1959-06-18

Hon. Paul Marlin (Essex East):: I rise on a question of privilege. In today's unrevised edition of Hansard at page 4829 I am correctly reported as having said:
The Prime Minister referred to this same judgment as an alleged finding. No prime minister-
Then there was an intervention by the Prime Minister:
An alleged finding?
After which I continued:
The Prime Minister's words are there to be scrutinized and observed by everyone. The Prime Minister said that. While this might be understandable in the mouth of a lay prime minister, it certainly is not proper for the Prime Minister, a distinguished advocate in the criminal courts of our country, to refer to a finding of a judge as an alleged finding. Whether we agree with the decisions of our courts or not, once those decisions are made then unless appealed they must not be referred to in the language used by the Prime Minister as "alleged findings."
At page 4827 of the unrevised edition of Hansard now on our desks the following words are given as being the words in the concluding part of the Prime Minister's speech of yesterday:
-a charge on the basis of his opinion and belief with respect to the alleged findings of wrongdoing by a judge.
My question of privilege is that this change in the unrevised edition of Hansard alters the meaning of what I said. What the Prime Minister said was "a charge on the basis of his opinion and belief in respect to the alleged findings of a judge in that direction." These were the words I took down as being the words uttered in this house yesterday by the Prime Minister. I find that this is confirmed by some of my colleagues who likewise took down the Prime Minister's words. But lest there be any doubt in the matter I have yesterday's Hansard blues which confirm what I myself took down and which read as follows:
A charge on the basis of his opinion and belief with respect to the alleged findings of a judge in that direction.


Mr. Speaker:: I suggest that the matter be left at this point, as the Prime Minister 66968-9-308i
should have an opportunity to comment on it, and he is not in his place, and is involved in the point of privilege raised by the hon. member.



STANDING ORDERS


[Stage Direction]
Mr. J. W. Kucherepa (High Park) presented the seventh report of the standing committee on standing orders, and moved that the report be concurred in.
Motion agreed to.


Hon. Gordon Churchill (Minisier of Trade and Commerce):: Mr. Speaker, Atomic Energy of Canada Limited is to begin immediately the final design and to plan for early construction of a large scale atomic power station. The plant is estimated to cost about $60 million exclusive of design and development costs, and could be completed and in operation late in 1964 or early 1965, at a site yet to be determined.
Known as CANDU, Canadian deuterium uranium, the power station will produce
200.000	kilowatts of electricity and will use a natural uranium-heavy water system. It will be similar in general principles of operation to the NPD-nuclear power demonstration-atomic power station which is now under construction near Rolphton, Ontario, as a joint project of A.E.C.L., Ontario hydro and Canadian General Electric Company Limited. The NPD station will produce
20.000	kilowatts of electricity when it goes into operation in 1961.
In February, 1958 A.E.C.L. was authorized to establish a nuclear power plant division in Toronto to carry out design and development studies for a large scale power plant. This was to be an advanced stage of the work that was previously done in a CANDU feasibility study at Chalk River during 1957. The work of this division, together with results of development work at Chalk River and the design work on NPD done by the Canadian General Electric Company Limited in Peterborough, has increased the confidence of the engineers and scientists involved in these

Atomic Power Station
programs to the point where they are convinced that a large scale natural uranium-heavy water atomic power station offers the best promise of producing economic atomic power in large base load units in a public utility in Canada.
In addition to substantial support in the design of this CANDU station, Ontario hydro will provide a site, co-operate in its construction, and operate it as a unit in its power distribution system. Ontario hydro will buy the power produced and will purchase the plant when it has demonstrated that it has suitable characteristics for hydro's power system. The formula for the purchase price would permit production of power from CANDU that is competitive with the cost of power from modern, coal-fired power plants of a similar size.
The increase of confidence of Canadian scientists and engineers in the possibility of success in achieving economic power with the natural uranium-heavy water system, coupled with the growing need for a new source of power and for markets for uranium, resulted in a decision to go ahead with the CANDU plant sooner than was planned early in 1958.
In some areas of Canada, particularly southern Ontario, the hydraulic sites remaining to be developed are limited. Thus there will be an increasing dependence upon coalburning stations. Ontario hydro has estimated that if nuclear generated electricity were not available at a competitive cost by 1980 it would have to be importing from the United States 26,500,000 tons of coal annually at a cost of some $300 million.
Other areas in Canada will also need to supplement their present sources of power in the coming years, in order to meet the continuing growth in the demand for electricity. For example, by the late 1960's Manitoba and the maritimes may be considering installing large power stations of the 100,000 to 200,000 kilowatts size. The utilities which foresee a potential application of nuclear power in their systems are interested in the construction of a large nuclear power station at an early date so there will be a proven unit when their requirements materialize.
Although only about 75 tons of uranium will be required for an initial fuel loading of CANDU, an amount relatively insignificant when the size of Canada's uranium production is considered, nevertheless as economic nuclear stations are demonstrated the possibility is increased that they will be installed around the world, thus opening up a substantial nonmilitary market for uranium.


Mr. J. M. Forgie (Renfrew North):: I am
glad to hear this news from the Minister of Trade and Commerce and I suggest to him

that the logical place to put this plant is beside the plants at Deep River or Rolphton. The hydro-electric power commission developed at Des Joachims about 450,000 horsepower, and that energy was directed to southern Ontario so the natural heritage of the section of the country that I represent was taken away from us. Here is an opportunity, because of the shortage of power in our section of the country and because we are anxious to secure industry, to divert part of this power from the transmission lines going to southern Ontario and other parts of Ontario and retain it in my section of the country, which is Renfrew county. I should be very happy indeed if the minister would consider this situation and see whether he cannot do something to assist us to secure further industry.


Mr. H. W. Herridge (Kootenay West):: Mr. Speaker, this group listened with great interest to the very important statement just made by the Minister of Trade and Commerce, a statement of national importance and of growing importance in the years to come. We are very pleased to hear of this development of atomic power for peaceful purposes and to know of the contribution that Canadian scientists are making to this development and the contribution this development will make to the economic advancement of Canada as a whole.



BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE


Mr. Speaker:: With respect to the motion standing in the name of the Leader of the Opposition, I trust it will be agreeable to the house if I render my decision on the point of order which was debated yesterday at the opening of the session tomorrow morning.



NORTHERN AFFAIRS AND NATIONAL RESOURCES


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Hon. L. B. Pearson (Leader of the Opposition):: Mr. Speaker, I should like to ask the leader of the house whether the government is giving consideration, and it will perhaps require consultation with the provincial government concerned, to the changing of the name of Duck island in lake Ontario to Dulles island?


Hon. Howard C. Green (Secretary of State for External Affairs):: Mr. Speaker, I will have to take that question as notice. I am not an expert on the names of islands, lakes and features of that kind.


Herbert Wilfred Herridge: Is the minister ducking the question?



FINANCE


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. W. H. McMillan (Welland):: I should like to direct a question to the Minister of Finance. Was the recent loan involving $200 million in government of Canada bonds oversubscribed, and in what time?


Hon. Donald M. Fleming (Minister of Finance):: Mr. Speaker, as was announced to the public this loan was fully taken up, and the allotments made of the two issues were as follows: 2| per cent bonds due April 1, 1960, $125 million; 3 per cent bonds due December 15, 1960, $75 million. As to the time, I may say that the announcement made on Monday morning when the wires were sent out in the usual course was that the books would open on Monday evening and would remain open until at least eight o'clock eastern daylight time on Tuesday evening. They were actually closed at 9.30 o'clock eastern daylight time on Tuesday evening. In that hour and a half subscriptions were still coming in, and it was to equalize conditions as between eastern and western Canada that the issue was closed at 9.30 Tuesday evening.



NATIONAL DEFENCE


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. Frank Howard (Skeena):: I should like to direct a question to the Minister of National Defence. I regret that I was not able to give him notice of it.


An hon. Member:: We know why.


Mr. Fraser:: That was the note that was passed down to you from above.


Mr. Drysdale:: It may be a better question than usual.


Frank Howard: I was just waiting for the noise to subside to say that my friend has given expression to his usual stupidity.


Gordon Knapman Fraser: Mr. Speaker, on a question of privilege-


Mr. Pickersgill:: Nail it down.


Gordon Knapman Fraser: -this morning when we came in here not just one person but a dozen or more saw a note passed from the gallery above to the hon. gentleman.


