1958-01-24

COMMUNICATIONS


Right Hon. J. G. Diefenbaker (Prime Minister):: Mr. Speaker, hon. members will recall that on January 7 I informed the house of the action taken by the government to defer the application of an order of the board of transport commissioners authorizing an increase in rail rates pending consideration of an appeal to the governor in council by the various provincial governments against that increase, and the answer of the railway companies to the petition of the provinces.
The governor in council has now received a petition from a number of municipalities in Ontario and Quebec appealing to have rescinded the order of the board of transport commissioners authorizing an increase in telephone rates charged by the Bell Telephone Company of Canada. We have also received an answer to that petition from the company. The appeal in question involves the same major question of principle that is involved in the railway rate case, and it therefore will be necessary to consider the two at the same time.
Consequently the government has deferred the implementation of the order of the board on the telephone rates in the same way and manner that it did in connection with the railway rates. I table herewith a copy of the order in council of January 24, P.C. 1958-111.


Mr. Knowles (Winnipeg North Centre):: When the Prime Minister says "in the same way and manner", does he mean until the same date as well?


John George Diefenbaker: Yes.



OLD AGE SECURITY


John George Diefenbaker: Mr. Speaker, I have an announcement to make in connection with the investigation of the United States old age insurance system. Yesterday afternoon the Minister of National Health and Welfare received word from Professor Gordon Huson of the
University of Western Ontario to the effect that, following the recent statement in the house by myself making it clear that the government wished to have a report on the United States old age insurance system in a matter of three or four months, he had reviewed the possibility of carrying out this assignment against the background of his university teaching responsibilities.
He indicated that while he felt it would have been possible for him to complete this study before the end of 1958, he could not, having regard to his university responsibilities, do so in the space of time contemplated by the government. In view of these facts Professor Huson has asked to be relieved of his responsibilities in connection with the projected study of the United States social security system. His telegram reads as follows:
In view of government desire to have pension report by early summer at the latest, may I please be relieved of my assignment to prepare it since my university teaching commitments must have first priority until the end of May.
This development is a keen disappointment, since Professor Huson was highly recommended. In view, however, of our sense of urgency in the matter of this study, we felt we had no alternative but to accept Professor Huson's resignation. In his place I am pleased to announce that Dr. Robert M. Clark, associate professor of economics at the University of British Columbia, has agreed to undertake this important assignment. Dr. Clark, who is a Ph.D. from Harvard University and is very widely recognized as an authority on this type of subject, has indicated that he is in a position to begin work immediately.


Stanley Howard Knowles: Mr. Speaker, may I ask the Prime Minister if he has an assurance from Dr. Clark that he will be able to meet the deadline suggested by the Prime Minister the other day? May I also ask whether an examination has been made of the study of the system in the United States made by the old age security committee in 1950, and the other research material that has been collected since that time by the Department of National Health and Welfare? Is there not already sufficient information in the possession of the department to reach a decision on this important question?

Inquiries of the Ministry


John George Diefenbaker: In so far as the investigation by the committee to which my hon. friend has made reference is concerned, that material of course is available, and there have also been interim studies since. There have been, however, considerable changes of viewpoint based on experience with the United States system. For that reason it is very necessary that anyone looking into this matter should have available to him the experience of the United States since 1950 or 1951, when the committee in question first met. So far as Professor Clark is concerned, he realizes the need for early action in this regard, and has given no other indication than that such action will be taken.


Mr. Pickersgill:: I wonder if the Prime Minister could tell us what the remuneration is for Professor Clark?


John George Diefenbaker: There has been no
determination of that whatever. When a determination is made the information will be made available to the House of Commons, not through newspapers outside of the house.



BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Hon. Howard C. Green (Minister of Public Works):: Before the orders of the day are called, Mr. Speaker, may I explain that on January 18 I intimated that it was the intention of the government to put a notice on the order paper this week providing for sittings on Monday and Tuesday mornings. We have now changed our minds and have relented on this question, so the house will be sitting at the ordinary times on Monday and Tuesday. We are hoping this move will pay dividends in the shape of the more rapid dispatch of government business.



INQUIRY AS TO FURTHER LEGISLATION TO BE INTRODUCED THIS SESSION

[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. A. M. Nicholson (Mackenzie):: Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister indicated yesterday that he would be able to tell this house either today or tomorrow the additional legislation, if any, which the government proposes to lay before parliament this session. Is he in a position to make a statement this morning?


John George Diefenbaker: Mr. Speaker, I am not prepared to do so today, but if I happen to be absent tomorrow, as I expect to be, an announcement will be made by the leader of the house as to the balance of the program.



CANADIAN NATIONAL RAILWAYS


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Hon. George H. Hees (Minister of Transport):: Mr. Speaker, on Monday last the hon. member for Essex West asked if a recommendation would be made to Canadian National Railways to proceed with the construction of the new station at Windsor. I indicated in reply that this matter had already been brought to the attention of the management. I might say that the hon. member for Essex South has for some time also made representations in this regard.
It is the intention of the railway to provide the new express facilities this year and proceed with the erection of the passenger station next year, with construction to be started in the spring. I am now advised that the company has in preparation the plans and specifications for the express building, and will make every endeavour to get the work under way just as soon as possible.



TORONTO


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. C. A. Cathers (York North):: I should like to direct a question to the Minister of Transport. Is Canadian National Railways giving consideration to the establishment of more adequate commuter train service into Toronto from the adjoining suburban municipalities? I am asking this question in the house because there are many large cities across Canada which have the same traffic problems.


George Harris Hees: Yes, Mr. Speaker. I have received also representations in this regard from the hon. member for York-Scarborough. I have spoken about this matter to the management of Canadian National Railways, and they have this matter under active consideration at the present time.


Hon. George C. Marler (St. Anloine-Wesl-mount):: May I ask a supplementary question. Can the minister indicate when the consideration is likely to reach a conclusion, because so far as I recall the circumstances it was under consideration two years ago.


George Harris Hees: In answer to the hon. member's question may I say that I feel sure this matter will reach a conclusion far quicker than it was able to be reached under the previous government, when no conclusion was reached.



UNEMPLOYMENT INSURANCE


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Hon. Michael Starr (Minister of Labour):: Mr. Speaker, in answer to a question put to me by the hon. member for Nipissing on Wednesday last, I should like to inform him that according to information I have received from the officials of the unemployment insurance commission they are conducting an inquiry concerning the possibility of opening an office in Mattawa, as he requested. As soon as they have all the facts at their disposal, I shall give the information to the hon. member.
At this moment I wish to inform the house that a number of inquiries have been received relating to the establishment of new offices for the unemployment insurance commission. All such inquiries are being carefully reviewed in the light of local conditions, and where a definite need is shown the matter will be proceeded with accordingly. I hope to have a more complete answer for the hon. member before long.


EXTERNAL AFFAIRS
[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. Alistair Stewart (Winnipeg North):: should like to direct a question to the Secretary of State for External Affairs. Is the minister prepared to present for discussion at the next NATO council meeting at which he is present the resolution unanimously adopted by the NATO parliamentarians' conference asking for the convening of an Atlantic conference similar to that held at The Hague in 1948?


Hon. Sidney E. Smith (Secretary of State for External Affairs):: Mr. Speaker, I thank the hon. member for the copy of this question which he had sent to me. The resolution on an Atlantic congress and Atlantic high level citizens' conference adopted by the third annual NATO parliamentarians' conference, the so-called Kefauver resolution, was in two parts. The first instructed committees of the conference to make arrangements for convening an Atlantic congress in 1959 in connection with the tenth anniversary of the North Atlantic treaty. That resolution requested heads of government to support this proposal at the NATO meeting in December.
The second part recommended that all NATO governments should, in consultation with the standing and political committees of the NATO parliamentarians' conference, 96698-236
Inquiries of the Ministry bring about a conference in 1958 composed of leading representative citizens to examine how greater co-operation and unity of purpose among NATO countries can best be achieved.
It was not found possible, Mr. Speaker, in the time available to consider the first part of this resolution at the NATO summit meeting in December. However, I assume that my hon. friend has in mind the second part of the resolution which deals with the bringing about of a conference in 1958. I would interpolate here that as a result of the meeting of NATO heads of government last December, a course has been charted toward even greater co-operation among NATO members in not only the military but also the political, economic, cultural and technical fields. I am personally optimistic that this unity of purpose and mutual co-operation, which has reached a degree unprecedented among free nations, will be strengthened.
I can assure the hon. member that the recommendation of the NATO parliamentarians' -conference-that is the second part of the resolution-is being given careful thought, and we are also investigating what support for the convening of such a conference may be expected from our NATO partners at the meeting of the council to be held next March. It is, however, premature to say what action will be taken in the council in respect of this matter at that March meeting of the North Atlantic council.


Alistair McLeod Stewart: May I ask
a supplementary question. Do I understand that the government is prepared to bring this matter up for discussion at the March meeting of the council?


Sidney Earle Smith: We are prepared to do that, Mr. Speaker. But I reiterate what I said, namely that it would be premature to anticipate what will be done by the council. We are in communication with our partners with respect to this matter.



PALESTINE REFUGEES


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Sidney Earle Smith: Mr. Speaker, I should like to reply to a supplementary question that was addressed to me yesterday by the hon. member for Kootenay West in connection with our proposed additional contribution of $1,500,000 worth of Canadian flour to the United Nations relief and works agency. The hon. member inquired "what ratio of local currency to the dollar value of the Canadian donation of flour is released for rehabilitation in the area".
3732	HOUSE OF
Inquiries of the Ministry
I desire to make it clear, Mr. Speaker, that the question of local currency does not arise, because all UNRWA's aid is given directly to the refugees in the form of goods and services. There is thus no system of counterpart funds in local currency such as is the case in some other types of aid programs as, for example, under the Colombo plan.
If I have understood the question correctly, it relates to the extent to which the Canadian special contribution of flour may serve to restore rehabilitation projects, as distinct from relief. Prior to Canada's decision to offer this gift of flour the state of UNRWA's finances, according to the director, was such that while the relief budget could probably be met, this would take all the funds which the director expected to have at his disposal for both relief and rehabilitation. If the financial situation of the agency develops as forecast, all the money which UNRWA will save on food costs as the result of our donations of flour will make possible an equivalent expenditure on rehabilitation projects.


Mr. Solon E. Low (Peace River):: I wonder if the Secretary of State for External Affairs can say if UNRWA is equipped to do rehabilitation work, or is it necessary that such work be done through the governments of the countries where the refugees are located?


Sidney Earle Smith: In reply to that question, Mr. Speaker, I would say yes, UNRWA is. They have the personnel to conduct small scale self-supporting projects, vocational and general education, placement services, and similar projects.


Mr. G. K. Fraser (Peterborough):: Mr. Speaker, I should like to address a question to the Minister of Trade and Commerce. Will the gift of $1,500,000 worth of flour to the Palestine refugees be provided in such a way that the flour will be bought from the millers of Canada on a capacity producing basis, so that all millers will have an opportunity to participate in the gift?


Hon. Gordon Churchill (Minister of Trade and Commerce):: Mr. Speaker, in an instance like this where a gift of flour is being made by Canada I think all the flour mills in the country should have an equal opportunity to participate in supplying the flour that is required, with the proviso that the prices must be reasonable. When we made a gift of flour last fall I think there was participation by most of the flour milling companies in Canada, and I hope a similar arrangement can be worked out for this subsequent gift.


Mr. Benidickson:: Is the minister referring to mills or to companies?


Gordon Minto Churchill: I should have used the word "companies", I think.


Mr. G. H. Castleden (Yorkton):: I should like to ask a supplementary question. Are tenders ordinarily asked for in the case of such gifts, or in the case of gifts such as Canada made to Pakistan and Ceylon recently?


Gordon Minto Churchill: Yes.


George Hugh Castleden: And is the lowest tender accepted?


Gordon Minto Churchill: The gift we made last fall was spread among five companies, I think. I would have to check to be accurate, but I think the lowest tender was declared the price at which they might participate. Having in mind that it was a gift, we did not think it wise to give the business simply to one company. Similarly, I hope in this instance there will be an equitable distribution of the business, because it relates directly to a gift.


George Hugh Castleden: Will the minister make a statement to the house as to what prices were paid in the case of the former gift?


Gordon Minto Churchill: I can get that information.



INQUIRY AS TO INCREASED


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. W. A. Tucker (Roslhsrn):: Mr. Speaker, I should like to direct a question to the Secretary of State for External Affairs referring to increased economic co-operation among the members of NATO. I should like to ask him to give the house evidence of any concrete progress toward greater economic co-operation among NATO members pursuant to the decision taken at the recent NATO conference.


Sidney Earle Smith: Mr. Speaker, I can
assure the hon. member and the house that those resolutions which were adopted at the NATO council meeting in December are now being studied by the permanent delegates to the council.


Walter Adam Tucker: A supplementary question. Has the Canadian government given any definite instructions to its representative on the permanent council in regard to the position we think should be taken and the steps that should be taken to bring about greater economic co-operation?


Sidney Earle Smith: Mr. Speaker, we are in close communication with our representative there, Mr. Dana Wilgress, and I am not in a position to say what our view would be with respect to certain matters which are under discussion in the council at the present time.



COLOMBO PLAN


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Sidney Earle Smith: With your permission, Mr. Speaker, I would like to take this opportunity to table copies of the sixth annual report of the consultative committee of the Colombo plan, which was recently released. This is the report prepared at the meeting of the committee held in Saigon, Viet Nam, from October 21 to October 24, 1957.
You will recall, Mr. Speaker, that my colleague, the hon. member for St. John's West (Mr. Browne), headed the Canadian delegation on this occasion.



NATIONAL DEFENCE


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. W. J. Henderson (Kingston):: May I
direct a question to the Minister of National Defence. Has a formal agreement between the United States and Canada with respect to NORAD been completed to date?


Hon. G. R. Pearkes (Minister of National Defence):: Mr. Speaker, it was only the day before yesterday that the Secretary of State for External Affairs gave an answer to the Leader of the Opposition in which he advised that the note had not been concluded. He also outlined the progress which was being made, and informed the house that the negotiations were being carried on through normal diplomatic channels. I believe it is unrealistic to think that there could have been a change in that situation in the last 48 hours.


George Carlyle Marler: But the Conservative government moves so fast.



INQUIRY AS TO BIOLOGICAL WARFARE EXPERIMENTS

[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. Colin Cameron (Nanaimo):: Mr. Speaker,
I wish to direct a question to the Minister of National Defence arising out of the answer he gave to my colleague from Port Arthur, as reported on page 3595 of Hansard of Wednesday, January 22, in which he informed the house that biological warfare experiments are 96698-2364
Inquiries of the Ministry now taking place at Sufheld, Alberta, conducted by Canadian scientists in co-operation with United States scientists.
The question I should like to ask the minister is how such action on the part of the Canadian government is consistent with the fact that Canada was a signatory to the antibiological warfare protocol of Geneva to which we deposed our adherence on September 31, 1951; and in view of the fact that in 1953 a proposal was made in the United Nations that the two major nations which had not signed this protocol should do so, which indicates that this protocol is still binding on signatories, I wonder how the Canadian government can explain why the department is engaged in these experiments.


George Randolph Pearkes: Yes, Mr. Speaker. The experiments that are being carried on at Suffield, Alberta and Grosse lie, Quebec, are purely defensive in nature; in other words the department is carrying out experiments to see how the effect of an attack on this country by an enemy using biological weapons could be limited so the spread of diseases which might be stimulated by enemy action could be restricted. The experiments have also been most helpful to various branches of agriculture in showing how the spread of disease can be limited in peacetime.


Colin Cameron: May I ask a supplementary question. How is it that these experiments are being carried out by the Department of National Defence and not by the Department of National Health and Welfare or the Department of Agriculture? I cannot for the life of me see it. Would the minister explain to me how the program differs in any way from the program of the Department of National Health and Welfare for the control of epidemics?


George Randolph Pearkes: This is the Department of National Defence, and we consider every means of defending this country against possible enemy action.
(Translation):



TRANS-CANADA HIGHWAY INQUIRY AS TO AGREEMENT WITH QUEBEC

[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. J. P. St. Laurent (Temiscouata):: should like to address a question to the Solicitor General.
In view of the alarming rate of increase in unemployment in the province of Quebec, would the Solicitor General say whether the federal government and the Quebec govern-
3734	HOUSE OF
Inquiries of the Ministry ment have come to an agreement regarding the construction of the trans-Canada highway in that province?


Hon. Leon Balcer (Solicitor General):: Mr. Speaker, I believe that this matter is one which comes within the purview of the Department of Public Works. I would therefore request the hon. member to direct his question to the appropriate minister.
(Text):


Jean-Paul Stephen St-Laurent: May I redirect my question, Mr. Speaker, to the Minister of Public Works. In view of the increasing unemployment in the province of Quebec, I might say at an alarming rate, and in the absence of a reply to my question from the Solicitor General, would the minister inform the house what progress, if any, has been made between the government of Canada and the government of the province of Quebec to bring about an agreement for the construction of the trans-Canada highway in that province?


Howard Charles Green: Mr. Speaker, there is no agreement between the government of Canada and the government of the province of Quebec concerning the construction of the trans-Canada highway, and I know of no negotiations now under way on the subject.



PUBLIC WORKS


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Howard Charles Green: I would like to answer a question asked by the hon. member for Temiscouata yesterday in the following words:
May I ask the minister whether consideration is being given to urgent repairs, not improvements, to the wharf at Riviere du Loup, province of Quebec?
The answer is that the repairs necessary to keep the wharf at Riviere du Loup in a safe and serviceable condition will be carried out during 1958.



INQUIRY AS TO NATION-WIDE SHELF OF PROJECTS

[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. E. G. McCullough (Moose Mountain):: Mr. Speaker, I should like to direct a question to the Prime Minister. In view of the widespread and high unemployment throughout Canada, is the government considering a nation-wide shelf of publicly-financed useful projects to ensure full employment? If not, why not?


John George Diefenbaker: Mr. Speaker, announcement in this regard will be made shortly. Certainly the government has been giving every consideration to the establishment of public works in


our country, to the end that where unemployment exists employment will be provided. One of our difficulties, of course, was that there was no shelf of public works, as was indicated in the white paper in 1945.


Mr. Mcllrailh:: Is this a debate?


John George Diefenbaker: We have been endeavouring to establish something in the nature of a consistent policy in this regard which will meet the needs of the time.
(Later:)


Mr. Maurice Breton (Jolieite-L'Assompiion-Montcalm):: Mr. Speaker, in view of the fact that the government has decided to embark upon a program of public works to help reduce unemployment, I should like to ask the minister not to forget my constituency, where 6,000 people are unemployed.


Mr. Alexis Caron (Hull):: Mr. Speaker, may I address a question to the Minister of Public Works. The newspapers told us yesterday that members of the Conservative party were asked to give a list of public works to be done in their constituencies. Will the same demand be made of members of other parties in this house?


Howard Charles Green: Mr. Speaker, after the suggestion I have just had from the member who asked a question a moment ago I think it would be wise for me to say right now that I am not asking for requests from anybody on any side of the house. We will get plenty of requests without taking such initiative.



REQUEST FOR TABLING OF LETTER TO PREMIER OF NEWFOUNDLAND

[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
John Whitney Pickersgill: Mr. Speaker, I should like to ask
whether the Minister of Northern Affairs and National Resources is now in a position to table the letter to the premier of Newfoundland refusing to make the amendment he requested?


Hon. Alvin Hamilton (Minister of Northern Affairs and National Resources):: A letter has gone forward to the premier of Newfoundland asking permission to table the letter.



WELCOME TO VISITORS IN GALLERY FROM AFRICA

[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Sidney Earle Smith: Mr. Speaker, I wonder whether I could crave the indulgence of the house. I believe it would be remiss of me if

I did not draw your attention and the attention of the house to the presence in the gallery of visitors from Africa, several of whom are prominent in the educational and political affairs of various countries of that continent. Four of these visitors are members of the cast of the play "Freedom", which is having its first showing in Ottawa on Sunday.
I am sure you would have me say we welcome these visitors to Canada and to our parliament, and we wish for them a very happy and pleasant sojourn in this country.



INCOME TAX


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
William Moore Benidickson: Mr. Speaker, I should like to direct a question to the Minister of National Revenue. On January 13, as reported at page 3239 of Hansard, the minister indicated that because of the United States-Canadian tax agreement he had, on behalf of the Canadian corporation, Premium Iron Ores, seen to it that certain representations were made to the United States government to avoid double taxation in this instance. I wonder whether the minister would indicate to the house the nature of the representations and whether or not a reply has been received from the United States government. If so, does he think the representations are likely to be successful?


Hon. G. C. Nowlan (Minister of National Revenue):: Mr. Speaker, in reply to the second part of the question, I have not been instructed on this matter during the last 48 hours because I have not been here, but my understanding up to 48 hours ago is that no reply had been received.
The communication, of course, went through the appropriate channels between the Secretary of State for External Affairs and the state department at Washington. I am not sure what is requisite in making available the information with respect to such a communication. I will have to give consideration to that. It is one between governments, and I shall check on that later and advise the house at the next sitting.



AIRPORTS


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. Louis Lewry (Moose Jaw-Lake Centre):: Mr. Speaker, I should like to direct a question to the Minister of Transport. Can the minister
Inquiries of the Ministry say whether he has received any representations asking for consideration by his department of the establishment of a new intercity airport to serve the two cities of Moose Jaw and Regina? If so, will such consideration be given immediately, possibly as a winter works project?


George Harris Hees: Mr. Speaker, I thank the hon. member for his courtesy in advising me of his intention to ask this question. I have not yet received a communication, but I will check with the department and as soon as it arrives it will receive serious consideration.



NORTH BAY


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. J. R. Garland (Nipissing):: Mr. Speaker, in view of the Prime Minister's announcement a few moments ago that the government intends to embark upon a huge program of public works I am sure this will be gone into only after the appropriate study. I wonder whether the Minister of Transport can say if a decision has yet been reached as to expanding the facilities of the administration building at the North Bay airport.


George Harris Hees: Mr. Speaker, I am not familiar with the request for an expansion of those facilities, but I will check into the matter with my departmental officials and give the hon. member an answer as soon as I have one.


John Richard Garland: May I ask a supplementary question. Has a decision yet been reached to expand the existing administration building at its present location, or is it proposed to go ahead with the original plan of moving it to the new location on the downtown side of the property?


George Harris Hees: Mr. Speaker, I think the hon. member will recognize that there are so many matters of this kind and there is so much of this type of work going on in the country that the Minister of Transport cannot keep track of every plan, every airport, every station, or every job in the country. If he had given me notice of his question I would have been glad to check up and get an answer for him today. As it is, I will take notice of his question and give an answer as soon as it is possible to do so.



CANADIAN PACIFIC RAILWAY


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Stanley Howard Knowles: Mr. Speaker, may I direct a question to the Minister of Transport. Is he yet
3736	HOUSE OF
Inquiries of the Ministry in a position to indicate to the house what response he has received from the Canadian Pacific Railway Company in reply to his appeal of last Monday to the railways of Canada to step up their winter work program?


George Harris Hees: Mr. Speaker, I have not yet received
a reply.



ALLOCATION OF BOX CARS

[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Edward George McCullough: Mr. Speaker, I should like to ask the Minister of Trade and Commerce whether he has prepared an answer with respect to the Canadian wheat board and the terminal authorities at the various terminal points, in respect of the co-operation between the Canadian wheat board and the shipping orders getting to the line elevator companies.


Gordon Minto Churchill: Mr. Speaker, I did not hear clearly the hon. member's question yesterday. The question was phrased in this way:
Can the minister say if shipping orders to elevator companies are given in such a way as to assure that space is available for unloading operations at terminal elevators within a reasonable time?
As I did not hear the question clearly I said I would have to examine the wording very closely, which I have now done. The wheat board has had years of experience in dealing with the shipping of grain, and its relationship with the elevator companies has been co-operative. I am quite sure they take into account all the factors in the mind of the hon. member when they issue their shipping orders.



PUBLIC BUILDINGS


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Howard Charles Green: Mr. Speaker, yesterday the hon. member for Hull asked me the following question:
I am told that next Monday the patients in the old Sacred Heart hospital will be removed to the new hospital. In view of the great need for a place for old people, would the minister consider the possibility of lending-
I presume the hon. member meant "leasing"
*-the old hospital for a period of ten years to the city of Hull?
The answer is that in July, 1957, a similar request was received from the city of Hull. That was for a period of five years. The city was advised on August 20, 1957, that the department would be prepared to make the building available under the same terms and 

conditions as it was leased to the Sisters of Charity for a period of two years terminating in November, 1959. This indicated a rental of some $40,000 per year. It was not possible to concede a five year rental, as the federal district commission is anxious to continue with its development. The commission was anxious that any rental agreement should not extend beyond two years.


Alexis Pierre Caron: May I ask a supplementary question. Does the minister not consider that the welfare of people is more important than a park?	'


Howard Charles Green: Well, Mr. Speaker, I take it from that question that the hon. member is not very keen about the developments in the Ottawa-Hull area which are proposed by the federal district commission.



FINANCE


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Hon. Donald M. Fleming (Minister of Finance):: Mr. Speaker, yesterday I was asked by the hon. member for Burin-Burgeo as to the probable date of the hearing by the tariff board of the reference concerning fluorspar. I may say to him it is the hope of the tariff board to fit this particular inquiry into its very heavy program in the spring.



CANADA SAVINGS BONDS, TWELFTH SERIES- STATEMENT ON AMOUNT OF NEW MONEY REPRESENTED

[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Hon. Donald M, Fleming (Minister of Finance): Mr. Speaker, I rise to answer a question asked me yesterday by the hon. member for St. Antoine-Westmount, who asked me yesterday if we had the final figures on the sale of series 12 Canada savings bonds. The figures I have indicate that the sales of series 12 bonds reached a record total of $1,175 million.
The hon. member also asked about the amount of new money that was brought into the federal treasury as a result of these sales.
I point out to the house that it is not possible ever to give that figure precisely, because there are redemptions of previous series going on at all times throughout the year. But as he had asked earlier concerning redemptions I had figures gathered together for the three months of October, November and December. That period, of course, is longer than the period of the sales campaign for the series 12 bonds. Redemptions in that three month period totalled in round figures $785 million.
William Moore Benidickson: The minister said one period was

longer than the other. Can he say when the period during which there was an opportunity to purchase new bonds was terminated?


Donald Methuen Fleming: With respect to redemptions I have given the figure for the three month period of October, November and December. As to the period of the campaign, my hon. friend will recall that it opened about the middle of October and that sales were closed as of December 31.



PRIVILEGE


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Stanley Howard Knowles: Mr. Speaker, I rise on a question of privilege. In order that members of the house may not be misled as to the attitude of the students of the University of Toronto, which is located in your own constituency, sir, may I correct a news report that appears in this morning's Globe and Mail. The report indicates that at Hart House last night a resolution that the C.C.F. is the only logical alternative to the present federal government was voted down. The fact is, Mr. Speaker, that it was carried, as one would expect. It was the Liberals who were turned down, as one would expect.


Donald Methuen Fleming: On the same question of privilege, Mr. Speaker, I am sure it will be a matter of interest and jubilation on the part of hon. members of the house that on the occasion of a similar debate in the same place in the month of December on the following question, "Resolved, that this house supports the present federal government", the motion was carried by an overwhelming majority.


George James McIlraith: Mr. Speaker, I presume it would be in order for us to acquaint the Minister of Finance with some of the facts of life and some of the conditions in this country arising out of his misguided and fumbling financial policies.


Donald Methuen Fleming: Mr. Speaker, my hon. friend will find his answer in the announcement I just made of the record success of the Canada savings bond campaign.


Some hon. Members:: Order.


Mr. Speaker:: I did not understand that a question was asked which appeared to call for any answer.



