for Nova Scotia was approximately 120 million kilowatt hours, for New Brunswick 115 million kilowatt hours, for Prince Edward Island 5 million kilowatt hours and for Newfoundland 103 million kilowatt hours. We do have considerable electrical development in Newfoundland but not nearly enough to satisfy our needs.
As I have said before, our development in Newfoundland is specifically of the hydro type and we still have sufficient water power available there to supply Newfoundland with the electrical energy that it will need for some time to come. This cannot be said for the other three provinces. I have made some rough calculations from figures I have been able to obtain. It appears that of the amount of energy that has been developed over the last few years in the province of New Brunswick 60 per cent has been produced by thermal power and 40 per cent by hydro power. In the province of Nova Scotia 75 per cent has been produced by thermal power and 25 per cent by hydro power. In the province of Prince Edward Island not all but pretty nearly 100 per cent of the electricity used is produced by thermal plants. But in the province of Newfoundland over 92 per cent of the electrical energy used is produced by hydro developments.
In my own area of Humber-St. George's there is considerable development in the town of Deer Lake, 30 miles from the city of Corner Brook. We have there the great Bowater project which develops slightly over
[Mr. Stuart (Charlotte) .1

150,000	horsepower. This electrical energy is used by the great newsprint mills at Corner Brook, by other settlements in the vicinity and also by the mining town of Buchan's, but sufficient energy is not produced to be able to service those parts of my riding which are far south or far north of the central point where the electricity is produced. At St. George's there is another small plant which last year produced approximately 17 million kilowatt hours.
In the other stages of the debate I have not referred specifically very often to parts of my riding but on this occasion I will. I say to the minister that in Newfoundland we have always been hampered by two great problems. One is the problem of transportation and the other is the problem of electrical power. We have been able to do something about transportation and I think improvements are being made all the time. When a year ago the minister of finance of that time, Mr. Harris, spoke in his budget speech about what was going to be done for the maritime provinces with regard to electrical power I thought that here was a chance for my province to be able to find some remedy for a festering sore that has hampered it for years. We also hoped that when this bill was brought forward it would do something for the province of Newfoundland but I think that the wording of it discriminates against us and I do not see how we are going to receive any benefit from this legislation at all.
In the southern part of my riding, from the town of St. George's up to Cape Ray, all along the Codroy valley, we have a very large area, large for Newfoundland, of very fertile land, possibly the best farming land in the province of Newfoundland. Here we have a large number of farmers who are operating their farms without the use of electricity. We import into Newfoundland every year large quantities of farm produce which we could easily grow ourselves. The farming industry in western Newfoundland would receive a shot in the arm if we were able to provide these people with electrical power.
We can go down to the Codroy valley. Here in one of the most scenic spots in eastern Canada we would be able to develop one of the finest tourist industries. Yet here we are trying to struggle along without the benefits of electrical power.


William Joseph Browne: I wonder whether I could ask the hon. gentleman a question.


Mr. Batten:: Certainly.

Atlantic Provinces Power Development


William Joseph Browne: Is it not a
fact that the United Towns Electric Company generates and transmits electricity in the St. George's area?


Herman Maxwell Batten: I am referring to the area west of St. George's, between St. George's and Cape Ray in the Codroy valley. The company to which the hon. member refers does not transmit electricity in that area. In the last year or two it has serviced the area around Port au Port but west of St. George's it does not service the area. Those people are entirely without any service so far as electric power is concerned except what they can develop with their own small engines or in other ways. As I was saying, in the Codroy valley, one of the most scenic spots in eastern Canada where a fine tourist industry could be developed, the people are trying to struggle along without the advantages that would come to them if they had electric power.
On both sides of the great Codroy river there are many settlements that would benefit greatly if they were serviced with this form of energy. There are large tracts of good land. At Codroy harbour there is a fine fishing centre which we hope will some time be the centre of a fish plant and bait depot that will service the fishermen along the coast. I cannot see how all this is going to be done in an efficient manner without electrical power.
I could go on to bay of Islands, both on the north side and the south side, where there are some of the finest fishing settlements on the Atlantic seaboard. What advantages would come to these people if they could have the benefit of electrical power! I could go on to beautiful Bonne bay, a real tourist attraction. Here again these people are not serviced by electrical power.
I appeal again to the minister to reconsider the bill and to give the people who live in Newfoundland the same advantages as will be given to the people of New Brunswick, Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island. I am not going to move an amendment but I am going to appeal to the minister's good judgment. Let me close by saying that the bill as it now stands refers to thermal power and will be accepted by the people of New Brunswick, Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island, but I wonder how they would feel if instead of the word "thermal" the word "hydro" had been used in the bill? They would argue that because the word "hydro" was used those provinces could not get the best advantage out of the legislation because in order for them to have electrical power it must be produced by thermal plants. We are in exactly the same position. I would think if the legislation were rewritten and the word
"hydro" was used instead of "thermal it would pose a very serious problem to the provinces of New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island and Nova Scotia. I say, Mr. Speaker, that this bill as it reads now, containing only the word "thermal", imposes the same problem on the province of Newfoundland. Once again may I appeal to the minister and ask if he will reconsider the wording of this bill.


Mr. Louis Deniset (St. Boniface):: Mr. Speaker, I should like to take about five minutes to present some matters, and in doing so I shall stay within the scope of this bill. However, I understand that when a bill comes up for third reading an hon. member who is in favour of it make take that opportunity to make some recommendations to the government and that is what I propose to do. There are three reasons why I rise at this time. First, I should like to put on the record some remarks which appear in the speech from the throne. I should like to read a particular sentence which appears at page 6 of Hansard of October 14, 1957:
My ministers believe that a national development policy carried out in co-operation with the provinces, and in the territories, is needed to enable all regions of Canada to share in the benefits to be realized in developing the resources of this great nation.
My second reason for rising is that I wanted to make a special appeal at the resolution stage, and I was unable to be present. I want to thank my colleague, the hon. member for Bonavista-Twillingate (Mr. Pickers-gill) for having spoken on my behalf at that time.
My third reason for rising is that I should like to put on the record remarks made by Premier Campbell of Manitoba at the dominion-provincial conference held in Ottawa on November 25 and 26, 1957. I shall just quote two paragraphs:
One important remaining area where such a national development policy could be applied is in the electrical power field. In the entire southern half of our country a rapid growth in power requirements has almost exhausted nearby sources of hydroelectric power and is forcing many areas to consider a much greater use of thermal power. Yet the northern half of Canada still has very substantial hydroelectric power potentials. One has only to mention Mica creek, Frobisher and the Rocky mountain trench in British Columbia, the North Saskatchewan river in Alberta and Saskatchewan, the Nelson and Churchill rivers in Manitoba, the numerous streams running into Hudson's bay in Ontario and Quebec, and the Hamilton river in Labrador, to emphasize the truth of this statement.
The other paragraph which I should like to put on the record is as follows:
A number of these northern power sites involve very large expenditures in the construction of dams and other facilities, and consideration should
3362	HOUSE OF
Atlantic Provinces Power Development be given to the possibility of providing federal assistance for these very costly projects during the early load-building period. In this connection Manitoba has noted with interest the recent announcement concerning federal aid to the Beech-wood project in New Brunswick, the South Saskatchewan dam in Saskatchewan and also the statement of government policy regarding the Mica creek project in British Columbia. We assume that similar federal assistance will be available for projects under way or soon to be undertaken in Manitoba.
Those are all the remarks that I wanted to make, but I did want to have them on the record.


Mr. J. H. Harrison (Meadow Lake):: I have a few comments to make, but I shall be brief because I just wish to discuss the principle of this bill, and particularly the policy of the government as expressed in this particular bill. It would seem to me that the government is being true to its traditions in this particular bill by operating on a regional basis. Their outlook has always been regional and sectional, and possibly that is the reason why their support has been on that same basis over a period of years, until just recently when, as a result of a sufficient lapse of time, the people had forgotten these grand Tory policies.
I wonder if the minister will not tell us before the bill is passed, having some regard for those people who sent him here, that he is going to extend the same privileges to the people in Saskatchewan with regard to power as he is providing in this very narrow bill. In other words, I am asking the Conservative party if they will not extend their policy and put it on more of a national basis instead of a regional and sectional one.


Donald Methuen Fleming: I rise on a point of order, Mr. Speaker. We are now considering third reading of this bill. This is a bill dealing with the development of power in the Atlantic provinces. My hon. friend began by saying he was going to discuss the principle of the bill. The principle of the bill was approved by the house on second reading. He proceeds now to ask questions of the minister. He must realize that the proper time to put questions to the minister was at the committee stage. The bill was reported by the committee yesterday.
We are not dealing with a broad question of national policy, Mr. Speaker, as applied to the west. We are dealing with a particular bill, the principle of which has been approved already by the house on second reading. The bill has already been reported back to the house. In my respectful submission, speeches of this kind are entirely out of order at this stage.


John Whitney Pickersgill: May I say a word on the point of order? I should like to say that it


is quite evident that the Minister of Finance (Mr. Fleming) is anxious, at every stage of this bill, to prevent any debate which would make it possible to compare one project proposed by the government with another. There is an attempt by the Minister of Finance, in which I am glad to say the Minister of Northern Affairs and National Resources (Mr. Hamilton) has not joined, to gag the house. It does seem to me, sir-


Donald Methuen Fleming: Order.


John Whitney Pickersgill: I am speaking, sir, on a point of order.


Donald Methuen Fleming: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker-


Stanley Howard Knowles: There cannot be a point of order on a point of order.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: Order; perhaps the hon. member would permit me to settle the first point of order.


John Whitney Pickersgill: I had not concluded what I was going to say on the point of order.


Donald Methuen Fleming: Then stick to the point of order and stop the abuse.


John Whitney Pickersgill: If the hon. member who was allowed to proceed uninterrupted would allow me the same privilege, which he used to demand, even to the point of having flags in this house-


Thomas Miller Bell: We know your mentor is up in the gallery.


John Whitney Pickersgill: My honourable, loquacious and volcanic friend from Saint John-Albert (Mr. Bell) may just as well subside because none of his friends from New Brunswick are here to be impressed at the moment.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: I shall now settle the point of order. I would remind the hon. member that although the question on third reading of the bill is similar to that described in relation to second reading, debate is more restricted at the later stage, being limited to matters contained in the bill. I would ask the hon. member to come back to the subject matter.


John Hornby Harrison: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I am happy to have provoked this point of order, because I think it more or less broadens the points I wish to make. In any event, I have pretty well completed my remarks. I said I wanted to be brief. However I did want to make this point, and ask the government and the minister if they would not reconsider this bill because they do remind me of the old Bourbon kings of whom it was said that they had learned nothing and forgotten nothing.

Atlantic Provinces Power Development


George Clyde Nowlan: Before the motion is put I think perhaps a word or two should be said from this side of the house with respect to this matter. The Minister of Northern Affairs and National Resources (Mr. Hamilton), who is responsible for the bill, having moved the third reading this morning, is precluded from taking further part in the debate. Therefore, I want to speak for a moment or two.


John Whitney Pickersgill: If the hon. member would permit me to interrupt for a just a moment, I may say that so far as we are concerned we would be very happy to waive the rule and allow the Minister of Northern Affairs and National Resources (Mr. Hamilton) to speak if he wishes to do so.


Donald Methuen Fleming: We are not asking for any favours.


George Clyde Nowlan: I would think the hon. member from Newfoundland who spoke so long this morning, having taken up the whole morning, would now be glad to extend the courtesy to someone else if he were asked to do so. It has been a most unusual procedure that we have witnessed. This is third reading of a bill, and a very important one too, shall I say, to the Atlantic provinces, although apparently one of the provinces wants to disown it and refuses to recognize it because we are recognizing it. Whether it is an Atlantic provinces bill or a maritime provinces bill, it is one of the most important pieces of legislation to be considered at this parliament during this session. We have had the spectacle this morning, on a technical motion for third reading, of an organized filibuster by our friends on the other side of the house, interspersed with-


John Whitney Pickersgill: We have now seen
everything.