Paul Joseph James Martin: What is wrong with that?
Inquiries of the Ministry


Mr. Speaker:: I am afraid there is no question of privilege involved in that. Will the hon. member ask his question?


Frank Howard: Is the Minister of National Defence able to give the house any information regarding the reported sighting of an unidentified submarine off the coast of British Columbia?


Hon. G. R. Pearkes (Minister of National Defence):: Mr. Speaker, from time to time there are reported sightings of unusual objects off both the Atlantic and Pacific coasts of Canada. In all these circumstances an investigation is carried out by our naval and air forces.


Mr. Arnold Peters (Timiskaming):: Have any of these investigations led to any information which would indicate that there are submarines of foreign nations operating in our waters?


George Randolph Pearkes: In nearly every case these investigations have been carried out in parts of the ocean beyond the territorial waters of Canada. I am afraid I cannot give an answer to the hon. gentleman regarding the results of these investigations, as that procedure would be contrary to the public interest.



SHIPPING


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. Azellus Denis (St. Denis):: Mr. Speaker, may I ask a question of the Minister of Transport or, in his absence, the acting minister of transport. He might take this question as notice. In view of the dispute between pilots of the Montreal-Kingston district and the shipping federation, why has not the minister had the pilotage dues approved by the governor in council as required by the Canada Shipping Act? Will the minister see that they are approved without delay?


Hon. Leon Balcer (Solicitor General):: Mr. Speaker, I will take this question as notice.



HEALTH INSURANCE


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. G. R. McWilliam (Norihumberland-
Miramichi): I wish to direct a question to the Minister of National Health and Welfare. Since the New Brunswick minister of health was in Ottawa this week, can the minister advise the house whether an agreement has now been signed with New Brunswick under the Hospital Insurance and Diagnostic Services Act?
[Stage Direction]
Inquiries of the Ministry
Hon. J. W. Monteith (Minister of National Health and Welfare):: Mr. Speaker, the agreement has not yet been signed but negotiations are proceeding satisfactorily.


Mr. McWilliam:: I have a supplementary question. Will the minister consider obtaining the concurrence of the New Brunswick provincial government with regard to tabling the documents in this matter?


Jay Waldo Monteith: Yes, of course, Mr. Speaker. However, I think these agreements or copies of them are automatically tabled after they are signed.


John Whitney Pickersgill: Not unless they are asked for.



INQUIRY AS TO INTENTION TO PARTICIPATE

[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Paul Joseph James Martin: Mr. Speaker, may I ask a supplementary question of the Minister of National Health and Welfare. In view of the statement made by the premier of Quebec yesterday with regard to his view on hospital insurance, does the minister not think this might be a propitious moment for him to show the effectiveness of his initiative by seeking to persuade the premier of Quebec as to the desirability of Quebec's participation in the scheme of hospital insurance in Canada?


Jay Waldo Monteith: Mr. Speaker, this is one of the hon. member's usual lengthy questions. I think there was some intimation that there was a lack of initiative on the part of the minister?


Paul Joseph James Martin: Yes.


Jay Waldo Monteith: Thank you very much. I should just like to point out that more initiative has been shown by this department in the last two years than was shown in the preceding several years. Not having seen the article referred to by the hon. member, I shall withhold comment.



REQUEST FOR STATEMENT RESPECTING


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Lester Bowles Pearson: Mr. Speaker, might I ask the Minister of Trade and Commerce whether any progress has been made toward renewal of the trade agreement with the Soviet union which expired last February?


Gordon Minto Churchill: Yes, Mr. Speaker. We have had a series of conversations with the representatives of the U.S.S.R. I hope very soon
to be able to announce the conclusion of an agreement.



AUTOMOBILES


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Paul Joseph James Martin: May I ask
a question of the minister. My hon. friend will recall that a few weeks ago I asked him a question about a trade agreement between the United Kingdom and the Soviet union under which the Soviet union was given the right of selling in the United Kingdom automobiles made in the Soviet union. I asked the minister whether he would not give consideration to taking steps toward providing at least the equivalent opportunity for sale in the United Kingdom market of automobiles manufactured in Canada.


Gordon Minto Churchill: Yes; consideration is always given to the hon. member's suggestions.


Paul Joseph James Martin: Will we ever get any results? That is the point.


Gordon Minto Churchill: We will get far better results than you were ever able to produce in this house.



UNEMPLOYMENT INSURANCE ACT


[Stage Direction]
The house resumed from Wednesday, June 17, consideration in committee of Bill No. C-43, to amend the Unemployment Insurance Act-Mr. Starr-Mr. Sevigny in the chair.
On clause 1-Repeal.
William Hector McMillan: 
Donald Methuen Fleming: Mr. Chairman, the hon. member is apparently beginning to discuss an issue of bonds sold this week. What on earth has that to do with the measure now under debate? We have had debate straying, goodness knows, all over creation in committee on this first clause of the bill. Certainly there is nothing in this week's bond issue which has the slightest relationship to the bill now under consideration.


William Hector McMillan: Mr. Chairman, I do not think you were in the chair at the time, but yesterday the minister himself discussed the price of bonds. He discussed the foresight and the hindsight of selling bonds. He discussed the conversion bonds in connection with raising money for deficits and for payments in connection with the unemployment insurance fund, and if he had that right yesterday I think I should have the same right in the same committee today.


The Chairman:: Order. It is quite true that during the course of this debate various speakers on both sides of the house have somewhat strayed from the item under discussion. For the sake of good order and in order to respect the principle of relevance, the Chair must ask hon. members to please adhere strictly to the matter under discussion. The fact that at other times the Chair has possibly permitted various speakers to stray away from the item under discussion is no reason for the Chair to permit speakers who are debating this issue today to stray away from the principle of relevancy. Consequently it would be appreciated if all members tried to limit their remarks to relevant items in this debate; otherwise it will be necessary to repeatedly call to order various speakers. Therefore may I ask that as far as possible all speakers adhere to this item under discussion.
(Translation):


Mr. Caron:: Mr. Chairman, with all due respect allow me to say that, as can be seen in the 10th report of the industrial relations

Unemployment Insurance Act committee, we discussed there every financial structure which might in one way or the other affect the unemployment insurance fund. As the industrial relations committee went into the matter of the treasury bonds acquired by the commission at the time of the conversion loan in replacement of debentures, and since the industrial relations committee has now tabled its report, it seems to me we should be allowed to examine the whole financial structure which affects the unemployment insurance fund. I therefore submit that the minister is wrong when he contends that we are out of order in dealing in the regular way with matters which were discussed in committee. It has been the standard practice in the house to allow discussion of evidence brought before the committee. For that reason, I ask that the hon. member who has risen be permitted to pursue his remarks.


Joseph Pierre Albert Sévigny: I listened carefully to the remarks of the hon. member for Hull (Mr. Caron). As a matter of fact, it is quite logical that matters which were dealt with during the meetings of that committee be discussed in this debate. However, the issue of bonds or debentures which took place yesterday certainly has not been discussed by that committee.
Now, I will ask hon. members to limit their remarks to the section now under study. I want to point out to hon. members that, under a quite specific rule of this house, continuous repetition is not permitted. Consequently, it is to my mind reasonable that hon. members should restrict their remarks to the subject now before the house and refrain from a continuous repetition which draws out the debate and makes it perhaps somewhat irksome for the committee chairman and for hon. members themselves.


Paul Joseph James Martin: Mr. Chairman, we want to co-operate with you. We fully appreciate the heavy task which is yours. I am convinced that the hon. member for Welland (Mr. McMillan) has no intention of speaking indefinitely on this matter. He is only referring to it incidentally. I mean yesterday's loan. He was just mentioning it in passing and I believe you will find that as the hon. member for Hull (Mr. Caron) pointed out, there will be no difficulty in that respect.


Joseph Pierre Albert Sévigny: I quite understand the point made by the hon. member for Essex East. I am convinced that the hon. member for Welland does not propose to carry the discussion into a field which might involve infringement of the standing orders. I merely wish to suggest to hon. members that they should limit their remarks to the section now before the house, and thus simplify the debate.
(Text):


William Hector McMillan: I was just inquiring about the high cost of the current loan. The interest is 8 per cent net-


Donald Methuen Fleming: On a point of order, the hon. member is going right ahead to do the very thing you have ruled out of order.


An hon. Member:: It is just in passing.


Donald Methuen Fleming: He is not discussing any bond transaction of the unemployment insurance fund at all. He is going on to introduce into the debate some remarks which he evidently wishes to get off his chest with regard to a bond issue sold this week. As far as I am aware the unemployment commission has made no purchase whatever which has anything to do with that transaction.