AGRICULTURE


[Stage Direction]
The house resumed, from Thursday, January 23, consideration of the motion of
Agricultural Products-Price Stabilization Mr. Harkness for the second reading of Bill No. 237, to provide for the stabilization of the prices of agricultural commodities.
Hon. D. S. Harkness (Minister of Agriculture):: Mr. Speaker, in the five minutes I had available to me last night before the house adjourned I had referred to the very large number of incorrect statements and errors of all sorts which had been propagated by the members of the three opposition parties as far as the farm price stabilization bill is concerned.


Mr. Hahn:: You also made a lot of incorrect statements.


Douglas Scott Harkness: After five very long days of debate, under our present extended hours, on the second reading stage of the bill we had another example of the tactics which hon. members opposite follow, in that there were immediately two interjections after I had spoken for only five minutes. After five days of these outpourings from the opposition we had these two interjections, one by the hon. member for Coast-Capilano "filibustering his own bill", and the other from the hon. member for Bonavista-Twillin-gate "a great way to get business done."
These foolish and childish interjections are typical, of course, of the sort of things which have been going on during this session, and which have been coming from hon. gentlemen opposite because they do not want to hear the facts. They feel they should have days and days in which to put forward their own misinterpretation of this piece of legislation, and when the minister responsible for the legislation attempts to reply they immediately try to prevent him from speaking by making interjections along these lines.
Last night, Mr. Speaker, I had pointed out that the main Liberal criticism of this bill was that it was not as good as the Agricultural Prices Support Act now on the statute books, and which the Liberals had introduced some years ago. I had indicated why I was quite sure that was a proposition which no farmer in this country would accept.
The other Liberal criticism of this bill put forward by the hon. member for Rosthern was that it does not cover wheat, oats and barley produced in the prairie provinces, which are handled by the Canadian wheat board. I think the reason for not including wheat, oats and barley under the price support act introduced by the Liberal government was that these grains were handled by the Canadian wheat board. The heads of the three prairie wheat pools did not want, and do not want now, to have wheat, oats and barley handled by the wheat board included in this bill.
3738	HOUSE OF
Agricultural Products-Price Stabilization
The reasons for their stand are very-obvious. If you attempted to handle these grains under two government boards the result would be nothing but confusion and difficulty. I feel there is no question but that it would destroy the efficient operations of the Canadian wheat board. Since the leaders of these three farm co-operatives who represent the people most directly concerned with handling these grains, and who I think know a great deal more about the matter than the hon. member for Rosthern or other members opposite, did not want these three grains included, it is rather difficult to understand why the hon. member for Rosthern and certain members of the C.C.F. and Social Credit parties have been criticizing the bill because these three grains are not included.
Whatever is done, so far as wheat, oats and barley are concerned, will be done under the Canadian wheat board, a body of which the great majority of western farmers are very strong supporters. I deplore the line taken in this regard, particularly from the point of view that it was an attempt to rouse sectional feelings so far as this bill is concerned. Time after time the hon. member for Rosthern said that this bill did nothing for the western farmers. This bill looks after every product produced by the western farmer, with the exception of wheat, oats and barley, which are looked after by another Canadian government board.
This attempt on his part to arouse sectional feelings in regard to this matter is a deplorable example of the extent to which he and the members of his party will go in order to try to stir up trouble in this country. One of the things, Mr. Speaker, from which we have suffered most in Canada is this business of the Liberal party trying to stir up sectional difficulties for their own political advantage. This was just another example of an attempt to do that.
The majority of the criticism levelled at this bill by the C.C.F. and Social Credit was merely abuse, abuse of me personally and abuse of the legislation. As such it is not proper, I think, to dignify it by answering it. Apart from this general abuse, the basic criticism of these two parties was that the legislation contained no rigid formula. This is correct. It contains no rigid formula for the very good reasons which I gave at the resolution stage, and again when I spoke on second reading.


Solon Earl Low: I rise on a question of privilege, and not to prevent the minister from speaking. I point out that he has done a severe injustice to the members of this group by making a statement that we indulged mainly in personal abuse of the minister. I deny 

that most emphatically, Mr. Speaker, and ask the minister to point to any speaker in this group who indulged in personal abuse of the minister.


Douglas Scott Harkness: Mr. Speaker, Hansard will speak for itself. I do not apply this stricture to the hon. member for Peace River (Mr. Low).


An hon. Member:: Mr. Speaker-


Mr. Speaker:: Order. The minister is dealing with the point of privilege raised by the hon. member for Peace River, and I think we ought to hear him.


Solon Earl Low: If he is dealing with the question of privilege I will sit down and let him continue until he has finished. I hope that in dealing with the question of privilege he will point out to me anyone in my group who indulged in personal abuse of the minister while discussing the terms of this bill. If he cannot, then my question of privilege is well taken and he should withdraw that statement.


Douglas Scott Harkness: If the hon. member wants me to name some members of his group who did engage chiefly in abuse in speaking on this bill I would name the hon. member for Bow River (Mr. Johnston) right away, and the hon. member for Medicine Hat (Mr. Olson) and the hon. member-to a lesser degree-for Red Deer (Mr. Shaw).


George Carlyle Marler: How can he be an hon. member to a lesser degree?


Mr.   Johnsion@Bow River: On a matter of personal privilege, Mr. Speaker, I think the minister should refer to Hansard and quote the section in which I indulged in personal abuse of him. I can say that he is absolutely wrong. The fact that I criticized the bill is certainly not personal abuse.


Mr. Speaker:: I am doubtful that these matters are matters of privilege. Hon. members are complaining that the minister said they abused him personally. That is a comment that is often made. If he is wrong there is always an opportunity to correct misstatements at the end of his speech. It should not be done by interruption unless there is a real matter of privilege which must be dealt with at once.


Douglas Scott Harkness: Mr. Speaker-


Mr. Johnston (Bow River):: Not only is the minister wrong-


Mr. Speaker:: Order.


Douglas Scott Harkness: As I said before, I am quite happy to let Hansard speak for itself in regard to this matter. Anyone who wishes to read the speeches of the hon. members, although

Agricultural Products-Price Stabilization
that would be a very profitless undertaking, I think will come to the conclusion that my statements are correct.
As I was saying before these interruptions, Mr. Speaker, the only real criticism from practically all the members of the C.C.F. party and most of those of the Social Credit party so far as this bill is concerned is that it does not contain a rigid formula for price fixing. I dealt with that in very considerable detail at the resolution stage and on the motion for second reading. I pointed out that in the countries, particularly the United States, where an attempt has been made to apply a rigid formula nothing but difficulties, anomalies and unfairness had resulted. In this legislation, therefore, we were trying to avoid a formula of that kind.
Nearly all the speeches we have had from the C.C.F. and the Social Credit parties have been attempts to misrepresent this bill.


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh.


Douglas Scott Harkness: In practically all cases, Mr. Speaker, what is the minimum guarantee in the bill has been represented as its maximum benefit.


Charles Edward Johnston: Mr. Speaker, is it not against the rules of this house for a minister or any hon. member to say that another hon. member misrepresented a case deliberately? The Minister of Agriculture now is only repeating what he will say in his broadcast on January 25 over the Calgary station when he goes there.


Mr. Speaker:: The word "misrepresentation" has a good many meanings. It has often been used in the house and has been accepted as a proper criticism. If it is used in the sense of "deliberate untruth", of course it is objectionable, but the word "misrepresentation" is not necessarily unparliamentary.


George Harris Hees: I rise on a point of order, Mr. Speaker. The hon. member for Bow River is complaining about the word "misrepresentation" being used.


Charles Edward Johnston: Deliberate misrepresentation.


George Harris Hees: I heard the hon. member accuse the Minister of Agriculture of telling a direct lie.


Charles Edward Johnston: I did not do any
such thing, Mr. Speaker, and I ask the Minister of Transport (Mr. Hees) to withdraw those words. What I said was that the statement was a lie. I said the statement was a lie and so it is, but that is not calling the minister a liar.


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh.


Charles Edward Johnston: Although people can draw their own conclusions.


George Harris Hees: Mr. Speaker, if I say that the statement the hon. member has made is a lie, is that not saying that he is a liar? You bet your hat it is.


Mr. Speaker:: Order. Fortunately I did not hear that statement made, and I hope it is not reported in Hansard. I would consider that it was improper to say that any statement made by an hon. member of the house is a lie; but in my opinion that is a much different thing from saying that a member has misrepresented the effect of legislation, or even saying that he has done it deliberately.


Charles Edward Johnston: I said "deliberate"; that makes a big difference.


Douglas Scott Harkness: Mr. Speaker, I know the truth hurts and these people do not want to hear it. I do not wonder that they are making these complaints and are raising all these questions of privileges and points of order.


Mr. Speaker:: I wish the minister would leave the point of order alone now that it has been dealt with.


Douglas Scott Harkness: I shall be delighted to do that, Mr. Speaker. A moment ago the hon. member for Bow River challenged me to point out any instances of personal abuse. One of my colleagues has just pointed out to me one which he turned up in half a minute. It is to be found at page 3658 of Hansard. The hon. member for Red Deer (Mr. Shaw) was speaking and he said this:
Once again I suggest to the house that if it is the minister's conclusion that this bill can or will provide social equity and place the farmers in a proper position in our economy, I would almost have to accuse him of being inebriated.


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh.


Douglas Scott Harkness: If that is not abuse, if that is not an absolutely incorrect type of implication to make in this house, I do not know what it is. As I say, anyone who wants to waste his time in going through Hansard and reading the speeches of these hon. members will find plenty of other instances of the same thing.
Before these interruptions I had just been saying that what is the minimum guarantee provided by the bill has been represented as its maximum benefit. That has been the whole purpose of the speeches made by hon. members opposite, particularly those in the far corner of the house in the C.C.F. party. They have made every possible effort both in this house and, as far as I can make out, outside of it during the Christmas recess to try to persuade the farmers of this country

Agricultural Products-Price Stabilization that all this bill provided for them was 80 per cent of the average prices for the past 10 years. As I have pointed out time after time, that is the absolute minimum guarantee in this bill in order to ensure what we might call a certain amount of ultimate security as far as the farmer is concerned.
The main purpose of the bill is to provide guaranteed yearly prices which can be set for any agricultural commodity except wheat, oats and barley produced in the western area. These guaranteed yearly prices, once they are set, will be in effect for 12 months in the future. In other words the bill brings forward prices into effect for the first time, and it provides to the farmer, through the ultimate security clause, through the guaranteed yearly price which will be put into effect-and which will be the one chiefly in effect-a very much greater degree of security than he has ever before enjoyed.
I think the chief reason the hon. members of the C.C.F. party have been so determined in their misrepresentation of this bill is that they are afraid that when it gets into operation it will please the farmers so much that they will fail to return any C.C.F. members from western Canada.


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh.


Mr. Argue:: That is personal abuse.


George Hugh Castleden: It does not apply to wheat, does it?


Douglas Scott Harkness: One of the matters which have been noteworthy in the campaign carried on by the C.C.F. members, as was pointed out by the Minister of Northern Affairs and National Resources, is the fact that they have never referred to the royal commission on agriculture and rural life set up by the province of Saskatchewan, their own C.C.F. government, and the recommendations which were made by that royal commission. The Minister of Northern Affairs and National Resources yesterday put some of those recommendations on the record and immediately provoked some angry outbursts on the part of C.C.F. members. However, I think it is noteworthy that this royal commission set up by a C.C.F. government was never referred to by these hon. members. Why was it not referred to? It was not referred to because the conclusions and the recommendations contained in that report are quite contrary to all they have been saying.


An hon. Member:: Who is misrepresenting now?


Douglas Scott Harkness: The conclusions and recommendations in this report as a matter of fact support the type of legislation provided by this bill.


An hon. Member:: Nonsense.


Douglas Scott Harkness: I am not going to take the time to read all these conclusions, but at page 212-and anyone who is interested can get it himself-there is conclusion No. 38, which says that a support program should include the following principles, and it lists them from (a) to (f). Every one of those principles is contained in this legislation except for one, and that is that it should guarantee only a reasonable amount of production from any one farm. That matter can be looked after under one of the provisions of this bill, through the regulations which are written to carry the provisions of the bill into effect.
Conclusion No. 40 I should certainly like to draw to the attention of the house, because a great deal of the talk we have heard has been in connection with the terrible plight of the small farmer. I know that the position of the small farmer is bad, but these members have tried to represent that if this bill were amended in order to put into it a rigid price support formula, it would help the small farmer and would look after his difficulties. Conclusion No. 40 on page 212 of this report reads as follows:
It should be recognized that no price measure can effectively solve the problem ot low income groups in agriculture. Such groups need access to greater resources so that their productivity can be increased.
As I indicated at the resolution stage and at the second reading stage, this is only one facet of our general agricultural program to try to improve the general position of agriculture in this country. As I pointed out in introducing the measure at the resolution stage, no one piece of legislation can be expected to solve all the difficulties of an extremely complex industry such as agriculture, and we of course were not so foolish as to try to do so in this bill or to try to represent to the farmers that it would do so.
This report makes several definite recommendations as well as conclusions, and I was talking previously about the conclusions. When we come to the recommendations we might first take recommendation No. 9. I should perhaps say that these are the recommendations dealing with the stabilizing of farm incomes, which is a term, I would point out, used in this report in spite of the remarks of the right hon. member for Melville during his two or three speeches in connection with this bill to the effect that the word "stabilizing" indicated nothing was going to be done and that his bill was much better because it had a different name. This royal commission uses the term "stabilizing farm income".


Mr. Gardiner:: So does the old act.


Douglas Scott Harkness: And recommendation No. 9 says that systems of forward prices for all the principal agricultural products, based on annual estimates of demand-supply conditions-and I wish hon. members in the C.C.F. party had taken a look at this report before they complained about this matter and said that any consideration as to supply and demand should be left out. Their own royal commission, set up by the C.C.F. government, recommended that such systems should be instituted by the federal government.


Some hon. Members:: Order.


Edward George McCullough: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker.


Douglas Scott Harkness: -in order to minimize the uncertainty of farm prices-


Mr. Speaker:: I recognize the hon. member who has risen on a point of order.


Edward George McCullough: My point of order is that the commission referred to by the hon. minister was an independent royal commission set up by the government of Saskatchewan for the purpose of looking into certain aspects of agriculture. That is an independent report, and these people were not intimidated in any way; it was a very valuable report and we take no exception to it. I do want to point out, however, that it does not represent C.C.F. policy.


Douglas Scott Harkness: There is no point of order there.


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh.


James Garfield Gardiner: Read the table on page 6.


Mr. Speaker:: It does seem to me that the hon. member is simply making an argument in the guise of a point of order.


Walter Adam Tucker: May I ask the minister a question?


Douglas Scott Harkness: Just a minute until I have finished this, and I will be glad to answer your question. I had just got to the point where these were to be instituted by the federal government in order to minimize the uncertainty of farm prices and to provide producers with price information necessary to use their resources most efficiently. As I say, I wish the members of the C.C.F. party had looked at the recommendations of this royal commission, a body which spent a very long time studying these matters, before they made all the irresponsible and incorrect statements which have been made by them in this house and elsewhere in connection with price support measures.


Walter Adam Tucker: May I ask a question of the minister? Does the report of that royal
96698-237i
Agricultural Products-Price Stabilization commission from which the minister has been reading not also refer to the producers of wheat, oats and barley in the west?


Douglas Scott Harkness: I think it does refer to them, but not at this particular point when it comes to the stabilization of prices.


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh.


Douglas Scott Harkness: So much for that, Mr. Speaker. One of the matters which was raised by a considerable number of members, particularly those from the province of Quebec, Ontario and the maritimes, was the matter of pulpwood and the inclusion of pulpwood under this price support legislation.
The situation so far as pulpwood is concerned, from everything I have been able to make out, has been far from satisfactory. The prices the farmers have received for their pulpwood, according to the information I have gained, has been very much less than the companies pay for pulpwood from their own limits, or than it costs them to take their own pulpwood off their own limits. I think there is no question but that it is an unsatisfactory situation and that the farmer who is selling pulpwood has been getting a very poor deal in this connection, and that it is a matter on which action needs to be taken.
I suggest action could much more properly be taken by provincial governments who grant the forest licences and leases to these companies than by the dominion government. However, in regard to requests which have been made that pulpwood be named in the bill, I think it would be inappropriate to name it in this legislation because only nine commodities are named here. Those are commodities which are produced in all parts of Canada and they constitute, including barley, wheat and oats, over 75 per cent of the total value of the production of all agricultural commodities in Canada.


Mr. Johnson (Kindersley):: But you left
those out.


Douglas Scott Harkness: My hon. friend over here says wheat, oats and barley produced in the west are left out. There is no question about that, and he does not have to shout it out.


Willis Merwyn (Merv) Johnson: But you said you included them.


Douglas Scott Harkness: I said if they are included; I did not say they were included. The point is, Mr. Speaker, that wheat, oats and barley have guaranteed prices applied to them through initial prices provided by the wheat board. I know the hon. members over there are not satisfied with those initial prices, but nevertheless that is a type of support prices. In any event this is departing from the main

Agricultural Products-Price Stabilization theme I was following, that it would be inappropriate, in my opinion, to put pulpwood in as one of the main commodities because of the fact that it is not produced in all provinces and does not, as do these other commodities, come in the class of more or less universally produced agricultural commodities.
There are a few other matters I would like to touch on briefly. A considerable number of members have stated that I did not get representations from farm organizations before bringing in the bill. I did get very large numbers of representations from farm organizations before doing so. The Canadian Federation of Agriculture met with the cabinet and with myself and presented their brief. The interprovincial farm unions did the same thing. They put forward their ideas and have been putting them forward for some considerable time in regard to price support legislation.
I was fully aware of the points advocated by the farm organizations with respect to this matter. Had I brought in these organizations and showed them the provisions of the bill, then it would have become public and hon. members opposite would have immediately complained, up hill and down dale, that I was giving information outside of parliament which I should first be introducing in parliament. Had I done what they are now talking about there would have been nothing during the course of this debate but complaints that I had not followed proper parliamentary procedure, that I had shown contempt for parliament, and so on and so forth. I do not therefore think there is anything in that argument.
In addition to that, once the bill had been introduced in the house and given first reading I immediately got in touch with and had numerous conferences with farm organizations in order to get their ideas on the matter. As a result of those conferences I introduced certain amendments and, as a matter of fact, I am prepared to introduce certain other amendments when we get to the committee stage-


Some hon. Members:: Oh, hurrah!


Walter Adam Tucker: Let us hear them. What are they? We should know them before we have to vote.


Douglas Scott Harkness: -in order to meet the requests particularly of the interprovincial farm union with respect to matters in which they think this legislation could be improved. I have been ready since I have been a minister, and indeed throughout my life, to accept suggestions, and have not adopted the stubborn attitude which characterizes a very

large number of hon. gentlemen in the opposition parties of this house, who say "That is the only thing I can do. This is right. These matters stay this way and no change can be made." That is the attitude all those hon. gentlemen take. I have never taken that attitude. I have always been prepared to listen to advice and to take that advice when I thought it was wise, practical and desirable to do so.


Walter Adam Tucker: Would the hon. minister permit a question? He has indicated that he is prepared to introduce certain amendments when we go into committee of the whole. Does he not think he should tell hon. members what he has in mind in that regard before we have to vote on the motion for second reading?


Douglas Scott Harkness: No, Mr. Speaker. The hon. member knows that the proper place for introducing amendments is in the committee of the whole; and I can assure him and other hon. members that the amendments will make no change in the general principle of the bill, which is all we are discussing at the present time. The general principle of this bill was good from the beginning, and we are going to continue with it.


Stanley Howard Knowles: Not
stubborn, are you?


Walter Adam Tucker: You will make little amendments that don't matter.


Douglas Scott Harkness: Mr. Speaker, the hon. member for Melville has made the statement that three bills have been brought in. That is one example of the misrepresentations that have been carried on with regard to this measure, and it has been re-echoed at great length by a number of other hon. members, as if to stiy that we did not know where we were going, and so forth.
As you indicated when this question came up once before, and as I myself indicated at that time, only one bill has ever been introduced. It was given first reading and subsequently, when I indicated that certain amendments would be introduced in the committee stage, a request was made that the amendments be put into the bill itself at that time. Your Honour suggested that if there were unanimous consent in the house this could be done by having a reprint of the bill. Consent was given and the bill was reprinted with these amendments. It was the same bill, but we did have it reprinted with those amendments. There were never three bills at any time; there was just one reprint.


James Garfield Gardiner: What I stated was that I had three bills before me. I still have. One of them is dated December 3, and the others

bear the date December 14. The one that was brought in on December 14 and placed before the house was, of course, practically the same as the original bill which bore the date December 3 on it. But that was changed that very day into something else, by agreement of the house it is true. But there are actually three prints and I have three prints on my desk.


Douglas Scott Harkness: There were two small misprints, "nor" instead of "and" or something else wrong in the first hurried printing that was done when the bill was reprinted. This was discovered before very many copies had been put out. Apparently the hon. member has one of those misprinted copies, but that is not another bill.


James Garfield Gardiner: The minister was kind
enough to give me that first copy; I should say that. However, what I stated was that there were three bills with two different dates on them. There was no misrepresentation.


Stanley Howard Knowles: Will the minister permit a question?


Douglas Scott Harkness: Just a minute. This point which has been laboured to such an extent, namely that there were three bills, is absolutely incorrect and is nothing but misrepresentation. There has only been one bill from the beginning.


Stanley Howard Knowles: Will the minister permit a question? In view of the statement that further amendments will be made when we are in committee, would that not call for another reprint of the bill in the form in which it is finally passed? Will the hon. member for Melville not then have four prints?


Douglas Scott Harkness: I do not think the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre needs to waste the time of the house in that way. Everybody knows he wastes more time than anyone else, in any event, and why he should attempt to waste even more by statements along that line I do not know.


Mr. Speaker:: I must advise the minister that his time is running out, but I think I will allow him three more minutes because of the points of order that were raised in the early stages of his speech.


Douglas Scott Harkness: Mr. Speaker, I will refer to just one other matter. The hon. member for Drummond-Arthabaska (Mr. Boulanger) made a very serious allegation which is absolutely unfounded and incorrect, and which I think I should take this opportunity to deny.
Agricultural Products-Price Stabilization He stated in the course of his speech regarding import control on turkeys, at page 4 of the translation section of Hansard for January 17:
In July last, on the 16th more exactly, the government decreed that a permit had to be secured to import chicken meat from the United States. A large Canadian firm, informed of the government's intention, imported 60 carloads of turkeys at a dumping price to resell them at a regular price, thus making a considerable profit at the expense of our consumers and producers.
That statement is a very serious imputation on the government and on the officials of the department. It is absolutely incorrect, and the hon. member should apologize for having made it. I have secured the figures as to the imports during June and July, and no firm imported anything like that amount in either of those two months. Thus the statement is manifestly incorrect and, as I say, the hon. member should apologize for making an imputation of that kind which has no relationship whatever to the facts.
As you have indicated, Mr. Speaker, my time is about up. I will say only this. I think we have taken a great deal more time than was necessary over this bill. We have had a terrific amount of repetition, from hon. members in the far corner particularly, and I hope we can now proceed to get the bill through committee of the whole without further delay.


Mr. Campbell (Lamblon-Keni):: Mr. Chairman, I appreciate very much the privilege of saying a few words on the matter now before us. I had hoped to be privileged to speak on second reading but it seemed best not to do so. However, I appreciate the opportunity of presenting some of my thoughts at this time.
May I say that I have listened with considerable interest to a great deal of the debate on the bill. With much of what has been said I agree, but with some of the things that have been said I must say I cannot

agree. Many statements have been repeated many times. I expect that I will be repeating some of the points that have been brought out before, but because I represent people who have problems that differ somewhat from the problems of those in other parts of Canada, and because I have had some experience which I believe to be somewhat different from that of most hon. members, I am going to try to present at least one or two thoughts that have not thus far had much emphasis placed upon them. I do so in the hope that I may help to prepare the people of Canada for the changes I expect this farm bill will bring about.
You will note, Mr. Chairman, that I have suggested that I think it will bring about changes. I say that because I have confidence in the bill and in the minister who is proposing the measure, and because I am confident that it will be possible to find men who will be willing and able to administer it fairly and honestly. I feel too that it is a special privilege to speak in support of a bill to assist agriculture. When I spoke some time ago I suggested that I thought it well to get started on the matter, and that while I did not expect the legislation to be perfect in every detail I did think it could be strengthened as it was found to be weak or defective.
I am pleased that as time has passed and some of the weak spots have been brought out the government has seen fit to recommend amendments. I think the minister is to be commended for his broadminded viewpoint in this connection. I wish to express my appreciation and pay my tribute to him as well as the department for his sense of fairness and seeming willingness to cooperate in giving the most sympathetic consideration to suggestions that have been offered by many members on this side of the house. To my mind that is something which speaks volumes for the agricultural policy of the government.
I believe this attitude on the part of the government and the minister in particular will tend to create the degree of soundness, strength and confidence in the agricultural policy of the government which it is going to need if it is to solve the problems that lie ahead.
I should like to take a few moments at this time to point out again that the region I represent has a great many problems because the farmers there produce a great variety of crops, and while the people engaged in the production of these crops represent only a small part of Canada nevertheless these matters are of just as vital concern to them as other problems are to people in other parts of Canada.

I feel that there is an indirect, if not a direct, reason why they should be encouraged to continue in the production of these crops in the interests of the general agricultural picture in Canada. That area of southwestern Ontario is very well suited to the production of quite a number of crops which, because of the climatic conditions there, cannot be produced to the same advantage in other parts of the country. I feel that for these reasons these people should be given encouragement to continue in the production of these special crops. Then the farmers in the rest of the country will not be faced with the keen competition which these farmers would afford were they discouraged from the production of these things and they directed their efforts into the more general lines of production carried on in most other parts of the country.
To illustrate my point a bit further, may I say that if the producers of such things as sugar beets, corn, tobacco, soybeans, white beans, tomatoes and so on were forced into competition with the producers of poultry, cattle, hogs and grain, it would make it just that much more difficult for the average farmer to survive.
I have in my hand, Mr. Chairman, a copy of a news letter published by the soya-bean growers' association in which it is stated that in 1956 the average price of soybeans was $2.16J per bushel; in 1957 the average was $1.96J or a difference of 20 cents per bushel.
I have in my hand also a copy of the latest Chatham newspaper which comes to my desk each morning. The price of soybeans as quoted in this newspaper is $1.90, a further reduction of 6 cents within the last few days. I point out these facts to show you that soybeans, for instance, are still on the decline, and to support the arguments I have so far advanced. May I say that I was pleased, in discussing with the minister this matter of agricultural policy in the light of this bill, to have been given the assurance that these special crops could be included in the designated commodities under the bill now before us.
It has been suggested that since only a relatively small number of people are concerned with the production of these special crops it does not matter whether or not these commodities are supported. My submission to this house is that if only a small number are affected, then only a small measure of assistance will be required to remedy their trouble. Since these people must share in the cost of whatever measures are taken to correct the problems of other areas, it is only fair that they should share equally in the benefits of those measures.
Agricultural Products-Price Stabilization
There is another very important reason why I feel support should be given to this bill. It is a reason which applies to all the people of our land rather than just to the farmers. If I may digress slightly for a moment, Mr. Chairman, in order to relate this point to the bill I would appreciate it. Some time ago we were discussing the passage of a bill of rights. I should like to suggest that if there is any one right the people should have in a country like ours, it is the right to expect good food. That is almost as important as life itself. I am one of those who believe that the food you eat will determine, to a great extent, what you will be. I feel I can speak with some authority in this connection because I have had the privilege of acting as an instructor in physical culture. I do sincerely believe in what I am saying, because I have practised it for a considerable number of years. I have faith in it. I have often said that what you eat, what you do and what you think make you what you will be. I believe that is true.
If I may, I should like to refer to a passage or two of scripture. It is recorded that the glory of young men is their strength. I suggest to you today that the glory of any person is his health and strength. It is recorded also that the body is the temple of the holy spirit, therefore glory God in your body. I do say that what we eat, what we do and what we think make us what we are.
These words will be of particular significance to all of us here, because it seems that when one is subjected to the strain, worry and responsibility connected with public service, the need for a strong constitution, a sound body and steady nerves cannot be overemphasized. I say these things in the hope that they may help to prepare the people of Canada for the changes I expect this bill will bring about.
If it is agreed that people have a right to expect the farmers to produce good food for them, then they should accept the responsibility that goes with that right to sufficiently compensate the producers of that food to ensure that they will not only be paid fairly for their labour but will be also in a position to maintain the fertility of the soil at a level which will enable them to continue the production of good quality food in the future. Thus they will avoid the necessity for mining their soil in an effort to get the last pound of food at the least possible cost, as it would seem the farmers have had to do at times in recent years.
May I call it one o'clock, Mr. Chairman?
At one o'clock the committee took recess.
3746	HOUSE OF
Agricultural Products-Price Stabilization AFTER RECESS
The committee resumed at 2.30 p.m.