George Clyde Nowlan: Yes; you have seen everything.


Andrew Wesley Stuart: On a question of privilege, if I may be permitted to take one or two minutes to explain my position clearly. I have never filibustered at any time in the House of Commons. The only reason I rose in my place is this. The night before last we asked that this bill be deferred or held over until some further date. We were refused compliance with that request, and I am not complaining about that matter. However, it was necessary for me to be away from the house yesterday, or I felt that it was necessary. I was at the convention. When I came back this morning I read some of the statements that were made yesterday, and I think I had a perfect right to rise in my place and reply to some of the things that were said yesterday. I was not filibustering. I did not
intend to do so. I have nothing more to say on this bill. However, I believe that I had a perfect right to speak today inasmuch as I could not be here yesterday.


George Clyde Nowlan: Mr. Speaker, I gladly exonerate and exclude my friend the hon. member for Charlotte (Mr. Stuart) from any reference to filibustering because he spoke for only three or four minutes and he spoke only on references which had been made to himself yesterday.


John Whitney Pickersgill: Mr. Speaker, I am rising on a question of privilege.


George Clyde Nowlan: Now I am being filibustered. Who has the floor, Mr. Speaker?


John Whitney Pickersgill: I am rising on a question of privilege. The hon. gentleman suggested that, in exercising my undoubted right, as the first speaker for the official opposition to speak as long as I felt it was in the interests of the constituents whom I represent to speak, I was filibustering and that I was breaking the rules of the house. Surely this is a breach of privilege for one hon. member to impute to another hon. member any such motive. I am not thinskinned. I would not have objected in the least to the hon. gentleman's using that term in ordinary circumstances. But when it is recalled that in conformity with the Prime Minister's statement on the motion on Monday, when we in this party made a request to the government to have this legislation held over because so many of the Liberal members wished to be away yesterday, and that the Liberal members from Newfoundland in particular wished to speak at the committee stage of this bill, we were categorically refused that request by the leader of the house without his giving the slightest reason for doing so. It seems to me that it ill becomes the Minister of National Revenue (Mr. Nowlan), who was often accorded the courtesy in the previous parliament of having government business put over to suit his convenience and that of his colleagues when they were on this side of the house, to make any such imputation, and I would request the hon. gentleman to withdraw it.


George Clyde Nowlan: Mr. Speaker, I do not propose to withdraw that statement. I think it is within the rules of the house. Unless directed by the Chair to withdraw it, I will not do so. It is borne out by the statement just made by the hon. gentleman when he says he is now adopting retaliatory steps because of some request which was refused the day before yesterday.


John Whitney Pickersgill: Mr. Speaker, on another question of privilege-
3364	HOUSE OF
Atlantic Provinces Power Development


George Clyde Nowlan: He made that statement.


John Whitney Pickersgill: I rise on another question of privilege.


George Clyde Nowlan: Who has the floor, Mr. Speaker?


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: I think the hon. member has made his statement. I will now give the floor to the minister.


John Whitney Pickersgill: I am raising a question of privilege with reference to the word "retaliatory". I did not use the word and nothing I said suggested it. I said it was impossible or virtually impossible for me to be here yesterday and that I made this morning remarks that I would much prefer to have made at the committee stage when I could have questioned the minister and when he could have answered. I said I made those remarks in the only way allowed to me under the rules because the government denied me that opportunity by the way in which the business of the house was arranged. It seems to me that the word "filibuster" is unparliamentary and that the minister should withdraw it.


Donald Methuen Fleming: I should like to say a word, Mr. Speaker. If this is a question of privilege, I should like to say a word upon it.


John Whitney Pickersgill: The hon. gentleman has experience.


Donald Methuen Fleming: The house does not need to be reminded that throughout consideration of this bill and the one that preceded it the hon. member has in fact been conducting a filibuster at all times.


John Whitney Pickersgill: That is the expert speaking.


Donald Methuen Fleming: The word "filibuster" is quite parliamentary, Mr. Speaker. I may remind the hon. member, whose memory seems to be very short right now, that it is not three hours ago when the house rose at one o'clock that he strode across the floor of this chamber and in very challenging tones said to some of us who were sitting here, and I am quoting his exact words, "I am afraid your leader's discourtesy is not going to be very profitable in getting the business done, in refusing our request for the adjournment of the house today". Those were his words thrown to us in a very challenging tone. It is perfectly apparent, Mr. Speaker, that the hon. member has just been seeking to drag out this debate and to prevent the business of the house being done as it ought to be done and at the same time to deny and to delay to the Atlantic provinces the benefit of this legislation.


John Whitney Pickersgill: Mr. Speaker-


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: Order. I do not
consider the word "filibuster" unparliamentary and I now give the floor to the Minister of National Revenue.


John Whitney Pickersgill: I rise on a question of privilege.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: Order.


John Whitney Pickersgill: I rise on a question of privilege.


Donald Methuen Fleming: More filibuster.


John Whitney Pickersgill: Mr. Speaker, with respect to what was said by the Minister of Finance-


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: Order. I have given my ruling and I am now giving the floor to the Minister of National Revenue.


John Whitney Pickersgill: Do I understand Your Honour to rule that I am not allowed to raise a question of privilege with respect to what was said by the Minister of Finance (Mr. Fleming)?


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: Order. The Minister of National Revenue has the floor.


George Clyde Nowlan: Having had that delightful excursion into histrionics, Mr. Speaker, perhaps we can come back to the matter before the house for a moment or two, because I intend to speak only for a few minutes on it. The hon. member for Charlotte made a reference to this bill in which he said it would not be of any direct advantage to the domestic user of electric energy in the maritime provinces. I think that is a fair statement. I think it is a correct statement, according to my understanding of the-bill. This bill is designed to enable cheaper power to be produced in the Atlantic provinces for power use or for the consumption of power. It does not have any reference to the development of power for domestic purposes.
In the maritimes-and I presume in Newfoundland as well, although I cannot speak with the knowledge that I can of the other three provinces-the cry throughout our lifetime, as the hon. member for Charlotte well knows, has been that we need more industry. We need industrial development in those provinces, and industrial development has not been proceeded with because we have not had the power potential or at least the power development in order to attract those industries to those provinces. This bill is therefore designed to provide that government assistance is given to it so that power may be purchased more cheaply, and that power will be used for industrial purposes in the maritime provinces. There is no question that the criticism-if it were a criticism-of the hon. member for Charlotte is justified. But I say it is not

a criticism. It is something to the bill's credit. Certainly the people in the maritime provinces will be very happy-I refer to the domestic consumers-to pay the domestic rates which they pay now if they can see an industrial development taking place in those provinces as those of us who have studied this bill, who have worked for it and have dreamed about it, can see taking place in those provinces. With that industrial development there will come, of course, a reduction in the cost of domestic power as well. So much for that matter.
A great deal has been said by our friends from Newfoundland about this bill. Frankly, I cannot quite understand the position which they take. They say that Newfoundland is prejudiced by this bill, and that it is discriminatory.


John Whitney Pickersgill: Who said that?


George Clyde Nowlan: The hon. member who just sat down. I think I am paraphrasing him correctly. Certainly the hon. member for Burin-Burgeo (Mr. Carter) said that the fish processors of Newfoundland were going to be prejudiced because Nova Scotia apparently could get cheaper power. All sorts of statements such as that one have been made which I do not think have any foundation in fact, and are maybe only fancy, Mr. Speaker, very fanciful fancy at that.
It is rather refreshing, shall I say-or is it disconcerting-to sit here in this house and listen to the pathetic pleas of the former cabinet minister, the member from Newfoundland, who spoke for one and a half hours this morning, regretting how this government was prejudicing that beloved province of his, Newfoundland, by what we are doing to it. What are we doing, Mr. Speaker?


John Whitney Pickersgill: Refusing the request of the provincial government.


George Clyde Nowlan: What we are doing is improving, amplifying and developing the electric power of the province, a course which was hinted at by the previous government of which the hon. gentleman was a member. In 1948 the Liberal party at its national convention brought forward a plan urging the development of power in the Atlantic provinces and in the election of 1953 they enlightened the people of the maritimes with respect to what they hoped to do in principle.
I remember the remarks of the late Angus L. Macdonald on what was going to happen but the election of 1953 was well advanced when the former government suddenly realized they were facing a disastrous defeat in the maritime provinces. At that time the former minister of finance pulled a rabbit out of his hat one night-an infant rabbit, not
Atlantic Provinces Power Development properly clothed and with only a few scarce little bits of fur on it, mostly ears and no tail *-and he said here is this government's plan for electric development in the maritime provinces. "We are going to produce power at cost"-whatever that was. Coal was not to be assisted; there was no assistance to be given to coal.


John Whitney Pickersgill: That is not correct.


George Clyde Nowlan: There was no information with respect to that. We asked how he defined costs and we were told that could not be done. We asked who was to own the plants and we were told the federal government was going to own them. We were going to have a competing system of ownership. This was the plan for the maritime provinces but it was a system for New Brunswick and Nova Scotia and there was no reference to Prince Edward Island in that. Nor was there any reference to Newfoundland in that.
This is the gentleman who now weeps such copious tears because this government has produced a plan which is workable and which will mean a tremendous development in the maritimes. He says we have overlooked Newfoundland. He forgot Newfoundland when he was in the cabinet.
I wonder where in Hansard during the eight years he sat here as a member of the government-I think it was eight years but perhaps it was more-we could find one word from the hon. gentleman as either the secretary of state or afterwards the minister of citizenship and immigration mentioning power development in Newfoundland. I wonder where we could find one word from any of the other members from Newfoundland who have today spoken on this matter. After all they sat in the house for four years, some of them for eight years.


An hon. Member:: Nine years.


George Clyde Nowlan: Yes. They never thought of power in Newfoundland then; all they thought of was hiding behind the skirts of the secretary of state who was later the minister of citizenship and immigration. He did not think of power so they did not think of power. That is all there was to it.
In speaking on Newfoundland I am reminded of the speech of the former secretary of state made, I think in the debate on the address, in which he made some rather caustic references, or "sympathetic" references, to my colleague from Newfoundland, the Minister without Portfolio (Mr. Browne). He again wept bitter tears for Newfoundland, that dear province which is so down-trodden and oppressed by the Tories because all we did was appoint a cabinet minister without
3366	HOUSE OF
Atlantic Provinces Power Development portfolio from that province and it really was an insult to Newfoundland that such a thing could happen.


John Hornby Harrison: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker, I believe a moment or two ago I was interrupted by the Minister of Finance (Mr. Fleming) on a point of order relating to the fact that I might have been wandering a little bit from the restrictive part of this particular measure. At this time we are indeed restricted and I wonder if perhaps the Minister of Finance would make the same point with regard to his colleague the Minister of National Revenue (Mr. Nowlan).


George Clyde Nowlan: If I can follow the trail of the hon. member who has just sat down and keep within the restrictive part I will do so but I did refer to the Minister without Portfolio from Newfoundland because so much reference has been made to him today. I feel that my hon. friend the former minister did not show his usual sense of humour in speaking in this way because we remember when Newfoundland sent seven Liberal members to Ottawa.


John Whitney Pickersgill: And will again.


George Clyde Nowlan: I doubt it. They sent seven members to Ottawa and what did they do when they got here?


John Whitney Pickersgill: If the hon. gentleman goes down there to campaign they will all be Liberal members.


George Clyde Nowlan: At least the member of this government who is the Minister without Portfolio is a Newfoundlander and lives in Newfoundland and is proud of it. We did not have to choose an ex-refugee citizen from Winnipeg or appoint an ex-patriot college professor who was trying to find a seat and finally landed one in Newfoundland.


Some hon. Members:: Order.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: I would ask the hon. minister to confine his remarks to the bill.