William Hector McMillan: I am sorry the Minister of Finance is so touchy about the bond issue rate, and I won't refer to that.


Donald Methuen Fleming: Stick to the truth,
and stick to the point under discussion.


William Hector McMillan: I will say that yesterday the minister accused us of hindsight, and gave example after example, but we cannot answer him here today. That is not fair to members of the House of Commons.
What has happened to this unemployment insurance fund? We had a $10 million loss on the sales of bonds of that fund and there was a paper loss of between $60 million and $65 million on bonds held in that portfolio, had they been sold at today's prices. We know they could not be sold at today's prices, because if they were put on the market it would decrease the prices of those bonds. Then we have $80 million borrowed at 5 per cent interest, so that leaves something under $350 million in the fund.
I think the first thing the minister must do to help this fund and to help other funds is try to create confidence in the government's fiscal policy. I cannot refer to interest rates, but certainly the hon. gentleman's policy lately has not created any confidence in fiscal policy. And when I think of fiscal policy, if I dare mention interest rates, an effective interest rate of over 8 per cent-


Donald Methuen Fleming: Are we to have order or not? Is the hon. member to go on defying the ruling you have made, Mr. 

Chairman? He is back on the same thing. Surely this is not a debate on the wide range of fiscal policy such as we have had a number of times already this session. Surely this is a debate, properly, on the first clause in the bill to amend the Unemployment Insurance Act. Surely, if this kind of discussion is in order, everything can be discussed.


William Hector McMillan: I will avoid that phrase
"interest rate" all I can. I am out of order in even mentioning it now, but the minister mentioned it himself many times yesterday. We have two very outstanding current examples. One I should not mention, and the other is what the minister is doing to the little man, the man who carries the dinner pail. The Minister of Finance is letting him pick up the tab for the losses and depletion in the unemployment insurance fund.


Donald Methuen Fleming: Not a word of truth in that!


William Hector McMillan: What is the minister doing in another direction? We heard it announced today, but I cannot mention it or the hon. gentleman will stand up and say I am out of order and I will be ruled out of order. I cannot mention the words or the minister will stand up. But certainly he is helping the rich man to get 8.2 per cent on his money and that is all I want to say.


Paul Joseph James Martin: The Minister of Finance said yesterday that the losses suffered by the unemployment insurance fund had nothing to do with the present bill. I want to indicate to the Minister of Finance, in case he does not know it, that during the past five years the income derived by the fund from investment has been, on an average, about $25 million. It would be interesting to know why the actuary, who is an employee of the department over which the hon. gentleman has jurisdiction, did not take that source of revenue into account when he estimated the future requirements of the fund.
If the Minister of Finance would look at the statements which were produced before the committee by the actuary, Mr. Humphrys, a distinguished public servant, and particularly at statements 4 and 5 in a table which he presented to the committee, he will find that what I have said about this $25 million revenue is correct, and also that it was not taken into account by the actuary, as I have mentioned. It would be interesting to know why this was not done.
I suggest to the Minister of Finance that there are only two possible explanations. Either the actuary forgot to take this important source of revenue into account-and 66968-9-309
Unemployment Insurance Act if this is true the probable deficit of the fund has been overestimated and the probable increase in contributions is, in consequence, too great-or the actuary felt that the investment income would be negligible in the next few years. If that is the case, then the loss in revenue is due to the mismanagement of the fund last year and particularly, as the hon. member for Welland has emphasized, during the conversion loan so dear to the heart and to the political dedications of my hon. friend the Minister of Finance-


Mr. Hellyer:: And so expensive to the pocketbook.


Paul Joseph James Martin: -and as my friend the hon. member for Trinity points out, so expensive to the pocketbooks of the Canadian people. The minister certainly owes the committee an explanation.
Yesterday in his verbal peregrinations the Minister of Finance stated that it was almost impossible for the investment committee at the time of the conversion loan to foresee what would happen to the fund. I suggest to the Minister of Finance that after a good night's sleep, which I trust he had, he has now come to the conclusion that his view in this particular was erroneous.
Did my hon. friend say something? Apparently not. Perhaps I misunderstood. I thought he grunted, and I wondered what that meant.


John Whitney Pickersgill: It was not such a good night's sleep.


Paul Joseph James Martin: Well, I can understand that. The minister has a lot of problems on his mind. He carries them well, but this is one which apparently he is not carrying too well.
In the first place, from July to the end of October I think it is fair to say that anyone could see that we would experience heavy unemployment during the coming winter. We on this side of the chamber certainly indicated in the middle of last August, when we were considering the estimates of the Department of Labour, that that would be the case, and so during the period of the conversion loan it was quite clear that the fund would begin soon after these months to suffer very heavy drains indeed.
It was evident also that if a high degree of liquidity was not achieved-and the conversion loan was a God-given opportunity to achieve that goal-then the fund would have to sell a large amount of securities in order to meet its financial obligations. I suggest to the Minister of Finance that notwithstanding what he said about my ability to foresee the current trends in the market, it was not

Unemployment Insurance Act necessary to be an expert in order to foresee this situation. I also suggest that it was not necessary to be a great expert to anticipate the situation with respect to the bond market and to realize that if the fund had to sell large amounts of securities it would inevitably suffer heavy losses.
Yesterday the Minister of Finance was unduly critical of me because I said the investment committee should have foreseen during the July-October period that the values of government bonds were going to drop in the fall of 1958. Here again he said this was a situation that could not easily have been anticipated. I should like to indicate what the Minister of Finance said in his budget speech which will be found at page 2411 of Hansard.


Donald Methuen Fleming: Is this in order, Mr. Chairman?


Paul Joseph James Martin: My hon. friend is constantly interrupting with references to being in order.


Donald Methuen Fleming: Mr. Chairman, I am rising on a point of order. Is it correct in a subsequent debate in this committee to refer to remarks made in a previous debate in the same session, when that debate has been closed and the house has terminated that matter?


Paul Joseph James Martin: Mr. Chairman, I said I wanted to co-operate. The Minister of Finance is quite correct in his point of order, and all I can do now is to remind my hon. friend that when he presented his budget he did speak about this matter and said, in effect, what I have already indicated.


Donald Methuen Fleming: And now you are
going to go ahead and read it just the same.


Paul Joseph James Martin: No, I am not.


Donald Methuen Fleming: You are going to proceed and read it in breach of the rules of the house.


Paul Joseph James Martin: May I tell my hon. friend who talks about violations of the rules of this house that I have become an assiduous student of the columns of Hansard between the years 1945 and June of 1957, during which time my hon. friend in this house sat near this very seat I now occupy, gloria mente regnante and I do not know of an hon. member who more consistently violated the rules of this house.


John Whitney Pickersgill: He is the only one who had to be sent out of the house.


Paul Joseph James Martin: Yes, as my friend the hon. member for Bonavista-Twillingate said-


Joseph Pierre Albert Sévigny: Order. I urge hon. gentlemen to return to the matter under discussion.


Paul Joseph James Martin: I thank you, Mr. Chairman, for saving the Minister of Finance from these denunciations which I wish I did not have to make but which I am almost compelled to make as a result of these undisciplined fulminations of the minister.
I cannot, of course, refer to what the hon. member said in his budget speech, but I would direct his attention to his words as they appear at page 2411 of Hansard. He will find them a confirmation of what I myself argued yesterday, even though I did not at the time make on the minister the impression I had hoped to make and which I suspect I have now succeeded in doing.


Donald Methuen Fleming: You are very
suspicious.


Mr. Marlin (Essex Easi):: Anyone reading the statement in the budget speech to which I have directed attention would observe that in mid-June of 1958 the bond market did break sharply. Moreover in August, as we all know, the condition of the United States bond market further deteriorated.
I do wish my hon. friend would not look at me in that way.


Mr. Fulton:: Good heavens; we cannot even look at you now.


Paul Joseph James Martin: Here we have the Minister of Justice. I should have thought he would have enough preoccupations on his mind these days working on some legislation that will shortly come before this house instead of sitting idly by making comments about a bill concerning which he has not the slightest knowledge.


Edmund Davie Fulton: I was reading what the hon. member for Essex East said yesterday, and I must admit that is an idle occupation.


Mr. Ricard:: When will the hon. member speak about the bill now before us?