Ernest John Campbell: Mr. Chairman, in my previous remarks I was endeavouring to point out that if the people of Canada had the right to expect the farm people to produce good food for them-and I admitted that I felt they had that right- they should be prepared to compensate the farm people fairly for the services connected with the production of that food. May I say that the scientists and doctors of our day- and by the way we have a number of doctors representing the people of their districts in our membership now-agree that in order to be at our best we require a certain balance of minerals, vitamins and so-called trace elements. When these properties are not found in sufficient quantities in our food they must be supplemented in our diet from other sources. That is all I intend to say on that subject.
I should just like to deal for a few moments with the bill itself. I should like to compare this bill with the old act in an effort to point out some of the advantages which this bill has and which the other one lacked, in my opinion. The old act is headed:
An act for the support of the prices of agricultural products during the transition from war to peace.
To me it appears that in the heading of the bill-and I am referring to the old bill- there is an inference that it was only intended to serve as a medium of adjustment during that brief period when the economy of the country was being adjusted from a wartime to a peacetime basis. The old act has no preamble or statement of purpose. The old act definitely rules out one important crop from being brought in at all when it says "any natural product of agriculture except wheat". This had, in my opinion, the effect of discriminating against eastern wheat producers. Unlike the present bill, which names and guarantees support for nine main products, the old act did not provide any help unless a product was designated by the governor in council under clause (a) of section ' 2. The new bill does assure a definite guaranteed minimum of not less than 80 per cent of the average price received for the product over the last 10 years.
I feel that while the board-that is the old board; I am referring now to the old act- was given authority to operate, subject to the approval of the governor in council, there was no real obligation on the part of the board to carry on those operations because the act reads that the board "may" purchase agricultural products in the market. Apparently the matter of whether or not 

products were supported, and the price at which the support level was put, was entirely at the discretion of the board. I find also that there was no stated period for which the prices were to be maintained.
The new bill, on the other hand, not only provides guarantees in this connection but also provides for a minimum period of one full year during which assurance is given that the prices set will continue in effect. The old act gives authority for the board to appoint an advisory committee. The new bill, by section 5, provides that the minister shall appoint an advisory committee composed of farmers and representatives of farm organizations. Also the amount of money that is set aside to provide support for the products in question has been increased from the old figure of $200 million, most of which was never used, to $250 million.
I do not believe it is being contended that this bill represents a cure-all for the ills of agriculture. It will no doubt need further amending from time to time. That the government has maintained an open-minded attitude in the matter of making the bill sound and workable I believe to be a demonstrated and proven fact.
In conclusion, Mr. Chairman, may I say that in my opinion the success of a law does not lie entirely in the words that are written into it, but will require also men of sympathetic understanding, sound judgment and a sense of fairness in the proper administration of it to make it succeed. It is my hope that such men can be found who will be willing to serve. I greatly appreciate the privilege of speaking at this time in support of this bill.


Mr. Mclvor:: I want to say a word or two at this time, Mr. Chairman. As I sat and listened I heard repetition not only by those on this side of the house but by those on the other side, even the minister himself. They repeated themselves several times. I will give the minister an example. He said several times that this was a good bill. He said more than once that the bill was not intended as a cure-all for farmers' ills. I am not going to repeat anything that anyone else has said.
I have two things to suggest to the Minister of Agriculture about how to keep young men on the farm and how to get young men on the farm. The first is that there should be places where training could be given to young men from the old country who' have a bit of money and who want to go on the farm in this country. I know that formerly farmers used to have young men out from England, especially, including relatives, and train them for the farm. I think in every

Agricultural Products-Price Stabilization
province there should be farmers, preferably farmers who were trained at an agricultural college, to whom these young men could go to learn practical farming. I also think that they should be paid a salary according to what they were able to earn.
The other thing I wish to say is that if you are going to hold young men on the farm there must be a bit of fun for them. "All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy"- that is very true. I am judging from two old farming districts west of Fort William, where they could teach the rest of Canada a lot of things. In that area they have their sons following them on their farms, and their sons' sons. Why? Because farming is fairly successful and is just as enjoyable as any other occupation in Canada.
We have in these districts a baseball league, and if you want to see competition at its highest and hottest you will see it there; and it is good ball. In the winter the young men have a hockey league, and there the competition is just as keen. People turn out to see their sons and sometimes their daughters play hockey., Not only that, but those who come out to see these games are entertained with refreshments which heat them up and do not go to their heads. Also in the winter there is a community centre where the older people can go and play indoor games, while in the summer the older people have their horseshoe competitions; and if anybody thinks he is an expert horseshoe pitcher let him come out and we will take him on any time.
I would suggest to the Minister of Agriculture that he plan some game or games. I have in mind a game called "chum how" which would, I am sure, entertain farmers all over the country. I think these things are worthy of consideration.


Willis Merwyn (Merv) Johnson: We have witnessed a rather unusual spectacle here today, the spectacle of a responsible minister of agriculture rising in his place to condemn members of the opposition for giving their suggestions in debate. I may have a perverted view as to what one might expect under a democratic process, Mr. Chairman, but it has always been my understanding that hon. members should have the privilege and responsibility of rising and presenting their views and those of their constituents on legislation to the house without being blanketed with wholesale condemnation by a minister.
The minister this morning accused the members of the C.C.F. group in its entirety -he did not make any exceptions-of abusing the minister personally and abusing the legislation. I am one of those who participated
both at the resolution stage and at the second reading stage of this legislation-


Douglas Scott Harkness: On a point of order, the
hon. member first of all has referred to what happened at second reading, which I think is out of order-


Some hon. Members:: No. Why?


Mr. Quelch:: Why? You are out of order,
too.


Douglas Scott Harkness: In addition, and this is on
a matter of privilege, he has just made the statement that I made no exceptions when I was speaking of the members of the C.C.F. party. I just happen to have the preliminary report of Hansard before me and what I said this morning was, "The majority of the criticism levelled at this bill by the C.C.F. and Social Credit parties was merely abuse".


Mr. Winch:: Read the rest of it.


Willis Merwyn (Merv) Johnson: I do not see
that that changes my statement at all, Mr. Chairman. If the minister had said the majority of the members he might have left the back door open so he could make a retreat, but I do not think he has clarified the situation by reading that statement. However, I will be perfectly fair with the minister. Had he changed his tone of voice in replying to the comments and criticisms we have made I do not think I would have been so likely to come to this conclusion.
As I mentioned, I took part at the resolution stage of this debate and at the second reading stage, and the purpose of my contribution was to present the views of my constituents and my own views on this legislation. I think it is fairly evident that there should be two points of view considered as to what this bill does achieve. There is the governmental point of view and there is the opposition point of view.
It has also been fairly evident that there are certain principles which have been ignored and left entirely out of this bill. I call the minister as a witness in this connection, because when he moved second reading he admitted that he had left five rather large chinks in the bill and he is going to start plastering them up by introducing five amendments. He further stated at the conclusion of the debate on second reading that there are more chinks which he intends to plaster up later. I believe it is as a result of the points of view brought out by the members of the C.C.F. and Social Credit groups that the attention of the house has been drawn to these matters and these very amendments have been brought about.
3748	HOUSE OF
Agricultural Products-Price Stabilization
I quite appreciate the fact, as I said yesterday, that the backbenchers on the government side are taking this opportunity to deliver their maiden speeches, but we have the minister complaining-and these are his words as I have taken them down-that hon. members have taken a great deal more time than was necessary.


Mr. Browne (St. John's West):: Mr. Chairman, is the hon. member at committee stage of the bill entitled to hash over what happened at the second reading stage?


Victor Quelch: Certainly he is.


Stanley Howard Knowles: There is no question but that in debating a piece of legislation it is considered in its entirety and it is perfectly proper at any stage, from the resolution stage to third reading, to refer to matters which are referred to in the course of the entire debate.


An hon. Member:: The supremacy of parliament.


Willis Merwyn (Merv) Johnson: The Minister without Portfolio should perhaps assume some responsibility for agriculture in this country and study the various principles and clauses of this bill, and perhaps assist his colleague in making some more amendments. The point we have been trying to make is the necessity for making this bill as complete as possible.
The hon. member who has just taken his seat, the member for Lambton-Kent, has compared this bill with the old Agricultural Prices Support Act, and he concluded that it was a better piece of legislation than the old act. That is no different from the conclusion of the members of the official opposition, because they are supporting the government in the destruction of the old Agricultural Prices Support Act. I do believe, however, there are certain principles which must be included in this legislation, and I am prepared to do what I can to convince the minister and the cabinet of the necessity of making certain amendments.
The minister has taken credit for being open-minded, for not having fixed views, and I certainly would like to take advantage of that fact. I call as a witness the former member for Lake Centre, who is now Prime Minister, as he is quoted at page 5600 of Hansard for July 29, 1944. He said:
The farmer understands floor prices to be prices set at a level which will assure him of a reasonable profit over and above his cost of production, although some consider them to be the same as parity prices. Under this measure the board is empowered to make purchases, and to set the level of prices at which it makes purchases, regardless of whether that level may be below the level of the cost of production or not. To be fair to the farmers of Canada, and not to hold out to them
[Mr. Johnson (Kindersley) .1

hopes that may not culminate in action, the minister should set forth in this bill the principle that prices paid in respect of farm commodities shall be based upon costs of production and a reasonable profit.
That, Mr. Chairman, has been the basis of the argument in the speeches we have had made from the C.C.F. group and in those made by members of the Social Credit group. The farm organizations have been trying to get the minister to understand this, so he will incorporate the necessary legislative means to remedy the situation. The present Prime Minister went on to state:
But if this bill is to be anything more than a promise of a hope, there must be something in it to show that the prices the farmers are to receive will assure them of reasonable costs plus a fair return.
Mr. Chairman, I think that is worth fighting for. This is a principle which must be recognized by all hon. members and, indeed, many members have paid lip service to it. I maintain that if the Minister of Agriculture had invited the farm organizations to present to him draft legislation to stabilize agricultural prices, that principle would have been the first to have been written into the bill.
The minister has stated that he did receive representations from farm organizations. He most certainly did. The farm organizations were on their toes, taking advantage of the fact that there has been a change of government, hoping that things would be different and that they would be consulted. In fact they were consulted with regard to this legislation, but they were consulted after it had been introduced and after a storm of protest had been raised in the country and in the farm organizations because the measure did not include the principles which the present Prime Minister enunciated back in 1944. There was nothing to ensure that the farmer would receive his reasonable costs plus a fair return.
I think, therefore, if the minister would give consideration to these principles in the amendments he proposes to make-and I think it is unfortunate he has not informed the house more clearly as to his intention- a lot of the present discussion would become unnecessary. I do not believe members of this house are being merely vocal; what we are trying to achieve is the best possible deal for the farmers.
I will conclude by asking the Minister of Agriculture to say now that he will be including in the bill certain of the principles which have been requested by farm organization as a means of improving this legislation, namely a cost-price or parity principle, and certain other features which would make the bill of greater value to the farmers of Canada.

Agricultural Products-Price Stabilization


Victor Quelch: Mr. Chairman, I may say I was somewhat surprised at the outburst of the Minister of Agriculture when he closed the debate. Surely after the number of years he has been in this house-13 years, I think he said-he should be a little less thin skinned than he appears to be, and he should be able to distinguish between what I call constructive criticism and what he referred as personal abuse.
Throughout this debate, during the resolution stage and right through second reading, we in this group have tried to be constructive. We have tried to point out the weaknesses of the bill, and we have made recommendations to improve it. For instance, we have made many suggestions regarding a fair cost-price relationship, and that has been our main disagreement with the bill. During the resolution stage we pointed out there was no mention in the resolution of a fair cost-price relationship, of a parity price, or of the cost of production.
Apparently the Minister of Agriculture did take some heed of the criticism which was levelled against the resolution because when he brought in the bill, a very short time after he had begun to speak he announced that he intended to make a number of amendments; and while it is completely out of order for a minister to talk about amending sections of the bill on second reading, hon. members of this house, realizing that the bill was of such an undesirable character as to make such a step worth while, gave unanimous consent to *those amendments being read and subsequently to having the bill reprinted in order to embody those amendments.


Stanley Howard Knowles: In
the hope they would amount to something.


Victor Quelch: Yes, hoping they would amount to something. They did amount, perhaps, to a little, but not to very much; therefore we were glad to hear the minister say not long ago that he intended to introduce more amendments.
The first question that comes to mind is why the minister should have waited for second reading before amending his bill. Why did he not amend the bill before it was introduced in the house? The minister has stated that he consulted with farm organizations before the bill was introduced. Surely if he had done that he would have realized from their submissions that the bill in the form in which it was placed before the house was totally inadequate to deal with the distressed condition of agriculture.
When he made these changes he told us he was making them because members of the Conservative party had asked him to do so. If this is correct one might well ask why
members of the Conservative party waited until second reading before asking the minister to change the bill. Why did the members of the Conservative party not ask him to make those changes before the bill was introduced in the house? Does this mean that the members of the Conservative party had not seen the bill before it was introduced in the house?


An hon. Member:: That is right.


Victor Quelch: Some Conservative member says "that is right", and I do not doubt it for a moment. I think that is exactly what happened. Now let me remind the committee of the kind of propaganda which was put out during the election campaign. While that campaign was being carried on the Conservatives said; "Vote for a man who will be a member of a major party so he can sit in on the inner councils and help formulate policy". We always charged that private members very rarely saw a bill before it was introduced, and here we have a declaration by a member of the Conservative party that he and his colleagues had not seen this bill before it was presented. So much for this nonsense about private members helping to formulate government policy.
Even so, when members did realize that the legislation was unsatisfactory they did apparently ask the minister to change it. Any Conservative backbenchers who were not familiar with the situation appreciated, I think, what that situation was after they had listened to the criticism which was directed against the resolution by members of the opposition parties. Having heard that bitter criticism and having discussed the resolution with hon. members of the opposition, they then realized that there were some very undesirable features in the proposed legislation and when the bill was given first reading and they had a chance to see it they realized that the charges which we had made were well founded.
What were some of those charges? The minister had stated that the very basis of the bill was a fair cost-price relationship. I pointed out at the resolution stage that in the whole bill the words "cost-price relationship" were not mentioned once. I pointed out that the word "parity" was not mentioned once; I pointed out that the words "cost of production" were not mentioned once; and if there was that principle in the legislation it existed merely in the mind of the minister and was certainly not embodied in the bill.
I hope at the next election the people will remember well the words of a Conservative member that he and his colleagues had never seen this legislation, so we will not have any more nonsense being talked around the
3750	HOUSE OF
Agricultural Products-Price Stabilization country urging people to elect members of a major party so that backbenchers can sit in on the inner councils and help formulate policy. They have no more to do with the formulation of policy than have members of the opposition. Rather, I would say, members of the opposition are in a far better position to change a bill than are members of the Conservative party, because the Conservative members are afraid to take a too critical attitude toward their own government.
On the other hand, members of the opposition parties are free to express their views as they see fit, and if they can express those views strongly enough they are in a position to get action from the government. Could there be a better demonstration of what I am saying than the present bill; the situation where a minister brings a bill into this house and then, a few minutes after introducing it, tells us he intends to make a number of changes in the measure, four amendments in all.
After that we continued to criticize the legislation, pointing out that even with those changes it was not satisfactory. We point out certain additional changes that are necessary. Then the minister tells us that in the committee he will be making some more amendments. No doubt a number of those amendments will be along the lines we have advocated. I am hoping that by the time we reach the last section of this bill he will have made sufficient amendments to it so we in this group will be able to support it. We would like to be able to support it, but we absolutely refuse to support a bill which in our opinion constitutes a breach of faith on the part of the government.
The Minister of Agriculture has criticized us in this group for advocating a rigid formula. Let me draw to the attention of the Minister of Agriculture the fact that no member of this group has ever advocated a rigid formula. What we have advocated is a fixed base period, with a flexible application of the parity percentage to that base period, and there is all the difference in the world between those two. Apparently the Minister of Agriculture cannot differentiate between a fixed formula and a fixed base period to which you may apply a flexible application of a percentage of parity.
I wonder whether the Minister of Agriculture is as critical of the attitude of this leader as he is of the attitude of the opposition. Let me point out to the Minister of Agriculture that on a number of occasions the Prime Minister of this country has made it absolutely clear to the electors of the country that he stands behind a fixed base period and then a flexible parity based upon that
[Mr. Quelch.l

fixed period. I want to pursue this matter in the committee. I think we are entitled to a statement from the Minister of Agriculture as to whether he agrees with his leader or whether it remains for the opposition in this house to support the Prime Minister whilst the Minister of Agriculture and the rest of the Conservatives oppose the attitude of the Prime Minister.
Let me quote what the Prime Minister said on March 12, 1956, as reported at page 2021 of Hansard:
As far as parity is concerned, it must be related to a basic period which is regarded as one in which prices and costs are in approximate equivalence one to the other.
I know of no better definition of parity than that which appeared in yesterday's New York Times. I have made the necessary changes in the definition to meet the situation in this country. It is as follows:
"Parity prices are the dollars and cents prices that give to farm products the same buying or purchasing power they had in a selected base period when prices received by and prices paid by farmers were regarded as in good balance . . .
It has been put this way: If you can sell a truckload of barley and buy with the money received so much food, clothing, building materials, fertilizer, farm machinery and other living and production items as you could in a chosen favourable period in the past then your barley is selling at a parity price."
That was the definition of parity as applied to a fixed base period. He agreed with that himself, and then he moved this motion:
In the opinion of this house consideration should be given by the government to the advisability of introducing during the present session legislation to create a parity of prices for agricultural products at levels to ensure producers a fair price-cost relationship.


Walter Adam Tucker: When was that?


Victor Quelch: March 12, 1956. Let me inform the Minister of Agriculture that if the Prime Minister of this country does not have support from the Conservative party for that stand, he has the support of this group. We are 100 per cent behind that. I now ask the Minister of Agriculture to declare whether or not he agrees with the stand taken by the Prime Minister at that time.


Douglas Scott Harkness: Mr. Chairman, I would just say that of course I do not agree with the interpretation placed upon the Prime Minister's remarks by the hon. member who has just taken his seat and the interpretation which is being placed on it by certain other people.


Victor Quelch: Let me point out that I did not place any interpretation upon them at all. The words I read were the Prime Minister's own words, and I am merely asking the Minister of Agriculture whether or not he agrees with the Prime Minister's words, yes or no. He has tried to sidestep that question.


Douglas Scott Harkness: Mr. Chairman, as I have pointed out before, this bill provides for and carries out to the letter all the election pledges we made and all the statements made by the Prime Minister with regard to support prices for agricultural products. I have them right before me in this book which was put out during the election campaign. I put them on the record here and the Minister of Northern Affairs and National Resources put them on the record again yesterday or the day before. He pointed out how every one of those pledges has been met and carried out, or will be met and carried out by this legislation.


Victor Quelch: Does the minister agree with the Prime Minister? The minister seems to be kind of dull today.


Stanley Howard Knowles: Just today?


Victor Quelch: I have asked him the simple question as to whether or not he agrees with the stand put on the Hansard record by the Prime Minister. Does he agree with that stand or does he not? That is all; surely he can say yes or no.


Douglas Scott Harkness: Mr. Chairman, I think I have made it abundantly clear-


Some hon. Members:: No.


Alexander Malcolm Nicholson: He cannot say yes or no.


Douglas Scott Harkness: -that this bill carries out everything the Prime Minister said and naturally, therefore, I agree with it.


Victor Quelch: We now have the spectacle of the Minister of Agriculture bitterly criticizing the fixed base period for parity and then saying he agrees with the Prime Minister who has advocated a fixed base period. Just how inconsistent can the Minister of Agriculture become?


Mr. Blanchette:: At this late stage of this measure I do not intend to make very extended remarks in connection with the bill before us. There is one thing that can be said, namely that all hon. members are seized with the fact that surely something should be done for agriculture. The difficulty seems to be as to the methods to be adopted to ameliorate the condition of the farmer. I will not expound the axiom that agriculture is badly in need of assistance; that is recognized by each and every one of us. It is also known that agriculture seems to be the poor daughter in the family of our economy. I might state further that to my way of thinking, no matter how long we try to compare the present act with this bill we will be getting adeptes for the former bill and also adeptes for the
Agricultural Products-Price Stabilization present bill, but we are now dealing with the present bill and the discussion should be directed to this bill.
My purpose in rising this afternoon, Mr. Chairman, is to make a suggestion to the Minister of Agriculture. I feel that he is sincere in his efforts, and I know he has in mind the bettering of agriculture generally. With that aim in view, the suggestion I would like to make this afternoon is this. I noted this morning that during the remarks the minister made in connection with some of the suggestions which were brought out by hon. members the suggestion was made that perhaps pulpwood could be included in this bill. I believe the minister stated, and rightly so, that to a certain extent pulpwood comes more under provincial jurisdiction than federal. However, we have had striking examples in the past of measures adopted by the federal government that dealt especially with matters of provincial jurisdiction, and I am wondering whether it would not be possible for interviews to be held with some of the provincial governments for the purpose of having pulpwood included under this measure.
The purpose of the legislation no doubt is to ameliorate the conditions of the farmers in a general way, and I feel that no measure could be more beneficial to the farmers of Quebec and Ontario than, if pulpwood should be included under the legislation. I do not intend to move an amendment to that effect, knowing full well that such an amendment would be ruled out of order, but I humbly and sincerely suggest to the Minister of Agriculture again that he should reconsider his statement of this morning with a view to bringing pulpwood within the terms of the bill.


Douglas Scott Harkness: I do not quite understand the remarks the hon. member just made, in which he suggested that I should reconsider my remarks of this morning. I did not say that pulpwood was not included. I said I did not think it was proper to include it as one of the named commodities, which are nine in number now and would be ten if pulpwood were included.


Joseph-Adéodat Blanchette: I took it that the minister stated this morning that this was more a matter of provincial than federal jurisdiction and that the minister said pulpwood would not be included. The purpose of my remarks this afternoon was to have him reconsider that statement if he did make it.


Douglas Scott Harkness: I did not say anything of the kind. I said it was not appropriate, as I repeat, to include it as one of the named commodities, but the bill applies to any agricultural commodity. What I said about
3752	HOUSE OF
Agricultural Products-Price Stabilization provincial jurisdiction in connection with pulpwood was that the provincial governments had it within their power to ensure very readily that farmers got a reasonable price for their pulpwood, much more readily than we can as a federal government.


Mr. Best:: Mr. Chairman, I should like to take a few moments this afternoon at the committee stage of the bill, and I am delighted to have this opportunity to say a few words. I feel that this legislation will help the farmers of our country very greatly. As a matter of fact, I was talking to a prominent farmer from my own riding less than an hour ago, and I asked him how the bill was being received back home. He told me that it was being received with great favour and great interest, and was regarded on all sides as a forward step in agriculture. I should like to congratulate the minister for his sincere and hard-working efforts at this time.
It is interesting to note that the hon. member for Compton-Frontenac spoke with some quietness this afternoon. I do not think that can be said of members in other parts of the house. From the hon. member for Acadia we had much sound and increasing fury, but also a mention of dullness. I do not think that dullness and sound and fury taken together are at all inconsistent, and I think these characteristics have been most evident in the case of members in the two far corners of the house-


Willis Merwyn (Merv) Johnson: When you have been here as long as the hon. member for Acadia you can say that.


Charles Alexander (Sandy) Best: -representing the two smaller parties in the house. We have heard the hon. member for Kindersley time and time again.


Willis Merwyn (Merv) Johnson: You will hear him again, too.


Charles Alexander (Sandy) Best: We heard him take credit this afternoon for the amendments made to the first bill that was introduced, and Social Credit speakers have done the same thing. I wonder if this is not a sort of covering up, a sort of guaranteeing, a sort of interesting balancing act so they can put themselves sufficiently on the right side in case the legislation should prove beneficial to the people of the country.


Willis Merwyn (Merv) Johnson: It has been changed, has it not?


Charles Alexander (Sandy) Best: I am convinced that it will be beneficial. As the hon. member for Meadow Lake, I believe, said in his speech the other day, the proof of the pudding is in the eating, and I suspect that members of some of the


other parties may have rather colicky stomachs when the public is through digesting and making use of the benefits of the bill.


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh.


Charles Alexander (Sandy) Best: Oh, you agree with that. I am glad we are getting some agreement at least. There has been mention of the distinction between constructive criticism and abuse. We heard about that in this corner of the house this afternoon. Constructive criticism is one thing, but we have been far from that in the seven days the bill has been under discussion. I believe this is now the seventh day, and I suggest that hon. members of the Social Credit and C.C.F. parties might stay their hands for a while and let the people of the country decide as to the good and bad points of the bill.
To some extent that has been the position of Liberal members opposite. The right hon. member for Melville, the hon. member for Meadow Lake and others have placed themselves in the interesting position of saying that they will vote for the bill and let the public decide, an abdication of responsibility, I should say, but an interesting point of view.


Mr. Slick:: You will have to abdicate before you are through.


Charles Alexander (Sandy) Best: We will see about that. We might just have a lot more Conservative members from Newfoundland the next time.


Mr. Proudfool:: Don't take yourself too
seriously.


Charles Alexander (Sandy) Best: The hon. member for Lambton-Kent mentioned the importance of food in Canada. We all realize that is so. The hon. member for Fort William said that young men have been leaving the farms in past years. Of course that has been part of the great tragedy of agriculture and the problems that were brought on in the last decade by the previous government.
Earlier this afternoon, the hon. member for Kindersley said the minister condemned the opposition. I think the minister was fully justified. The hon. member said that members of the house should have the privilege of representing the people of their constituencies, but in my opinion the good sense of the people of Canada will enable them to distinguish in their minds and hearts between sensible opposition and continual ranting and raving. I know they will distinguish, and possibly in another election they will give their verdict.


Willis Merwyn (Merv) Johnson: You are giving a good example right now.


Charles Alexander (Sandy) Best: We will see. In concluding the debate on the motion for second reading of

the bill the minister said the main criticism had stemmed from the C.C.F. and Social Credit parties, and involved a rigid formula. That appears to be so. We have noticed the twisting that has taken place at times involving the representation that the minimum guarantee under the bill is the maximum benefit. We realize that is not so. The establishment of a minimum guarantee is only one purpose of the bill. There has also been misrepresentation time and time again as to the opinion and action of farm groups, though this has been contradicted on our part by definite evidence. We realize that they were consulted at every stage of this bill.


Edward George McCullough: Oh, no.


Charles Alexander (Sandy) Best: Before it was laid before this house they were down here. I should like to say as well that the press criticism that has been read here has been very much onesided. I will not say their criticism is not proper, but the farm organizations have indicated many points in favour of this bill. I could read them, too, but the point is that they have not been mentioned by hon. members opposite.


Edward George McCullough: Go ahead.


Charles Alexander (Sandy) Best: All right, I shall not repeat, sir, the article written by Mr. Gordon Greer, president of the Ontario federation of agriculture, which appeared in the Rural Cooperator of Tuesday, January 14, on page 2. He mentions that the bill has no formula, but he also lists five points on which the bill is an improvement. The hon. member for Moose Mountain shakes his head. He, sir, is not putting on the record all the things the farm organizations of this country are saying. He is not showing the whole of this picture, and that is all we are asking him to do.


Stanley Howard Knowles: Are
you?