John Whitney Pickersgill: I thank the hon. gentleman for writing my election manifesto.


George Clyde Nowlan: One other reference I should like to make is to the suggestions made by hon. members, including I think the hon. member for Churchill (Mr. Simpson), that this bill was too restrictive. Mr. Speaker, this undoubtedly is not the only bill which will be introduced dealing with power development in Canada as the years go by. The mere fact that this bill is related to the Atlantic provinces does not mean other bills will not be introduced and undoubtedly this government in the years which lie ahead of us


will have ample opportunity to bring in legislation to deal with power development in other parts of Canada.


John Whitney Pickersgill: Meanwhile we wait.


Louis Deniset: Is the hon. minister intimating that the government is contemplating passing legislation to give federal assistance to projects in northern Manitoba?


George Clyde Nowlan: I am intimating nothing except that this is not the only bill which will be introduced in the House of Commons by the Conservative government in the future. There will be lots of opportunity, but unfortunately some members who are asking these questions about it today will not be here to see these bills introduced. However, they can read about them in the newspapers.


John Whitney Pickersgill: Is that a threat?


George Clyde Nowlan: I can assure them this will be done because this is another one of the specific pledges which were made in the last election. We were faced with this half baked, hair brained scheme which was proposed at that moment-a deathbed repentence on the part of the former government-and we had to deal with it. We promised at that time that if the Conservative government was elected a bill would be introduced to provide for assistance in the way of subvention on coal and development of thermal power within the maritime provinces. That was a specific election pledge given by the then leader of the opposition and the present Prime Minister (Mr. Diefenbaker) supported by every one of the ten Conservative members from Nova Scotia and those from New Brunswick and Prince Edward Island. It was also supported by the premiers of New Brunswick and Nova Scotia and it is in furtherance of that pledge that this bill has been introduced.
Let me say that when this pledge was made, frankly the thinking was directed primarily towards coal for the development of thermal power and perhaps was centred on New Brunswick and Nova Scotia with transmission lines to Prince Edward Island. It was due to the urging of the hon. members from Newfoundland, my colleague in the cabinet and the other member for St. John's that Newfoundland was included in this bill. Instead of being criticized and instead of it being stated that they failed in their duty, they deserve the thanks of the people of Newfoundland for the fact that we now have a balanced bill dealing with the Atlantic provinces.
I hope, Mr. Speaker, that this bill will shortly be passed and that when it is, within a very short time, the effects of his bill will

make a greater imprint upon the industrial development and the future of the maritime provinces than has any other piece of legislation which has been passed by a government of Canada in the last 20 years.


Stanley Howard Knowles: Will the Minister of National Revenue permit a question before he sits down? Perhaps he will allow me to ask him a question, since the Minister of Northern Affairs and National Resources has declined the offer to say a few words by unanimous consent.
Is it not a fact that the bill as drafted makes available to the Atlantic provinces a type of assistance which Nova Scotia and New Brunswick are in a position to take but which the province of Newfoundland is not in a position to take; and would it be doing any harm to Nova Scotia and New Brunswick -would it be breaking faith in any way- if the bill were broadened in order that the assistance proposed in this bill might be available in practical terms to all four Atlantic provinces?


George Clyde Nowlan: I do not think any harm would be done to Nova Scotia or New Brunswick if this were widened, though I am not prepared to pass judgment on that point. This bill has been a subject of almost constant discussion by responsible ministers, by a subcommittee of the cabinet and by officials for four or five months. Within a month after taking office, some of us set the machinery in motion-


John Whitney Pickersgill: It was already in motion.


George Clyde Nowlan: It was not in motion; it was in reverse. And after all these discussions, after all the preliminary work has been done, certainly I would not want to be in a position-and I do not think the government would, either,-of introducing substantial changes in legislation which has arisen out of constant co-operation and study between the governments concerned. As far as I know, the premier of Newfoundland has not even asked for the benefits of this bill to be extended to Newfoundland. There will be ample time in the future for that. This government will be here for a long time- probably longer than the hon. member for Bonavista-Twillingate or the premier of Newfoundland

and we will be able to deal with this question in the future. The important thing now is to get this bill through.


Stanley Howard Knowles: Can
the minister say whether the letter which has been written to the premier of Newfoundland has been mailed to him, or taken to him up in the gallery? If so, can he say whether a copy of that letter will be tabled in this house?
Supply-Citizenship and Immigration


George Clyde Nowlan: I have not seen the letter, and I am not in a position to speak about it.


John Whitney Pickersgill: Would the minister permit one more question. If I understood him correctly he said he did not know whether the premier of Newfoundland had made a request to have a change made in this bill. Was the minister not in this house when the Prime Minister (Mr. Diefenbaker) tabled a request from the premier of Newfoundland, and has he not been in this house at any time when this communication has been referred to as it has on practically every day in the past week?


George Clyde Nowlan: Is that a question, or a speech?


John Whitney Pickersgill: Is it not usual for a request from a premier of a province to receive a little more consideration than this from the present government?


George Clyde Nowlan: Mr. Speaker, I may say that a request from any premier of any province will receive much more careful consideration from this government than did the requests of the maritime provinces when a Liberal government was in power, as is instanced by the statement of Premier Matheson when he arrived in Ottawa a few days ago and he said that the present Prime Minister was at least doing something for the maritimes.
Motion agreed to and bill read the third time and passed.

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



DEPARTMENT OF CITIZENSHIP AND IMMIGRATION

[Stage Direction]
63. Departmental administration, $604,729.
John Whitney Pickersgill: Does the minister propose to make a statement?


Edmund Davie Fulton: Mr. Chairman, I feel there is not a great deal I should say at this time in introducing the estimates. I am prepared to answer fully and in such detail as may be desired any questions that may be asked, but it is my hope that we will be able to deal with the estimates efficiently and expeditiously. We have seen in the course of the last few hours and, indeed, in the course of the last few days an attempt to delay matters by what I may call a pickersgilli-buster, and for my part I do not intend to do anything which would hold up these estimates.


John Whitney Pickersgill: Mr. Chairman, I have no desire whatsoever to delay the passage of
33C8	HOUSE OF
Supply-Citizenship and Immigration the estimates, about three quarters or four-fifths of which-I have not done the addition lately as between the original estimates and the supplementaries-were presented to the previous parliament on my recommendation.
One observation I should like to make at the outset is that whatever waste or extravagance the Minister of Finance might have found in other departments it is abundantly clear he has found none in this department, because he has asked for an increase of 20 or 25 per cent in estimates which Mr. Harris laid before the house in the last parliament. This, I believe, is the biggest increase which has been asked for by any department in percentage terms. I regard that as a tribute to the economy, the efficiency and perhaps, almost, to the parsimoniousness with which the department was administered under a Liberal administration.
I intend just the same to put to the minister the question which we have put to every other minister at some stage during his estimates, and ask him to tell us whether he or the Minister of Finance has in fact found any waste or extravagance in this department. I rather think the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration will tell us frankly or in a straightforward way, as is his custom -I might add, a refreshing custom. Because it is becoming increasingly clear that the famous statement made to the Canadian Press last June by the Minister of Finance when he told us he was going to bring down a budget, which has never been brought down, and when he made a lot of other extravagant claims that look pretty sick in the cold light of a January day-the statement that boasts that after a few days in office the Minister of Finance had found a great deal of waste and extravagance in almost every one of the departments, cannot be substantiated today. Now that a great deal of time has elapsed and many of the departments concerned have been under examination, we have not had a single minister who could give us a single example of any kind of waste or extravagance which has been found in his department.
Indeed, this government which boasted it could reduce the expenditures of this country by half a billion dollars has been adding to the expenditure of practically every department; and in those rare cases where it has produced what looks like a decrease, at first flush or, at any rate, no increase, it has done so by a process of legerdemain by deferring certain expenditure in order to carry on other expenditure without increasing the aggregate expenditure of the department.


I know that if I had stayed in office after June 21 I would have had to go to the minister of finance and ask for an increase in the estimates just as the hon. gentleman did. I know I would have had to do it because there was a most unprecedented development during the course of the year after the estimates had been prepared which involved expenditures which were really quite impossible accurately to estimate at the time the regular estimates, or even the supplementary estimates that were brought down before the end of the last parliament, were prepared.
As I said, when the Minister of Finance asked for interim supply on October 17, and when I made certain observations about the very large increase in the estimates being asked for by the present minister-I think, sir, I will call him the present minister and not the acting minister, for convenience-if I had to pick a successor in his party I could not wish for a better one. I think the minister, as I said earlier, is the ablest member of this government by a very considerable margin. I would like to repeat what I said this morning, I could not pay him any higher compliment than to say that if he shared some Liberal ideas, if he did not have those old-fashioned Tory notions, which I outgrew at an early age and which he has not outgrown, I would be quite happy to see the hon. gentleman in a Liberal government.


Edmund Davie Fulton: Is the hon. gentleman trying to blight my prospects?


John Whitney Pickersgill: The hon. gentleman would not expect me to do anything inside the house to improve them and he perhaps would not expect me to do much outside the house to help him along the road; but I must say, sir, that if we must have the misfortune of a Tory government there is no one I would rather see in it than the hon. gentleman. I must add to that, sir, that if in a Tory government I had to see at the head of a department in which I took a great interest-and I am sure the minister would admit that I did -a Tory minister there is no one in the house I would rather see administer it than the hon. gentleman. I say that, in part, because he has paid me the very great compliment-not to me only, but to my predecessor, Mr. Harris, who really in the pioneering days of this department did lay down policies and procedures in which I found very little to change -of carrying on those policies and procedures almost precisely as they were carried on prior to June 21.
There were times when the hon. gentleman was on this side of the house when he was- and I do not criticize him for that-perhaps somewhat extravagant in his criticism of things he did not entirely understand at that

time, but which 1 think he understands much better now. But the hon. gentleman has, as I say, followed the procedures and policies in the main that were followed before.
I have no doubt the hon. gentleman will tell us that he is giving study to the very important legislation he is responsible for administering, in addition to another very heavy portfolio, and that he could not be expected, as an acting minister, to make sudden and drastic changes. I am going to suggest that if things had been anything like as bad as the hon. gentleman used to say they were, that would be a very poor excuse. But the fact is they were not and the hon. gentleman quite sensibly has found they were not; he has found that there was a good reason for practically everything that was done in the department and he has gone on doing those things as far as I have been able to learn-* and I have made some inquiries through the channels open to us in the opposition by putting questions on the order paper, and the answers I have received have been of the most reassuring character-in the same way.
I think the committee will be interested -I know I would be greatly interested-if the hon. gentleman, when he does rise to speak, would tell us specifically and concretely one by one precisely what changes he has made in policy or in procedures. I want to admit that there is in the department -anyone will admit it-in its policies in some regards, and in procedures in others, always room for change and always room for improvement. I think the hon. gentleman would not deny that when I was minister, even though it was a very good department and very well administered when I became minister on July 1, 1954, I did make some changes which were improvements. I think particularly of the arrangement for the citizenship courts in Toronto and Montreal. A situation had developed there where because of the divided jurisdiction and divided responsibility a most unreasonable time elapsed between an application for citizenship and the granting of the citizenship. The conditions in the court in the city hall in Toronto at the time I visited it not long after I became minister really shocked me profoundly.


Mr. Thomas (Middlesex West):: Will the hon. member permit a question?


John Whitney Pickersgill: Most certainly.


William Howell Arthur Thomas: Since the hon. member for Bonavista-Twillingate seems to be very favourably impressed with the administration of the department under the former government, would he care to comment upon the regulation, which I believe
Supply-Citizenship and Immigration was put into effect under his jurisdiction, whereby a resident of Canada might be refused citizenship-


The Acting Chairman (Mr. Rea):: Order.
I do not think the former minister is under review at this particular time.


Mr. Habel:: He has to learn.