Paul Joseph James Martin: In these circumstances it was easy to anticipate what would happen in Canada when the Bank of Canada would cease to support conversion bonds which, as my hon. friend knows, were supported by the bank from the beginning of July, 1958 to the end of October, thereby permitting the sale of some $17 million worth of the commission's securities on September 15 for which the commission received full value, the same value it would have received if it had held those bonds until maturity. I suggest, therefore, that the investment committee could have anticipated that situation and should have sold its victory bonds in

order to acquire short term, securities and treasury bills instead of accepting long term conversion bonds.
This was ably pointed out by the hon. member for Welland, who increasingly amazes all of us with his financial erudition.


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh.


Paul Joseph James Martin: The hon. member for Welland has won the respect of this house because of the increasing manifestations of his great competence and acumen in this field.


Donald Methuen Fleming: Have you been coaching him?


Paul Joseph James Martin: I would be greatly honoured if I could say so. He has been coached by our expert spokesman on finance, the hon. member for Kenora-Rainy River. Together they present a formidable team.


Donald Methuen Fleming: It is his responsibility then.


Paul Joseph James Martin: We in this small group, as a matter of fact, are developing a team of financial experts-


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh.


Paul Joseph James Martin: -which if my hon. friends opposite had done when they were in opposition would have served to prepare them for the great responsibilities that are theirs now. I am sure the Minister of Finance would not have embarked on some of the fantastic financial schemes that he has projected if he had had a greater training in finance when he was in opposition during the long bitter days of hard winter-


Donald Methuen Fleming: You know what they are now.


Paul Theodore Hellyer: Too little and too late.


Paul Joseph James Martin: I do not know why my hon. friend shows his resentment by sitting sideways in his seat.


Donald Methuen Fleming: I am trying to avoid looking at you. You are so sensitive.


Paul Joseph James Martin: Usually he confronts me with full body and now he confronts me with half body. I assure him this is conduct that shows a discourtesy to one who is seriously interested in a very important discussion.


John Whitney Pickersgill: His lights are dimmed to avoid the glare.


Mr. Benidickson:: He is giving you the cold shoulder.


Paul Joseph James Martin: His lights are dimmed to avoid the glare. Mr. Chairman, I ask the Minister of Finance to realize that 66968-9-309J
Unemployment Insurance Act the bill before us is one that seeks to bring about a yield of $100 million in additional revenue, $80 million of which is going to be contributed by the workers of Canada, the little men, as the member for Welland said, and the employers of our country. Before imposing this serious continuing obligation on these two segments of our population the Minister of Finance ought to get his colleague the Minister of Labour and others to reconsider this matter, as was also pointed out yesterday by the hon. member for Timiskaming when he spoke.
The Minister of Finance has predicted a possible increase in the gross national product of 7 per cent. Since that prognostication or forecast was given, the Prime Minister said in a speech outside this house that he thought -I hope I do not overstate the observation of the Prime Minister-the results would indicate that instead of a 7 per cent increase in the gross national product it would be considerably higher. As a matter of fact, I have seen in some financial journals the suggestion that it could even be double the 7 per cent. I am sure we will all welcome that.
Well, let us assume that the bright economic outlook for 1959, given by the Minister of Finance, will materialize. I point out-and this is a serious observation which the Minister of Finance must now deal with squarely 

that such a recovery would result in reduced expenditures and increased revenues for the unemployment insurance fund in 1959 and 1960. On that basis, and assuming that the level of contributions was to remain unchanged, the fund would not be in the perilous state that was referred to unanimously by the members of the advisory committee. I ask the Minister of Finance, assuming that this estimate that the gross national product will increase by 7 per cent or higher materializes, will there be a deficit or a surplus in the fund?
In the answer to that question, in the final analysis, is involved the kind of policy which should be adopted with regard to the methods for replenishing this fund. If this is to be the situation, if we are to have the bright economic outlook that the Minister of Finance forecasts, I suggest to him that he ought to take a second look before imposing for all time this additional contribution from the workers of our country amounting to from 25 per cent to 56 per cent. We do not go lightly about imposing further obligations on our people, particularly those who are in the working groups, the dependent groups, the farmers and the like, without taking into consideration all possible alternative methods of dealing with such situations.
It is a serious matter to add this additional burden on the employee groups of our

Unemployment Insurance Act country. I suggest this government has an opportunity now to reconsider its position and see whether or not it can take a new look at the situation and come forward with a proposition that would at least be consistent with the suggestion made by the advisory committee that the government contribution should be increased so that it will be at least half the total contribution of the workers and employees.
I submit these observations to the Minister of Finance. We have been light-hearted in some of our remarks only because we wanted to bring the Minister of Finance down from his pedestal of anger to a pedestal of phlegmatism, because we wanted him to understand fully how serious we are in the position we take and the serious reaction to this proposal that has come not only from labour groups but from employee groups all over this country. I ask the Minister of Finance to take a second look at this matter before imposing this burden on the workers of our country.


Mr. Siarr:: I am sure we are all touched by the continual reference by the hon. member for Essex East to his concern for the working people of this country. When one looks at the record that has been established by the hon. member for Essex East one begins to wonder Whether there is a great deal of sincerity in what he says.
Let us take a look at what happened in 1950, when the hon. member for Essex East piloted an amendment to the Unemployment Insurance Act through the house to include seasonal workers. Prior to 1950 the weekly earnings had ranged from $5.40 to $7.49 in the lowest bracket, and from $7.50 to $9.59 in the second lowest bracket. In the first instance the employer paid 18 cents per week and in the second instance 24 cents per week. The worker, the employee for whom such a great deal of concern is exhibited by the hon. member for Essex East, contributed 12 cents in the first category and 15 cents in the second category.
To show his concern for the workers, this is what the hon. member did in 1950. He raised these two classes. He raised the contributions not of the employer, Mr. Chairman; the employer remained the same, at 18 cents, but what did he do with the workers? He raised the worker's contribution by 18 cents, making a total of 36 cents, or a total increase in the contribution by the working people of this country of 50 per cent. He left the employers alone. In the next two categories-


Murdo William Martin: Give us the pattern of change and the pattern of benefit; give the whole story.


Michael Starr: If the hon. member will withhold his curiosity, I will do that. He knows the facts. Let us proceed. I will give the whole picture to show how deeply he is interested in the working people of this country.


Murdo William Martin: On a point of order, I do not mind argument.


J.-H.-Théogène Ricard: It begins to hurt.


Murdo William Martin: When the hon. member challenges my interest and sincerity in regard to labour-


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh.


Murdo William Martin: -he challenges something he cannot prove. I ask him to withdraw that imputation and to go on with his argument as he wishes, because I have a complete answer.


Michael Starr: The hon. member for Essex East has argued that to put any increase upon the working people is not the proper thing to do.


Murdo William Martin: This is not what the argument was at all.


Michael Starr: My point is that his argument
in this respect is not borne out by what he did in 1950, when he put practically the whole burden of the increase on the working people of this country.


Murdo William Martin: That is not the
fact.


Michael Starr: I just gave the facts and you
agreed with them. I pointed out that the increase on the people who earned the lowest salaries amounted to 50 per cent, and nothing additional was put on the employers. Let us take a look at the next two categories.


Donald Methuen Fleming: Shame on the
member for Essex East!


Michael Starr: Let us take the next two
categories. In the category of people earning $9.60 to $11.99 a week the employer contributed 24 cents and the employee, the worker, contributed 18 cents. In the category of people earning $12 to $14.99 a week the employer contributed 24 cents and the employee 21 cents. What did the hon. member do? He raised the ceiling from $9 to $14.99. The employer was not touched; the employer still paid 24 cents. The people getting those low incomes had their contributions increased to 24 cents, an increase of 30 per cent.


Murdo William Martin: That is right.


Michael Starr: There was his interest in the
working people of this country. He saddled them with this increase.


Donald Methuen Fleming: Shame on the member for Essex East.


Michael Starr: In the other categories, from $15.99 to $19.99, and so on, he did increase the rates in the case of employers and employees; but in the case of people who earned the least, from $5.40 to $11.99 a week, he raised the rates 50 per cent and 30 per cent for the workers and would not raise the contributions of the employers.


Donald Methuen Fleming: Shame on the member for Essex East!


Michael Starr: I cannot understand how the hon. member for Essex East can take on this mask of great interest in the working people after what he did to them in 1950; and, Mr. Chairman, that bill was rammed through the house. It is interesting to read Hansard of that time and see how the member for Essex East would not allow any straying away from the amendments under discussion but consistently interrupted, as he has interrupted during the whole debate in the industrial relations committee and in the house on these few simple amendments.