Charles Alexander (Sandy) Best: Yes. That is all we are requesting, and I think that is of great interest here. We have been in communication with all the farm organizations across this country and they have indicated their problems. But they have expressed as well, great satisfaction with many of the changes this bill brings about as against the present act, and also great appreciation of the sincerity and the efforts of the minister and his department, as well as the various members on the government side, in connection with this bill. I feel that should go on the record. In my opinion this is an extremely important point.
I see, Mr. Chairman, that the hon. member for Rosthern is here. Earlier today he was asking the minister, before we had reached committee stage, what amendments might
Agricultural Products-Price Stabilization be made. I wonder whether he is getting nervous about his position in voting against the bill. I wonder whether he senses that the bill might be of greater value than he thought when it gets to the people of western Canada. I see again that interesting balancing act and that little doubt in the back of his mind; it is a point to be conjured with.
I noticed also that the hon. member for St. Boniface and the hon. member for Rosthern voted against second reading of this bill. There was a total of something like 36 Liberal members in the house, and that brings to mind another interesting point; just where do the remaining members of this party stand on this bill? Are they taking refuge in being absent? Are the doubts in their minds so great as to the value or lack of value of this bill that they can stay away?
I should like to know just who does represent agriculture in the opposition, the hon. member for Melville, the hon. member for Rosthern or the hon. member for Bonavista-Twillingate. I have heard reports that the hon. members for Bonavista-Twillingate and Rosthern represented agriculture on the convention committee of the Liberal party. Was the hon. member for Melville present? I did not hear that he was.


James Garfield Gardiner: Yes. I was around all the time.


Charles Alexander (Sandy) Best: I am glad to hear that, because it is interesting. The confusion amongst the opposition so far as this bill is concerned is most fascinating to my mind.


James Garfield Gardiner: You may have thought I was one of the brass.


Charles Alexander (Sandy) Best: The hon. member is probably closer to the grass than many others. I believe the hon. member for Swift Current-Maple Creek gave a most interesting speech some time ago. I noticed that at one point he mentioned that the bill contained the germ of something new and interesting, or something of that kind. We hear a wide variety of opinion being expressed from the Liberal side about this bill. I would just repeat that if the vast majority of Liberals do not really believe this bill is an improvement over the present act, then I think there are stronger ways of fighting this bill than those that have been used to date. However, we are pleased with their supporting vote.
Going back and generalizing just for a moment, Mr. Chairman, we understand that this bill is just one step in our agricultural program. We realize that it is just one of the many things we promised the people of this country, and which we shall carry out, now and in the future. We introduced a support price on turkeys when they were brought under the import-export act. Butter and skim
3754	HOUSE OF
Agricultural Products-Price Stabilization milk powder were placed under the act, and support prices were announced for sugar beets. The measure to provide for advance payments on western grain was one of the early bills brought before this house. These things, in my opinion indicate the sincerity of our approach to this bill, which is a further major step in our general agricultural program.
Of course when one goes through the pages of Hansard one finds that many of the members opposite do not understand the explanations given by the minister at various times, or perhaps even the bill itself. They seem to dwell, time and time again, on various points in order to confuse things in their own minds. I hesitate to believe that they could construe out of this bill any of the things that they say.


Frederick George Hahn: I wonder if the hon. gentleman would permit a question.


Charles Alexander (Sandy) Best: Yes, Mr. Chairman.


Frederick George Hahn: I am not a legal expert, but is the hon. member implying that the interpretation put on this measure by a court would be based on what the minister says in this house?


Charles Alexander (Sandy) Best: Not being a legal expert, either, I find that a difficult question to answer. I suspect that what the hon. member is getting is that various interpretations are possible of various legal documents. However, when interpretations get so far out on a certain limb, so to speak, then they become a puzzle to our minds.
I have been interested in the speeches that have been made from time to time by members opposite. Some time ago I noticed that on page 3444 of Hansard the hon. member for Melville was reprimanding the hon. member for Springfield, the agricultural spokesman for the C.C.F. party, and pointing out that the hon. member for Springfield did not understand the revolving nature of this agriculture fund. Of course we have increased by $50 million the total amount in that fund. It is interesting that hon. members opposite do not understand, or do not seem to understand the revolving nature of this fund. I should like to refer to the remarks of the hon. member for Meadow Lake, when he said, as recorded at page 3608 of Hansard for January 22, 1958:
Therefore we have this change from the old act, and instead of a $200 million revolving fund we have a revolving fund of $250 million. The minister has told us during this session that they are using only $30 million of the old $200 million fund and $170 million is lying idle. He is going to add another $50 million to the idle fund to make it $220 million.
I would suggest to the hon. member for Melville that he discuss this revolving fund


with members of his own party before they take up the time of this house. These are interesting points to my mind. The other day we heard about foxes, flying rocks, pheasants, buttons and pants and so forth, or what might be referred to as the debris of this debate that has been going on for the last week. This is all of considerable interest to us, but I suggest again that in so far as this bill is concerned the proof of the pudding will be in the eating, so I say let it be implemented and go out to the people of this country.
We have heard a good deal-and indeed, Mr. Chairman, it is the main point of contention here-about the flexibility of this present bill before the house. We desire on the one hand to take a middle road, to make something that we feel is workable with regard to parity, fixed formulae, and flexibility, in the present bill. We have members here asking for more rigid systems, more formulae, more things of more complexity to guarantee more to the agricultural population of Canada. I remember the hon. member for Melville suggesting that we had lost flexibility in the present bill and that that very loss of flexibility was going to be one of the things which made it worse than the present act. I would suggest that the present act is so flexible that it will not even hold up.


Willis Merwyn (Merv) Johnson: That is right. We agree.


Charles Alexander (Sandy) Best: The present act allows much of things which could possibly be done, but were not done. We want to guarantee to some greater extent to the farmers of Canada a more just return for their efforts and for their produce.


Edward George McCullough: A basement guarantee is what you guarantee in this bill.


Charles Alexander (Sandy) Best: If we are talking about basements-and my hon. friends can talk a great deal about them-may I say this. Perhaps a new low will yet be seen by the basement party on my right.
We heard from the hon. member for York-ton yesterday, I believe, of the last ditch stand of the family farm and the family farmer in Canada. That is an interesting point. Certainly in the past it has been one and it is one which today is of considerable importance. We feel that in this bill we are making a start towards helping improve the position of the family farm and the individual farmer in this country. We feel that that will be a most important thing and one of great interest and value to the agricultural population of Canada. The C.C.F. party has

Agricultural Products-Price Stabilization
said that we have no formula, that we have no complex mechanism of deciding this, that, or the other thing in the bill. I ask you this question, Mr. Chairman. Is this formula an elixir of life, a philospher's stone, so to speak, that we must have it included in the present bill?
The hon. member for Yorkton, I believe said that his party and himself would fight the present bill to the end of their ability. I wonder whether that is not again an expression of fear and foreboding on the part of the party opposite. I wonder whether it is not an expression of fear that, with contradictions and criticisms, they have got themselves so far out along the path of negative responsibility that probably they will come back much decimated, and that their ranks and voices will be much thinner in the future. I wonder whether that is really not their fear. What about the march on Ottawa that we have heard about? Where are these things? I hesitate to be facetious and say the suspense is killing us, but where are they?


Edward George McCullough: Are you challenging the farmers to march on Ottawa?


Charles Alexander (Sandy) Best: The best judgment, Mr. Chairman, will come when the people of this country vote at another election, whenever it may be, and part of this vote in the east in my own county of Halton in Ontario, and in the maritimes and in the west, which so many members opposite represent, will be the voice of the people. That will be the best march on Ottawa. I suggest it will be a march of many more Conservative members on Ottawa.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear.


An hon. Member:: A pipe dream.


Charles Alexander (Sandy) Best: This procedure has been possibly a method of delay, a method of putting off something which is recognized as essential by the members of the C.C.F. party or at least that there is a suspicion in their minds that this is a good bill and that its progress through this house and its accomplishments in this country would do a great deal of harm to their party. I suggest that possibly those are the tactics which are being employed, although they are not ones which I would want to attribute to the members of any party. But what else can we think. To what other conclusion can we come after day following day of relentless, unending and circular argument in this house.


Willis Merwyn (Merv) Johnson: You had better plead guilty yourself.


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


Charles Alexander (Sandy) Best: Yes.


Stanley Howard Knowles: In
view of the way in which he is deriding the members of this party and members of the Social Credit party for talking of what he calls an elixir of life, a formula in this case, what has he to say about the promise which his leader, the Prime Minister of Canada, made at Brantford on May 9 during the last election campaign when he said that if elected to power the Conservatives will-and there are several points mentioned, No. 4 being this:
Place a formula in the Agricultural Prices Support Act for arriving at support prices.
Did the Prime Minister mean that or was it only election bait?


Charles Alexander (Sandy) Best: Mr. Chairman, I would suggest that many of the things that we have put into the present bill can be called a formula, that there are more basic things, that there are more things to pin down the judgment and discretion of the department and the minister than there were before in the past act. This, again, is one part. It is one step of our over-all agricultural program.


Stanley Howard Knowles: Are
you for a formula or against it?


Charles Alexander (Sandy) Best: I will say this. Perhaps this party will provide an elixir of life some day. That is all I can say at the moment.


Stanley Howard Knowles: Are
you for a formula or against it?


Charles Alexander (Sandy) Best: We have a partial formula in this bill at the moment.


Stanley Howard Knowles: The
hon. member has made an honest answer and I accept it.


Charles Alexander (Sandy) Best: Flexibility of any sort is of the utmost necessity in any bill in this house. What we are saying is-and it has been quoted time and again, that the problems of our great neighbour the United States show what inflexibility in any agricultural program would do. Comparisons are only partially valid. We cannot compare completely, I realize, but I can quote from the Christian Science Monitor of Thursday, January 16, 1958 which says just this and I quote:
He proposes that price supports for the basic crops, and for dairy products, range from 60 to 90 per cent of parity instead of 75 to 90 per cent, as at present.
And as well:
-the present program is unrealistic and that, in the long run, the farmer will gain by them.
What we are worrying about in the application of inflexible, constant and rigid
3756	HOUSE OF COMMONS
Agricultural Products-Price Stabilization formulae, is mat the accumulation of surpluses, the accumulation of problems in this country, might benefit the farmer for a short while but in the long run would be greatly to his-


Daniel (Dan) McIvor: Disadvantage.


Charles Alexander (Sandy) Best: Several hon. members have given me the word "disadvantage" or "detriment".


Edward George McCullough: Would the hon. member permit a question?	,


Charles Alexander (Sandy) Best: Yes. One more question.


Edward George McCullough: I want to read the words of his own leader, the Prime Minister.


An hon. Member:: We have heard that dozens of times.


Stanley Howard Knowles: Don't you want to hear your Prime Minister's words?


Edward George McCullough: Speaking on the economic position of agriculture, the Prime Minister's closing words were these, as found at page 2026 of Hansard of March 12, 1956:
The trend referred to in the amendment moved in 1953 has continued. Canadian agriculture today would not be in its present precarious position if action had been taken at that time on the basis of the experience of our neighbour to the south and also on the basis of the demands of farmers generally.
What has the hon. member to comment upon the words of his own Prime Minister?


Charles Alexander (Sandy) Best: If I am just asked for my comment, my comment surely would be the same as to the previous question, which was much the same.


Mr. Hodgson:: He asked the same question fifteen minutes ago.


Charles Alexander (Sandy) Best: Of course. In the interval they forget. They forget from day to day as well, and so we go on. One of the C.C.F. members -I believe it was the hon. member for Assiniboia-a day or two ago said that the present government of this country might improve agricultural prices under this legislation. Then he went on to say-and this is where we draw one of those fine points, so to speak-that the suspicion will be there that this is done just for an election. This could be said of any good measure brought before this country. People want to know, "Where do you stand on such and such an argument?" "What are you people opposite promising us, time, day and year, as you campaign across this country?"
We suspect, Mr. Chairman, that the promises and suggestions of members opposite can reach the moon for one reason only,
and that is that the party opposite will never have to bear the burden of responsible government in this country.


Alexander Malcolm Nicholson: Do not be too sure.


Mr. Peters:: Do not worry about it.


Charles Alexander (Sandy) Best: I am not worrying about it, I am merely answering these questions. This has all been of great interest to us, as I mentioned before. We realize this bill will do much for agriculture; we realize that in it there are many new measures which we are sure, when they are put into effect, will bring much benefit to Canada. We know that the ultimate security feature in this bill is the mandatory floor price on nine key commodities and that this factor is not provided for in the present Agricultural Prices Support Act. The setting of the guaranteed yearly price, one year in advance, to remain in effect for twelve months, is another important feature. We all realize that in agriculture we have to plan ahead and that in such long-range planning there are many factors which have to be considered, as I know from farming myself. I am sure that the twelve month period with certain guarantees will be of great assistance in this connection across the country.
There are some additional matters to which I would like to refer. The advisory committee composed of farmers is a new, democratic and sensible provision contained in this bill. We are sure that these people will be able to give to this government, to the department and to the minister concerned, much fine advice and the benefit of their wisdom and we feel sure the farmers of this land will feel that they have a true representation and true voice in the major decisions of the government.
The ten year moving average is another interesting matter and will also be of great value.
I will conclude my remarks by making a small plea that we should let this bill go forth to the country, and allow the people of Canada to decide as to its value. When they have done this, then let us judge it.


Walter Adam Tucker: Mr. Chairman, the first matter to which I wish to bring the attention of this committee is the strange position taken by the Minister of Agriculture in connection with this bill. Having in mind the attitude taken by his leader during the time he has been in this house, and particularly during the last few years with respect to the rights of parliament, the attitude of the Minister of Agriculture is even more surprising. The minister introduced a resolution in the house and it was criticized. He then introduced a bill which was criticized in the country, as

Agricultural Products-Price Stabilization
we all know. We have also heard it was criticized by members of his own party. Then he suggested he was going to move amendments when we got into committee of the whole, and he actually told the house what those amendments would be.
By unanimous consent of the house, in order that the house would have before it the bill as he then thought he would actually ask for it to be passed, it was reprinted. In asking for second reading yesterday he told the members who were about to vote on second reading, "Of course, this bill is not necessarily the bill we are going to actually endeavour to have passed by parliament, because I intend to introduce still further amendments." He was asking us to vote for a bill while we were being told we would have further amendments introduced. We were asked to vote either for or against it without knowing what was going to be in the bill when it was finally passed.
Now if there could be a greater contempt of parliament, by insisting that it vote in such a way-blindfolded, in fact-I would like to know what it could be. On top of that, to make it even worse, we are twitted by members opposite because we do not know what the government is finally going to introduce in the way of amendments. I wonder, Mr. Chairman, if the position were reversed, and the members of the present opposition had treated parliament with such contempt, and said "This is not the bill we ultimately intend you to vote on and have passed"; if the former minister of agriculture were asked what he had in mind and if he said, "I cannot say now," but insisted on a blind vote, I wonder what the present Prime Minister would have said if he had been in opposition. I wonder what would have happened if the previous government had taken such an attitude of contemptuous disregard for opposition members who are a majority of the members of this house.
I really was surprised that the present government should take such a position and say to us, "Oh, oh, you do not know what the bill is going to be." Here we are past second reading and the members on the government side are gloating because the members of parliament outside the Conservative party do not know what the government is finally going to bring in in the way of the legislation we will ultimately be asked to pass.


Stanley Howard Knowles: And most of the Liberals fell for it, too.


Walter Adam Tucker: I would suggest to the members who gloat over that situation when parliament is treated with such contempt that they should think twice before they
speak, because in my opinion it is a shame and a disgrace that a party elected largely on the appeal for respect of the rights of parliament should have treated parliament in the way it has been treated in regard to this bill.
I think before we go any further it would be only fair if the Minister of Agriculture took us into his confidence and told us his intentions. After all, he is not running a dictatorship; he is sitting as a minister in a free parliament and we on this side of the house have just as much right to know what they want to be passed by this parliament as have his supporters. I repeat the request that he cease treating us with contempt and tell us what he intends to do.
This parliament has treated him with consideration by saying to him, "If you are going to change this bill by your proposed amendments, so much that it cannot be intelligently discussed unless we get a reprint, then the unusual course by unanimous consent can be taken of having such a reprint so that this parliament will have before it full details as to the bill." However, the minister says we will know of further amendments in his own good time and we are to vote before we know his intentions. This is very surprising coming from a government from whom we have heard so much and whose Prime Minister has insisted over and over again that he would restore the rights of parliament and the respect for parliament. We heard that from one end of the country to the other.
I ask the minister, is this respect for the rights of parliament? I ask the young members, who believe in the oratory and the high idealism expounded by their leader throughout this country, and who asked for the votes of the people on the strength of this plea to restore the rights of parliament, do they think parliament has been treated with proper respect in the way this bill has been handled?
Perhaps, Mr. Chairman, that is the reason why about one-third of the members of the Progressive Conservative party did not see fit to vote for this government bill which is supposed to be such an important contribution to the welfare of the agriculture in this country. If they abstained because they believed in the words of their leader and because they would not support in this house the method of handling this measure which has flouted those words, then I say that those people who absented themselves showed a decent respect for the electors who elected them.


An hon. Member:: Where was your 25 per cent?
3758	HOUSE OF COMMONS
Agricultural Products-Price Stabilization


Walter Adam Tucker: Remember, it was not our bill. It was a bill brought in by the government and about one-third of the government supporters were absent. Why were they absent? Was it because they did not like the way they were being treated; the contempt with which they were being treated by their own government? Or was it because they did not agree with the bill? I submit this is something they should answer before they begin to talk about members of the opposition who were not here. After all, as I say, it was a government bill. Where were those hon. members on the government side? Why were they not here? This is a matter for which they have to answer when they come to speak.
Mr. Chairman, the minister tried to excuse the exclusion of all the grain growers of western Canada from the provisions of this legislation designed to help the farmers of Canada and stabilize their incomes at a fair level by saying that if some provision were made in the bill to pay money out of the consolidated fund toward raising the income of the grain growers of western Canada to a reasonable level this would destroy the wheat board. I have heard some astonishing arguments from members opposite in the short time they have been on that side of the house, but it seems to me that this argument perhaps takes the first prize for a really astonishing statement. The minister will remember that some years ago the Liberal government, feeling that the final payment to be made for wheat was too low, appropriated $65 million which it turned over to the wheat board in order to increase the final payment to the farmers at that time. Did hon. gentlemen opposite, when they were in opposition, say that that would destroy the wheat board? I do not think they did. And did it destroy the wheat board? I do not think it did. I think it made the farmers feel that the wheat board was doing a better job, because this provision meant that they would get a bit more money than they would otherwise have received if this amount had not been turned over from the consolidated fund.
Why could not this government, when it was purporting to deal with the position of agriculture and improve the position of the farmer with regard to income, have included a special clause in this bill providing for the payment of moneys out of the moneys voted by parliament for the purpose of placing the western grain farmer in the position of receiving a fair share of the national income. This would not interfere with the marketing of grain in any way, as the minister well knows. It would merely ensure that the farmers growing grain in western Canada

would receive a fair share of the national income under the bill which the government has placed before us.
The minister went so far as to suggest that because we dared to speak for the people who sent us here and who trust us to represent their wishes we were raising regional cries. I think that is a rather astonishing attitude, coming from a minister from western Canada, when it is pointed out to him by members representing constituencies in western Canada that this bill, brought in by the government to meet the admitted needs of agriculture and give some help in combatting the cost-price squeeze, would exclude the grain growers of western Canada altogether. But because we brought that forward and said to him: you are leaving out these people who need help just as much as those in other branches of agriculture, the minister accused us of raising regional cries.
I just wonder what the people of western Canada will think about this attack on western members who dared to point out that the government, in this bill designed to help the farmers of all Canada, is certainly not helping them. And because we dare to bring this forward we are charged with making a divisive and regional claim. Is it making a divisive and regional claim for members from western Canada to ask for the same fair consideration for our farmers as is being given to other farmers in Canada? And is it not really something to wonder at that because we dare do that we are attacked for making a regional plea? Let the minister, when the time comes, answer for that to his western constituents.
Mr. Chairman, there is another matter with which I intended to deal. I do not wish to deal with any of these matters for any longer than is absolutely necessary to bring them to the minister's attention. I hear hon. members opposite laugh. One of the big problems facing Canada today is the present depressed condition of our farmers and the need to do something about it, and if this is regarded by members opposite as a laughing matter, then I hope they will be called to account by their farmer constituents whenever they dare to go to the country.
Mr. Chairman, we have been told that no one piece of legislation can solve all the farmers' problems. Admitted. But this was a piece of legislation which was held forth as having been designed to help the farmers in regard to the inadequate prices and income they are receiving. This bill was brought in for that very purpose. What is the use of saying, in these circumstances, when it is pointed out that it does not do anything for a large branch of agriculture

in western Canada, that you cannot expect everything to be done in one measure? I think the house has a right to expect that when a measure is brought in to help the farmers out in regard to their income, it should accomplish what it purports to do. There is nothing unreasonable about that.
When the government gets around to dealing with some other problem, let them deal with that new problem. But when they are purporting to deal with the income received by the farmers of this country, let them deal with that. Let them do it without half measures, without quarter measures and without repealing legislation which already protects farmers more than the bill the government is now bringing in. Let them deal with this problem and not hide behind the suggestion that they have not had time. It would not have taken any longer to have brought in an adequate measure to protect the farmers and give them a fair share of the national income than it has to bring in this present measure; in fact, it could have taken less time, because it would have met with the approval of parliament and would not have necessitated the long debate which this has aroused.
The government should pay attention to the promises on which it was elected and to the promises which hon. members held out when they were in opposition in this house. Attacks have been made by some of the younger members of this house upon the idea of fixing prices for farm products in the way they do in the United States. I would remind them that when the Liberal government pointed out that a system such as that followed in the U.S.A. was leading to the piling up of surpluses there, none were louder in their condemnation and ridicule of that position than some of the hon. members who are now sitting on the government benches. However, they held this out to the country, and got votes on that basis. But when the Liberals said that this basis of fixed parity prices would not work-let hon. members of the house remember this 

when we said that this was getting the government of the United States into trouble and injuring some of the farmers down there, all the arguments now being put forward by the Minister of Agriculture were met with derision by members of the Conservative party. Hon. members who do not know of that attitude should not be rising in their places and giving such enthusiastic applause to the sudden somersault of their leaders in this respect.
Another thing that I wish to suggest to the minister is this. He tells us that there might be some limitation placed on the
Agricultural Products-Price Stabilization amount of payments which would be made under this bill, to various farmers; that this might be done by regulation.


Douglas Scott Harkness: I said it was possible.


Walter Adam Tucker: That is what I said, I said you said that it might be done.


Douglas Scott Harkness: I said it was possible.


Walter Adam Tucker: Is that not exactly what I said, Mr. Chairman. Why does the minister interject. I said that the minister said that this might be done under the legislation.


Douglas Scott Harkness: I did not say that. I said it was possible to do it under the legislation.


Walter Adam Tucker: Is that not the same as what I am saying, it might be done under the legislation? If he did not mean that, Mr. Chairman, why did he say it. Why did he hold out the idea in answer to a member in the house.


Douglas Scott Harkness: Mr. Chairman, in order to clear up this matter, I do not think there is any need for the hon. member to belabour it. I was trying to point out that I was commenting on the report of the royal commission set up by the Saskatchewan government and I was referring to the recommendations which that commission had made as far as price support legislation was concerned. I said that this legislation provided for all of the recommendations made, except this particular recommendation that there should be a limit placed on the amount which was paid to any particular farmer, and I said that under the regulations it was possible that it could be dealt with under this bill.


Walter Adam Tucker: Mr. Chairman, that is what I thought I was saying to the members of this committee, that the minister indicated it was possible for this to be done under this legislation, in answer to the suggestion that has been brought forth by the royal commission in Saskatchewan. If he did not intend that, if he did not have in his mind the possibility of making use of the powers to do this, why did he hold out to hon. members the idea that it was possible to do it. I take it from what he said now he has no intention whatsoever to put any limit on what can be paid out to farmers under this legislation. I take it from that, that that is what he means now.


Douglas Scott Harkness: The hon. member does not need to put any interpretation on what I said; just take what I said.


Walter Adam Tucker: Well, I think-


Douglas Scott Harkness: Don't try to draw your own conclusions from it because you are not capable of drawing conclusions.

Agricultural Products-Price Stabilization


Walter Adam Tucker: As a representative in this house of a constituency which is composed almost entirely of agricultural communities I think I have the right to try to understand what the Minister of Agriculture proposes to do under this bill, and he has no right to fence with the members of this committee, and after having said that something might be done under the legislation, indicate that it does not mean that he might do something under the legislation, although he indicated it could be done. What I am trying to find out is this: Does he intend to do something along those lines under the legislation? But he tells me in effect it is none of my business to try to ascertain what he intends to do. Surely, Mr. Chairman, there could not be more contempt shown for all the members of this parliament. I ask members on the Conservative side, representing farming constituencies, whether they are satisfied to be treated with such contempt by their own minister? It is a question for them to decide.


Mr. Montgomery:: Mr. Chairman, I would just like to put the hon. member for Rosthern straight. The Minister of Agriculture is not treating anybody with contempt, neither the members on this side nor anybody else. The hon. member cannot get away with that statement.


Walter Adam Tucker: Mr. Chairman, the hon. member of the government party who has just spoken, may have some secret information that we have not; but when we are dealing with public business on the floor of parliament all members are entitled to know what the goverment plans to do in regard to this legislation. I take it from what the hon. member said that the minister has taken the members on the other side into his confidence. That is even worse, because if he thinks it is satisfying parliamentary government just to take the members on the government side into his confidence and ask the other members of parliament to vote without knowing what they have in mind, I wonder whether that is treating parliament with proper respect.
There is another matter with which I would like to deal for just a moment, and it is the point made by the hon. member who spoke first

I forget his constituency. He indicated that the Agricultural Prices Support Act was not permanent legislation. In that regard I should like to direct his attention to the report of the Minister of Agriculture for Canada, signed by the present Minister of Agriculture. I read from page 147 because if the hon. member who spoke had that thought in mind it may well be that some other members have the same idea in mind. I read:
The agricultural prices support board operates-under an act passed by the parliament of Canada in 1944. In 1950 parliament extended all sections of this act on a permanent basis. Producers of any agricultural commodities, except wheat, may apply for and receive assistance under the act if need can be established.
This is from a report signed by the present Minister of Agriculture, and here he says that any person except the grower of wheat under the wheat board can apply for help under this act. He tells us today that the bill now before us will remove that protection from the grain growers of western Canada so far as those who grow oats or barley are concerned.


Douglas Scott Harkness: Tell us why wheat was left out of the act.


Walter Adam Tucker: Because at that time it was felt that the wheat board would be able to get a fair share for the farmer for the wheat which it sold, and that was the attitude of the farm organizations at that time. But the farm organizations, including the wheat pools, at this time have been asking for further deficiency payments to be made to the producers of grain on the western prairies to give them a fair share of the national income. They asked for this no later than 11 days ago of the minister and his government. They were not asking for this until now of any government except the present government.


Douglas Scott Harkness: They told us they had been asking for it for three years from your government.


Walter Adam Tucker: Mr. Chairman, there is nothing on record to show that they asked for deficiency payments on grain to be provided for in any act of parliament until they decided to change their policy in July of 1957. As a matter of fact, I have here the submission of the Canadian Federation of Agriculture, and up until they changed their policy in July of this year they asked for deficiency payments mainly in regard to perishable products; but they decided to change their position in that regard because they realized that the system of supporting prices alone was not giving the farmer a fair share of the national income. But, as I have already explained, they have changed their position. They now ask for deficiency payments.
The question now is, having asked for that, and all farm organizations of this country now agreeing does the government not think that they should pay some attention to the very reasonable requests of the organized farmers of this country, such as the Canadian Federation of Agriculture which has been most reasonable in the requests it made. What it going to be done? They now ask

for something to be done which is reasonable and fair. It is true that the wheat board, by very efficient sales methods and by wonderful marketing, did manage to get for the farmers what for many years they were more or less satisfied with. They have decided within the last six or seven months that in addition to what the wheat board can sell our grain for they, in fairness, should get some additional deficiency payments, and they have asked this government for them.
That being so, Mr. Chairman, I do suggest there should be some provision in this bill not to interfere with the wheat board in its marketing of our grain because it is doing a good job in that field, but to provide the wheat board with an additional amount so that when it makes payments to the farmers from receipts for the grain it markets for them it will be able to pay the farmers of the western plains, the men who grow the wheat, oats and barley, an additional amount that will put them in a fair position compared with other branches of our economy. This it the first time that the wheat pools have definitely asked for such a provision and it is in line with their changed policy.