John Whitney Pickersgill: Since I came into this house four and one-half years ago I have prided myself on never declining to listen to and try to answer any question that any hon. member addressed to me, and though perhaps the hon. gentleman's question, as you have indicated, sir, is a little bit out of order, I would have been prepared, with the indulgence of the committee, to answer it; but since the hon. member for Kamloops is now the minister in charge of the department perhaps it might more properly be directed to him.
Perhaps I might continue with the train of thought which the hon. member interrupted. I would like to conclude what I had to say about the court in Toronto which granted citizenship before the federal court was established. I said at the time the change was made, and I repeat, I did not want to blame anyone for it. I did not think anyone was subject to blame. It was one of those cases where a court was run in the city hall by the provincial government, where it was serving a purpose that was primarily federal and where the divided jurisdiction was not satisfactory. I am happy to say that up to June 21 we had had the greatest satisfaction with the federal court in Toronto and also with the court in Montreal, and I have no reason to think that both those courts are not performing in the same satisfactory way today.
I have had the feeling for some time that there were one or two other spots in Canada where the courts which had to do with applications for citizenship were not functioning very satisfactorily. I know I had the greatest difficulty over the situation in New Brunswick and when the minister replies I should like him to tell me whether it has been possible for him to improve the situation in that province. I understand the matter was taken up by the local citizenship councils who were just as shocked as I was in discovering some of the practices that were going on in those courts. It was one of those things to which I had planned to give attention if I had remained in charge of the department.
I do think it is of the utmost importance that the federal government do everything that it is possible to do to make the formal granting of citizenship and the carrying on
3370	HOUSE OF
Supply-Citizenship and Immigration of these ceremonies in the citizenship courts as dignified and as impressive as possible. I said in the house once, I think, that for many of those receiving citizenship it was the greatest occasion next to marriage. I did try, and I got a good deal of co-operation from members in all parties in the house, to encourage the courts to make these ceremonies as impressive as possible, but I always maintained it would be unreasonable to establish federal courts all over the country because the number of citizenship cases that arise, for example, in the province of Newfoundland, if I dare mention that province again today-it does not receive a large number of immigrants-would certainly not warrant the appointment of a special judge to deal with them. That would be true of all the Atlantic provinces. It would be true of most of the rural parts of Quebec, in fact, many of the rural sections of other parts of Canada. I am sure the present minister is finding the same difficulty I found in attracting many immigrants to this country who will stay in rural parts for very long. Of course, that situation may change-I am seeking to avoid controversy as much as possible-as a result of the economic pause that the Minister of Trade and Commerce forecast at the end of the year. It may be that the situation will become quite different.
But in the days when I was responsible for the department, in the days when we were in office, when this country was going ahead and expanding and immigrants were coming here in large numbers they were attracted to the places where they could earn a living the fastest and in general those places were either in the cities or on the great construction projects. I should like to say here, and I am sure the minister will agree with me, that we could never have had the great growth and development and above all the immense construction there has been in this country in the past 12 years if we had not had these million immigrants who produced many of the people who did the hard, tough work that the older inhabitants of this country did not do and did not want to do because they had better jobs doing something else. I think those of us who have enjoyed the wonderful conditions we have had in this country in recent years, under that spirit of hope and optimism based on sound material development, should always remember that if it had not been for these newcomers who came to our country since the war and added to the greatest wealth we have of all, our human wealth, Canada would not be anything like the country it is today.


I am not going to criticize the minister for continuing the expedient which I adopted before the election of instructing the department to issue no visas for open placement of immigrants valid after the 31st of July. I should like to repeat what I said on October 17 about this matter. It was quite apparent to me by the very early spring that we were going to have an unprecedented influx of immigrants into Canada in the year 1957, and if the minister when he speaks is able to give us figures as to the total number, statistics on their distribution as between provinces, country of origin and other interesting information I am sure it would be of great interest to the committee. I think the minister is entitled to a little credit for this.
The minister pressed me very hard a couple of years ago, in the days when we were in office and referred estimates to committees where there was an opportunity to have a really detailed consideration of them, to attempt by expanding the scope of the assisted passage loans to encourage the increase of British immigration. I accepted the hon. gentleman's advice, rather sceptically, I admit. I did not see how the adoption of this policy could do any real harm and I thought it was worth trying to see whether it would do some good. I think it did. If the hon. member for Kamloops wants to take credit for that when he next appeals to his electors, he can make a note of it.
But whatever he may have done, whatever I may have done, whatever circumstances may have done, there is no question that in the year 1957 and, indeed, from about April, 1956, if my memory serves me right, there was a steady rise in the active interest in immigration to Canada from the United Kingdom. There was also a very encouraging kind of immigrant coming forward. As some hon. members who were here in the last parliament will recall, I had occasion at the end of November and beginning of December, after we had brought the session to a close so that hon. gentlemen opposite could have their convention without distraction by other duties, to go abroad because of the events in Hungary which created an unprecedented situation for which the hon. gentleman also had some share of responsibility. I took the occasion, while I was abroad to visit the United Kingdom at a time when we had
3,000	people going through the office in London in a single day, when the doors had to be closed about every hour because it was just unsafe to allow any more people in the building. I was very much encouraged about the future. It was surprising what a large proportion of these immigrants were young couples with one or two children. I talked to

a few of them, and I talked to the immigration officials who were dealing with them day by day in numbers which we have not seen since before the first world war.
The thing that was most interesting about this movement was the fact that most of these married couples said they did not really expect to be very much better off in Canada, but they were coming to Canada because they believed it would be a better country for their children and would give their children a better hope for the future. I feel we are making no mistake in encouraging people like that to come to Canada in just as large numbers as they can possibly be employed here.
As I started to say, when I digressed a little, I have no criticism to make of the minister for persisting in the device which I took before the election in order to gain time to see what the situation would be like at the end of June by stopping the granting of visas for open placement. There was a danger, as there is when big movements of this kind are under way, whether in investment or immigration or anything of that sort in a period of expansion, that it is going to go a little too far. There was a danger that a number of people would arrive in this country who could not find employment when they got here, and who would become disappointed, disgruntled and go back home. As a result of this a counter movement might tend to set in which would discourage healthy immigration in the future.
I say I have no criticism of the minister for having continued that policy. I was critical of the minister, and I am still critical of the minister for stopping rather abruptly and in a manner that was misunderstood- it was more a matter of bad public relations perhaps than bad policy-the movement of Hungarians. The minister will recall that he and I never quite agreed about this Hungarian movement. The minister said, and I will not take the trouble of putting the statement on the record now because I know there will be no dispute between us about it, that we should take Hungarian refugees absolutely without restriction. He said that at the time of the Hungarian uprising. The minister has never made any pretence that he did not say that at the time. I took the view that while we should do everything we could to encourage these people to come here we had to take some account of how many we could absorb, and that bringing Hungarian refugees here to live in camps was not really going to better their situation. Until they could be brought here with some reasonable hope of being established so that they could look forward to some sort of
Supply-Citizenship and Immigration future, I felt they would be better to be in camps in Europe. I felt we should try to hold out hope to them that we would take as many as we could, and that we would keep some of them coming all the time. I am very glad that the minister and his colleagues in the government, on further consideration, decided shortly after the opening of parliament to open the doors a little wider to help some of these unfortunate people to come here. I certainly commend the government for this, and have no criticism of it.
I do think we would all of us appreciate the minister's estimate of prospects for the year 1958, because of the almost unprecedented way in which we find ourselves dealing now with the 1957 estimates. Perhaps the minister will tell me that this is a very improper question and that I ought to wait until the next session of parliament. If the minister would give us a reasonable guarantee that the next session of parliament would be opening about the middle of February and that about the end of the month we would consider his estimates, I would be quite satisfied with that answer.
I want to say a word or two about what I regard as the most important of all the branches of the department, not perhaps in its impact on the Canadian economy but as a sacred trust to the Canadian people. I refer to the Indian affairs branch. It does seem to me, that the greatest responsibility we have as a civilized nation is to see that these people, the descendants of those people who possessed this country before we did, are as quickly as possible brought into a position where they have equal opportunities and equal advantages with other Canadians. I am not going to talk about the franchise except to make one statement. I was very unhappy, as minister, about the fact that the Indians do not have the franchise. I do believe that the sooner they have it the sooner we can be reasonably sure that their claims will commend wider support everywhere.
However, I admit there is a problem in connection with the franchise, and a very difficult problem. It is this. Under the Income Tax Act the Indians are given exemption from income tax on the income-


Charles Edward Rea: Order. I am sorry, but I have to advise the hon. member that his time has expired.


Mr. Campbell (The Battlefords):: This department is divided into two sections, and this afternoon I want to deal with the second section. Since I first came to the House of Commons I have brought this problem before the house and before previous ministers, and I have stated on each occasion that I was not approaching this problem with any political
3372	HOUSE OF
Supply-Citizenship and Immigration bias. I stated I was prepared to work in cooperation with any minister who headed this department. I must say that in the past my relations have been very good with these ministers, and I offer the same co-operation to the present minister. I have not been able to persuade them that some of the solutions I offered were good ones, but I think some little headway was made on the problem to which I am referring.
I refer to the shocking conditions under which about 2,000 people are living in my constituency and the area adjacent to it. They have been living under these conditions for many years. The problem is not one that can be solved overnight. It is going to take a lot of time and a lot of work. Perhaps for the information of new members I might outline the problem. It has to do with the living conditions of these people, the most of whom live in shacks made of logs with earthen roofs. I have pressed the government in the past to do something about housing conditions, and there has been little progress made. For instance, in the period from 1950 to 1956 there were 67 houses built. I pressed the previous minister very hard, especially two years ago, to get these people out of these shacks in which they were living.
They were unhealthy in the first place. Many of the shacks, which were not more than 14 feet, 16 feet or 18 feet square, had six to eight people living in them all winter long. The people could not even open a window. The only time they could get fresh air was when they brought in an armful of wood. I was disappointed that last year only five shacks were built on these reserves. I was given to understand that a considerable number were going to be built. When the minister is preparing his estimates for the coming year I hope that greater provision will be made for the building of houses on these Indian reserves.
These people have not much of a way to make a living. There have been some improvements. The previous government set up a loan fund whereby Indians could borrow money and start farming, buy a little bit of farm machinery and so on. That measure was not too successful. The main reason for that result was that adequate supervision was not given. There was a time not very many years ago when each Indian reserve had an instructor on it. The men that were hired were not of a good kind. A great many of them obtained the job- and I am going to say this-because they belonged to a political party. Many of them were old men who had been failures at everything else. They were not a good type of men. Good men were needed.