Mr. Maclnnis:: Mr. Chairman, many remarks have been made about the workings of the industrial relations committee, and I do not intend to add to them today. However, I should like to deal for a moment with some of the observations made in the comedy act put on by the hon. member for Essex East. The hon. member professes to have a great interest in labour. He stands up, advocates his interest and pounds his desk. I may say that he does a poor job of pounding his desk. I would hate to see him appear before any labour group if he cannot do any better in pounding his desk.
Why does he not act like a labour man if he wants to represent labour? He claims to be a champion of labour, but he finds it necessary in labour committee meetings to run out for what he calls ammunition when he exhausts his list of prepared questions. Any man acting on behalf of labour would not come to a committee with a list of questions prepared for him by somebody else.
He has referred to a hidden tax being imposed upon the people who pay into the unemployment insurance fund. I am very glad to find out that the former administration had the same attitude, and that when they made provision for additional payments they were imposing a hidden tax. That was their attitude at that time. It must have been, because that is what they profess today.


Paul Joseph James Martin: What about the benefits that were also given at the same time?
Unemployment Insurance Act


Donald MacInnis: I think the hon. member for Essex East has been given sufficient time to explain his points of view without asking for my opinion on them. I do not think too much of them. All we have had so far is a filibustering of the bill with talk about the merits of bond conversion and the state of the fund. I think the committee is missing the whole point. The purpose of the bill is to benefit the unemployed people of the country, and I think that should be given the highest priority in the discussion.
The workers of this country, just the same as other categories of taxpayers, naturally have an aversion to accepting higher taxes or higher payments for anything, but from my own personal experience I am quite sure that the labouring people of the country are so united that they are happy to be in a position to help their fellow workers who are not fortunate enough to be employed. Not only do the miners and steelworkers in my constituency contribute to this fund, but each, and every week there is some sort of pithead' collection or collection at the office to help* some unfortunate person who is out of work and not able to draw unemployment benefits or relief. These men are quite willing to throw in an additional half dollar or dollar every week to help those who find themselves in such circumstances.


William Arnold Peters: What about the government increasing its contribution to the fund?


Donald MacInnis: The hon. member for Timis-kaming has something to say by way of interjection. I recall that yesterday he took serious objection to any interjections while he was making a few remarks. I would ask for the same courtesy from him. The hon. member for Timiskaming also said there was no need to rush the bill through. The hon. member for Timiskaming was replaced on the standing committee for some reason or other, and with all due respect to him may I point out that the necessity for having the bill passed by June 12 in order that those receiving unemployment insurance would benefit was clearly indicated to the committee.
The hon. member for Essex East has said that the legislation could have been brought forward much earlier. I think the member will also recall that it was clearly indicated in the committee by the members of the unemployment insurance commission that there was much work to be done in this regard, that they had been working on the legislation and rushing it as fast as they could, and that the bill was introduced as soon as possible. The fact that the bill was not passed by the house before June 12 for the benefit of those who are unemployed was due to the activities in the standing committee.

Unemployment Insurance Act
As I have said, all that we had there was a filibuster. The hon. member tor Essex East complained about not having an opportunity to interrogate certain witnesses. All you need do to check that statement is to refer to the reports of the proceedings of the committee, and it will be seen that the member for Essex East was on record numerous times, in fact three to one against anybody else serving on that committee. He passed up his opportunities to interrogate by continuing to make suggestions and statements, and in all the times he put himself on record he asked very few questions.
That was plainly indicated when Mr. Coyne of the Bank of Canada appeared before the committee. The hon. member made certain claims about Mr. Coyne's ability to carry out his responsibilities. He has said that the members of the unemployment insurance commission and the Minister of Labour failed to bring the bill forward in time for the unemployed to benefit after June 12. He has also referred to the advisory committee and the fact that there was no opportunity to question its members. As I have stated before, it would be very unfair to call the committee before the industrial relations committee when labour itself is not represented, on account of the recent resignation of three members of the committee.


Paul Joseph James Martin: What about Mr. Maclean? Is he not a labour representative?


Donald MacInnis: Yes; I will correct myself, and say labour was not fully represented because of the three recent retirements. I imagine they retired possibly to embarrass the government or the Minister of Labour, but it turns out that they have only embarrassed labour. As was pointed out in the industrial relations committee, labour will want to have representation on that committee, and these men have placed labour in a very precarious position. The Canadian Labour Congress will want representation on the committee, and it is most embarrassing to them that three of their members have resigned and will have to be replaced.
Reference has been made to Mr. Burt and the telegram he forwarded to the committee. Mr. Burt took exception to the bill in his telegram. He condemned it. Yet Mr. Burt was a member of a committee that advised the commission that certain portions of the bill were advantageous.


Paul Joseph James Martin: That is not the
case.


Michael Starr: That is the case. The report shows that.


Donald MacInnis: His telegram certainly condemns the bill. I have one more point before I resume my seat with respect to the hon. member for Essex East and his interest in labour. There is no doubt about this. It is reported here in Hansard. As the Minister of Labour has just pointed out in reference to the 1950 amendments-and it was clearly pointed out to the industrial relations committee by Mr. Andras-in 1950 they were not given any opportunity whatsoever to appear. There is no doubt about that. The hon. member for Essex East was present when Mr. Andras made that statement.


Michael Starr: They were not even consulted.


Donald MacInnis: And they were not even consulted.


Michael Starr: And they complained about it.


Donald MacInnis: The hon. member says he has a great interest in labour. However, it is reported in Hansard that he cannot quite recall whether in 1950 he was parliamentary assistant to the Minister of Labour or whether he was-


An hon. Member:: He was doing a great many jobs then.


Joseph Pierre Albert Sévigny: Order. The bill that is under discussion is one to amend the Unemployment Insurance Act. I must ask the hon. member to please discuss unemployment insurance.


John Whitney Pickersgill: Mr. Chairman, I rise on a point of order. Time after time I have sat in this chamber on the other side when the present leader of the house namely the hon. member for Vancouver Quadra, pointed out that the widest latitude was always allowed in the discussion on clause 1 of a bill in committee. The Minister of Finance has had wide latitude. The hon. member for Cape Breton South, who does not take up the time of the house very often, has something he wants to say which is closely related to the bill, and I think he should be allowed to say it.


Paul Joseph James Martin: Hear, hear.


Donald Methuen Fleming: Beware the Greeks bearing gifts!


Joseph Pierre Albert Sévigny: As I mentioned in my remarks when 1 took the chair, although certain latitude had been permitted in previous debates on matters which were quite irrelevant to the point under discussion, I was asking hon. members to observe the rule with regard to relevancy. For the sake of ensuring order of debate in this committee the rule of relevancy will be strictly enforced by the Chair. Unlimited latitude in the

discussion of clause 1 of the bill will not be permitted by the Chair, although reasonable latitude will be allowed. I therefore consider that the point of order raised by the hon. member for Bonavista-Twillingate is not really a point of order. I cannot permit irrelevant remarks.


Donald MacInnis: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I will take this opportunity to thank the hon. member for Bonavista-Twillingate, although I have my suspicions.


John Whitney Pickersgill: I just believe in being fair.


Donald Methuen Fleming: Beware the Greeks bearing gifts!


Donald MacInnis: I have not much more to say, Mr. Chairman, other than in reference to the 1950 amendments and the action of the hon. member for Essex East in not recalling-and it is reported right here in Hansard-whether he was parliamentary assistant or acting minister of labour. I should like to say that anybody acting on behalf of labour, and who has ever had the honour or the opportunity to represent labour in this house in either capacity, should be ashamed of the fact that he could not recall whether he was parliamentary assistant or acting minister of labour. I would say that any person in this country who has had that opportunity-and I do not suggest this, as was done previously; I say it outright- of representing labour and who professes to have an interest in labour but who could not recall these dates is just, as was indicated, not interested in labour whatsoever.


Paul Joseph James Martin: Mr. Chairman, there are one or two points that I think I ought to deal with right away. They were mentioned by the Minister of Labour and by the hon. gentleman who has just spoken. I am not going to spend any time showing whether or not I am sincere in my advocacy of labour and of social welfare measures. I am not going to spend any time on that matter.


J.-H.-Théogène Ricard: The facts prove it.