Douglas Scott Harkness: They did not ask for it under this bill. They asked specifically that it not be done under this bill. I told you that this morning.


Walter Adam Tucker: The minister has been asked, inasmuch as he is not doing anything for the growers of wheat, oats and barley in western Canada under this bill, whether he proposes to make fair provision for them in some other measure. If the minister would announce that intention to the house it would change the attitude of members of parliament a great deal. We have never been given any indication that the government intends to do anything in that regard at all. This is a bill that purports to deal with this whole problem and when we ask whether the government is going to do something about the part of the problem as it affects the grain growers of western Canada the government will not give us any information on the matter and insists that we act without knowing what is proposed to be done on behalf of the people that we from western Canada represent.
Again I say that if the minister will tell hon. members whether or not the government intends to give western farmers a fair deal, in respect of the requests made by the organized farmers of this country, under some proposal that they have in mind, it would change our attitude. He has been given the chance to do so over and over again, to say whether they intend to do something along
Agricultural Products-Price Stabilization that line, and if he will indicate that I feel sure it would change the attitude of members of parliament.
But this is the only bill we know of that the government has in mind asking parliament to pass. They will not tell us whether they intend to do anything else. Of course, they say to us, "Oh, you do not know what we have in mind." The result is that we are left in the position of having to vote without knowing. If that is not showing contempt for members of parliament I do not know what would. Let them not find fault with us taking the time to point out these things. If they are not going to give parliament and the people of the country the information that they are going to deal justly with the people we represent, they can expect that there will be lots of questions and lots of time taken to point out the necessity for action on their part and they can accept absolutely that that is the attitude of those who represent western Canada in the house.


Stanley Howard Knowles: Mr. Chairman, I realize that in rising to say a few words on clause 1 of the bill I run the risk of inviting words of censure from my good friend, the Minister of Agriculture. Nevertheless, I feel there is something that must be emphasized. Indeed, it has already been said by others, including the hon. member who has just taken his seat.
The record is quite clear that when the Minister of Agriculture felt he wanted to change the provisions of his bill while we were still on second reading the house by unanimous consent allowed those changes to be made at that time. I hope he appreciates that when unanimous consent was given he was saved all the time it would have taken in committee of the whole to move and consider each of those amendments. They were made in a flash when the house agreed to a reprint of the bill.
We are now in committee on the bill. We were told just before we went into committee that further changes would be made. We do not know what those changes are. Clause 1 has been under discussion for a couple of hours and the minister has been here the whole time. He has made one or two interruptions in the speeches of others but he has not done the house the courtesy of telling us the terms of the changes he proposes to make. I am going to refrain from using any strong language, even the mild word that was used by the hon. member for Rosthern. I simply say that I do not think the Minister of Agriculture is playing fair with the house.
I think it ill behooves a member of a party which a couple of years ago in this house and last year in the election campaign had so
3762	HOUSE OF
Agricultural Products-Price Stabilization much to say about the rights of parliament to be asking us to deal with a bill which is going to be changed while the terms of those changes are withheld from us. I have sat here patiently hoping that the minister would take the opportunity on clause 1 to tell us what those changes are going to be. He has not done so. Therefore, Mr. Chairman, it seems to me there is only one thing for the house to do if it is aware of its responsibility and that is to ask that further consideration of this clause be postponed and go on to the other clauses so that we can find out what the bill is going to be when amended. When the various other clauses have been dealt with then, of course, we can come back to clause 1 and we will know whether or not we want to pass clause 1. Therefore, Mr. Chairman, I move:
That further consideration of clause 1 be postponed.


The Acting Chairman (Mr. Rea):: Order. The amendment moved by Mr. Knowles, Winnipeg North Centre, is that further consideration of clause 1 be postponed.


Douglas Scott Harkness: Mr. Chairman-


Alexander Malcolm Nicholson: Mr. Chairman, on a point of order, a number of hon. members have entered the house after you put the question and this is not a debatable motion.


Douglas Scott Harkness: Mr. Chairman, the motion made by the hon. member is, as far as I can see, probably in line with the other motions-


Stanley Howard Knowles: Mr. Chairman, this is not a debatable motion.


Douglas Scott Harkness: Mr. Chairman-


Some hon. Members:: Sit down!


Some hon. Members:: Order!


Stanley Howard Knowles: Would the minister pay some attention to the procedures of the house?


Douglas Scott Harkness: Mr. Chairman-


Some hon. Members:: Sit down!


Some hon. Members:: Order!


Douglas Scott Harkness: The hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre apparently thinks he is the man who is running the house.


Charles Edward Rea: Order.
This motion is not a debatable motion and therefore I have to put the question.


William Joseph Browne: On a point of order, Mr. Chairman, is it not possible to suggest that this motion is not in order and that the hon. member should justify it? I submit it is not in order. I have here Erskine


May. I do not know whether or not the hon. member thinks this is correct but I find that at page 409 he says:
Clauses may be postponed, unless they have been already partly considered and amended, in which case it is not regular to postpone them.


Some hon. Members:: Order!


William Joseph Browne: I continue:
A proposal to postpone the only effective clause of a bill until the subordinate clauses have been considered has been ruled to be out of order.


Some hon. Members:: Order!


An hon. Member:: Make those members go out.


Charles Edward Rea: Order. I am listening to the hon. member on a point of order.


William Joseph Browne: I am sure the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre is not afraid to hear a debate on a point of order. I am reading references which are entirely relevant to the question that he has put before the chair. I shall go on and read what I find here.


Some hon. Members:: Order!


Charles Edward Rea: Order! I am listening to the hon. member on a point of order and I hope hon. members will be quiet so we can hear the point of order.


William Joseph Browne: I am
quoting from Sir T. Erskine May's Parliamentary Practice, 13th edition, at page 409, dealing with bills in committee. I will read another sentence.
Upon a question for the postponement of a clause, the debate is limited to the simple question of postponement, and may not be extended to the merits of the bill or the clause.
Therefore, Mr. Chairman, I submit we can deal with the question of whether or not consideration of the clause should be postponed. There has already been considerable debate on it. It seems to me the rule is that a motion for postponement should be made at the beginning and not after the clause has been discussed by a great many hon. members. There has already been a considerable debate on it.
It seems to me that the rule is that postponement should take place at the beginning and not after a clause has been discussed by a great many members for nearly two hours. After we have discussed the clause for nearly two hours, then the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre says discussion ought to be postponed. Postponed clauses are considered after the other clauses of the bill have been disposed of. I suggest that since the debate has continued for two hours it is not in order for the hon. member to move postponement now.

Agricultural Products-Price Stabilization


Stanley Howard Knowles: I may say a word on the point of order, I would suggest that the hon. member obviously was not here during the last parliament or he would not have suggested that a motion to postpone consideration of a clause should be made before any consideration had been entered into. We spent many long hours on that point in 1956, and by long hours I mean hours that lasted until three or four o'clock the next morning. When Mr. Howe sought to move the postponement of consideration of clauses that had not been considered at all, my hon. friend the Minister of Justice joined with me, as did others on that occasion, to make it clear that the only time you could properly move postponement of consideration was after there had been some consideration. It is quite clear that there has been consideration of this clause for nearly two hours. There is no amendment which would rule out such a motion under the terms of the citation from which the hon. member read from May which corresponds to citation 691 in Beauchesne's third edition.
I am sure Your Honour is satisfied that there is no question as to the legality and propriety, after two hours of discussion, of moving that further consideration of a clause be postponed and that is the motion which I present to Your Honour.


Mr. Fulton:: Since the hon. member has mentioned my name, may I say that I well recall the incidents to which he was referring. Indeed, it is my view that this whole question of moving the postponement of a clause was so inextricably bound up with the closure issue, and is so closely identified and branded as part of the closure procedure that I am amazed to find the hon. gentleman moving such a motion at this time.


Walter Adam Tucker: The alliance is broken.


Stanley Howard Knowles: I
am rising on a question of privilege. As Your Honour has pointed out, this matter is not debatable, but that is what the Minister of Justice has indulged in and therefore, on a question of privilege, I ask for the right to reply. Since he was not in the chamber when I introduced the motion, I may say that I pointed out it was because the Minister of Agriculture has refused to tell us what changes are going to be made in this bill-


Douglas Scott Harkness: I have not refused anything-


Stanley Howard Knowles: -that I considered this clause should be postponed so we could get to the other 96698-238
clauses and find out what changes are going to be made. There is no closure. There will be plenty of opportunity for discussion of the other clauses, plenty of opportunity for a discussion of this clause when we get back to it, if my hon. friends on the government side do not invoke the closure rule. There is no closure. This is just a way of giving the committee an opportunity to find out what changes the minister proposes to make in the other clauses of the bill.


James Garfield Gardiner: Mr. Chairman, I am a little inclined to have something to say with regard to the matter.
The Aciing Chairman (Mr. Rea): Is this on the point of order?


James Garfield Gardiner: On the point of order, yes; I have been sitting here for the past two or three days listening to a discussion which is entirely out of order. The motion before this house for about two days was a motion to refer this whole matter to a committee. The members who are now talking down at the other end of the house discussed everything relating to the bill under that motion, and we went on listening to it. This afternoon I have listened to quite a long discussion again. I fully intended to make a speech on the subject because, I understand, this is the only time we have a right, after we get into committee, to carry on a general discussion and answer some of the things that have been said which we are concerned with. So far as I am concerned personally I take this motion as a motion which would make it impossible for me to speak in a general way concerning this measure until we have gone through all the sections. If that is what it means, then I am against the motion.


Charles Edward Rea: I shall refer to Beauchesne's third edition, citation 691 to which I have been referred. It says:
The consideration of a clause may, on motion made, be postponed, but the motion may not be made if the clause has been amended.
Since clause 1 has not been amended, I must rule that this motion is in order. Is the committee ready for the question?


Mr. Regier:: On a question of privilege, Mr. Chairman; I believe you have already put this question to us, and quite a lot of Conservative members entered the chamber after you put the question.


John George Diefenbaker: I cannot allow that type of nonsense to go unchallenged. We are holding a cabinet meeting this afternoon, and that is the reason I came in late. We cannot afford to sit here and listen to endless discussion, over and over again, of the same
3764	HOUSE OF
Agricultural Products-Price Stabilization matters when we, as members of the cabinet, have a responsibility to hold the necessary cabinet meetings in order to keep the business of this country going.
Motion (Mr. Knowles, Winnipeg North Centre) negatived: Yeas, 30; nays, 63.


Charles Edward Rea: Shall clause 1 carry?


Mr. Campbell (The Battlefords):: Since the Prime Minister is in the house, I wonder if he would answer a question or two? Has he read the bill? Has he studied the bill?


Gordon Minto Churchill: That is an impertinent question.


Alexander Maxwell (Max) Campbell: That is the first question. The second question is, does he believe that the result of this bill will be to return to the farmer his cost of production plus a reasonable profit?


John George Diefenbaker: I am not subject to interrogation, but I am prepared to speak for a few moments on this matter. So far as I am concerned, this bill represents the most forward step ever taken by this parliament to meet the situation facing Canadian farmers. I have refrained from speaking previously on this matter for the reason that I want to see the measure placed on the statute books of this country in order to give the farmer an opportunity that he has not had in the past to the extent that he was entitled to a price in keeping with the cost of production.
It required a great deal of effort in the draftmanship of this bill to bring about what I hoped would be achieved and what I have advocated through the years, namely the assurance that the farmers of this country will be placed in a position under this legislation where each year, in respect of those commodities designated as coming within the ambit of this bill a price will be established before production starts so that farmers throughout this country will be closer to achieving a fair and a reasonable share of the national income.
As I hear my friends of the C.C.F. party talking about this legislation-and, may I say, misrepresenting it-I wonder whether, in their desire to continue to talk indefinitely, they do not realize that by their talk they may ultimately bring about a situation which will deny the enactment of legislation asked for by farm organizations in this country. In so far as the original bill is concerned in the form in which it was,-


Louis Harrington Lewry: Put it in black and white.


John George Diefenbaker: I would ask my hon. friend to allow me to proceed for a moment. They may ask any questions they choose but


not those "seated" questions which are designed only for the purpose of getting on Hansard.
Over the years I have seen the picture of agriculture developing in a way that required further and more action on the part of parliament. I am not going into statistics. I have before me a statement on agricultural policy made in 1957 which illustrates the situation as I saw it then and as I see it now. I join with the Minister of Agriculture in what he said this afternoon, that in our desire to achieve for the farmer a fair share of the national income we at the same time wanted to assure that if a major economic crash should take place there would be at least an emergency bottom beyond which prices would not fall in this country but at the same time there would be flexibility to permit this agricultural body as set up to listen to the advice of an advisory board composed entirely of farmers, and then to determine each year prices which would bring to the farmer a reasonable return.
My hon. friends of the C.C.F. party, in the attitude that they are taking, are doing their part with all the power at their command to deny to farmers throughout Canada the achievement of that objective which will be attained as the objective of this bill, namely the assurance of a fair and reasonable return, with the farmer knowing it in advance.
All of us know-and at the moment I am not going into any controversy on the question as to responsibility; I am simply stating facts-that since 1949 the costs of the goods and services which Canadian farmers have to buy have increased by 24.6 per cent while the prices of agricultural products have dropped by 11.65 per cent. A few years ago farmers as a whole received nearly 58 per cent of the consumer dollar. In the process of years that figure had fallen to some 50 per cent. There is a trend, and it has been a continuing one, whereby the farmer is receiving less and less, in relationship to the prices of the things he has to buy. That situation demanded action. What action could we take?
I discussed this matter with various farm leaders. If my hon. friends feel that throughout any part of Canada farmers do not today understand this legislation because of the fact that, through the attitude of the C.C.F. party in particular it has been misrepresented, the opportunity may not be too long delayed for the people to have the privilege of saying what they think of this legislation.


Stanley Howard Knowles: March or April?


John George Diefenbaker: There are amendments to be made. We intended amendments to be made. We brought this legislation before parliament, first securing the opinions of those outside of the house. Subsequently helpful suggestions were made in the house. In addition to that, I have spoken to farm leaders over and over again. Amendments will be made to assure that the objective shall be declared to be to provide farmers with a fair share of the national income; that in every case the basic price will be determined upon the costs of production of the farmer; and that the advisory board to be set up will be required to meet a given number of times per year. These are changes that were made as a result of the representations of farm organizations which had been in touch not only with the minister and other members on this side of the house but with myself. This legislation if passed will permit the agricultural board to let the farmers across Canada know this year what shall be their minimum price during this present year.
Year by year farmers have represented, through their organizations, the need for such a flexible measure being established. That is being done under this legislation to the end that the farmer may know in anticipation each year what he is going to receive. Indeed the advisory committee-and I cannot anticipate in advance the sections-will consist of a chairman and of not more than nine other members composed of farmers and representatives of farm organizations. There is no suggestion whatever that this committee shall be composed of those adverse to a fair and reasonable deal for the farmer. They will make their recommendations. What more could we incorporate in a bill than that the recommending body should be one composed of those belonging to the class who are asking for those prices each year in keeping with a fair and reasonable dependence on the cost of production?
At no time did we suggest that the legislation will be perfect. Shortcomings in it will be found in the light of experience. Those shortcomings will be apparent as operation follows operation and in the light of experience. The objective is to give the farmers a fair share of the national income; in the fixation of the prices, regard will be had to the cost of production in so far as the basic price is concerned, which is a price which I might call an emergency price, in order to protect it from a general fall as a consequence of economic dislocation everywhere, not only in Canada, but throughout the world.
We have been in power a matter of a few months. I would like to refer to some of the things we have brought into being on behalf of agriculture in that period of time. I am 96698-2384
Agricultural Products-Price Stabilization not going to review them in detail except to say that in so far as farm-stored grain is concerned it was said that cash advances could not be brought into being. We brought them in and they are operating, and operating effectively.	[DOT]
There was real ground for belief that investigation ought to be made into the spread between the price received by the farmer and the price ultimately paid by the consumer. Whereas I mentioned a moment ago that during the past few years the farmers in our country have received some 8 per cent less of the consumer dollar than was the case in 1949, my information is that in the United States of America in the same period of time there was some increase in the percentage of the consumer dollar being paid over that price which was previously being paid to the farmer. We wanted to know the reason, if any, for any injustice which existed in that regard to the end that in the recommendations made by this commission changes through legislative enactment might be assured in order to meet that situation.
We were faced also with the importation into Canada of large numbers of fowl and turkeys.


Alexander Maxwell (Max) Campbell: Mr. Chairman, on a point of order-


John George Diefenbaker: Mr. Chairman, I am now answering as to what this government has done. My hon. friend asked the question and the answer is not pleasing.


Alexander Maxwell (Max) Campbell: That does not answer the question I asked.


John George Diefenbaker: I am pointing out what we have done. Fowl and turkeys were coming in here and we had to do something in order to assist the poultry and turkey industries. We acted immediately in the only way we could act under the import control regulations. We added to the price support ceiling for butter, raising it from 58 cents to 63 cents. That also had its effect in better milk prices for the farmers. Dry skim milk was placed under import control. In so far as freight rate assistance is concerned, we acted to relieve the situation in Nova Scotia and a measure was brought into being. We also extended the period of the potato starch diversion program in New Brunswick from June 30 to July 15 and from then to July 20. We made provision for funds under the Agricultural Products Marketing Act to be paid to members of the producer associations to enable them to market their products. We extended the power to the Ontario cheese producers' marketing board to collect equalizations levied. We placed sugar beets under price support.
3766	HOUSE OF
Agricultural Products-Price Stabilization
These are but a few actions taken by this government to assist the farmers of this country. I am beginning to wonder whether the opposition to this bill on the part of those who have expressed it is because they realize that when the price levels are fixed by this board the farmers throughout Canada will understand that no more material advance has been made in years than will be provided by this legislation.
I do not want to say any more at this time. The views I have expressed over the years I hold today. These views have taken into consideration the needs of the farmer and have also had regard to the national interest, assuring that a great industry such as agriculture should be protected as far as it is possible to protect it, so that the farmers will know exactly their position in the coming year. That has been one of the most material demands raised over the years by farmers and farm organizations in every part of our country.
If I had not believed that by April 1, as a result of the implementation of the provisions of this bill which has been introduced, the farmers will have a new vista and opportunity I would not have considered or condoned its introduction. It is part and parcel of the course we have followed since we came into power, to try to give the farmer a new sense of independence and to give to him the realization that this government and this parliament are trying to do something to assure that agriculture shall not be the poor orphan of Canada. That is the purpose of this legislation. If I read it correctly, and many, many hours have gone into the study of this legislation and the representations made on behalf of farm organizations, this legislation will bring about a new hope for agriculture. If it does that for agriculture it will do the same thing for the Canadian people, dependent as they are to such an extent on the preservation of a fair and reasonable degree of prosperity for our agricultural population.
I have not previously participated in this debate; I have been in a position where the legislation has been prepared and given full consideration. Changes there will be as we come to the various sections in order to bring about the elements to which I have referred.


Stanley Howard Knowles: Mr. Chairman-


John George Diefenbaker: My hon. friend is quite an authority on every subject, but agriculture is not one of them. If he would just contain himself for a moment-


Mr. Richardson:: He doesn't have to.


John George Diefenbaker: When we come to the various sections the necessary amendments will be made. These recommendations have been made to me by the farm union organizations to bring about, firstly, a declaration of the goal of this legislation to provide farmers with a fair share of the national income. In prescribing a percentage of the base price of an agricultural product the governor in council will be guided by an estimated average cost of production of the commodity; that the advisory board shall meet as will be designated by the Minister of Agriculture when we come to that section, and that in so far as the responsibilities of the board are concerned they will take such action as is necessary to stabilize the prices of agricultural commodities at their respective prescribed prices and make such recommendations as are necessary to ensure that the prescribed prices for agricultural products in effect from time to time shall bear a fair relationship to the cost of production of such products.
These are suggestions and ideas which have come as a result of giving farm organizations the opportunity to make their representations following the drafting of the bill and following the previous representations they made. I see no reason why I should say any more on this subject, nor do I intend to, except to say this: I want to see this legislation on the statute books. I know it will be successful. I ask those who are putting up opposition to this legislation to get behind it and pass it, so the farmers may have an opportunity of securing that aim which has been theirs over the years of prices being made known in advance of each crop production period, those prices to be in keeping with a cost relationship; those prices to be known, so that all who run may read and agriculture will have a new hope in our country.


Stanley Howard Knowles: Mr. Chairman, in the midst of the Prime Minister's remarks I asked him if he would permit a question. I want now to say, before I indicate the question I was going to ask, that we are grateful to him for meeting in part-


John George Diefenbaker: Oh yes. Meeting in part what?


Stanley Howard Knowles: Mr. Chairman, I can remember when the hon. gentleman was on this side of the house and used to say that truculence was not a good substitute for proper answers to questions. I still say that we thank the Prime Minister for meeting in part our requests. But before we proceed further with the discussion of the clauses of this bill, the committee should be told the further amendments which the Minister of Agriculture intends to make. I realize

that the Prime Minister could not be here when I spoke a while ago, because he was attending a cabinet meeting. The whole point of the motion I made-the motion which has now been disposed of-was to evoke some statement before the committee as to the changes which the government proposes to introduce. As I say, the Prime Minister has met that request in part by indicating the nature of some of these changes.
May I now put my question. Does the Prime Minister not think it a fair request from the House of Commons, from whatever side it is made, that we should now be told in clear language the various amendments which the minister proposes to make? If this were done we would know what we are talking about. We did not know when the house was called upon to vote on second reading of the bill. We did not know when we began the committee stage. But I am sure that now the Prime Minister has given a lead the Minister of Agriculture will get over his stubborn streak and indicate what form these amendments are to take.


Douglas Scott Harkness: Mr. Chairman, the minister never had any stubborn streak with regard to this matter. From the time we got into the committee stage I have been perfectly willing to say what these amendments are. What was happening was this: we were having a general discussion on the first item. The first hon. member who asked for those amendments was the hon. member for Rosthern, and a moment after he had done so the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre got up. He was not going to give me any opportunity to make known these amendments; what he did was introduce a motion, and when I got up with the intention of giving the amendments-


Stanley Howard Knowles: You could have given them at any time since half past two.


Douglas Scott Harkness: *-he said: you cannot say anything; there can be no debate on this matter; there has to be an immediate vote. In other words, the whole purpose of the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre was to try to embarrass the government by getting a quick vote in the hope that we would not have enough people here to carry it. That, Mr. Chairman, was the whole purpose of the motion. As I say, from the time these amendments were asked for I have had no opportunity to give them, but I have always been perfectly willing to do so. While the hon. member for Rosthern was talking I made a note to the effect that the amendments had been requested, and I had them here ready to give.


Walter Adam Tucker: On a question of privilege. The minister has said that the first time he
Industrial Relations
was asked for these proposed amendments, or for some indication of what they were going to be, was some little time ago. I am sure he will recall that when I spoke before he closed the debate on second reading I suggested to him it would be a good thing for him to tell the house what further amendments he proposed to make so that we should know what the government intended to do before we voted on second reading.


Douglas Scott Harkness: That is correct, Mr. Chairman. I said that I was not prepared to state in detail on second reading what the amendments were at that time. My reason for taking that attitude was that when I complied with a similar request on an earlier occasion the leader of the C.C.F. party immediately got up and attempted to have the bill withdrawn from the house. We had a very considerable discussion on the matter, which was raised as a point of order, and it was maintained that it was out of order for the government to indicate, prior to the committee stage, what the proposed amendments were. His Honour the Speaker suggested, as a compromise, that there should be a reprint of the bill. In order to avoid a repetition of those circumstances I was not prepared to make known these other amendments on second reading stage, and did not do so.


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



INDUSTRIAL RELATIONS


[Stage Direction]
Mr. Stanley Knowles (Winnipeg North
Centre) moved the second reading of Bill No. 5, to amend the Industrial Relations and Disputes Investigation Act (voluntary revocable check-off).
Stanley Howard Knowles: Mr. Speaker, in view of the fact that a good deal of time today has been spent in discussing something which has been controversial, I am sure the house will welcome the opportunity to deal with a matter on which there is now virtual unanimity.
When I say that this bill to provide for a voluntary revocable checkoff has been introduced in every session since 1949, some hon. members may wonder why I should refer to it now as having support which is practically unanimous. Well, Mr. Speaker, there have been one or two changes since the bill was last dealt with in the house on January 29, 1957. However, on that occasion the bill had the support, not only of all the members of

Industrial Relations
this party and of all the members of the Social Credit party but also the support of most of the Conservatives who were in the house as well as the support of nine members of the Liberal party. It was defeated only because the majority of the Liberal party members at that time voted against it.
In the meantime, Mr. Speaker, the Liberals have moved over to this side of the house and, in addition to that, they have had another national convention. We have noted with interest the resolutions passed at that convention. One of them was to the effect that the Liberal party now stands for the enactment of the voluntary revocable checkoff of trade union dues. As a matter of fact, at the 1948 convention of the Liberal party the delegates went almost that far, although their resolution was in more general terms in that they asked for legislation to provide union security.
As I say, at the convention this year they have made their position more specific. They now stand for the voluntary revocable checkoff of trade union dues. In the light of that position I can only assume that most, if not all, Liberals will vote for this bill. The C.C.F. and the Social Credit parties will vote as they have voted on former occasions. At least I assume the Social Credit members will do so. As for our friends on the government side of the house, I would point out that included among those who voted for this bill last year are the present Solicitor General (Mr. Balcer); the Secretary of State (Mrs. Fairclough); the Minister of Justice (Mr. Fulton); the Minister of Public Works (Mr. Green); the Minister of Fisheries (Mr. MacLean); the Minister of National Health and Welfare (Mr. Monteith); the Minister of National Defence (Mr. Pearkes) and the Minister of Labour himself (Mr. Starr). The Prime Minister (Mr. Diefen-baker) was absent when the vote was taken on January 29, 1957. I made some reference to his absence while the vote was taken, at a meeting I addressed in Toronto a few days later. I did so because Hansard showed that the Prime Minister was in the house that day but was absent during the vote on this same bill. I must say that he came to me later, having seen that reference in the press, and explained to me that he was absent because he was recording a radio talk. He said that had he been here he would have voted for the bill, as he had done on former occasions. Mr. Speaker, that makes it unanimous, all four parties in the house are for it. So I guess I should not take any time talking about it; we might as well bring it to a vote and put it on the statute books.
What does it do? It provides for what is known as a voluntary revocable checkoff of trade union dues, which is sometimes referred to as the minimum form of union

security. Specifically, it provides that in the case where a union has been certified under the Industrial Relations and Disputes Investigation Act that union may request that the employer deduct from the wages of the employees their union dues and pay them over to the union. However, there are still two further conditions. One is that even after a certified union has made such a request, the deductions can be made under this bill only in the case of those employees who actually sign cards requesting that their dues be so deducted. The other condition is that any such employee may at any time revoke his request; and if he does so, his dues will not then be deducted.
There are those who criticize this measure because it does not go far enough. This is, as I have already said, a minimum form of union security. I put it forward because it is that form of union security which has the support, as I have indicated, of all the parties in the house. It is precisely what is requested of the government by the Canadian Labour Congress. It is in a form which was drafted in the Department of Labour back in 1948 and which, for a few days in 1948, was in the Industrial Relations and Disputes Investigation Act. Therefore, Mr. Speaker, it seems to me that, in view of the change that took place on June 10, 1957, in view of the change on this question that took place in the Liberal party at their convention in January of this year, we should now bring to an end this long effort to write the voluntary revocable checkoff of union dues into our national labour code, and on that basis I present this bill to the house for its second reading.