When that plan was first instituted these Indians did not know how to operate farm machinery. They did not even know how to take care of stock. Supervision was lacking. I do not know what changed the policy of the government but later they cut down on the number of what they called farm instructors. Today in my constituency in one case one man is looking after three reserves. Another man is looking after two reserves. In that particular case there are 90 miles between the two reserves. He cannot give proper supervision. One of the suggestions that I am going to make today is that the government see to it that they hire a good type of agriculturalist who knows how to farm and who would go on these reserves and help the Indians to farm properly.
As to some of these Indians who started farming five, six or seven years ago, conditions have not been too good and crops have not been too good. That is partly their own fault and partly because they were not properly supervised. Many of them have become discouraged. A few of them have been able to repay the loans but a great many of them have not been able to do so. The result is that today in many cases their machinery is worn out. Last summer when I made [DOT] a tour through the constituency I was amazed to find hundreds of acres gone back to weeds. I asked the Indians this question, "Why have you let this land go back to weeds?" They replied, "Our machinery is worn out; we have no horses; the department will not lend us any more money". Of course, I cannot blame the department too much for not lending any more money if the first loans were not repaid. But I believe they should have proper supervision, proper advice and proper leadership. That is why I stress the point that the men who are put in as instructors should know something, should have about them a little something that will encourage the Indians and lead them along, and should be men who will teach them to do these things properly.
We had a problem with regard to schools. That problem has been partly provided for because we now have an Indian school on each reserve. However the big problem there is to get qualified teachers. In many cases these schoolhouses are not well located in the reserves. Some of them are a long way back from the highway. It is extremely hard to get to them, especially when it rains or in winter when there is snow on the ground. It is extremely hard to get good teachers in the first place, and then it is difficult to get the teachers to stay after they have been obtained. I think that better provision should be made for roads where there is a school. Surely a road should be made so

that the schoolteacher can get out on the weekends at least to civilization. I think that decent teacherages should be built which would be more comfortable.
Another thing I suggest is that in most of these areas power is now available. It may be necessary for it to be brought in a few miles. I think that power should be provided to the schools on these particular reserves. I think a good look should be taken at the schools. Last summer I went out with the Catholic priest who looks after the reserves in the Battleford area, Father Paradis. One of the schools is set back quite a long way from the highway. It is not in a good location. If that school were moved even three or four miles to a new location it would be far easier for the Indians to get their children to the school. That particular school-and I am going to mention the name of it so that the minister can take note of it-is on the Sweet Grass reserve. The only provision for the teacher, who happens to be a married lady with two or three children, is three rooms in the end of the schoolhouse. I suggest that that schoolhouse be moved a couple of miles and a basement dug. I think it is important to have a basement in the school so that the children can go down there when the weather is bad. I suggest that a proper teacherage be built so that this worthy lady could be able to take care of her children in a decent home. They are crowded in three small rooms in that particular school. If the school were moved a couple of miles they would also have a place for a sports ground. I think it is necessary to encourage the young Indian children to go in for sports. They like to play football, and hockey and to take part in sports.
I want to go back for a moment to housing and make one suggestion. I understand from the officials of the department that the Thunderchild Indian reserve own a timber tract somewhere to the north of their reserve. I am suggesting to the government that the department take a look at this timber tract in order to see whether or not there is building timber there. As to the reserve of Red Pheasant, the Indians there tell me that there are thousands of good poplar logs which would make lumber. I think it would be a splendid idea if, after this matter is looked into, it could be decided that it is practical to put in a small sawmill, thus giving some of the Indians some work in sawing some of these logs up into lumber, not only to help provide work for the Indians but to provide them with material with which to build houses.
Supply-Citizenship and Immigration
I took a good look at some of these reserves last year and in many cases there is a wonderful potential if the reserves were properly developed. I am taking as examples two reserves in particular, namely the Mosquito Stoney reserve and the Red Pheasant reserve. They are situated about 35 miles south of the town of Battleford. The Mosquito reserve has a total acreage of 31,540 acres. However, it is estimated by the departmental officials, as given in an answer to a question I had on the order paper last year, that 12,624 acres of that reserve are arable. I might say here that that is not first-class wheat land but it is good land for oats, barley or feed.
The Red Pheasant reserve has an acreage of 24,320 acres of which 8,502 acres are arable. The two reserves are side by side and they have together 21,126 acres of arable land. The population on these reserves is about, 370 people.
I know two ministers who are greatly interested in some kind of development scheme and I am speaking now of religious ministers and not ministers in the house. Their names are Father Paradis and Canon Wickenden. I believe these two men are dedicated men. They belong to different churches and they both took the trouble to learn to speak the Cree language so that they might get close to these people. They are vitally interested in seeing something done towards developing these reserves and making it possible to bring up the living standards of these people without a great cost to the people of Canada.
I would suggest to the minister that he go outside of his own department to the Department of Agriculture and either put the scheme I am going to outline up to that department to develop or else get the proper kind of men to run it. I believe that if such a development scheme was put into operation those reserves would carry at least 2,000 head of cattle. They would not carry them all at once, of course, but I suggest this should be done in stages. The first stage would be for the department to go into the whole project with the Indian bands themselves and come to some kind of agreement whereby the Indians would agree to turn over control of the project to the department for a term of years, say 15, 20 or 25 years or whatever the agricultural experts might figure would be the proper length of time.
Next, parliament should supply the necessary funds. Thirdly, I have already stated that the control of the program should be under the Department of Agriculture. Fourthly, the object of the program would be first to provide work and wages to as many Indians as possible and to get them away from the terrible relief system which we have had in the past

Supply-Citizenship and Immigration few years. Last year there was almost $100,000 supplied in relief by the Battleford agency and I think that is a disgrace. What could we have done with a development program if we had had $100,000? It would provide, after the scheme got into working order, for the training of young people in methods of farming and would take care of the needy on the reserves, thus eliminating the necessity for this government to supply a huge amount of money for relief of those people over the years.
Fifthly, I believe that such a scheme as this, properly worked out and properly supervised, could repay every cent advanced by the government. I believe repayments should be made in annual installments starting about five years after commencement of the operation. Any balance left over from those payments could go to the band fund to care for needy people on the reserves and at the conclusion of the contract the project should be turned over to the Indians at such time as they could prove to be responsible. It might, of course, take some time to train the right kind of Indians to assume responsibility for a project of this kind.
I have outlined a scheme which I have talked over at great length with both of the gentlemen I have mentioned. We spent many hours together working out a rough idea of what should be done and I believe an immediate start should be made. For instance our Indians are always short of work in the wintertime and many of them could be put to work this winter getting out pickets. One of the first things to do would be to fence this whole reserve and next spring we could have some of them digging up stones. As soon as the project could be decided upon the proper machinery could be purchased and the necessary buildings put up.
I think a scheme should be devised whereby a village or townsite should be set up and instead of having shacks scattered four, five, or six miles apart all over the reserve, which makes it hard for the Indians to get their children to school, the idea of building up a village should be envisaged. Bring in power; bring in some of the amenities which we white people have in Canada.
As I have said before, I think we should be prepared to go into cattle as soon as possible. I would not suggest that many cattle be bought to start with. Hay could be put in next summer and cattle purchased to the extent of whatever feed is available. Another thing I think should be done next summer is the development of a good gardening patch. I am sure most people in this house would be astonished to find that these people do not


grow garden vegetables, with very few exceptions although there are exceptions. I went into an Indian's home last year and he took me down into his basement. He had vegetables and his wife had canned stuff but he was the only Indian of whom I know in my constituency who milks a few cows. There is no need for Indians to live on the kind of rations upon which they do live. I have a list of them here but I do not have time to go into them now. I think we should set about preparing and growing garden patches as soon as possible as this is essential.
I spoke a little earlier about the wrong type of men being put on these reserves as instructors. The department of Indian affairs had a good instructor by the name of Jimmy Warden and some of the officials will remember his name. His father was a North West Mounted Policeman and this boy was raised on the reserve and learned to speak Cree. He grew up with the Indians and when his father died he was put in as a farm instructor. That is the kind of man who is needed. He liked the Indians and they liked him and he had them growing vegetables in large quantities. They had 300 head of cattle on the reserve at that time, which was 25 or 30 years ago, while today there are 100 head of cattle on the reserve and they are not growing any vegetables at all.
I saw a potato patch at one Indian home last summer. They had it up on a gravel knoll. It would not grow potatoes in any circumstances. They had it in the wrong place. I think it is possible that this sort of thing could be rectified, given a little common sense and a little planning. The whole situation as it exists today is deplorable, and we in this country should not stand for it. There are 2,000 people in my constituency living under these conditions. We should not allow them to go on and on in this way and I hope the minister will co-operate with them and look into this problem. I suggest we start with one reserve and try it out, and then, if the scheme works, introduce it into other reserves.


Mr. McLeod:: Mr. Chairman, in dealing with the estimates of this department we know we will be called upon to approve an expenditure, much of which has already been spent, of approximately $41 million.
This makes this department of great importance financially, but in the way in which it affects our economy and way of life it is a very important department as well. It is under the leadership at the present time of a very able minister, though, I am sorry to say, he is just an acting minister. I believe this department is worthy of a full time minister. However, I have no criticism to make

of the present leadership. As I say, the acting minister is an able administrator; he is assisted by an active parliamentarian and I am satisfied he is backed up by a very efficient staff. In my personal dealings with this department I have always been given a very cordial hearing, my complaints have been adjusted to my entire satisfaction, and I am going to say that the relationship so far as I am concerned is very acceptable.
While I am in this happy frame of mind I should like also to commend the department for a couple of things which they have done during the past few months. First, I have noticed that there is a more humane approach to the problem of allowing immediate members of Chinese and Asiatic families to come to Canada where they may be reunited with their husbands, fathers or children who may have been allowed entry into this country in past years, I am also going to commend the department for having taken a second look at our immigration requirements, and for slowing down the flow to allow a careful study to be made of Canada's need for more people, and a careful study of the type of people still needed to man our economy.
Mr. Chairman, I say "still needed" for I feel that Canada's greatest need is a very largely increased population, and our efforts must continue to that end. However, at a time like this when a recession in business is causing concern among our working men and women it would be folly to continue the flow of those who would be dependent on employment and who would enter into competition with our native labour force. It therefore showed good judgment when the department saw fit to take action to slow down the flow of people entering this country. The conditions through which we are now passing are ample proof that our policy must be very flexible in order to meet just such a situation as we face at the present time. Careful planning is needed at all times in order to evaluate our requirements and to designate the type and class of workers needed so that only those who would fit into our labour force and who would not disrupt our economy are brought in. I think this is something which should at no time be lost sight of.
In addition, our immigration policy must be selective. The right to enter Canada should not be too lightly bestowed. Of course, the ideal immigrant would be a worker bringing with him possibly three or four dependants. Those dependants would become consumers of goods in this country and we would not have an improper balance as between labour and consumers. Then, of course, there are professional men or
Supply-Citizenship and Immigration women and technicians who may want to come to Canada. I do not think anyone will dispute that at the present time we need doctors, dentists, engineers of all kinds, chemists and technicians and I would strongly recommend to the department that it should make every effort to promote the interest of these classes of people when they come to.Canada, and encourage them to every extent possible. Bringing them to Canada is not all that must be done.
We are continually reading of cases where professional men, especially doctors and dentists, are finding it difficult to become established in practice in Canada. This is not the fault of the Department of Citizenship and Immigration, but it arises through what might be called the closed compact of professional organizations among doctors and dentists which is making it difficult for these people to comply with regulations before beginning to practice in this country. I consider that at a time like this when these people are so urgently needed the department should consider taking some action which might help to ease the present situation, and investigate complaints brought to its attention.
Mr. Chairman, there are other factors to be considered in selecting immigrants besides their status in the economy on their arrival. Consideration must be given to their religion and to their political background at all times. We believe that all men are born equal regardless of race or creed. But we also believe that our immigration department must be careful to regulate admissions so as not to upset the balance of our social life. We know that due to immigration we will become an increasingly cosmopolitan nation. But let us see that Canadians of tomorrow will be Canadians who will possess the same physical attributes and continue to foster the same ideas as those which we of this generation are trying to develop, namely the ideals of tolerance and freedom. I do not think any department can exercise greater influence on the future of Canada than can the Department of Citizenship and Immigration by building up our population to a level which can make full use of our great natural resources and industrial capacity. I would emphasize that the slogan must be carefully selected.
May I say just a word about citizenship? The right to live in a country entails certain responsibilities, the chief of which is service to the country in which one is living. I once heard the governor of one of the greatest service clubs make a statement in speaking of service and I know I shall never forget it. He said that service is the rent

Supply-Citizenship and Immigration which we pay for the right to live in our country or our community. I think that is something that every Canadian could well take to heart. It should be impressed upon those who are thinking of coming to Canada and who have an idea of becoming Canadian citizens; but in order to give that full measure of service as residents of any country, I believe a person must be a citizen of that country.
Since I have said that-and I believe it- I am going to suggest that the department study the question of compulsory citizenship. Some policy should be formulated toward this end. Possibly it could be done by a person who has recently come to this country being compelled to sign a declaration of intent that he is going to become a Canadian citizen, after a specified time, maybe one year or two years. After he has done this it should be possible for him, in co-operation with the department, to study the obligations and the rights of citizenship and after a reasonable period apply for the right to become a Canadian citizen. I say "right" Mr. Chairman; I would like to say privilege for I do honestly believe it is a privilege to be a Canadian citizen.
I am now going to say just a few words about Indian affairs. I have spoken on this in past years. I think the committee is well aware of my stand. I was keenly interested in, and I fully endorse, the speech of the hon. member for The Battlefords who has just taken his seat. Much can be done to improve the lot of the Indian and I am going to close with this. The program should be one committed to removing the Indian from his position as a ward of the government and to making him a first-class Canadian citizen who may be assimilated into the Canadian way of life.