Murdo William Martin: All I can say is
that I have been in this house for 23 years and my record will show whether or not I have shown any interest in the social welfare problems of the people of this country. I do not think it is fair for any hon. member of this house to criticize Mr. Andras of the Canadian Labour Congress, Mr. George Burt, director of the united automobile workers, and Mr. Marchand, the secretary of Les Syndicats Catholiques. These three representatives of labour on the advisory committee of the unemployment insurance commission have given long and distinguished
Unemployment Insurance Act service to the government and to the people of Canada as members of that committee. Because they resigned from that committee in protest against the principle of this bill is no reason for referring to them as individuals who have not served the interests of labour.


Michael Starr: I rise on a point of order. These gentlemen did not resign in protest against the principle of this bill.


Murdo William Martin: We shall see.


Michael Starr: These gentlemen resigned because of the appointment of Mr. MacArthur.


Murdo William Martin: We shall see.


An hon. Member:: Wrong again.


Murdo William Martin: We shall see whether these gentlemen are in support of this bill.


Donald Methuen Fleming: Another slippery retreat by the hon. member for Essex East.


Murdo William Martin: The Minister of Finance is losing his patience or losing control of himself, and that is a bad thing for any minister of the crown to do. I would suggest that the usually phlegmatic minister persuade his ebullient colleague the Minister of Labour to contain himself also.


Donald Methuen Fleming: And sit here and listen to you clutter up the record with nonsense?


Murdo William Martin: The advisory committee made up not only of these three members representing labour but as well Mr. Maclean, who, as I pointed out a moment ago continues to be a labour representative and is still on the advisory committee. He joined with the employer representatives and the neutral chairman in being unanimously opposed to the main objective of this bill, as represented in their observations in the report tabled by the Minister of Labour in this house pursuant to the statute, in which they unanimously-


Michael Starr: I wonder if the hon. member will permit a question?


Murdo William Martin: When I finish my sentence. As I was saying-in which report they unanimously asserted that nothing should be done until the government contribution was increased to at least half of the total proposed contribution of the workers.


Michael Starr: What amendments were they opposed to? What amendments were opposed by the advisory committee?


Murdo William Martin: Don't lose your temper.

Unemployment Insurance Act


Michael Starr: I am not losing my temper. We want facts and information, not innuendos.


Paul Joseph James Martin: This display of lack of control, this continual bellowing by the minister for vengeance-


Michael Starr: I am trying to follow in your footsteps in that regard.


Paul Joseph James Martin: -is very disconcerting-


Michael Starr: I know it is disconcerting to you.


Paul Joseph James Martin: -and not really in keeping with the position of a man who is a minister of the crown.


Donald Methuen Fleming: Or a former
minister.


Paul Joseph James Martin: Or, as the Minister of Finance very properly says, a former minister. That is the main objection to this bill that was taken by these people. If they wanted to register their objections they certainly had the right to do so, and because they resigned from the advisory committee-


Michael Starr: They did not resign because of that.


Paul Joseph James Martin: Don't get excited.


Michael Starr: I am trying to keep the record straight.


Paul Joseph James Martin: Because they resigned, that fact does not make them less worthy and sincere representatives of the workers of this country and their organizations.


Donald MacInnis: It certainly does.


Paul Joseph James Martin: My hon. friend has reminded me of something. A moment ago my hon. friend reminded me that the real reason for their resigning was not as I stated, but-and I thank the Minister of Labour for correcting me-was that they objected to the failure of the Minister of Labour to comply with the act in consulting labour with regard to labour representation on the unemployment insurance commission.


Michael Starr: Labour are quite satisfied with their representation.


Paul Joseph James Martin: My hon. friend says that labour is satisfied. But the large labour organizations in this country represented by Mr. Jodoin, with over one million members, have taken issue with this government and have complained about the government failure to live up to the act because the minister did not properly consult labour.
[Mr. Martin (Essex East) .1


Donald Methuen Fleming: Don't lose your temper.


Paul Joseph James Martin: My hon. friend says these three men Mr. George Burt of Windsor, Mr. Marchand of Les Syndicats Catholiques and Mr. Andras of the Canadian Labour Congress are not worthy representatives of labour because they have protested against the failure of this government to appoint a representative of labour pursuant to the terms of the Unemployment Insurance Act. The Minister of Labour has not yet told us what progress he has been able to make with the labour organizations in the replacement of these gentlemen or does he intend to give them the opportunity to return. I do not even know whether they want to return. I would say this to my hon. friend. Mr. George Burt has not supported me politically for a long time, but I do know that if he were returned as a member of this committee, as well as Mr. Andras and Mr. Marchand, he and they would be very competent and worthy representatives of labour.
The Minister of Labour, and I do not blame him for this, sought to establish that what he had done was based upon a precedent of 1950 or thereabouts. As I indicated the other day when these amendments were introduced, I was acting on behalf of the minister of labour who was otherwise engaged. I was not the minister of labour, but I am not ashamed of those amendments any more than I am ashamed to belong to a party which introduced an eifective Unemployment Insurance Act-


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh.


Paul Joseph James Martin: -any more than I am to belong to a party which is responsible for every single act of social welfare on the statute books of our country-


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh.


The Deputy Chairman:: Order.


Paul Joseph James Martin: -any more than I am to belong to a party which brought in family allowances-


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh.


Paul Joseph James Martin: -which brought in old age security-


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh.


Paul Joseph James Martin: -which brought in disability pensions-


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh.


Charles Edward Rea: Order.


Paul Joseph James Martin: -that brought in-


Charles Edward Rea: Order.


Paul Joseph James Martin: Mr. Chairman-


Charles Edward Rea: The hon. member knows what I was going to say.


Paul Joseph James Martin: Yes; and you, Mr. Chairman, know perfectly well why I was referring to this record of great achievement. What the Minister of Labour, demonstrating an unusual lack of self-discipline not characteristic of the hon. gentleman, failed to point out was that unlike the present instance, the increased contributions then were accompanied by a change in the pattern of benefits.


Michael Starr: No.


Murdo William Martin: My hon. friend says no. That is his argument, which is of course a very-


Michael Starr: It was inclusion of seasonal workers.


Murdo William Martin: Is that a benefit? Does my hon. friend think the former government was doing something worth while when it gave assistance to those workers in our country who had exhausted their unemployment insurance benefits and who were without any means of livelihood? Is that not something by way of benefit? The labour organizations of this country did not complain about those amendments.


Michael Starr: This government has done more in that respect.


Murdo William Martin: My hon. friend says this government has done more. All I can say is that the little record of achievement of this government in the field of social welfare is such that if I were the minister of labour I would never make reference to it.


Michael Starr: When you consider the record over 22 years it is not much.


Murdo William Martin: I do not mind these interruptions. They simply reveal a troubled conscience in this particular which is giving evidence of its disturbed state.
The real fact about this matter is this. Whether or not the argument of the hon. member is correct with regard to the past- and it is not-the point is, what about this present situation? I would ask this of the Minister of Labour, and also of the member for Cape Breton South, who was pretty severe with me a few moments ago but whose friendship I think I enjoy; now and then in the committee he came to my assistance notwithstanding his indictment a few moments ago. I would like to ask him does he not think that we on this side are not altogether unjustified in our condemnation of this bill?
We are not alone in that view; we have hon. gentlemen who sit immediately to the
Unemployment Insurance Act left of Mr. Chairman who joined very vigorously with us in this matter. But is it unfair to suggest that where there are going to be benefits of $20 million or $25 million at the most under this bill, and where there are going to be further impositions by way of additional contributions of between $75 million and $80 million on the workers and employers of this country, this is a very unfair and unjust measure to put before the house?
The total revenues to be derived as a result of these amendments, including the $16 million from the government of Canada, will be $100 million. The total benefits will not exceed a quarter of that amount. In the face of-


Donald Methuen Fleming: You are saying
crazy things.


Paul Joseph James Martin: The Minister of Finance says "crazy things", but I can only say to him that when he makes that kind of observation he reveals what has been apparent since yesterday, and that is that he does not know anything about this bill at all. I say to the Minister of Finance, it was his bond conversion plan and the failure of this government to do something about unemployment which caused a drain on the unemployment insurance fund and forced this government into a situation where it had to give careful consideration to arriving at methods for replenishing the fund in order to have enough money on hand to pay maintenance grants for the unemployed of this country next fall and next year.


Donald Methuen Fleming: That is untrue in
every particular.