Frederick George Hahn: Mr. Speaker, we in this group have in past years made it a practice to speak on each of the bills which have been introduced in the house to let the nation know what our point of view might be in respect of those matters. In this instance we are still of the same opinion that we have been in past years, namely that we support the bill proposed by the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre (Mr. Knowles) for the voluntary revocable checkoff of union dues. Our reasons, of course, are that we believe in the principle of the bill; that it is sound to deduct trade union dues in this particular way.
There is one observation I do have to make, in respect of the legislation proposed in this instance, to my hon. friend and to the house as a whole. There have been many occasions when the hon. gentleman has introduced certain bits of legislation as private bills and, on many occasions, the house has seen fit to talk out the legislation.

We have heard certain members on the government side and others indicate that they are in favour of such legislation. It is high time, Mr. Speaker, that we accepted our responsibilities as parliamentarians and decided that this is private members' hour or private members' day, as the case might be. Having accepted our responsibility for bringing in legislation and promoting it in this way, we should then decide whether we want such legislation or not. It should be accepted on its merits. If we are going to continually make it a practice to talk out proposed legislation, then there is no object in a private member ever introducing a bill in the house for consideration.
If the government members who have so frequently expressed themselves as being in sympathy with this legislation will continue to support it we will hope finally to see it become law at some time, or at least have the opportunity of becoming law.
I, too, am very pleased, as was the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre, to discover that our Liberal friends are making a move toward accepting this kind of legislation. It is my hope that they will vote for it. I have a greater hope, however, and that is that the government will allow it to come to a vote during the hour allocated to private members.


Mr. R. H. Small (Danforlh):: Mr. Speaker, I listened, as usual, with great interest to the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre (Mr. Knowles). In his usual capable manner he introduced the bill. I am in a uniaue position. At one time I was not so heartily in accord with this bill as I am at the present time because I felt it infringed upon the right of the individual to determine just how he was going to work, who he was going to work for and with whom he wanted to identify himself in connection with his work. But since I have been dealing with the union as a member of a committee which was negotiating I was voted down, and I went very happily along with them. In a majority of instances, since the beginning of our dealings with the union, it has been left to me to make the agreement work effectively.
The reasons advanced by the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre covered a lot of the conditions that happened in the agreement but the term "voluntary revocable checkoff" is a misnomer. When the individual starts to work he has anywhere from 14 days to six months to decide whether he is going to identify himself with the union.
Another point is that there is never any checkoff in effect unless there is an agreement. Such agreements are arrived at by
Industrial Relations
negotiation. There is agreement to do certain things, and generally speaking it is a condition of employment that the workers must identify themselves with the union. As far as the term revocability, there is no such thing as revocability. Employees may revoke and withdraw their permission for their dues to be deducted under the pretext that they are going to pay them themselves but in the majority of cases that I know of that just does not happen. These people receive all the benefits the union can secure for them in the way of increases in wages and improvement of other conditions then want to renege.
In the case of the particular union I have in mind the only thing they had to gain was to bring up the wage scale after the war. The workers were receiving everything else that possibly could be secured for them by way of fringe benefits and conditions of work, holidays, pay for holidays and so on. But when some employees decided they did not want to have their dues deducted it was not very long before they were in trouble with the union because they had not paid their dues. As a result, they were suspended and I was notified they were no longer members of the union and they were then notified their employment was ended. The end result was that they could not revoke deduction of their dues and they had to keep on paying if they wanted to continue in our employ.
That brings us back to what is really involved, union security. It is definitely a matter of giving security to the union and I have always been in favour of it, though I was not present when the vote was taken. Had I been present, I would have voted for it. But since such legislation was first brought before the house in 1948 various things have happened. On some occasions the measure was withdrawn at the instance of the government because they did not want it on the statute books, but the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre has reintroduced it year after year in the hope that it would be carried.
Since that time certain things have happened affecting the necessity for such legislation. The necessity first arose because there were certain employers carrying out federal government contracts who were not in accord with the idea. But that does not apply now because about 90 per cent or 95 per cent of the industries under federal jurisdiction operate under some kind of an agreement between the employer and the employees containing a similar checkoff provision or one providing even greater benefit. Therefore the urgency for the bill is not as great as it was then. As far as other industry is concerned, I would say there are very few unions that

Industrial Relations
do not have agreements with the companies concerned involving the checkoff or deduction of union dues.
In industries under federal jurisdiction, of 295,000 employees covered by collective agreements 235,000 have agreements that include the checkoff. There are 45,000 who have what is called the voluntary revocable checkoff and 191,000 have other forms of checkoff. About 59,000 are not covered in any shape or form and of those 35,000 are railway employees. Then there are some 16,000 working on ships or engaged in stevedoring and they have arrangements with their union hiring halls for collection of dues by the union.
Under these circumstances, the urgency for the bill is not quite clear at the present time although there is no reason why it should not be enacted when the principle is so generally accepted throughout the country. But there are considerable numbers of unions and a certain number of employers who just cannot go along with the idea, and I think that is the reason why this legislation has been introduced. These companies contend that it imposes certain bookkeeping and clerical work upon them that is not germane to their operations and which they think should be provided by the union because it is the union that will benefit.
To my way of thinking there are other things that enter into consideration of the matter at the present time. Six of the provinces already have such provisions in their legislation and they require that the principle be followed that the trade union must have the support of the majority of its members before deduction can take place. Arrangements for such deduction can be made under the legislation of those provinces. The six provinces are Alberta, British Columbia, Newfoundland, Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island and Saskatchewan and their legislation requires that the individual employee must authorize such deduction in writing.
In British Columbia, Newfoundland and Nova Scotia an employee may revoke at any time. Prince Edward Island does not provide for revocation. Saskatchewan removed the revocation privilege in 1951. The government of Ontario has had a standing committee studying the matter for some considerable time. In fact, the committee is sitting at the present time. They are trying to study how Ontario legislation can operate in such a way as to be of greater advantage to the labour organizations and also of management. There does not seem to be very much difference between labour and management except that in the case of a few organizations there is someone who feels that he has a vested right to keep himself

apart from being governed by such legislation as is now before us and these people reserve their right under our constitution to be free from any such checkoff arrangement. Eventually they will probably succumb to the reasonableness of deducting union dues in this manner.
There is also the fact that the Minister of Labour (Mr. Starr) has invited proposals from the major labour and employer organizations, particularly those in the federal field, respecting the improvement and revision of federal legislation. Therefore the particular proposal now before us should be considered in conjunction with the proposals emanating from these organizations in respect of the general review of the legislation. That removes any immediate urgency for this bill because practically everyone is already covered.
There is also a general increase in the recognition of the importance of trade unions and their value in negotiating with employers. The value of these unions in negotiation cannot be overlooked because it makes for a happy labour relations with management, especially when the negotiation of the agreement avoids any unpleasantness or interruption in work. There are, of course, a few companies remaining who do not go along with this idea because they believe it saddles them with extra clerical work and accounting costs.
There are other matters in connection with this measure which may necessitate a careful examination from another angle altogether. Certain events have occurred within the last two or three years which probably make it necessary for us to be a little hesitant about instituting this measure. One reason advanced in favour of the bill is what is called union security, and that really means this is the easiest means of collecting union dues. I can remember the time when I had to go out collecting dues. The secretary and I would interview probably every member, and it was not such an easy task to collect dues. However, this was a craft union and we had practically everyone in it, and every member was paid up. Because we constantly called upon the membership we got to know the members very well and were always on friendly terms with them. The members had a good deal of confidence in their officers who were always in touch with the situation as it affected them.
Today, however, with the buildup of huge union funds, it is clear that the situation is altogether different from what it was when this bill was first introduced. Certain things were brought to our attention the other day which were dealt with very effectively by the

hon. member for Kootenay West (Mr. Her-ridge). I do not want to go into them as exhaustively as he did on January 15, as recorded on pages 3377 and 3378 of Hansard, but I endorse practically everything he said. I refer to the matter concerning Harold Banks. The fact that such a situation exists in Canada I do not think is to the liking of any party in this house. I would say that I do not think any party would, for a moment, condone the procedure that has been followed down in Montreal. If hon. members care to read about it, they will find it all in Hansard. The dangers that are involved in unions having vast sums of money which can be brought under the control of certain individuals, are fully exposed.


Mr. Blackmore:: Would the hon. member tell us the date of that Hansard?


Robert Hardy Small: It was January 15, page 3377. When one considers the general increase in the recognition of the importance of unions today, I would say that it is a very serious matter that confronts us. I would say that probably in the federal field there could be improvements in the act governing unions.
The point I want to cover was probably covered amply by an individual for whom I have very high respect. I have met him on only a couple of occasions, but he is a very capable labour officer. This article appeared in the December Journal of the Canadian Labour Congress and is entitled, "An Autonomous Labour Body". I would not say that the article is inaccurate, but the writer probably made some errors of judgment. As has been said, I think by Thomas Jefferson, where an error has been made there can be no great complaint about it as long as there is reason left to combat it. In so far as this particular case is concerned, I think the situation should be reviewed as it may affect Canada in the future. The writer is talking about Canadian newspaper comment upon the suspension of the international brotherhood of teamsters, chauffeurs, warehousemen and helpers of American Unions, and says that what takes place in the United States does not necessarily have to be followed in Canada. The article quotes Mr. Cushing, who states:
We see no reason why the Canadian membership of the union should be penalized for something that is happening the United States. If there was the slightest indication of improper practices on the part of the Canadian ranking officers of the union, then we would very definitely be concerned, hut there have been no such suggestions.
There is a question as to whether or not that is so, because in the newspaper last night there appeared this article with the following heading: "Teamster Chiefs Like Racketeers". The article reads:
Industrial Relations
Teamster union bosses were accused today of conduct "very similar to the protection rackets prevalent many years ago."
The charge was voiced before the Ontario legislatures committee on labour relations by spokesmen for the Automotive Transport Association of Ontario.
Earlier, the committee had heard from Canada's teamster boss I. M. (Casey) Dodds in person. But Mr. Dodds said he would present a brief only after hearing what the transport association had to say.
The brief was particularly scathing in its attack on the teamsters' technique of placing locals in "trusteeship" when they would not conform to the bosses' orders.
Two Ontario locals-one at Windsor and the other in Hamilton-were still in such a position, Dodds said, and U.S. labour czar James Hoffa was the trustee.
Dodds, appointed as administrator of the union by Hoffa, but never elected by teamsters in either Canada or the U.S., said Hoffa had not interfered with either local.
The fact remains that there are two unions in trusteeship to Mr. Hoffa. This places the statement made by Mr. Cushing in an entirely different light. I have not the slightest doubt but what Mr. Cushing does not go along with this point of view. I believe he is imbued with the same altruistic propensities as the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre (Mr. Knowles). They do not condone or go along with these ideas. If one reads these labour journals, particularly the one that was issued last November as well as the issue of December, one finds that they are virtually textbooks for labour operations, and are very good. They contain a lot of valuable information upon which one can place reliance and implicit faith. The individuals writing the articles are people for whom I have the highest personal respect. Some of them are my personal friends of long standing, such as Russel Harvey and Mr. Archer. These are gentlemen with whom I got along exceedingly well in the past, and I know that they would not condone these conditions.
Then, too, Mr. MacDonald has covered racketeering in the labour movement very thoroughly. He has placed himself in a position where his services should be secured if we are considering future legislation in connection with labour racketeering. He has given a very fair summary of what has taken place in racketeering in the movement. He does not try to gloss over certain things that have taken place. He brings them out. Then he goes on to say this, and I will quote it. This is to be found in the November, 1957 issue:
At the same time, it must be remembered that racketeering is the exception rather than the rule in American labour. Ineptness is more likely to be found than corruption. There is an innate indisposition to malpractice in unions because of their very nature.
That, Mr. Speaker, is the substance of this bill. Before we find ourselves in a position

Industrial Relations
where we are going to approve this legislation, let me say this. All the other bills that have been presented to the house bv the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre (Mr. Knowles)-not the one on the revocable check-off but those on the minimum wage, vacations with pay, statutory holidays and others of a similar nature-are all for the benefit of the members of the union. They are the ones that are going to get the direct benefit of that legislation when it is eventually passed. But this bill is altogether different. In the summary of the report of the Ontario federation of labour it is pointed out that this legislation particularly is required because there are dissident employers who cannot be brought into the scope of the act and therefore they want them brought in. Yet within the ranks of labour itself there is a vast body and a hard core that do not want to go along with this idea but they do so for the benefit of the union. This particular legislation that is now coming in is directly for the benefit of the labour organization, that is the organization and the management of labour administration. Before we go along with it I think we should have some kind of understanding that such things as those which are taking place in the unions in the United States, and which our friend Mr. MacDonald has pointed out very aptly here, cannot take place. He covers this matter very well. There is one sentence here that I wish to quote:
Be that as it may, what are the more specific causes of racketeering in the unions?
I will not read it all but further down he says this:
It has been said that eternal vigilance is the price of liberty,-
I suppose that is another way of putting what Pericles said, namely that liberty belongs to only those who have the courage to defend it. This is a particular case in which one must speak out if he is going to defend the liberties and the freedoms to which we in this country think should exist. I would advise those who have not read this article to read it and to go over it very carefully because it is a very well written one and it covers the situation that can develop in unions and the inherent dangers with respect to racketeering.


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


Robert Hardy Small: Yes.


Stanley Howard Knowles: Does Mr. MacDonald anywhere in that article suggest that there is any relationship

between the voluntary revocable check-off and so-called labour racketeering?


Robert Hardy Small: I would probably consider there is in some cases. I have a few notations here that probably might tie it in. I will just read them over.
-and the apparent Indifference-
He is talking about insurance companies now.
-of some insurance companies, makes it easy for an unscrupulous handful of officers to make a killing at the expense of the members and their welfare funds. It is not that the members have failed to get welfare benefits; it is that they have got too little for their money, or have paid too much for what they got.
Then he goes on to say this:
-can produce from time to time a labour leader to hold up his segment of the industry to ransom, not only the employer but the members as well.
Then further down-
[DOT]-in others, the type of leader who takes advantage of his strategic position to exact tolls from both employers and employees.
This is a very important part that he brought out. I think it is a very fair article. When this bill comes to be passed I think we should enlist his services.


Stanley Howard Knowles: Will the hon. member permit another question?


Robert Hardy Small: Yes.


Stanley Howard Knowles: Is
he aware of the fact that Mr. MacDonald is, of course, secretary of the Canadian Labour Congress which has requested legislation for the voluntary revocable checkoff?


Robert Hardy Small: That is right.


Stanley Howard Knowles: That is the reason I am asking whether there is in his article anything that is against it. I am sure that the hon. member will agree that he has not yet produced any evidence to that effect.


Robert Hardy Small: What I am trying to bring to the attention of hon. members is the inherent danger there is in union organizations that accumulate large amounts of funds and where the temptation is there for the individual. I refer to what has taken place in the United States. I mention the names of Mr. Hoffa, Mr. Beck and Mr. Brewster and probably the Anastasia brothers in New York in connection with stevedoring. They all have been guilty of malpractice because there have been large accumulations of funds which have been collected through the method of deduction or collection of dues. I do not say that this thing has developed here, but we have seen what has developed in Montreal, in

respect of the operations of Mr. Banks down there who has obtained control of the organization. This thing can spread.
I think this article I read was very timely.
I think it is a veritable textbook on labour in Canada and that it could be used to advantage of labour in Canada. I will just say this. It takes two to make an agreement. Do not think for one moment that labour people are the only ones that have been guilty of it. Management is not impeccable either. They have made a deal. In this very case the deal has been made with the individual Mr. Banks in order to get rid of what were commonly called communists who were in the shipping industry at the time. They imported this so-called labour man in order to get rid of them. I myself think that is a reflection upon labour. Did they mean to say that we have not anyone in our own labour organizations who could do that job just as effectively as Mr. Banks?


William Arnold Peters: The company brought him in.


Robert Hardy Small: I beg the hon. member's
pardon?


William Arnold Peters: The company co-operated and he was brought in by the union.


Robert Hardy Small: Yes, I know. They are just as culpable as is the union that brought him in. Now that he has been brought in, I suppose he is here to stay.


An hon. Member:: He should not be here to stay.


Robert Hardy Small: The point I was trying to make was this. Before we commit ourselves to granting this revocable check-off we must have some kind of legislation or we must have some control where the membership in the unions are going to get some control over the executive who have in their hands these vast accumulations of funds which they can use and which they have used in the United States. I would say to the house have safeguards before we proceed with granting this check-off. Mind you, I have every confidence in the men that are in the labour movement with whom I have been friends from my youth, particularly such men as Dave Archer for whom I have the highest respect and Russell Harvey and Bill Genovese and Harry Colnett. I know that men like that would not be a party to such a thing. But there are those in the union that have a tie-up with the United States. I cannot go along with Mr. Cushing who said it is not necessarily automatic that it should happen here.
I would suggest there is ample reason for us to be suspicious that this could happen here, and I therefore want to advance these views before we tie ourselves up with this kind of legislation. The other legislation 96698-239J
Industrial Relations
which has been suggested is fine but this particular class of legislation requires that we should have a very clear understanding of just how labour, at the top, is going to take care of the situation and is going to see that the membership has complete control over the executive above them which is not the case with respect to Mr. Banks.
There have been complaints about the situation of labour when they are taken to court. That in itself is a very broad question in my opinion and I believe that courts should be made available in this country where justice could be meted out to union members and, as I have said previously, there should be an exclusively labour court with judges and lawyers who are conversant with the affairs of labour and would see that labour will get a fair deal. On the other hand we have all seen the irresponsible elements in the unions who do not listen to the advice of their leaders in the executive and at times go haywire. If labour is going to have any success, and it is coming into its majority very soon and there is a very critical time ahead for it in its organization, then those people who are in control of administration will want to make sure, as we will want to make sure, that everything in Canada is in order as far as the operation of our unions is concerned.	*
Therefore, in connection with this particular bill with which I am in hearty accord, I nevertheless want to know just exactly what is going to be done to see that those who are in control in the United States should not get control here. I think that is what should be the crux of this legislation which is before the house, but before I go along with it I would like to have the assurance of those in whom I have the utmost confidence that what has happened in Montreal during the last three or four years is going to come to an end, and that some means will be found to see that these individuals are responsible not only to the union but to the people of this country.
There are other aspects of this legislation of which I could speak which would probably make this bill more acceptable, but until such things as I have mentioned are dealt with-and I am sure the hon. member has been thinking along these same lines- in regard to what has been going on in this country in relation to what has happened in the United States, then I think it should be given further consideration. Do not think for one moment that we can escape these things.
I was interested to read the speech of the hon. member for Vancouver-Kingsway (Mr. Macdonald) with respect to human rights. I would like to know how we will

Industrial Relations
assure that the human rights of the individual will be made to apply to the men in the unions who have found themselves enmeshed and encompassed in the goings-on of some labour leaders.
I would like at this time, in case hon. members think there is no seriousness in this matter, to give to the house a rough summary of a sermon preached by Cardinal Spellman when he was talking to the soldiers who had returned to New York from overseas service. He said that they would find some of the things which they had been fighting for were non-existent in their country today and he touched upon the condition of labour. He described situations where soldiers returned to take over their places in civilian life in the United States and where some segments of that country had fallen under the ruthless domination of greedy and godless gangsters and murderers whose aim was to force management and labour alike to be the twin slaves of the underworld. He mentioned the sordid details of corruption and violence which were daily features in the newspapers and the close association of some union leaders with known criminals, the creation of dummy locals, the rigging of elections, extortions, acid-throwing, graft and misuse of union funds. He said these blatant violations of the trust of their fellow workers make the friends of labour feel shame and indignation and that the situation has passed the stage where we are merely shocked and morally aggrieved and the time has arrived when we must act to remove from power unscrupulous leaders and their underworld hirelings. He furthermore said it was tragic and unbelievable that these overlords of crime have dared to blueprint plans for the dividing of an underworld empire which would imperil the security of the nation's family life.
Cardinal Spellman spoke in this kind of language because of an appeal from the wife of a union member-a mother who was fearful of her children's future. He then described the horror and the strong-arm methods connected with the gangster-ruled unions, most of the men being afraid to talk. That is the gist of the sermon he gave. There was a lot more to it which I could mention-


Stanley Howard Knowles: wonder if the hon. gentleman might permit a question. In case his time is running out perhaps he would tell us what is before the house because people who read his speech

might not realize that we are dealing with the voluntary revocable check-off-


Mr. Speaker:: Order. I am afraid that I have to advise the hon. member that his time has expired.
(Translation) :


Mr. Theogene Ricard (St. Hyacinlhe-Bagot):: Mr. Speaker, I would like to comment briefly upon the bill introduced by the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre (Mr. Knowles) about the voluntary revocable checkoff of union dues. Because of its implications, a proposal such as this invariably arouses much interest in labour circles-of whom I am personally a representative. I feel therefore that this matter should be thoroughly studied before a conclusion is reached.
As a general rule, it might be better to leave any decision in this matter in the hands of labour unions and let labour and management come to an agreement. However, at times, in spite of any amount of negotiation, labour representatives cannot come to an agreement with management. In such cases, legislation such as this would certainly be of great benefit to labour.
At every session of parliament since 1949, a private bill similar to the one now before the house has been introduced by my hon. friend for Winnipeg North Centre to amend the Industrial Relations and Disputes Investigation Act, so as to include voluntary revocable checkoff of union dues. On many occasions it came to a vote, with results that have never been satisfactory to my hon. friend.
I should like to make a few comments on this Bill No. 5 so that hon. members may be in a better position to judge this proposed legislation.
While this bill rests on an acceptable principle, it is not without objectionable features. For instance the method used in making the checkoff would be comparatively weak. In fact, it could be divided as follows:
1.	-The checkoff is voluntary and requires the signature of each employee;
2.	-the checkoff can be revoked in writing at any time chosen by the worker concerned;
3.	

the checkoff applies only to the union, recognized as a bargaining agent, of which the employee concerned is a member.
A survey prepared by the statistics division of the Department of Labour shows that

collective agreements covering employees under federal jurisdiction contain clauses providing for union dues checkoffs in favour of the union concerned in a proportion which is at least equal, if not far greater, than that provided for by this bill.
Of the more than 294,000 employees covered by collective agreements in industries under federal jurisdiction, approximately 235,000 are covered by agreements which already provide for the voluntary check-off of union dues. Of these, only 45,000 are covered by collective agreements providing for revocable check-off. The other 191,000 employees are covered by collective agreements providing for some form of mandatory or irrevocable check-off of union dues. In most cases, the relevant clauses provide for the irrevocable check-off for the life of the agreement.
Of the 59,000 employees under collective agreements which do not provide for the check-off of union dues, 35,000 are railway employees who apparently have decided that this provision does not answer their purposes or desires.
Then 16,000 others are mostly water transport workers or dockers provided by the union with the necessary facilities for the collection of union dues.
As I have said, I agree with the principle of the bill. I believe that the clause providing for union dues check-off should be irrevocable for the duration of the agreement. When a worker signs his membership card, he knows of the conditions under which he agrees to work. Nothing forces him to sign and if he decides to do so, it is his duty to support his union at least for the duration of the contract.
In my opinion, no one is in a better position than the unions themselves to say what benefits best serve the interests of their members. They are closer to their members than we are, and they certainly are better able to judge what benefits they need most.
In some cases, labour unions, complying with the wishes of their membership, would prefer some other form of check-off or benefits other than the check-off.
I think that the adoption of the bill moved by the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre would set a precedent which we might regret later. I would not be surprised if, before long, the hon. member or some of his colleagues sought from parliament other
Industrial Relations
measures which might not be as desirable as we might think.
I am sure the hon. member will understand this point of view and I repeat that, while agreeing with the principle of the bill, I wish this matter to remain a bargaining point between workers and employers, that is to say between union representatives and employers. It seems to me that this way the interests of workers will be better served than by the passing of the bill moved by the hon. member.
(Text):


Mr. R. J. McCleave (Halifax):: Mr. Speaker, it being almost six o'clock I was wondering if the house would not give permission for the tabling of figures which relate to this problem, figures compiled at my request by the economics and research 'branch of the Department of Labour, and listing such matters as the number of employees under federal jurisdiction, the number having a check-off, and so on. I think these figures would be an interesting addition to the literature of this debate.


Mr. Speaker:: The suggestion is that the document as described be tabled.


Robert Jardine McCleave: I beg your pardon, Mr. Speaker, I should have asked that it become a part of Hansard.


Stanley Howard Knowles: take it that the document consists only of the figures to which reference has been made by the hon. member.


Robert Jardine McCleave: Yes, broken down into categories of employees, such as railway employees, telephone employees and the like.


John Whitney Pickersgill: What is the source?


Robert Jardine McCleave: I have already given the source. I will repeat it for the benefit of the hon. member for Bonavista-Twillingate. It is the economics and research branch of the Department of Labour.


Stanley Howard Knowles: Not a confidential document, I hope.


Mr. Speaker:: Is it agreed that the document which has been explained by the hon. member for Halifax (Mr. McCleave) be printed in Hansard as his contribution to the debate at this time?


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


Robert Jardine McCleave: The table is as follows:
3776	HOUSE OF COMMONS
Agricultural Products-Price Stabilization



PROVISIONS FOR CHECK-OFF OF UNION DUES IN COLLECTIVE AGREEMENTS AFFECTING EMPLOYEES UNDER FEDERAL JURISDICTION

[Stage Direction]
Employees Under	Employees
Federal Jurisdiction	Having a Check-Off
Industry
Under
Total Agreement Total
175,800
142,100
Voluntary Other Revocable Forms of Check-Off Check-Off Only
i non
141 1nn
Steam railways	 195,500
Mining:
Uranium	 5,300
Other	 3,600
Air transportation	 13,400
Road transportation	 11,300
Water transportation:
Ship crews		15,200
Incidental services including stevedoring. 23,500
Pipelines	 1,000
Grain elevators and mills	 14,300
Radio and television	 8,500
Telephones	 43,700
Banks	 57,500
C.N.R. hotels	 2,500
Miscellaneous	 3,000
Government enterprises, n.e.s.:
Manufacturing	 9,500
Other	 5,200
Total	 413,000
3,600	3,300	1,300	2,0003,300	3,300	1,100	2,2007,800	6,800	100	6,7009,900	9,800	300	9,50013,100	6,000	1,100	4,90018,600 400	4,500	300	4,20010,600	9,700	1,100	8,6004,100	4,100	4,10038,200	37,800	37,800	2,300	2,300	2,3002,800	2,000	2,0003,300	3,300	3,300200	200	200294,000	235,200	44,100	191,100
Economics and Research Branch, Department of Labour,
Ottawa 4, Ontario, November 4, 1957.
Mr. Speaker, may I move the adjournment ol the debate and call it six o'clock?
Mr. Speaker:: It being six o'clock the house will revert to consideration ot the business which was interrupted at five o'clock.



AGRICULTURE


[Stage Direction]
The house resumed consideration in committee of Bill No. 237, to provide for the stabilization of the prices of agricultural commodities-Mr.	Harkness-Mr.	Courtemanche in the chair.
At six o'clock the committee took recess.