Herbert Wilfred Herridge: Mr. Chairman, I have some rather unpleasant things to say this afternoon for a few minutes, and I shall say them entirely on my own responsibility as a member of parliament and at the request of certain members of the seafarers' international union who visited my office, certain members of various unions affiliated with the Canadian Labour Congress and certain other seamen whom I met either in my office, in my home or in Vancouver.
Before I proceed I might say that my mother was in the habit of saying that when you have an important matter of principle to deal with consider it well. When you are convinced you are right you should then fix bayonets and charge. That is what I am going to do this afternoon. I received my information from conversations I have had with a good number of people whose

integrity I have no question about, from correspondence and from research conducted by others very interested in the development of the labour movement in Canada and progressive social legislation in Canada. In fact, in one or two cases where the information had been a bit startling I inquired as to the person in question and was informed on the authority of very substantial citizens interested in the labour movement and, in some cases, interested in our policies that these people were sound persons and I could rely upon the information they had given me.
My subject, this afternoon, Mr. Chairman, is the responsibility of the Department of Citizenship and Immigration for the continued domicile in Canada of one known as Harold Chamberlain Banks, particularly in view of the representations made in this house by some present members of the government with respect to the admissibility of this person to Canada who, we discovered at that time, has a criminal record in the United States but who has been able to remain in Canada by not completing a complete immigration application.
In developing my case to indicate the attitude of the members of the government in this respect I wish to quote from Hansard of July 21, 1955, where the present Postmaster General had this to say, as reported at page 6537:
As I have said, unions as such have contributed tremendously to our Canadian economy. We respect them. We admire them. We need them. But a union or any group in the hands of the wrong people can be turned to devious ends.
What is Banks? I have previously referred to him as a labour racketeer. I now refer to him in some detail as a man who has been convicted of certain crimes in Canada; a man who has had certain convictions-one of them carrying 14 years -in the United States; a man who, among other things, has been charged-although I do net suggest he was convicted-with the possession of firearms, murder and child-stealing. Incidentally it is rather amusing that in the article which sets out these various aspects of Mr. Banks, the writer says this;
"When I mentioned this generally to Mr. Banks, he said something to the effect that most of it stemmed from his long labours on behalf of trade unionism."
During that debate, or in a previous debate, I am not sure which, the present Secretary of State expressed her views on this matter very strongly indeed. I have also had occasion to express my views as a result of meeting some of these men. I said at that time, as reported at page 6538 of Hansard:
Quite a number of good labour people, men who have worked all their lives in the labour movement, are concerned about the damage this character is doing to the good name of labour in Canada.
Then I finished up by giving my information respecting the accumulation of property

on the part of this person who, I am informed, came into Canada about 1954. Later in my remarks I said, as reported at page 6539 of Hansard:
I shall conclude by suggesting there should be an investigation by the Department of Labour, and by the Department of National Revenue as to the personal funds that Mr. Banks accumulates, in order to protect our seamen, the best interests of this country and the good name of organized labour.
Now, Mr. Chairman, after committing a crime in Canada which was the smuggling of cigarettes, at which time his Cadillac was seized

I understand he has two Cadillacs; not many of us in this house drive Cadillacs -but later his Cadillac was returned, he was fined $200 and he was allowed to remain in Canada as a landed immigrant as a result of an order in council recommended by the previous minister of finance, Mr. Harris, to the cabinet. I think this is the first instance of a showing of lack of courage in dealing with a situation such as this.
I have talked this over with members of the union and other seamen who say that he was brought here at the suggestion of the shipowners-I place a lot of responsibility on their shoulders for the situation in Canada today-in order to fight communist influence in the seamen's union of that day. There may be some validity in that statement, but I am also told by these very responsible seamen, thoroughly good characters-I may say I have gone to great pains to establish their background-that this is largely a myth, that the rank and file themselves had largely disposed of any communist influence before he arrived. I am a great believer in the rank and file if they have an opportunity to give effect to their opinions under the normal labour movement procedures of our country.
Let us have a look at his record. His record in the United States, or some parts of it, is well known. It has been placed on the records of the house by various members on several occasions. It has been the subject of articles in prominent magazines, periodicals and newspapers. I have had conversations with men who have told me that they have witnessed Mr. Harold Banks pulling a gun on a seaman in his office and having him beaten unmercifully by another colleague of his with a short piece of rubber hose.
When I was travelling west at the end of the 1956 session I had occasion to talk to three of the porters on the train, The Canadian, who at one time were stewards on ships in the Canada-West Indies service of Canadian National Steamships. They told me that they left their jobs with the steamship line running to the West Indies because
Supply-Citizenship and Immigration of Mr. Harold Banks' dislike for negroes. These three men were born in Montreal and are Canadian citizens. I have had visits from other seamen who have told me of the complete lack of an understanding of democracy so far as Mr. Banks is concerned.
I understand that he is not now an official of the union-and I am not blaming the officials-but is now known as an adviser to the union.
Then I come to some evidence that shows that Mr. Banks appears to have done very well indeed. As the result of information brought to us by various seamen, some of us were interested in his acquisition of property and had a very careful search made in certain land registry offices for property acquired by Mr. Banks. I am going to give two illustrations. I had a search made in the land registry office in Vancouver and this is what I found. The person who writes me says:
I obtained the legal description of the property from the city hall and searched the records at the land registry office at the court house. Below is the information on record there. There have been no judgments against the property.
This is the transfer of the property from the union to Mr. Banks personally.
Certificate of Indefensible Title. Certificate No. 284277-L	No. 313667-L
Date of Application 27th August 1954.
Registration Volume 2019
Harold C. Banks 6311 St. James Street West,
Montreal, Quebec.
298 Main Street Lots 9 and 10 Block 5
District Lot No. 196 Group 1
New Westminster District Plan 184
Registered at Vancouver 14 September 1954.
The value of the land is given as $10,050 and the value of the property as $25,600. Then we had occasion to have the property title examined in Montreal and obtained the information that the seafarers' international union hall at 634 St. James Street West, Montreal, is listed in the land records at Montreal in the name of Mr. Harold Chamberlain Banks, 95 Lakeshore Road, Baie d'Urfe, Quebec. He is listed as owner. The property is described as "Cad. 905", whatever that means, with a frontage of 118.6 feet. The land is valued at $33,800 and the building thereon at $94,200.
In addition, my informant, a very reputable and well known citizen indeed, says he has been told that Mr. Banks said he owned the seafarers' international union buildings at
3378	HOUSE OF
Supply-Citizenship and Immigration Saint John, New Brunswick, Thorold, Toronto and Fort William in Ontario but has been unable to tie down Bank's reported statement as to when, where, to whom, etc. In all there are eight seafarers' international union halls in Canada. That at Saint John is at 85 Germain Street, that in Fort William at 408 Simpson Street, that in Toronto at 272 King Street east and that in Thorold at 52 St. David Street. Others are at Montreal, Vancouver, Quebec City and Halifax. These are the facts given to me by the person who made the search.
I come now to indicate the type of person who was allowed into Canada by this special order in council when the relatives of good Canadian citizens, because of some slight health defect, are denied admission to Canada; when also relatives of some good Chinese citizens, long-time residents who have lived in the country for 50 years or more are denied admission to Canada because of age and so on. Yet Mr. Banks is admitted by a special order in council. Those responsible ought to be ashamed of themselves.
I cannot go into this matter in full but I have here a copy of the Canadian Sailor published in Montreal under date of Wednesday, May 16, 1957. The leading editorial clearly indicates Mr. Banks' sympathies with regard to labour matters. It deals with the Beck-Hoffa trials in the United States and refers in effect to Beck's election as a triumph of democracy. The whole editorial shows that Mr. Banks believes in and supports this sort of thing. He is gloating over the fact that difficulty is being experienced in pinning down these two birds. Do we want that sort of thing in Canada? Mind you, I bring up these matters at the request of members of the union concerned, as I said before, and members of other unions who have no other place except the House of Commons in which to have this matter aired for the information of the public. I do so at their request as a representative of the people.
I notice that in the United States the official labour organizations have dealt pretty promptly with Beck and Hoffa. I also understand that at one time Mr. Banks was a close colleague of some of the men working in the longshoremen's union in New York, that element which does not believe in democracy. Yet Mr. Banks was accepted as a landed immigrant and is now applying for Canadian citizenship. I was very interested in his application as were a lot of other people in Canada. The number of rank and file members in the labour movement who are interested in this question is surprising. I wrote the clerk of the citizenship court in Montreal and asked for a copy of the stenographic 

report of the evidence which I was quite willing to pay for. I did not mind going without a meal or two in order to get it. Anyway, I received this reply:
Dear Mr. Herridge:
In reply to your letter of October 21 instant, I beg to inform that no stenographic record was made in the Banks' case and I regret not to be in a position to comply with your inquiry.
Yours truly,
J. D. Robitaille, Clerk,
Court of Canadian Citizenship.
I was then reduced to getting hold of the newspapers and I got some photostatic copies of the newspaper articles following the day of Mr. Banks' application for citizenship before this court. I am told by persons who were present that this is a fair report of what happened in the citizenship court. The article is headed, "Labour Chiefs Back Banks' Citizenship". It appeared in the Montreal Gazette of August 17, 1957. The sub-heading reads: "Police Captain also Praises Applicant." The article reads:
Hal C. Banks, international vice-president and Canadian "adviser" of the seafarers' international union received unqualified recommendations for Canadian citizenship yesterday from four top name labour leaders and a city police captain.
Judge Paul Fontaine sitting in citizenship court set next Friday for final pleas by lawyers in the case and will then forward his recommendations to Ottawa.
The tall Minnesota-born Banks was painted at last week's session of the court as an undesirable candidate for citizenship, with criminal convictions both in the U.S. and here. Opposition to the application, which may be made by "anyone", was presented to the judge by representatives of other unions and by seamen who claimed they had lost their livelihood as a result of Banks' methods of operating the S.I.U.
These objections were repeated and expanded yesterday and at the opening of the session a certified true copy of a local conviction was filed-*
Then, farther down we find this:
Claude Jodoin, president of the Canadian Labor Congress, with 1,123,000 members, and Frank Hall, president of the 500,000-member non-operating railway workers' union, were two of the witnesses heard yesterday who gave high praise to Banks as a good union administrator and worthy prospect for Canadian citizenship.
Then, later:
Mr. Hall told the court that it was at his suggestion that the S.I.U. sent one of its vicepresidents to Montreal in 1948 "because the S.I.U. here was in the hands of communists". It was at that time, said the witness, that he met the applicant.
That is Mr. Banks.
"I have always had a high opinion of his professional ability and capacity since," he said.
In recommending him as "a fit subject for Canadian citizenship," Mr. Hall said that he was speaking on behalf of his union.
"He has done something for Canada by cleaning up the communists in the union and by running a good organization,"-