Paul Joseph James Martin: Because the Minister of Finance accepts responsibility in this particular situation by his current interventions, this government stands indicted by this ' bill, as it stands indicted by no other measure so effectively, in view of its complete disregard for the rights of labour, for the rights of the employers, and in view of the complete disregard of responsibility by the Minister of Finance in the presentation of his budget. This government stands indicted by every national organization which appeared before this committee, because by this measure the government, this anaemic government, settles on the workers of our country the responsibility which belongs to hon. gentlemen opposite.


Mr. Robichaud:: Mr. Chairman, it is not
my intention at this time to make long remarks on this first clause of Bill C-43, but since this bill has been introduced in committee a number of members on the government side, and almost everyone from the

Unemployment Insurance Act other side who have taken part in this debate, have accused us of filibustering the passing of this bill.


Mr. Graffley:: Hear, hear.


Hédard-J. Robichaud: "Hear, hear". Those remarks just made by the hon. member for Cape Breton South are-


Donald MacInnis: On a question of privilege,
Mr. Chairman, I never made such remarks at all.


Hédard-J. Robichaud: I refer to the words of
the hon. member who accused us of filibustering the passing of this bill.


Donald MacInnis: If the hon. member refers
to the remark "hear, hear", I said I had not made such a remark.


Hédard-J. Robichaud: I think the hon. member
has already forgotten the remarks he made a few moments ago, and the same remarks were made on Tuesday by the hon. member for St. Hyacinthe when he said the Liberals were preventing the passing of a bill which gave benefits to the unemployed of this country. Mr. Chairman, I do not see how a bill which will require the employers and employees in this country to participate to the extent of $75 million or $80 million a year, when the benefits will amount at the most to $20 million or $25 million, can be recognized as a bill which will benefit the employees of this country.
This bill has as its main purpose the replenishment of the fund of the unemployment insurance commission, a fund which has been depleted since this government took office. A few benefits are included, such as the extension from 36 to 52 weeks and the introduction of a new clause in which deductions from higher salaries are only a blind to cover up the main purpose of this bill. Instead of accusing us of filibustering, or preventing the passage of this bill, the hon. member for Cape Breton South might have served his own electors better by supporting our protests. I should not be surprised if he is aware of a telegram which has been sent to Ottawa. The Minister of Labour must have received one, and one was sent to the Leader of the Opposition, signed by the president of district 26 of the united mine workers of America.


Paul Joseph James Martin: What is the date of that telegram?


Hédard-J. Robichaud: It is dated June 16, and
it reads:
About 200 men still without UIC benefits. Approximately 1300 more miners to be added to this for a period of at least one week after the 20 June. Request consideration be given either under the 
Unemployment Insurance Act or otherwise. Such an emergency necessitates immediate financial assistance.
I should like the Minister of Labour to tell us what is being done to help these mine workers.


Michael Starr: They are going back to work next week.


Hédard-J. Robichaud: They are going back to work, and when a certain number go back to work more will be out of work.


An hon. Member:: You hope.


Michael Starr: And you are holding up the bill which would give them benefits.


An hon. Member:: Doom and gloom.


Hédard-J. Robichaud: A release was recently made public showing the employment situation as of the month of May, 1959. The minister rejoices, as we all do, that there was a reduction of over 110,000 in the number of persons who were without jobs as of May. The same report says under the heading of registration at national employment offices by regions shows a figure of 585,489, and a note at the bottom of page 2 of this release reads as follows:
Statistics of registrations at national employment offices are derived from a count of the applications on hand in every office at close of business on a specified date. The count includes registrations from persons known to have a job and applying for another one.
In other words, it is a fact that in this country today there are over 585,000 persons without jobs or seeking jobs. In my own constituency of Gloucester I challenge the minister to show that there are not at least 1,000 persons who are without jobs, who are not receiving unemployment insurance benefits and who are not registered for jobs. In other words, there is in this country today a very large number of persons seeking work who are not registered at unemployment insurance offices because they know they do not have sufficient contributions to make them eligible to receive benefits.
If the government was sincere and wanted to help the unemployed by amending the Unemployment Insurance Act in view of the lack of work which exists in this country today, the minimum requirement for unemployment insurance benefits, and particularly for seasonal benefits, should have been reduced from the present minimum of 15 weeks. There are in my constituency many workers who cannot obtain 15 weeks of employment during the summer months to qualify them to receive unemployment benefits during the winter months, and if the government had

wanted to help these workers, or the working classes of this country, this minimum period of 15 weeks should have been reduced to 10 weeks, or even to 8 weeks.


Michael Starr: Does not the hon. member realize that following the course he suggests would impose a further drain on the fund? Is he advocating that? If so, why is he not prepared to pass this bill which would allow contributions to be increased in order that it might be possible for the workers to receive the benefits?


Mr. Hobichaud:: During the Liberal administration-


Some hon. Members:: Answer the question.


Hédard-J. Robichaud: Yes. I will tell the minister that during the Liberal administration a 15 week minimum was logical, because anyone who wanted to obtain work could do so.


Michael Starr: That does not answer the question. But does not the hon. member recall that this government changed the formula so that people could get extra benefits, and seasonal benefits, and that this government provided an extension of two additional months, and-something which the former government refused to allow-


Some hon. Members:: Order.


Paul Joseph James Martin: A point of order, Mr. Chairman. The Minister of Labour, without even seeking to ask a question, now tries to interrupt in a great speech.


Michael Starr: That was not a point of order, anyway.


Charles Edward Rea: All a member can do is ask whether whoever has the floor will permit a question. Then he may ask the question, but only if he has consent.


Donald Methuen Fleming: The hon. member for Gloucester yielded the floor to the minister.


Hédard-J. Robichaud: The Minister of Labour has admitted that under the present administration conditions were so bad that changes had to be made in the insurance regulations. I wish to repeat that in my constituency a large number of people cannot obtain the minimum of 15 weeks of employment that is required in order to qualify for benefits. Therefore I cannot agree with those members on the government side who are accusing us of preventing the passage of a bill which would provide benefits to the workers of this country.
(Translation):


Mr. Racine:: Mr. Chairman, I had not intended to take part in the discussion of this
Unemployment Insurance Act bill, and I think that the remarks of the hon. member for Essex East (Mr. Martin), certainly are not worth commenting upon, because, as usual the former minister of national health and welfare merely dealt with the matter of protection for the workers of this country.
However, this bill is meant to increase contributions made by employees and employers to the unemployment insurance fund, because the government wants to replenish this fund which is being rapidly depleted. If the fund is dwindling so fast, it is merely because there is so much unemployment in this country, and because more is being paid out in benefits than is being paid into the fund.
According to recent figures of the unemployment insurance commission, this bill would increase the contributions of both employees and employers from 25 to 56 per cent.
I do not wish to repeat here what has already been established during the debate, or refer to the disappointment felt over this bill throughout the country. We only have to refer to statements made by the board of trade of metropolitan Toronto, the Canadian Manufacturers' Association, the Canadian Congress of Labour and the Canadian Construction Association. Nor do I want to refer again to what has already been established about the present status of the fund, or to the fact that, if there is unemployment next fall and next winter, the commission would have to sell its securities and incur a loss of $72 million.
However, I noted that the Minister of Labour (Mr. Starr) has specifically commissioned the hon. member for St. Hyacinthe-Bagot (Mr. Ricard) to defend the bill, and that is what I would like to touch upon.


J.-H.-Théogène Ricard: I was not commissioned by
anyone. I said what I personally thought.


Alexis Pierre Caron: That is why it was so poorly said.