AFTER RECESS

The committee resumed at eight o'clock.
Douglas Scott Harkness: Mr. Chairman, when the
committee rose at five o'clock I was just on the point of indicating the amendments which I am prepared to introduce when the appropriate clauses of the bill are up for discussion. They are four in number, Mr. Chairman. The first is an amendment to subclause 2 of clause 2, and I propose that it should be amended in this form:

That subclause (2) of clause 2 be amended by striking out the words "have regard to" in line 12 on page 2, and substituting therefor the words "be guided by".
The second of those amendments, Mr. Chairman, is to clause 5, subclause 2, and the proposed amendment is as follows:
That subclause (2) of clause 5 be amended by inserting immediately after the word "shall" in line 17, on page 3, the words "meet at least twice a year and shall".
The purpose of that, of course, is to meet the criticism or request which has been made that there shall be no question that the committee shall meet regularly. The third is an amendment to clause 7, Mr. Chairman, and the amendment proposed is:
That subclause (1) of clause 7 be amended by striking out the words "base price for" in lines 42 and 43, on page 3, and substituting therefor the words "cost of production of".
The fourth amendment is to the preamble, Mr. Chairman, and reads as follows:
That the preamble be amended by inserting immediately after the word "buy" in line 6, on page 1, the words "thus to provide farmers with a fair share of the national income".
I have not at this point, Mr. Chairman, gone into the reasons for these particular amendments, which I shall do as the sections which they concern come up for discussion, but have, as requested, indicated what the

proposed amendments are. I trust that these will have met the requests of hon. members in the various opposition parties.


James Garfield Gardiner: Mr. Chairman, while I wish first to thank the minister for having placed before us the proposed amendments, I think he will agree with me when I say I do not think they are intended to change the principle of the bill particularly but to clarify the intentions in connection with the use of it, but I will not discuss this further at the moment.


Douglas Scott Harkness: My hon. friend knows that I seldom agree with him.


James Garfield Gardiner: We will discuss that when we come to the individual clauses of the bill. I do want to make a few remarks with regard to some of the things which have been said by hon. members in various parts of the house during the time that this matter has been under discussion and which were more or less related to the bill. I did say in earlier discussions that there was some considerable difference in the title of this bill and the title of the Agricultural Prices Support Act. The long title of the Agricultural Prices Support Act is:
An act for the support of the prices of agricultural products during the transition from war to peace.
I stated at an earlier stage in the discussion that it would be no surprise if it was intended, whenever the act was amended, and now when it is intended, to substitute another act for it, to change the title somewhat. The fact that we have come a considerable distance away from war would justify that expectation, but I was a little critical of changing the word "support" to the word "stabilize", and in some of the discussions which have taken place it has been suggested that stabilization was not intended in the previous act. I just wanted to call attention to the fact that section 9, subsection (2) reads as follows:
In prescribing prices under paragraphs (a) and (c) of subsection (1), the board shall endeavour to ensure adequate and stable returns for agriculture by promoting orderly adjustment from war to peace conditions and shall endeavour to secure a fair relationship between the returns from agriculture and those from other occupations.
Therefore, it was intended in the Agricultural Prices Support Act-and as a matter of fact it was the practice-that stabilization be carried out under it. The support program which was set out in the original support act of 1944 did not just originate at that time; it was something that had been in effect more or less throughout the war and something which had come into being largely because of experiences not only in the last war but in previous wars. The experience in previous
Agricultural Products-Price Stabilization wars had been to the effect that prices went up during wars, costs in general went up during wars, and at the end of the war there was the general inclination to speak of price conditions being in a state of inflation, and there was a very definite effort to strike at that inflation by some method or other. The usual practice over a long period of time had been first to attack food costs, clothing costs and costs of shelter; the idea being that if you could get those down to reasonable levels, then you could cut down wages, then you could cut down costs of commodities in general, and eventually get your price levels down to lower levels than they had been during the war period and immediately after.
During the last war there were many economists who took the position that that was something that was most difficult for farmers and for primary producers in general to stand at the end of wars and that therefore there should be an effort made to avoid that happening at the end of world war II. It had happened at the end of world war I, when everyone who was on a farm at that time now knows that those who went out and started in with livestock toward the end of the war, and bought breeding stock at high prices, found in a very short period of time, in a year or two, prices dropped down to a level where it was impossible for them to carry on.
The main purpose of the act of 1944 was to try to avoid having that happen at the end of world war II. If we had been trying to do that only in Canada I do not expect that we would have had very much success with it; but it was an effort that was being made in all of the allied nations, in Britain, in the United States, in European countries and in Canada. By all working at it I think we have, at least up to the present time, been able to accomplish the objective that we had in mind, namely to prevent prices being forced down to unusually low levels following the war. Therefore, in carrying on through the transitional period from war to peace I think the legislation has done some good for farmers throughout the length and breadth of Canada.
In addition to that, the legislation grew out of the fact that we had been doing this during the war. I hold in my hand a copy of the speech which I delivered in the house on March 9 and 10, 1942. This speech was delivered just about a month after the farmer's march was made on Ottawa in 1942, which has been referred to in this debate a number of times. That march was made by 400 farmers. Someone said the other day that it was more or less promoted and organized by friends of mine. I suppose there is
3778	HOUSE OF
Agricultural Products-Price Stabilization some justification for that because the real leader, or the honorary leader, if not the real leader, of the delegation was the previous minister of agriculture, the Hon. W. R. Motherwell. He was along with them. The 400 came here and presented their case, first to the government as a whole, then to the wheat committee of the government, which at that time was composed of three or four members of council, and then they made their representations to others associated with agricultural activities here.
In reporting on that matter to the House of Commons at that time I called attention to the fact that their first request was that we should provide for parity prices of agricultural products. I referred also to the fact that I gave them to understand that I could not assure them the government would agree to such a policy; but I did assure them that I would present the whole matter to council as they presented it to me and report back to them later. That was done. When reporting to the house I pointed out that there had been something in the nature of support prices similar to those asked for in the period between the time that the delegates had been here or before they came and the time I was speaking, which I again state was in March of 1942. I am going to read only part of one paragraph in order to bear out what I have been saying and to indicate that something has happened to prices since that time.
From the very beginning of the war It was realized that if farmers in Canada were to be able to maintain themselves and develop agriculture to the point where it could take its proper place in providing food for allied countries, prices in due course must advance. Very early in the war we embarked upon a policy of trying to establish floors under various farm products. The first product under which we Were able to establish a floor was hogs. That floor was established by entering into an agreement with the British government in the fall of 1939, the first fall of the war. The second product under which we were able to establish a floor was cheese; it was established in the spring of 1940, when a price of 14 cents a pound at Montreal was agreed upon with the British government. The third product under which we were able to establish a floor was wheat, when we pegged it at 70 cents in 1940. The fourth product was butter for which in the spring of 1941 we were able to establish a price of approximately 30 cents a pound for that summer. Finally, toward the fall of 1941, we were able to establish a floor under eggs-


Douglas Scott Harkness: May I ask the hon. gentleman what he is reading from?


James Garfield Gardiner: I am reading from a speech I delivered in the house on March 9, 1942. There is a table in the speech which the house allowed me to put on the record giving the prices which prevailed at that time and setting up what they had agreed would be parity when they were discussing it with us. They agreed that the average prices from 1926 to


1929, which was not too far away from the period, might be considered as parity. Then we compared the prices of that time with what they had agreed might be parity.
I recite this in order to repeat once more that very much has happened to prices since that particular period. Much of it did happen, as a matter of fact, before the act of 1944 was placed on the statute books two years later. It was only two years after that time that the bill was placed on the statute books. But there has been a suggestion from time to time in this discussion that nothing really happened in connection with farm prices and the farm position during that period of time. I have placed a great many statistics on the record over the years and I am not going to go back to them. I am simply going to take this document I hold in my hand which was published in 1957, entitled "Farm Net Income 1956" and am going to ask members of the house to get it. They can obtain it tomorrow from the Department of Trade and Commerce, bureau of statistics. It has a graph on the front of it which I think it would be a good thing for every hon. member to have in his office so that he could look at it before making speeches in the House of Commons and get some idea of what has happened to farm income in the period between the time the war started or a reasonably short time before and the present time with regard to farm returns.
I think anyone on the other side of the house and I am sure members on this side of the house can see the dark lines running up and down on this document. Taking the first one, it indicates what the position was from 1926 to 1930. The black part indicates the net income of farmers right up to the present time beginning with the period 1926 to 1929. The one for 1926-30 shows an almost equal division between the costs of the farmer out of his gross income and the amount of his net income. In the gross income, of course, there is something to represent amounts invested in equipment in one kind or another and in produce which is stored on the farm.


Daniel (Dan) McIvor: Gould we have that on Hansard?


James Garfield Gardiner: I do not know that it has ever been put on Hansard. It could be put on Hansard but every member can get it from the department tomorrow if they wish to do so and examine it themselves. I think they should. But those who are in the house now and are looking at it from the distance at which members must look at it can see that back here in the period 1926 to 1930, before the Conservatives came into office, that was the situation. I am not going to attach the whole blame to the

Agricultural Products-Price Stabilization
government m power from 1931 to 1933 for the condition of the farmers' income because the reasons which existed in Canada existed throughout the world at that time. The black marks on the graph show that the net income of farmers was just about one-quarter of their gross income. In 1934 and 1935 the net income forms about one-third of the gross income. I am saying that the net income started to go up a little before the Bennett government went out of office.


Douglas Scott Harkness: Then it came down.


James Garfield Gardiner: No, excepting slightly in 1936. It started from 1936 and went up gradually until you come to the year 1939 when the war started, which is shown on the graph. It went gradually up until 1941. The war started in 1939. By 1942, the year about which I have just been speaking, the black line or net income had gone away up to two-thirds of gross income, leaving one-third absorbed by costs. From then on it has gone up gradually. It does drop down occasionally and then goes up again, but it went up gradually until it reached the peak of over $2 billion in 1951.
When members of the house start to talk about the agricultural position now they start up at that peak in 1951. Then they say it has dropped since. It did drop down for two or three years partly because of the $400 million drop in grain crop value in western Canada in 1954. The net income dropped down to less than half the gross income but since it has been coming back up again. It is true it has not reached the level it was at in 1951, but when one is making comparisons and trying to indicate that certain things have happened all I am suggesting is that one should not try to show that none of the improvement can be attributable to the benefits that came about during that particular time from the fact that we had the Agricultural Prices Support Act but that he should assign some part of them to the fact that we had that act. Perhaps we should not assign any greater proportion to the fact we had that act than is the case of other countries with similar legislation which made it possible for them to avoid allowing the farmer to fall into the same slump following the last war as happened in wars prior to that time. Therefore I think we should acknowledge that some good has been done by having the Agricultural Prices Support Act even though some members may not be inclined to say that it was just as helpful as it might have been or as it could have been.
To come back to the legislation before us at the present time, I have already indicated that stabilization was provided both
under the old act and in this bill. But there is one thing about which there has been considerable discussion, and I think the minister referred to it last evening when he began his final speech on second reading. I refer to the time period provided in the bill. The bill does provide for definite notice of one year; in other words, prices established must be continued one year at that level. I presume it is the calendar year although I am not sure about that.
Under the old legislation that was the practice in connection with most products. My hon. friend shakes his head but I am sure he has this document, entitled "Federal Agricultural Assistance 1942-1956", in his possession. I am not going to read it all but it does bear out what I have said. It is issued by the department and it indicates just what has happened in connection with all products over the years. It is true it has not been the calendar year in most cases because many of our products are produced on a different basis.
The hog year, for example, starts on November 1. This is due to the fact that over a very considerable part of this country the young hogs come in the early part of the summer, April or even in March in some areas. They are marketed about six months later. It is very cold in many parts of this country, so many of our hogs are produced in the summer months when it is easier to produce them. We have, therefore, the end of a production season coming along about November 1. It has been the practice, over most of the years, to start the floor price on hogs on November 1 and carry it through to October 31 the following year.
When it came to dealing with butter or with cheese, as every dairy farmer knows, the dairy year begins on May 1 and ends at the end of April the following year. The support prices have been for a 12-month period beginning with the first of the dairy year. On two or three different occasions the support price has been announced two years in advance. This book contains all the records of the years in which that happened. The first year, I think, was in 1951, at which time the price was set for two years in advance. This has been done on two different occasions since. As a matter of fact, we are operating on that basis now. The support price was set at 58 cents, and was to continue until the beginning of the dairy year in 1958 or until April 30, 1958.
If the minister is bound under the act to make it for only a year, then he cannot do otherwise. But we did find it preferable on some occasions to lengthen that period, depending on the conditions which existed at the time.

Agricultural Products-Price Stabilization
Another suggestion that was made in discussing the question was that we have followed a practice-it is indicated that it may have been for all products-of simply setting one period at one time and another period at another time. Again I would warn the minister when he is amending some of these sections that there are certain things that cannot be dealt with a year in advance. I hope he will give that some consideration. For example, it is only two or three years ago that 85 per cent of the apples on the trees in Nova Scotia were blown off just at the time when they were ready to be harvested. No one could give consideration to that 12 months in advance and make provision for it. It had to be dealt with at the time.
The result was that one of the other ministers and myself got on a plane in the morning, after discussing the matter with the government the evening before, and we were in Nova Scotia at ten o'clock in the morning. We sat down with the government and the growers of Nova Scotia, some of our officials and some of their officials, and before night we had worked out a plan under which we took care of the 85 per cent of the apples that had been shaken off the trees. It was done in a simple manner. We said we would pay 90 cents a bushel for every bushel of apples gathered in boxes and put in piles. This was done under this act, but it could not be spread over a 12-month period. You could not pay them for 12 months before. You simply had to act under the legislation that gave you the authority necessary in order to deal with a situation of that kind.
I have said this before, and I am going to repeat it now that so many new members are here, that was the most satisfactory and most acceptable plan I was ever able to carry out in the 22 years I was in the government, if one takes into consideration the way it was received by the people concerned. It was the only thing I did in 22 years in connection with this act or any other act about which I did not have a single complaint. The real reason for that was that we decided the money should go directly to the farmers concerned. It did not go to the people who supplied the apple barrels, the people who supplied fertilizer or the other things the farmer had to get in order to produce a crop. We paid the 90 cents a bushel into the hands of the farmers. Ninety cents a bushel does not sound like very much, but I believe the apple growers in that area were very well satisfied, as the Minister of National Revenue would tell you if he were here. It was quite satisfactory to an organization for which he had been solicitor over a considerable period of time.

I am only saying that you cannot write into a bill something of this kind that binds you to act only in some certain way. I would think from the wording of the clause, and I am going to say something about that later, such action would be possible under the clause as it is. If it is not, then I am quite sure the minister would agree that something should be done about it to make it absolutely certain he is not bound. We carried on, in connection with all the products mentioned here to which it might be applied, on that basis.
The one product mentioned in this bill with which we did not carry on very long was cattle or beef. We had a very good reason for that. The reason was that we have the best market in the world for our surplus beef, and that is the United States. We always took the position, and the federation of agriculture agreed with us, that it would not be a good thing to put a support price under cattle because we had that market. We could ship our surplus there, and we could get the best price. If we set a price which was higher than the United States market price, our market would be flooded with beef. If the price were lower, we would be told that the government was putting down cattle prices. If these things occurred, we would very soon have to change the price. We could not wait until the first of the next year in order to change it; we would have to do something about it.
I am suggesting to the minister that he not tie his hands too closely on a thing of this kind, so that it would be impossible to do many of the things he will find it absolutely necessary to do as he goes along. Under the old act we did do practically what the minister is suggesting should be done under this bill. Nevertheless, after the experience we had, we would never have written into an act that that was what we had to do. We simply said that we had authority to do it. Then all the facts were taken into consideration at the time and whatever was necessary was done.
That is all I want to say about the measure itself. We can discuss most of these matters on the different sections. However, I do want to say something with regard to the remarks that have been made concerning the attitude we have taken on this measure, and the reasons we have given for taking that attitude. I gave those reasons about December 20, I think it was. After giving them, I stated unless there were some material changes in the bill between that time and the second reading stage most members on this side of the house would be inclined to support second reading. We had that vote today and I think that undertaking was carried out. I heard some on the other side, however, who were

referring to the fact that we were not all here. I have been here now for 22 years and have noticed that most agricultural matters have been dealt with on Thursday and Friday. I do not know just exactly why. It is probably because those are the days on which there is the poorest attendance in this house because hon. members who live rather close to Ottawa go home. Those of us who come from Prince Edward Island, which is almost entirely a province of fishermen and farmers; those of us who come from the prairies, where it is almost entirely agricultural, and even going out to British Columbia where there are fishermen and farmers, have to be here whether we like it or not. I presume that is one of the reasons why it has been customary to have these matters discussed on Thursday, Friday or Saturday.
Hence there is a good reason as to why there were not as many members here today as there might have been at any other time. As a matter of fact, I was a little bit surprised last evening when the minister did not allow this matter to go to second reading at five minutes to six because we would have had a better attendance than we have today.


Douglas Scott Harkness: You mean at five minutes to ten.


James Garfield Gardiner: Yes, at five minutes to ten, just before adjournment last night. We would have had a bigger attendance then than we have had today. I do not know that the results would have been any different but nevertheless it would have avoided some of the criticisms which were made. I took the trouble to get a division list this morning and I find that one Independent voted with the government, that 75 Progressive Conservatives voted with the government and 34 Liberals, making a total of 110. You only need to read that figure to know that there were not in the total of Liberals, Independents and Conservatives who voted a sufficient number to make up the full number of the representation on the government side of the house. Hence even if we had some of our representation absent from the house this afternoon, we were not quite able, by having what we did have here, to make up the total number that might have been here if all the government members had been here. That is one position. Then when we come to the other groups, the C.C.F. had 19 out of their 25, and you know that is not the full number either. Then the Social Credit had 16 out of their 19. Then you must also remember that two of our members voted along with them.


Mr. Bell (Carleion):: Why?
Agricultural Products-Price Stabilization


James Garfield Gardiner: They have told you why. I do not need to tell you why. Therefore when we analyse these figures the situation is not one about which any particular group in this house can boast very much. The main reason why the two groups in the far corner would probably have a larger proportion than the other two groups in the house is that most of them come from farther away and they are here at the weekend, whereas many of those who come from closer points in Ontario and Quebec are not here and for that reason we do not have quite as large a proportion in the two other parties.
I think that is all I need to say about that matter. I just want to make it plain to those who read Hansard from time to time that the situation is not one which affects any one group in this house to any great advantage. Therefore it is just as well to have all the facts when we are looking at the matter.
As to the other matter, the reasons that I gave for supporting the bill were largely based on the fact that the minister himself has been rather critical of me for stating that I have not been able to find any great difference between this measure and the Agricultural Prices Support Act. As we go through the sections I think we can find out that that statement is fairly true. There is not any great difference. I have contended that where there is a difference it is rather in favour-


Charles Edward Rea: I am sorry to interrupt the hon. member but I must remind him that his time has expired.


James Garfield Gardiner: If I may be permitted to do so, I should like to finish my sentence. I was going to say that where there is a difference, it is less flexible than the measure that we had before and with such small difference I would find it most difficult to vote against this measure. If it had more changes in it than the other one I would have to give consideration to that fact but I do not think it has; being that I do not think it has, I would have found it very difficult to vote against the bill.


Douglas Scott Harkness: I do not find myself in very much disagreement with the earlier part of the speech of the hon. member for Melville in which he was outlining the circumstances under which the Agricultural Prices Support Act was put into operation and I would think perhaps he might not find himself in too much disagreement with me. When I say that, I think probably the language of that act and the fact that it was passed in 1944 make it not entirely applicable to present conditions. For example, the former minister of agriculture said that the
3782	HOUSE OF COMMONS
Agricultural Products-Price Stabilization
act was passed in order to facilitate the adjustment of agriculture from war to peace and it is so stated specifically in the act. That is hardly appropriate or applicable to the present time. I think the hon. member for Melville would perhaps agree with me that it is not applicable at the present time, that it is not appropriate, that those words should no longer appear in the bill and that the act which was produced for those occasions and for that period is not the best act for the present period and is not altogether applicable at the present time.
With some of the other remarks made by the right hon. gentleman I am not so much in agreement. For one thing, he was trying to maintain the position that there was a certain amount of forward pricing in the Agricultural Prices Support Act whereas in actual fact, as far as I can see, there was no such thing as forward pricing in that act. It did not provide for forward pricing and in its application forward pricing was not used except in a few exceptional circumstances. In most cases when price supports were put in effect under the Agricultural Prices Support Act they were put in for a limited period of a certain number of months. The last article or commodity which the former government put under price support was fowl. They actually did not put it under the price support but they passed an order in council providing that price support would come into effect at some time in the future as far as fowl was concerned. They passed an order in council that price supports would become applicable to fowl sometime in August-about the middle of August I think it was-and that it would expire at the first of November, I believe it was, or it might have been November 15. In any event it was for that very short period of months only. That was what was done in most cases. Otherwise if a commodity was put under price support, it was put in without any date being mentioned so that it could therefore be cut off like that at any time, and nobody was in a position to complain about it. Thus there was no forward pricing provided for in the Agricultural Prices Support Act, and in the application of that act forward pricing, by and large, was not made use of. It is true, as the hon. member said, that as far as butter was concerned it was put under price support at one time for a period of two years.


James Garfield Gardiner: Three times.


Douglas Scott Harkness: No; two.


James Garfield Gardiner: It was put on three times for two years.


Douglas Scott Harkness: The hon. member for Melville says three times but I only recall two times. There may have been another one but I am doubtful of that. The other commodities, as I say, have always been for just a very short period of a few months or otherwise without any time being set, so that they could be shut off at any time. The farmer had no guarantee of any sort as to how long it would last and as to when it might be shut off and thus he was left in a position where he did not know what his situation was likely to be.


James Garfield Gardiner: I want to get the facts right. Is it not correct to say that eggs were on, year by year ending December 1 every year, and cheese was on beginning May 1 each year.


Douglas Scott Harkness: I was just going to say that. Perhaps the hon. member will recall that I said "the only other exception". The other exception is eggs and they were put on for a year.


James Garfield Gardiner: Hogs were always on for a year.


Douglas Scott Harkness: No. Hogs were not on for a year. They were on for an indefinite basis.


James Garfield Gardiner: No. After the foot-and-mouth disease hogs were put on for a year and later without limitation. It was a good thing for the farmers that they did not change from time to time.


Douglas Scott Harkness: Hogs were on a completely indefinite basis. Nobody knew whether they were going to be on or not. There was no guarantee put on it whatever.
The hon. member for Melville said that some prices cannot be set for a year in advance. I agree with that statement. That is quite correct, and it is the contingency of the sort we have provided in the act. If he will look at section 9 subsection (2) he will find that that is provided for so that if a situation such as the foot-and-mouth disease developed or any other sort of situation, such as the hon. member for Melville mentioned as far as apples are concerned at one time, or potatoes or any other commodity, we are able to go in and start a price support program of any sort which may be necessary at any time during the year.
There was really only one other matter raised by the right hon. member for Melville and that was in connection with the number of people who were in the house for the vote.
I was rather surprised that he raised this matter at all in view of the fact that the number of Liberals in the house was not very large. What his purpose was in doing

so I do not know but, as I say, I was rather surprised that he went into that matter.


Edward George McCullough: I am not going to take the time of the house this evening to discuss the Agricultural Prices Support Act of 1944 or to comment at great length on what the right hon. member for Melville has said. I am sure the important thing is to deal with the legislation now before us, but I noticed at the end of the right hon. member's speech he indicated he did not think there was very much difference between the old Agricultural Prices Support Act of 1944 and the proposed legislation now before us in the agricultural stabilization bill. Of course, the other day he said he was going to support this legislation as it was worse or not as good as the old Agricultural Prices Support Act. Then he went on to say it would be a good thing for him and for his party to go out into the country and to say that the Conservative government had put through legislation which was not as good as his agricultural support act-


James Garfield Gardiner: You are not suggesting I said that; that is your interpretation.


Edward George McCullough: I can only say that I think that is an abnegation of responsibility in this house and when the right hon. member goes to his constituency he will have to answer for it. It is not for me to say, however.
As far as I am concerned I think the minister in handing out this bill during the last few weeks has displayed a tragedy of errors throughout. The minister has made apparent misrepresentations of fact accompanied, of course, by the strangest procedure ever witnessed in this house. I certainly have never before seen a procedure such as we have experienced over the past few weeks. We have seen a chronic and tragic record of ministerial self-deception, a call for optimism and then arrogance on the part of the minister and, with respect to the attitude of the government in connection with this bill, I might say this has been contempt for parliament. I do not know, in fact, just what bill we are discussing. We have had three bills before this house up to now and I believe now that we are in committee we have had the ninth amendment proposed to this bill.
All I can say is that I believe we have been treated with contempt. When the minister had proposals to make on this bill at the time we were on second reading he was allowed by unanimous consent of the house to bring before us any suggested amendments he wished. It seems to me that the important thing tonight is the agricultural program for the Canadian people, one which will help to
Agricultural Products-Price Stabilization build a brave new world. Surely since 1945 we should have learned something. We should have learned that we are fighting, if anything, an ideological war. We are going to have to prove that the kind of democracy we have in Canada and in the western hemisphere is the kind of democracy that should have the support of the free people throughout the world. Yet tonight we have placed before this house a bill which in my opinion, and this opinion is shared by other hon. members, is not going to give justice or equality to the men on the land, the men who till the soil and produce the food for the people of the world. I am not going to apologize, indeed I do not think I need to apologize to anybody in this chamber or outside of it, for rising and saying that this is a betrayal by the Conservative government of its pre-election promises.


Gordon Minto Churchill: Nonsense.


Edward George McCullough: It is a betrayal not only of pre-election promises but it is a betrayal of free people. I may say that I do not believe the Minister of Trade and Commerce wants high production in this country. I believe he is an exponent of the growing in this country of no more than we can readily sell. I ask him to deny this because I have his speech made in this house where he put it on record that he does not believe we should be producing any more than we can readily sell; he does not believe in giveaway programs; he does not believe in materially assisting underprivileged people by giving them food and trying to get them to see that we are the friends of the world and that we want to show our friendship, that we, the people of the western world- we, the people of Canada-want to assist them to find a better life.
This is the very thing we are fighting today and we have been fighting it since 1945. Intercontinental ballistic missiles are not the answer to this problem. I say, as a member of this party, that we should have a program for the farmer not to curtail production, but for all-out production. That is not the program of this Tory government and it is not the program which expresses the sentiments of the Minister of Agriculture. No, he does not believe we should be producing any more than we can readily eat. He does not believe that this government should take the responsibility of trying to find more markets and trying to see if there is not some way we can feed the hungry people. He has said so.
This afternoon just before recess the Prime Minister for the first time spoke on this bill. I think he was smoked out by the hon. member for The Battlefords. He came into this


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear.


Edward George McCullough: I can well understand the clapping, the laughter and the merriment over on the other side.


Thomas Miller Bell: You have not been saying anything for the last half hour.


Edward George McCullough: They would like us to fold up. I have never been intimidated by this kind of interference and this kind of action, Mr. Chairman. I do not care if I ever come back to this house.


Thomas Miller Bell: You won't be back.
3786	HOUSE OF COMMONS
Agricultural Products-Price Stabilization


Edward George McCullough: I do not care if I ever come back to this house if my coming back is going to be based on the fact that I am going to be intimidated by people like those across the way. I am going to get upon my feet and fight for the people whom I represent. I am going to say in the house the things that I think should be said to try to get the good legislation which we think could be put on the statute books for the farmers and the people who toil on the farm to produce the food for this country.


Mr. Schulz:: Mr. Chairman,-


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Mr. Bell (Carleton):: Be reasonable.


An hon. Member:: Get on your horse, Jake, and go back home.


Jacob Schulz: When I walked up Parliament Hill this morning I came to the conclusion that this was going to turn out to be a nice day and therefore I thought I would be nice too today. But, then, after the house opened this morning I was subjected to listening to the outpourings of pomposity put forth by our Minister of Agriculture and I was then not quite sure whether I could live up to my desire. I immediately began to wonder whether I could do it in spite of the fact that I was quite serious because I was rather rough with the minister last night. In fact, I even went so far as to suggest to him that he did not know what was in the bill. I even suggested that he should go home and read it overnight. But then, I found out that he did not do that, and that he still is trying to sell us something which is not true. I even wondered whether, when the ancient philosopher defined man as a thinking animal he had perhaps omitted to say that when they sit 13 years in parliament they resist thinking as much as possible. I even became frightened at what could happen to me if I sat here for 13 years.


An hon. Member:: You won't.