IS, 1958

[Stage Direction]
Then Mr. Banks himself was a witness and the article says:
Banks himself was a witness yesterday and under examination by his counsel, John Ahern, Q.C., denied an opposing witness' statement that he had once stated he "could get rid of anyone in Montreal for ¥1,500." He thought he might have said that $1,500 severance pay would get rid of some inefficient union officials.
Then, I should like to quote from the Gazette of August 20, 1957, a column by Arthur Blakely. He has this to say:
He has been described as a labour "dictator". He has never, as far as is known, been elected to any office by the Canadian seamen whom he rules with an iron hand. During the first five years in which he headed his union, he didn't stand for election to any office. The constitution, as it then stood, didn't contain any provision for electing a president or director. And there didn't seem to be too much enthusiasm for the elective principle anyway.
A liberalized constitution adopted in 1954, to meet growing criticism, looked much better. But Mr. Banks emerged on the same old ruggedly individualistic non-elective basis as "adviser" to the union. And carried on, apparently, as before under his new title.
Even under the more generous constitution of 1954, elections may, it is reported, be participated in only by the union's "book" members. This excludes an estimated 80 per cent of the membership. And voting book memberships are distributed parsimoniously and on a highly selective basis.
Under Mr. Banks' guiding hand, the union makes extensive use of the Do Not Ship (DNS) list.
I never saw such an atmosphere of fear. I am not allowed to use the names of any of the men. They are afraid either of losing their jobs, being put on the do not ship list, or they say they are family men and they do not want anything to happen to them.
Any seaman whose name goes on the list finds it next to impossible to get employment. Mr. Banks has been accused of making extensive use of the DNS list as a handy means of disposing of personal enemies and union members who complain too noisily about alleged undemocratic practices within the union. Banks himself insists that the DNS list is used only to deal with communists, perverts and the like.
Other labor charges that have been levelled at Mr. Banks' leadership are that adequate union financial statements haven't been generally avail-akle>
that regular meetings aren't encouraged and that union officials have been deposed without cause. Through his high-wage policy, Mr. Banks is also accused of scuppering Canada's deep sea fleet by driving ships into foreign registry.
Now, I just want to mention an article in Canadian Labour of November, 1957. It is an excellent article and was written by Donald MacDonald, Canadian Labour Congress secretary. It is entitled Racketeering in the Labour Movement. I heartily agree with what he has to say in this article, and it shows the position of the labour movement in Canada on this sort of thing. It reads:
It is significant that the CLC has not found it necessary to set up an ethical practices committee similar to the one established by the AFL-CIO.
3379
Supply-Citizenship and Immigration This is not because CLC offices are turning a blind eye to corruption in CLC unions, but because there does not appear to be the need for such a committee here.
It is very obvious, after my reading of these press reports, that the gentlemen who appeared in support of Banks application were completely unaware of the facts surrounding this case, and this man's attitude towards the rank and file as well as the attitude of a good many of the rank and file towards him. So far as I can understand, the rank and file do not have any opportunity to express themselves. I have said, why don't you fellows go to the meetings; why don't you do something? They say it is hopeless because of the nature of the organization and their attitude towards being placed on this do not ship list.
In any event, the article goes on:
It Is well to remember. In any discussion of union racketeering, that there is a natural partner whose role is all too often ignored or toned down: the employer. It takes two to make an agreement, and, if a union officer wants to make a deal with an employer, there must be an employer willing to make a deal.
Then, he goes on:
In unionism, as in health, prevention is better than cure. Unfortunately, both seem to be required. The question is then a double one: how to prevent racketeering and how to stop it once it appears. So far as prevention is concerned, there are at least two solutions that come to mind. One is almost a cliche, but an irrefutable truth, none the less. A live, active membership, well-informed about the labour movement, ready to act in defence of a clean organization, is probably the best guarantee against racketeering that anyone could devise. Complementary to that, of course, and probably inevitable in such circumstances, is a leadership whose integrity is beyond question. To that might be added the willingness and ability to engage as union staff, people who have professional competence in insurance matters, or to use consultants of good reputation.
Now, Mr. Chairman, our labour movement in Canada has a splendid record and a democratic background. The type of life led by this man and his activities do not appeal to the men and women in our labour movement. In the early days of union organization in Great Britain, the movement attracted people largely because of their Christian beliefs. The history of the Canadian labour movement has been free of the sort of thing I have described, and that is something of which the labour movement can be proud.
I know this is a somewhat delicate subject, and I do not like doing this sort of thing. However, I feel it is the responsibility of someone to speak on this subject. I feel that there has been a lack of courage on the part of the former government, and to date I am of the opinion that there has been some lack of courage on the part of the present government. In fact, there has been a lack of courage in a good many people who should be concerned about this important matter.
3380	HOUSE OF
Supply-Citizenship and Immigration
In conclusion, I am going to make four or five suggestions because I am seriously concerned about this, as are the majority of Canadians at this time. I suggest that the record of this man in Canada-
Charles Edward Rea: I am sorry, but I must advise the hon. member for Kootenay West that his time has expired.


Herbert Wilfred Herridge: I shall put my recommendations on the record at a later time.


Mr. Barnett:: Perhaps it could be agreed that the hon. member-


Edmund Davie Fulton: Perhaps by my saying a word now or perhaps with the unanimous consent of the members the hon. gentleman might conclude his remarks.


Charles Edward Rea: Has the
hon. member unanimous consent of the committee to continue?


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


Herbert Wilfred Herridge: I thank the members of the committee because I have only four or five brief recommendations to make. We are all concerned about the Canadian National shipping situation, about the men who are unemployed and the difficulties that have arisen. In the first instance I suggest, therefore, we could do something about it as members of parliament. We should use a little courage and the government should investigate the character of this man very fully, and then I am certain it would be well justified in deporting him as an undesirable person. Secondly, I would suggest to Canadian National Railways that they return these ships to Canadian registry, and that the company should make every effort to meet the elected officials of the union and re-open negotiations with a view to getting these ships operating again at the first opportunity.
I suggest that the government itself should take a lead in doing all that is possible to bring this unfortunate incident in Canadian labour relations to a satisfactory conclusion so that the ships will soon be operating, the men working again and our trade can be continued with the West Indies. Finally I suggest that the senior officials of the congress should use their good offices to do all that is possible to assist the local elected officers of the union with their negotiations and with their efforts to build a seafarers' international union that will be in line with labour traditions in Canada.


Edmund Davie Fulton: I wonder whether I might just say a word on this particular subject. I will not attempt to answer the general remarks that have been made-I expect there are still others who wish to speak-but in view of
[Mr. Herridge.)

what has just been said by the hon. member for Kootenay West I think I should say a word now about the Banks situation.
First, 1 should like to express, I am sure, on behalf of the members of the house appreciation to the hon. gentleman for having decided to bring the matter forward. It is an important matter. It is not an easy matter to deal with judicially or with the absence of partiality. The hon. gentleman has done so with a commendable degree of success. He has stated the facts, he has left no doubt as to his own attitude in the matter, but he has not indulged in exaggeration or vicious or unnecessary criticism.
However, the government is in this position. Without for a moment accepting either the hon. member's suggestion that there is a lack of courage on our part and without accepting any suggestion that may be made that we are trying to find a reason for deferring action, I as minister am obliged to say that not only can we not act at this moment but that it is extremely difficult for us to say anything for the reason that Mr. Banks' application is now before the citizenship court in Montreal and will, quite possibly, come before me for decision.
The situation is that if the court rejects the application, then I believe that I have no further role to perform in the citizenship matter. If, however, the court should accept and approve the application then it will be referred to the minister for confirmation or rejection. I am therefore in the position where this case may come before me any day now, and I think it would be highly improper for me at this point to express any attitude which would amount in effect to prejudging the case.
In the same way, however, I might attempt to divorce the immigration side of it from the citizenship side and to deal with the charge made by the hon. member that there was something improper about his previous admission and the order in council which provided that he should be granted the status of landed immigrant, I do not think personally that I could do that and discuss that matter-approve or condemn or criticize, whatever I might do-without clearly indicating my attitude towards the whole subject. Again, therefore, I think the only position I can take is to say that I am inhibited from discussing this matter until I have reached a decision and have announced that decision on the citizenship case when and if that case comes before me.
I may say this, however. I will undertake, if the house is in session-or if the house is not in session, as soon as it meets again and

if I should still be responsible for this department-to go into all proper details with regard to any decision we may have arrived at and with regard to our attitude on the whole question. I want to assure the hon. gentleman and the committee that I think they will find that we do not lack courage either in the facing up to the decision that we have to make, whatever it may be, or in the discussing of the matter when I feel that we are in a position to do so.
I would only say this in addition with regard to what the hon. member for Kootenay West has said. While I appreciate to the full the difficult position in which his informants have been placed, it is quite impossible for any responsible government or responsible minister to act upon the basis of such information. The Immigration Act and the Canadian Citizenship Act lay down the things which are required to be established before certain decisions can be taken and certain courses can be followed. It is proof, facts, verdicts of courts and such things as that which are required. No decisive action could ever be taken on the basis of statements as to which the person making the statements says, "I am not in a position to go to court if necessary and repeat my statements under oath in court"-or even to let his name be used. I therefore hope that those who have given information one way or the other to the hon. gentleman and to others will in order to help us clear up this whole matter, eventually bring themselves to the position where they can say, "We are prepared not only to give this information privately but to give it in court if necessary".


John Whitney Pickersgill: I should like to say just a word on this matter. I agree completely with everything the minister has said. I would hope that no member of the committee would seek to press this matter and to prejudge the issue. On a good many occasions I have been in the position in which the minister now finds himself, and I made the resolve that if I was ever in a different position, knowing as I do how difficult it is to exercise the quasi judicial functions that parliament imposes upon the minister of this department, I would never press-and that I would urge my friends not to do so-the minister into making premature or prejudicial observations about a matter about which he must make a judgment on a set of facts all of which are not before him at the time. I would hope that the hon. member for Kootenay West would not press the matter at the present time. It seems to me that the attitude of the minister is the only proper and civilized one in all the circumstances.
3381
Supply-Citizenship and Immigration


Herbert Wilfred Herridge: Under the circumstances, I do not intend to press the matter. I have made the case.


Robert Jardine McCleave: I have one question for the minister. Can he inform the house when it is expected that this decision will be handed down by the Montreal court?


Edmund Davie Fulton: Any day now. I understand that the judge of the citizenship court has completed the hearing of evidence and is now in process of making his decision.


Mr. Haidasz:: Mr. Chairman, I welcome this opportunity to speak on the subject of citizenship and immigration. May I at the outset congratulate the acting minister on the honour bestowed upon him by his government in appointing him to this important office.
Being one of those who are very much interested in the program of citizenship and immigration, I welcome this occasion as one affording an opportunity to pay tribute to the wise and courageous policy of immigration of the Liberal administrations of Sir Wilfrid Laurier and Mackenzie King. In particular, it is owing to the faithful and diligent application of the liberal policies of immigra-ton by Mr. Harris and the hon. member for Bonavista-Twillingate that Canada has been served so well and has achieved such an enviable record. I regret, however, that the Tory governments have never had a positive policy, or I should say, even the slightest semblance of a policy of immigration for Canada.


Edmund Davie Fulton: What nonsense.


Stanley Haidasz: Unfortunately they have
rather discouraged the growth and development of Canada by their unrealistic conservative attitude to the problem of immigration.
The present administration, in one of its first public announcements upon having assumed office, on July 1, 1957 restricted immigration from Europe. That action virtually shut the door to a flow into Canada of people yearning to regain freedom and to flee from communist persecution.
Canadians who still have relatives and friends suffering in these countries behind the iron curtain, in Austria and in Italy, are desirous of extending all help and merciful treatment to these their relatives. I should say that these Canadians are not only disappointed but in many cases are outraged by the restrictive and unjust attitude of the Conservative government's immigration program.


Edmund Davie Fulton: I do not know whether the hon. gentleman was in the committee when the former minister spoke. If he was, I wonder whether he agreed with what was said when
3382	HOUSE OF
Supply-Citizenship and Immigration the former minister indicated that he had made the same decision himself with regard to the Hungarians and that he was in agreement with our confirming it.