Jacob Schulz: I would not worry about that. The hon. member does not need to worry at all. If I were on the other side I would worry very much because I am quite sure that never in the history of the people on the prairies have they appreciated the opposition more than at this time when we forced the minister to produced nine amendments to a miserable bill.
When I had a chance tonight to look at those amendments I became still more frightened. I became worried about whether I could ever deteriorate to the point where I could continue to pull the wool over the people's eyes in spite of the fact that they

have been put on the spot so many times. I even wondered whether Goldwyn Smith was right when he said that politics is a noble calling but the meanest of all trades.
It is said that these amendments will protect the price. If this bill was a joke before, it is much more so now. They straightened out a few of the contradictions but at the same time they created more contradictions. I do not intend to go into them now but when we come to the clause-by-clause discussion I will prove it.
It is almost impossible to believe that responsible people can be so irresponsible. Perhaps we could never have expected anything else. As a matter of fact, I was not too much disappointed in the minister this morning because I recalled my first disappointment in the new minister. Because of that I could not expect too much from him. My first disappointment was on December 11 when he introduced the resolution. In summing up the debate he made this statement, as reported at page 2235 of Hansard:
A great deal of the content of the speeches has been concerned with the difficulties which exist in agriculture and with which farmers find themselves faced. Now I do not think there is any need for us to continue hearing speaker after speaker reiterating the difficult situation in agriculture today. I think most of us realize and have realized the situation for a considerable time, and one thing I can assure all hon. members of this house is that nobody realizes the situation as well as I do.
This is quite a statement. Nobody realizes it as well as he does. I have always found out in my life that those who claim they know everything are those who do not know anything, because anybody who knows something knows that you cannot know everything about anything. But this is exactly what the minister said. And that is the reason I oppose this bill. I oppose it because it is in the hands of a man who cannot learn anything. I pointed out to him last night that there is nothing in the bill which provides that guaranteed prices on the designated commodities shall be established for the duration of one year. But this morning he stated it again. Would the minister be good enough to point out one section in the bill which says that the guaranteed price of designated commodities shall be there for 12 months? Can he do that?


Edward George McCullough: No answer.


Jacob Schulz: Of course, because there is no answer. I challenge anybody on the other side to show me where it says in the bill that on designated commodities to which the guaranteed price applies it shall be set for 12 months. But this is the story that has been told in the house for two weeks. It is not true. Tonight the minister did not know enough

to bring in an amendment. Is there anybody there who wants to challenge me? I do not expect it, because it is not there. You cannot put something in the bill which is not there. What will the people think of the story which has been told here for days that there is a 12-month guarantee when they find out it is not in the bill.


Edward George McCullough: There is no answer.


Jacob Schulz: There is no answer. I hope the Minister of Agriculture gives up telling foolish stories-


Edward George McCullough: He is looking now to see if it is in the bill.


Jacob Schulz: -because it is an insult to parliament.


Mr. Broome:: Read clause 9.


Jacob Schulz: Yes, there it is right there. I will read it to you if I am not ruled out of order.


An hon. Member:: You are.


Jacob Schulz: Will you allow me, Mr. Chairman, to clear up this confusion?


Charles Edward Rea: I should like to point out that we are discussing clause 1 of Bill No. 237-


Jacob Schulz: Then I would suggest-
The Aciing Chairman (Mr. Rea):

and I would ask the hon. member to address his remarks to the chair.


Jacob Schulz: I suggest to the hon. member who asked me to read clause 9 that he should read the last two lines and then he will know what I am talking about. There is another thing I should like to bring up. We have been told that these guaranteed prices can be applied to any agricultural commodity except western wheat, oats and barley. Where is that in the bill? Will somebody please tell me where that can be found in the bill. I suggest to those people who are asking me questions that if they would read the bill first they would not ask these questions. It is not there. I admit that the bill excludes western wheat, oats and barley from the named commodities but there is nothing there excluding these products from the designated commodities. I pointed that out last night and today the minister still puts up the argument that western grain is excluded. There is nothing of that kind in the bill.
But one thing has come to light, the minister's inner feeling that he has no intention to place these products under price support. It can be done under the bill but he has revealed his thinking and has told the western farmers that they will get nothing because the legislation is controlled by him. We need another
Agricultural Products-Price Stabilization amendment, I suppose. Oh yes, we need nine more before we can straighten out the inconsistency in this bundle of confusion.
Then I want to take up this point. The minister has told us that the heads of the three western wheat pools are opposed to western wheat, oats and barley coming under this legislation. Where did he get that idea? Who would ever be foolish enough to say a thing like that? I should like to meet such a man because I would break him to pieces. How could any western farm leader stand up and say that we do not want western wheat, oats and barley covered? How could the minister try to sell that to the house?
I have in my hand the latest submission made by the heads of the three wheat pools just ten days ago. There is nothing of the kind in it. Surely if they had had a thing like that in mind they would have put it on paper and presented it to the minister. I have read their submission carefully and there is nothing of that kind there. How can he tell us that the western leaders are opposed to putting wheat, oats and barley under the bill? How can he do it?


Edward George McCullough: No answer.


Jacob Schulz: Still no answer. I cannot blame him for not answering, but how people on the other side can sit there and take these things is more than I can understand, especially people from western Canada.
There is another matter I should like to deal with. The minister referred to the report of the Saskatchewan royal commission for the purpose of proving that the royal commission had decided against parity prices. That is also not true. Why is he doing it when western people are sitting in front of him? I cannot understand why because surely we were not born yesterday. Surely we know what is in the commission's report. Not only that, but Mr. Phelps, one of the members of the commission, issued a minority report in which he disagreed with quite a few of the majority findings but this is one point on which he agreed with them. It is right in here and therefore it is well known what the position of the commission was on the question of parity prices.
You know, I came on something last night and I thought it would fit the occasion very well. It is a statement by Will Rogers. Will Rogers said:
There is nothing so stupid as the educated man if you get off the subject he was educated in.
I have one more question I should like to ask the minister and perhaps I can get an answer this time. I know he could not answer my other question because there is no answer and I did not expect an answer.
3788	HOUSE OF
Agricultural Products-Price Stabilization But he should have an answer to this question. He said to us this morning that certain amendments will be brought in but he made it clear that the principle of the bill will not be changed. Would he be good enough to inform the house what the principle of the bill is? Would the minister do that? I have never seen anything like this in my life.


Thomas Miller Bell: Neither have we.


Jacob Schulz: No, of course not. You are disappointed that your minister cannot even answer one question.


Thomas Miller Bell: The hon. gentleman is putting on the worst performance the parliament of Canada has ever seen.


Jacob Schulz: I am here, and if the minister wants to repudiate my statements that is fine with me.


Mr. McDonald (Hamilton South):: If you are
going to stand up, talk. Just don't stand there.


Edward George McCullough: He is saying too much for you people.


George Hugh Castleden: If you want to say something you stand up.


Thomas Miller Bell: He is just standing there silent.


Jacob Schulz: If the minister cannot answer my question perhaps one of the other hon. gentlemen would do so. I would appreciate it because that is the reason I asked the question. I want an answer. No, there is no answer because there is no principle in the bill.


Edward George McCullough: It is not even simple any more.


Jacob Schulz: There is only one thing in the bill, an expression of fear that you must not do anything because if you ever give the farmers a decent price they are going to produce so much they will choke themselves to death.
Would anybody believe that high prices will produce surpluses? I do not, and I should know because I am a practical farmer and, according to the hon. member for Melville, a successful farmer. I always find that if I can get good prices for my products I can live like other people and work like other people. I can work 10 hours a day instead of 18. If I get good prices I will take some of my land out of production and put it into grace to preserve it for future generations. These are things I can do only when I have obtained good prices for my products to cover the cost of production that is parity prices. These are the things for which I am asking. If I do not


get them, then I have to go and plough up every slough and produce as many bushels as I possibly can in order to make a living.
I want to say that even the government does not believe that good prices produce surpluses. This is just empty talk. The parliamentary assistant to the Minister of Agriculture made a statement the other day -I had it here but somehow I lost it; anyway, it is right in Hansard-that when the farmers receive low prices they are automatically forced to produce more in order to make a living. This makes sense. I believe that. If that is so, then why be frightened at giving the farmers a price that at least pays their cost of production; that is all they want. This is all they mean when they talk about parity prices.
I want to tell you this. One thing this country needs, if it needs anything, is more production. There is nothing more certain in my mind than that within five years this country will be short of several major farm products. This country will go hungry. Yes, this country will be short of meat, milk, butter, eggs and cheese. As a matter of fact, we are short right now. Take butter for example; we are only producing half as much as we should. The only thing that saves us from eating dry bread is the fact that we have margarine. Why then are we worrying about over production?
Then, let us take meat as an example. I know there are a lot of people who do not realize this fact, but here is the situation. This is a statement which appeared in the Financial Post of July 14, 1956, not quite two years ago:
For over a year we have brought into this country more beef or beef cattle than we have shipped out.
Why do we worry about surpluses? The former minister of finance, Mr. Harris, made this statement one day when he was speaking to the Ontario federation of agriculture:
-beef production is no longer surplus, and all evidence is that beef production may not meet the demand over the next few years.
This man knew we would have no surplus, and he admitted it. Here is another statement, made on January 24, 1957 by the minister of agriculture for Manitoba:
In 20 years time, if present per capita consumption rates are to continue, Mr. Shuttleworth said, farmers will have to prepare 1,300,000 more cattle for market each year, produce an additional 365 million gallons of fluid milk and turn out increased quantities of butter, cheese, poultry and eggs.
Why are we frightened about giving the farmers a decent break? Let us take milk as an example. There is no doubt in my mind that we are going to have a milk shortage

Agricultural Products-Price Stabilization
within a few years, and here is the proof. This is a statement made by Dr. H. A. Derby, chief of the dairy products division of the federal Department of Agriculture:
An unexpected decline in milk production occurred in 1956-
Then, farther down the page, he says:
Total milk production of about 17 billion pounds annually is just about equal to domestic requirements but, unless it keeps pace with population growth, imports of dairy products will increase, Dr. Derby said, in a report appearing in the Winnipeg Tribune.
It is hard, therefore, to understand why there should be opposition to giving the farmers a decent price, which is a parity price, a price equal to the cost of production. I have in my hand the latest copy of, "Canada Production, Trade and Prices for Principal Agricultural Products". This document contains definite proof in black and white that our production is going down progressively. Let us take cattle, for example. We find that in 1954 we exported 86,000 head; in 1955,
64,000	head; in 1956, 53,000 head. These figures indicate a progressive downward trend in production. During the same period our imports went up. In 1954. we imported 4,000 head; 1955, 6,000 head; 1956, 9,000 head. I say, where is the idea coming from that if we give farmers parity prices we are going to have a burdensome and unmanageable surplus?
We have a surplus of only one commodity today, and that is wheat. Let us consider beef; someone may say we did not export cattle but we exported beef. Here are the figures. In 1954, we exported 20 millions pounds; in 1955, 10 million pounds; in 1956, 14 million pounds. Again a downward trend is shown. Our import figures are as follows: In 1954, 44 million pounds; 1955, 46 million pounds; 1956, 40 million pounds. We are importing three times as much as we are exporting, so why are we worrying about surplus?


Mr. Villeneuve (Glengarry-Prescoil):: What about the 1957 figures?


Jacob Schulz: I do not have them; they are not here.


Osie F. Villeneuve: They change the picture greatly.


Jacob Schulz: I hope you are right, because we sure need it. Let us take hogs, for example. This is especially where we are so fearful that we can produce them by the million overnight and thus can overload ourselves so that we are going to break under the burden. Here is what happened. In 1954 we exported to all countries 27,000 head; in 1955, only 9,000 head and in 1956, only 2,000 head. As to imports, we had no imports. This
shows that production is very progressively going down. Then let us take, for example, pork products. In 1954, we exported 61 million pounds; in 1955, we exported 63 million pounds and in 1956 we exported 51 million pounds. There is no increase there. I have mentioned milk. I said we are going to have a shortage of milk. Here is the fact. In 1945-


Charles Edward Rea: Order. I must advise the hon. member that his time has expired.
Shall clause 1 carry?


[Stage Direction]
Clause agreed to.
On clause 2-Definitions.
Willis Merwyn (Merv) Johnson: I should like to say a few words on this clause. As I think I have stated on the occasions on which I have spoken on this bill, the purpose of my participation in the debate is to improve the bill. As we come to clause 2 (1) (a) wherein are given the definitions we come to an extremely important aspect of this bill. I noticed that earlier in the debate this afternoon the hon. member for Lambton-Kent, in relating this bill to the Agricultural Prices Support Act, made a great point of the fact that the Agricultural Prices Support Act ruled out wheat, something which he claimed was a discrimination against the western wheat producer. He then went on to praise the action of this bill. But, Mr. Chairman, this bill specifically excludes wheat, oats and barley grown in western Canada.
I think hon. members of this house appreciate the importance of western agriculture. I think they appreciate the amount of our western acreage which is devoted to the production of wheat, oats and barley. In fact, in western Canada last year a total of over 40 million acres were devoted to the production of those crops out of a total acreage of 104 million acres. We can therefore get some concept of the importance of wheat, oats and barley in the western economy.
At the same time, in the Manitoba CoOperator of January 2 I noticed a news story indicating that the drop in grain marketings hits Canadian farm cash income. I respectfully suggest, Mr. Chairman, that it will be impossible to fulfil some of the aspects of the bill. It will be impossible to provide farmers with a fair share of the national income, as the minister is proposing to do in one of his later amendments, without, in fact, providing the opportunity for including wheat, oats and barley in the act, or at any rate, not specifically excluding them.
This problem has been recently highlighted by the request of the western pools for a

Agricultural Products-Price Stabilization deficiency payment to meet the cost of production. In the Western Producer of December 12 I find a report of a statement by the president of the Saskatchewan wheat pool. It states:
He advocated a system of deficiency payments to offset the cost-price squeeze. Such a system should be paid back to the 1955 and 1956 crops, to equalize farm income.
The president of the Saskatchewan wheat pool went on to state:
The system would apply to such- farm commodities as hogs and livestock, in addition to grain.
I maintain, Mr. Chairman, that it is impossible to stabilize agricultural prices in Canada without stabilizing agricultural prices for the western grain producer. If we are going to allow legislation which, in fact, is discriminatory,-and that was proven by the hon. member for Lambton-Kent in the exclusion of prairie-raised wheat, oats and barley-I think we have a highly objectionable feature; and I think it is understandable that efforts should be made to have this aspect corrected.
The whole problem of western agriculture is one that revolves around the grain surplus and the marketing problems with which we are confronted. I think the Prime Minister is fully acquainted with this problem. Surely the Minister of Agriculture, coming as he does from Alberta, is also well acquainted with the tremendous surplus of wheat which we have in western Canada. The hon. member for Qu'Appelle has been vocal on many occasions in connection with the surplus of wheat which we have in western Canada. It is apparent from the low deliveries which we have. Again in the Western Producer of December 19 we find a statement of the president of the Saskatchewan wheat pool at the rural development conference held at Regina on December 10. He states:
Even with the sale of more produce today farmers won't have enough to carry on,-
We have there an indication of the necessity of some situation whereby we can hope to correct the cost-price squeeze confronting western farmers. We must have the possibility whereby we can bring in legislation to assist farmers who are indeed on a very low quota. In the Wheat Review of December, 1957 I notice that as of January 6, 1958 there are still 895 marketing points in the western provinces on a one-bushel quota; 887 are on a two-bushel quota and 256 are on a three-bushel quota. It is thus apparent that it is impossible for farmers to meet the cost of production on the basis of those limited deliveries.
I do not think it is the intention of any hon. member of this committee unduly to

hold up proceedings. On past occasions I think that I and other western members have dealt with this wheat aspect, and it should be unnecessary further to convince hon. members from western Canada of the necessity and the desirability of including western wheat, oats and barley within the act. I think that all western members will appreciate the fact that an amendment in this respect will improve the act. I therefore move, seconded by the hon. member for Mackenzie:
That lines 14 to 19, both inclusive, on page 1 of Bill 237 be deleted and that the following be substituted therefor:
"(i) any of the following commodities produced in Canada, namely, cattle, hogs and sheep; butter, cheese and eggs; and wheat, oats and barley; hereinafter called 'named commodities'; and"
I think hon. members will readily appreciate the effect of this amendment. It is simply to remove from the act the discrimination which is placed in it by the words "not produced in the designated area as defined in the Canadian Wheat Board Act". I am certain that the hon. member for Rosthern will come to my assistance in having this amendment passed by the house.
I should be equally certain, but I must express some doubt, about the hon. member for Swift Current-Maple Creek who has been supporting the government with respect to this legislation but, appreciating the large wheat-growing area in his constituency, I think we will have their interests at heart. I think this would apply with equal validity to all hon. members from western constituencies and that the adoption of this amendment will be one step further along the road to improving the bill.
The Minister of Agriculture has already indicated there are going to be nine amendments made to the bill, which he states are for the purpose of improving it. I have moved the tenth amendment for the consideration of hon. members of this house and I am certain that the passing of this legislation will assist western agriculture to achieve some of the stability it deserves.


Douglas Scott Harkness: Mr. Chairman, in connection with this amendment, I would like to point out that it is clearly out of order. I think there is no question that if this amendment were accepted it would add to the general cost to the treasury and it is not within the competence of any private member to make an amendment which would have that effect. I therefore think there is no question that the amendment is out of order.


Charles Edward Rea: I think, in looking at this amendment, that it changes the principle of the bill as agreed upon at second reading and there is also of course

Agricultural Products-Price Stabilization
the question of widening the scope of the Mr. Johnson (Kindersley): We were dealing bill, which would mean the spending of more with it by subclauses, were we not, Mr. money which is not allowed to be moved by Chairman? a private member. With those two observations I rule the amendment out of order. T^e Acting Chairman (Mr. Rea): The Min-Shall clause 2 carry?	ister of Agriculture has the floor.


Alexander Malcolm Nicholson: Mr. Chairman, I understood the minister had an amendment to clause 2, or that the Prime Minister announced that there would be such an amendment. I wonder if someone is now prepared to move it for the Prime Minister since he is not here?


Douglas Scott Harkness: Mr. Chairman, I was on my
feet when the hon. member rose, and I let him have the floor. I rose for the purpose of moving the amendment which I indicated would be moved to clause 2. That amendment is as follows:-


Stanley Howard Knowles: Mr. Chairman, are we not still on subclause (1) of clause 2?


Charles Edward Rea: No, we
are on clause 2,-the whole clause.


Stanley Howard Knowles: On
a point of order, if there are other amendments to be moved in clause 2 I think they would have to be moved in their proper place, and since there might be such amendments I suggest that you call clause 2 in its constituent parts.


Douglas Scott Harkness: It seems a little difficult to carry on, Mr. Chairman. One member of the C.C.F. party is urging me to move this amendment while another member of the C.C.F. party is trying to maintain it should not be moved. This is the usual confusion, of course, which exists amongst these people, but I am quite happy to move the amendment at this time if you rule it is in order for me to do so.


Alexander Malcolm Nicholson: There is no difference here, Mr. Chairman. The hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre suggested you call clause 2, subsection (i), and I am quite agreeable that that be called in that order and that the minister make his amendment when you come to the proper subsection (ii).


Charles Edward Rea: We have always called them clause by clause, but if it is the wish of the committee that I break it down, I will of course be glad to do so.


Some hon. Members:: No.


Willis Merwyn (Merv) Johnson: Yes, please, Mr. Chairman-break it down into subclauses, as this is rather important.


Charles Edward Rea: Shall clause 2 carry?


Willis Merwyn (Merv) Johnson: Are we dealing with it clause by clause?


Douglas Scott Harkness: Mr. Chairman, the amendment I propose to ask my colleague the Minister of Mines and Technical Surveys to move is as follows:
That subclause (2) of clause 2 be amended by striking out the words "have regard to" In line 12 on page 2 and substituting therefor the words "be guided by".
This would mean that the clause would then read as follows:
In prescribing the percentage of the base price of an agricultural commodity under subparagraph (i) or (ii) of paragraph (e) of subsection (1), the governor in council shall be guided by the estimated average cost of production of the commodity, and such other factors as the governor in council considers to be relevant.
The reasons for this amendment are, firstly, that the words "be guided by" are stronger than the words "have regard to", and it was requested that this change be made for this reason. In addition, it has been pointed out by hon. members opposite that they have made a complaint, as have some farm organizations, that in this clause the words "have regard to" have a particularly bad odour as far as certain farmers in this country are concerned because they occurred in the United Kingdom wheat agreement and in their opinion the words "have regard to" did not mean too much. I am the last one in the world to want to put something in the bill which, because of past experience, people find distasteful. For these two reasons this change has been made.


Stanley Howard Knowles: On
a point of order, Mr. Chairman, before the minister's colleague moves the amendment, may I call your attention to the matter I raised a moment ago, namely that one of my colleagues wishes to move an amendment for the insertion of a subparagraph in clause 2 at a point earlier than the point at which this amendment would be made. That was the reason I suggested you call the clause by its constituent parts. Indeed, I know there is a rule in the book, and I remember it once being applied, to the effect that if a clause has been amended it is not then possible to deal with an earlier part of that clause. My colleague, the hon. member for Kindersley, does wish to move for the insertion of another subparagraph after subparagraph (c) of subclause (1) of clause 2. I would have
3792	HOUSE OF COMMONS
Agricultural Products-Price Stabilization no objection to your dealing with this amendment provided you did not then tell my colleague from Kindersley that he is too late for the one he proposes.


Charles Edward Rea: I would first like to straighten out one matter. As the hon. member knows, I call clauses according to Standing Order 78 and I did ask the committee if they wished me to break it down into subclauses. The committee apparently did not want that done, and therefore we have this amendment now before us-


Willis Merwyn (Merv) Johnson: Mr. Chairman, on a point of order. As you were requesting the house to say whether they wished to have it dealt with in whole or in sections I rose to my feet and requested that you break it down. I do not know whether the loud speaker in this part of the house was turned on and I realize we are some distance from you, sir, but I do respectfully suggest that many of us in this group requested it to be dealt with, subclause by subclause.


Douglas Scott Harkness: Mr. Chairman, in order not to waste any further time in regard to this matter, I have no objection if they want to move an amendment which will come in before this one. If they wish to do that, let us go ahead and get this amendment finished with.


Charles Edward Rea: I think this amendment was here first, and I think it should be handled first. I may tell the hon. member for Kindersley that I asked the committee whether or not they wished me to break it down and I heard nothing but no.


An hon. Member:: They said yes down here.


Alexander Malcolm Nicholson: On a point of order, Mr. Chairman, I think you did not see the hon. member who rose on a point of order before the amendment had been properly moved. I think this is not before the committee properly at this time and I think the suggestion of the Minister of Agriculture that we should proceed with the amendment of the hon. member for Kindersley would facilitate the business of the committee.


Charles Edward Rea: I will
deal with this one first, and then I will be glad to consider the amendment of the hon. member for Kindersley.


Mr. Comtois:: Mr. Chairman, I move an
amendment to clause 2 as follows:
That subclause (2) of clause 2 be amended by striking out the words "have regard to" in line 12 on page 2, and substituting therefor the words "be guided by".


Walter Adam Tucker: When this amendment is moved that the governor in council is to be

guided by certain factors, it seems to me that the objective towards which he is to be guided should be put there too. As I understand it, the minister intends to move an amendment to the preamble to the effect that the purpose of the bill is to provide farmers with a fair share of the national income. As has been pointed out, that purpose is a part of the objectives section of the Agricultural Prices Support Act. When it appears in the preamble it has not a binding effect upon the board administering this act, it is just a vague objective. But if it is put into the operative section of the act as an objective of the act when prices are being set, then the provision has a more binding effect, and in this regard the measure becomes at least as good as the Agricultural' Prices Support Act. But if it is left in the preamble it is not as good.
I know it is no use my moving this as an amendment, but I would suggest to the minister that between now and when we meet again he should give consideration to adding at the end of the word "relevant" in subsection (ii) the following: "In order to provide that the farmers receive a fair share of the national income" and thus prescribe that objective as part of the objective in setting the prices. Then the minister could amend the preamble as proposed. It would certainly do no harm there, though it would not have any binding effect.


Charles Edward Johnston: Mr. Chairman, I wish to ask the minister a question. He is now suggesting we should change the words "shall have regard to" to "be guided by". Is there any difference in the legal interpretation of the two terms, or do they both have the same effect legally?


Douglas Scott Harkness: Mr. Chairman, the legal officials of the crown tell me that the expression "be guided by" is stronger than "have regard to".


Jacob Schulz: I am certainly in favour of the change. Of course, everybody knows it does not mean anything because there is no difference between "having regard to" and "being guided by". I want to make that clear. Further, I want to say that it is in complete contradiction to subsection (ii) which comes earlier, and which says:
-in relation to a designated commodity, such percentage of the base price thereof as the Governor in Council prescribes.
It is stated there that the prescribed prices must be set at the percentage of the base price. What meaning could this change have, when the clause before says that the price must be set at the percentage of the base price?
Progress reported.



BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE

George Carlyle Marler: May I ask the leader of the house what is the business for tomorrow?


Howard Charles Green: Tomorrow, Mr. Speaker, we will continue the debate on this bill and then consider the estimates of the Department of
Business of the House
Citizenship and Immigration and the Department of National Revenue.


George Carlyle Marler: And after lunch?


[Stage Direction]
At ten o'clock the house adjourned, without question put, pursuant to the order of the house passed on December 2, 1957.
[Stage Direction]
Questions

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

Mr. Poulin: 1.	Have reports of experts been laid before any department of the federal government since 1917, regarding the overflowing of the Chaudiere river, in the province of Quebec?
2.	If so, (a) to what department; (b) by whom were they signed; (c) on what dates were they presented?
Answer by:	Mr. Hodgson, Parliamentary
Assistant, for the Minister of Public Works:
1 and 2.
The Chaudiere river has been overflowing its banks and causing damages to varying extents practically every year since 1917. Departmental records indicate officials of the department were asked from time to time to report on the extent of the flood damages, to comment on the causes of this flooding and to suggest remedies. However, no comprehensive report on the whole problem has ever been presented to the department by other departments, either federal or provincial, or by any outside firm.
This matter has been studied extensively by the Quebec streams commission which has jurisdiction over such matters in the province of Quebec.


FERRY SERVICE, MOORE LANDING, ONT.-QTJYON, QUE.
Mr. Bell (Carleton): 1.	What work has been undertaken by the Department of Public Works since the 1st day of January, 1956, to improve ferry service between Moore Landing (Fitzroy Harbour), Ontario, and Quyon, Quebec?
2.	What was the total cost of such work, indicating the principal items of such cost?
Answer by:	Mr. Hodgson, Parliamentary
Assistant, for the Minister of Public Works:
1 and 2.
Moore Landing (Fitzroy Harbour), Ontario:
Wharf and ferry landing	 $ 9,866
Repairs to approach	 390
* Adjustable ramp (estimated) ...	2,100
Total	 $12,356
Quyon, Quebec:
Wharf and ferry landing (to complete work started in late
fall of 1955)	 $11,898
Stone fill	 994
Lights on landing head	 260
* Adjustable ramp	(estimated) ....	2,000
Total	 $15,152
* Construction has been authorized and work will commence in February, 1958.


PUBLIC WORKS DREDGES 23 AND 24
Mr. McWilliam: 1.	Has a contract been awarded for repairs to Department of Public Works dredges numbers 23 and 24?
2.	If so, what is the name and address of the successful tenderer, and the amount of the tender?
3.	What other firms submitted tenders for these repairs and in what amounts?
Answer by: Mr. Hodgson, Parliamentary Assistant, for the Minister of Public Works:
1.	Yes.
2.	Industrial Machine Works Ltd., Bathurst, N.B. For dredge No. 23-$670; for dredge No. 24-$660.
3.
Dredge Dredge No. 23 No. 24
Miramichi Foundry Machine
Works Ltd., Chatham, N.B. $1,308 $1,281 Northern Machine Works Ltd.
Bathurst, N.B	 1,710	1,750

Saturday, January 25, 1958