John Whitney Pickersgill: Perhaps the hon. gentleman, since he presumes to interpret what I said, will not mind my making a comment here. I said I had no quarrel with the attitude which the government had taken to open placement immigrants and open placement immigrants are not the relatives of Canadians who happen to be refugees. I did dissent from what the minister had done about refugees.


Stanley Haidasz: I also wish to draw to the attention of this committee the stand taken by the present government when it was fighting the election before June 10. We heard many brave and outspoken promises of the present Acting Minister of Citizenship and Immigration and of the leader of the present government with respect to increased immigration. What do we see now? They have a policy which they treat as though they were turning a tap on and off, willy nilly.
The figure of 22 million predicted by the royal commission on Canada's economic prospects as the forecast of population for the year 1970 can hardly be expected to be reached if the present restrictive measures are pursued by this government. It was the firm conclusion of that royal commission that the growth of Canada's population is the principal factor in the economic development and prosperity of this country and we all know very well that Canada always experienced tremendous and unparalled economic development, prosperity and population increase during the Liberal administration of Sir Wilfrid Laurier, Mackenzie King and Louis St. Laurent, all of whom gave Canada a realistic and therefore a successful immigration policy.
I am proud to be a descendant of a Polish immigrant who settled in this fortunate and pleasant country during the progressive immigration program of Sir Wilfrid Laurier in the year 1910. Ever since that time Liberal governments have fostered an increase in Canada's population by admitting people from continental Europe whose industriousness and whose cherished possessions of great traditions and cultures 1,000 years old or more and whose first-hand experiences in the fight against communist exploitation and persecution have already immeasurably contributed and will continue to contribute to the stature of this great country.
This enviable mosaic composed of different sizes, shapes and colours is, may I assure you Mr. Chairman, cemented not only by a


common allegiance to the crown and a common Canadian citizenship but also by strong conviction of loyalty, pride and faith in the past, present and future of Canada.
Sir Casimir Gzowski, the first Polish settler in Toronto, contributed so much in the building of bridges, roads and railways in Ontario that he merited the distinction of being honoured by a knighthood by Queen Victoria. The hundreds and thousands of immigrants who followed him have already served Canada well with brain and brawn and in the armed forces they, with their sons, have on many occasions distinguished themselves. I want only to mention at this time Pilot Officer Andrew Myrarski from Winnipeg who was the first R.C.A.F. member to be awarded the Victoria Cross.
These are some of the reasons why I am proud to belong to that party which has always been foremost in fostering the pride of our people in a common citizenship in which all Canadians are treated as equals regardless of race, colour or creed. Canada can be proud of the fact that the Liberal ministers of immigration initiated and expanded an active program of promoting Canadian citizenship among newly arrived immigrants.
While speaking on this subject I would like to congratulate the Liberal administration for its attitude towards the administration of Canadian Indian affairs. I wish also to pay tribute to those valiant Canadian women in the Order of the Grey Nuns and also to the missionaries who have contributed so much to making better Canadians of the Indian people.
Turning now to certain specific problems I would like to ask the Acting Minister of Citizenship and Immigration whether his government has any policy for prospective immigrants from the British West Indies which area is now in the British commonwealth of nations. Many of these West Indians live in my constituency and they would like to have their relatives join them in Canada. Furthermore I have received several petitions from Canadians in my constituency who have distant blood relatives such as nephews and cousins behind the iron curtain. The situation which now exists in these communist countries is well known to all hon. members but the very restrictive policy of the present administration is preventing these people from entering Canada and thereby escaping from communist persecution.
Other petitions have come to me from people who have very close relatives in the state of Israel. On grounds of compassion they have asked for the admission to Canada of such relatives as their own brothers and

sisters or their sole living relatives and I am sorry to say that these petitions, one after another, have been turned down by the present administration.
There is another problem which I would like to draw to the attention of the acting minister and that is with respect to petitions which have been forwarded to me by Polish people in Canada for admission to this country of several hundreds of Poles from displaced persons camps in Austria in addition to several thousands of Croatians who also wish to come to Canada and have been unsuccessful in doing so. I would ask the minister to have his department investigate these matters.
Lastly I would like the minister to look into cases where persons who have spent a few weeks or a month in psychiatric hospitals either for observation or treatment of minor ills or for nervous breakdowns have been refused applications for Canadian citizenship.


Mr. Nicholson:: Mr. Chairman, the acting minister has had many tributes from all sections of the house and I share these views. I feel he will have been somewhat embarrassed to have a former minister of citizenship and immigration speak of him in the way he did.
The minister did get his Department of Justice estimates through very quickly a week ago but I do not believe he will be able to dispose of these estimates quite so quickly. I realize that with three quarters of a million people in Canada seeking employment at the moment it is not very popular to advocate additional immigration but I do feel the sixteen million people living in the northern part of this continent, cannot expect to hold these rich lands exclusively for ourselves.
I am sure there is no one here who will dispute my claim that 30 million people might well enjoy a higher standard of living than we have here in Canada today. I realize we are not doing any good service by asking people to come here and share employment with us. I think we must do two things; we must see that the standard of living for the people of Canada is increased, and we must see that more people are permitted to come here. I know there is a regulation which will permit 50 people to come to Canada from Ceylon in addition to those who normally come to this country. I may advise the committee that I have recently been to Ceylon, and although Ceylon is less than half as large as the Mackenzie constituency, eight million people live in that country as compared with our 45,000, and I say without boasting that nowhere in Asia did I see such fine fertile
Supply-Citizenship and Immigration land as we have in north Saskatchewan. I do not think the people of Canada should expect that we should limit the people coming to this country to such small numbers.
I should like the minister, when he has an opportunity, to bring us up to date regarding the argument advanced by his colleague the Minister of Public Works on August 8, 1956 in connection with the regulations affecting immigration from India. The Minister of Public Works said on that occasion:
I should like to also urge upon the minister that he reconsider the provisions with regard to immigration from India. One significant fact is that India is a sister nation of the commonwealth and I think that should be borne in mind at all times.
The minister will recall that members from this party and from his own party made very effective representations to the department regarding this situation. I should like him also to bring us up to date in connection with the regulations regarding Chinese immigration, because on August 8, 1956, after the former minister had made his statement, the present minister said:
Mr. Chairman, I find it difficult to comment in parliamentary language upon the decision which has been announced by the minister with regard to Chinese immigrant cases generally.


Edmund Davie Fulton: I may say at once that we are reviewing all cases in which a review is requested.


John Whitney Pickersgill: As many times as requested?


Alexander Malcolm Nicholson: I am very glad to have that statement. I think the minister made a useful contribution when he said that this was one of the most shocking statements he had heard in parliament. The hon. member for Vancouver East used even stronger language when he said that it was the most damnably unfair statement he had ever heard, and I am very glad the minister has been able to say that the Chinese who are here can have their cases reviewed. I might mention that the minister's last annual report points out that the number of Chinese admitted to Canada over a period of 20 years was only eight. I have had some correspondence regarding the admission of a little boy of 12 years of age-


John Whitney Pickersgill: Would the hon. gentleman give that date again?


Alexander Malcolm Nicholson: Yes, it is in the annual report for the 20-year period.


John Whitney Pickersgill: What period?


Alexander Malcolm Nicholson: It gives for the five years ending December 31, 1929, four; for the five years ending December 31, 1934, three; for the next five year period one, and for the next five years none at all.

Supply-Citizenship and Immigration


John Whitney Pickersgill: I do not quite understand how the hon. gentleman is relating that to his argument.


Alexander Malcolm Nicholson: I am just calling attention to the fact that for years we had very unfair immigration regulations regarding the Chinese.
Time is running out, Mr. Chairman, and I would just like to say a few words about Japanese immigrants. Canada has had an unfortunate chapter in her history in regard to the treatment of Japanese Canadians during the first world war. I find we are encouraging people to come here from Germany, and I am all in favour of this, but we have had very few immigrants from Japan since the end of the second world war. I hope that the minister will tell the committee, when he has an opportunity, that he is trying to erase the damage done to the prestige of Canada in Asia by changing these regulations and making the people of Japan understand that we do not now share the views of his predecessors when they were in office during the war.
Mr. Chairman, I hope I will have the opportunity while we are discussing these estimates to touch on a number of other matters. In particular, there are a few questions in connection with the problems of the Indian people of my own constituency I should like to discuss.


John Whitney Pickersgill: I should like to ask the minister one question for clarification. Did I understand him to say that these Chinese cases were reviewed as often as a review was asked for, notwithstanding the number of requests received.


Edmund Davie Fulton: What I said was that we are reviewing any Chinese cases when requested to do so. We have not yet found it necessary or desirable to put a limitation on the number of reviews we are prepared to make.


John Whitney Pickersgill: Then it does seem to me that the answer the hon. gentleman gave to a question I put on the order paper precisely to find out information on this point was not in accord with the statement the hon. gentleman is making, because he said there has been no change whatever in the procedures for dealing with the Chinese cases, and it was precisely to find out whether there had been any change that I asked the question.


Edmund Davie Fulton: My recollection is that the question asked was whether there had been any change in procedure. I did not regard this as procedure. This was not regarded as being covered by the terms of the hon. gentleman's question. I thought what the


hon. gentleman had in mind was something that would require an order in council, something that would require a firm administrative directive applicable at all levels. It seemed to me that the question of whether the minister or head office reviewed the Chinese file could hardly be described as being within the ambit of the question. If the reply was misleading, I assure the hon. gentleman that it was because an honest, though perhaps mistaken, conclusion was reached that this type of change would not be included under the questions which were asked.


John Whitney Pickersgill: I was really quite surprised when the hon. member for Mackenzie asked this question and received the reply he did from the minister, because it seemed to me that after the rather extravagant language that was used by the minister when he was on this side of the house he would have regarded this question as one of the most important questions with which he had to deal and it did surprise me a little that nothing had been done about it. I am very glad to have the matter cleared up, however, and I have no desire to get into a quarrel about semantics with the minister. I am not saying the answer was misleading, but it did mislead me.


Edmund Davie Fulton: If I may just have another moment, the question was asked in the following terms:
1.	Has any change been made in the procedure for dealing with Chinese immigration applications since June 21, 1957?
2.	If so, when was such change made and what is its effect?
3.	How many applications for the admission of Chinese as immigrants have been received since June 21, 1957?
And so on. I may say that reading this in context I think the committee will agree that we were justified in the department in concluding that this question was asking: when you have received an application for admission, have you changed the procedure for dealing with it. We certainly answered it in that sense not realizing that the hon. gentleman's question was: have you changed the policy for reviewing the applications which may have been on file for many years.


John Whitney Pickersgill: I assure the committee that I was not suggesting for one moment there was any bad faith in the answer I received, though there does seem to be some difference about the interpretation of the question.


Stanley Howard Knowles: 
Edmund Davie Fulton: Yes.


Stanley Howard Knowles: And as many times as a review is requested?


Edmund Davie Fulton: We have not found it necessary yet to consider any limitation on the number of times we review the cases.


John Whitney Pickersgill: You have not answered my last question.


Stanley Howard Knowles: On request, would the minister review decisions made since June 21?


Edmund Davie Fulton: Yes.
Progress reported.



BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE

John Whitney Pickersgill: Can the hon. gentleman who is leading the house indicate what the business will be on Friday and Saturday?
Business of the House


Donald Methuen Fleming: My Speaker, you will recall it was agreed that the house would rise at six o'clock today and would then stand adjourned until eleven o'clock on Friday morning. On Friday it is proposed to take Bill No. 237, to provide for the stabilization of the prices of agricultural products, and after that to proceed in committee of supply with the estimates of citizenship and immigration.


John Whitney Pickersgill: Will that be the program also on Saturday?


Donald Methuen Fleming: I cannot make any positive
statement at this moment as regards the program for Saturday.


[Stage Direction]
At six o'clock the house adjourned, without question put, pursuant to the special order of the house passed on January 11, 1958.
[Stage Direction]
Questions