Jean-Paul Racine: The hon. member for St. Hyacinthe-Bagot insists on pointing out that the views he expressed were his own. Indeed they must have been; they surely were not those of labour.
Mr. Chairman, allow me to quote from an article by the parliamentary correspondent of Le Devoir which certainly cannot be described as a Liberal paper. It stated on Wednesday June 17, that out of 585,489 persons registered with the national em-

Unemployment Insurance Act ployment service, 200,042 reside in the province of Quebec. This is hardly an enviable record. The article states:
The Department of Labour has just issued its monthly figures on employment and unemployment. The figures for May show that we are gradually emerging from the recession, but that progress is slower than might be expected in many quarters. On the basis of unemployment figures since the beginning of the year, it can be said that they are about a month ahead of last year's but still way behind those of the full employment period of 1957.
And a little farther down, the article says:
It is therefore obvious that even if the three per cent target is reached during the summer it will be threatened during the forthcoming fall and winter unless there is some unforeseen acceleration in economic activity. At the present rate of Canadian recovery, we can hardly hope to be back to normal until 1968 . . . even then, provided we are not adversely affected by some outside influence.
Speaking in this house, the hon. member for St. Hyacinthe-Bagot, who obviously speaks for the province of Quebec in matters of labour, made the following introductory statement:
Mr. Chairman, I have two reasons to take part in this debate. First, I should like to make some general remarks with regard to this legislation and, second, I should like to set the record straight about the statements made by the hon. member for Hull (Mr. Caron).
Mr. Chairman, I think that under the circumstances, the hon. member for St. Hyacinthe-Bagot should certainly have indicated a third reason considering that he was speaking for the Quebec department of labour in the discussion on this bill, surely he should have mentioned the number of unemployed in our province. In my view, that would have been the most substantial part of his speech.
And the hon. member went on to say:
Mr. Chairman, the negative attitude of the Liberal opposition is inadmissible, since it is directly contrary to labour interests. All the noise made by our friends has but one purpose: to distract public attention so that people might forget about our friend's indifference to labour.
Mr. Chairman, in my view, the Liberal opposition does not need to distract public attention. The people of the province of Quebec have enough sense to read the papers and to realize that out of the 585,489 persons registered with the national employment service, the province of Quebec has 200,042. I believe that the labouring people of the province of Quebec are more interested than anyone in all social legislation which may be introduced in this house to assist them; in my opinion, full employment would be the best assistance they could get, because it is a situation that we have not had in the province of Quebec since 1957. Apparently, this government would like to put the blame for unem-

ployment on public organizations or upon people who have nothing to do with it. As I see it, that attitude has had a particular effect on the situation of the unemployment insurance fund.
Since the session started, we have noticed that in facing unemployment, the government has always found some way to put the blame for it upon people who had nothing at all to do with the problem.
Last year, the government and the Minister of Labour extended the period of seasonal benefits. That was surely no way to provide jobs for our workers, or to reduce unemployment.
However, there again the government called upon municipalities to assume a responsibility which rested upon the government itself. And when the winter works program went into effect, municipalities lost considerable sums of money in assuming this responsibility which properly belonged to the federal government. While government members claim that this legislation was most popular with labour, I say, like others have done, especially among members of the Liberal opposition, that this measure has been most unpopular, and that the depletion of the U.I.C. fund is a result of the high level of unemployment.
Again, workers and employers are being blamed for this new problem. That is why, like others who are concerned in the welfare of workers, I will vote against the adoption of this bill.
(Text):


William Arnold Peters: Mr. Chairman, just before calling it one o'clock may X suggest to the Minister of Labour that he take the Minister of Finance out for lunch today and ensure that he has a very sweet dessert so the latter hon. gentleman may not return after lunch, and we will get along with this business much faster.


Mr. Spencer:: What an outstanding contribution to parliamentary debate.
At one o'clock the committee took recess.


[Stage Direction]
AFTER RECESS

The committee resumed at 2.30 p.m.
William Arnold Peters: Mr. Chairman, I see that the Minister of Labour was unsuccessful in keeping the Minister of Finance out this afternoon.

Since he is here I should like to say that we believe the unemployment insurance investment committee should not have converted the victory bonds to conversion bonds. It is true that this applies also to all the Canadian people. It applies to the workers and the employers of this country who were enticed into the conversion hoax. Therefore it should not be thought exceptionally odd that the members of the investment committee of the unemployment insurance commission should have recommended the conversion of the bonds in this particular case, although it was a disadvantageous financial transaction. This appears to be quite easy to ascertain after the fact, but it may not have been so easy to ascertain before the fact. It may be true that the officials of the treasury department believed the propaganda they foisted on a trusting public. If they did, they are incompetent to make recommendations to the unemployment insurance investment board.
The members of this board had the opportunity to listen to the hon. member for Burnaby-Coquitlam when he outlined what the advantages and disadvantages of the conversion bonds were going to be. The results should have been obvious by the time the members of that committee made their decision, but I do not think that is of too much importance. I do not think we can give too great consideration to the fact that interest may be made or not made on the investments of the unemployment insurance fund, because I do not think these amendments are concerned with what happens to the money the workers put into this particular fund. What these amendments are concerned with is the additional drain on the moneys that were available for unemployment assistance, and in this regard we must give some consideration to whether the investments have been advantageous. But there are other matters which are of great importance in this particular case.
It has not been indicated by the minister -and I do not think it can be-that the workers are going to get a fair return for the money they spend. I think all workers in Canada are well aware of the fact that unemployment insurance has been advantageous to labour in general, whether it be those who are unemployed or those who are employed. The unemployment insurance fund has been advantageous to all the Canadian people and certainly to all the workers who are insured under the fund. I think they are also aware of the fact that if they want to increase the coverage of the plan they are going to have to pay for it.
Since I have represented some of those workers I am quite happy to say that they
Unemployment Insurance Act will support an increase in contributions if they can be assured that they are going to be given dollar for dollar value for their investment. If we are to talk about only that section of the unemployment insurance fund which is on an actuarial basis, where an employee will get something for the investment of a certain amount of money, then this 30 per cent should be considered on that basis. But is that true of the amendments which we have before us now? We are continually saying that we have had an abnormal amount of unemployment in Canada in the last two or three years. We also fear that we are going to have that same abnormal amount of unemployment during the coming winter, and we hope in the coming years we shall have unemployment to a lesser degree.


An hon. Member:: Are you forecasting?


William Arnold Peters: Whose forecasts are we going to take? I am not prepared to accept the forecast of the Minister of Finance, because his forecasts have never been right. I look around the country. I can speak only for the area from which I come, and there has been very little change in the economic structure of that area which will provide work this winter. I think the situation will be no better than it was last year. If this is repeated in 265 ridings then the situation is not going to change very drastically. Therefore I think we must consider the fact that we are going to be faced with a large amount of unemployment. This, Mr. Chairman, is something that we cannot insure against, and we should not be asked to insure against it.
Let us go back to the last war. At that time the insurance companies were faced with a great problem. They had many young people insured for life coverage. They had insured them, and they could look at an actuarial chart and tell exactly how many of those young men were going to die. This calculation was based on figures and experience over a long period of time. Then the war came. This meant that a class of people who would normally live another 30 years or 40 years could die within months, and it became a problem of insurance that they could not face. In most cases a war clause was written into the policies which were issued at that time, which completely eliminated payments on death from causes due to war. In other words the war brought into effect a new class of risk that the insurance companies had not been prepared to insure against previously.
I think this is true of the unemployment insurance fund. By actuarial calculations we can find out exactly how much it is going to

Unemployment Insurance Act cost to pay unemployment insurance benefits in a normal year, in a period of five years or in any other period; but I do not think we can be expected to ask the people to finance the risk that they are going to go through a period of cyclical unemployment over which they have no control, and over which the insured has no control. That is what we are being asked to do. We are being asked to carry the load by increasing the premiums by 30 per cent to cover the unemployment that resulted from the recession which affected the whole country. I do not think this is an insurable risk; I do not think we should be asked to insure it.
I am sure the people of Canada have received benefit from the unemployment insurance fund. I think the social security measures which have been taken in this country have been completely responsible for the fact that we did not have a catastrophe in Canada in the last two years when we had a very serious unemployment problem. If it had not been for the social security measures-and unemployment insurance was one of them-the situation would have been much worse than it has been.
This I think warrants the Canadian taxpayer in taking from the general revenues the moneys that are required to be put in the fund to equal the amount that was paid out because of the recession. Certainly the actuaries of this fund should be able to calculate what would be reasonable and regular unemployment. I think they will find it is not 500,000 people or 600,000 people. The figure of 150,000 might possibly be the number of people who would be unemployed during certain periods of each year. This might be classed as regular seasonal unemployment. I think this figure could be calculated and the benefits financed from the fund. But everything in addition to what we could consider regular in a normal year would obviously have to be classed as recession-type unemployment, and provision should be made for the payment of benefits from another fund.
Is it not unreasonable that government supporters should have risen and said that the workers want these benefits? I am quite well aware that the workers want these benefits, but they only amount to something less than $25 million. Why should the workers be asked to pay $100 million when they are going to get only $25 million back? Let the minister stand up and say that the government will provide the additional $75 million out of the treasury. If he will do that then I am quite prepared to support a plan under which the workers will only pay $25 million for $25 million in benefits.


Mr. Browne (Vancouver-Kingsway):: Will
the hon. member permit a question?


William Arnold Peters: Mr. Chairman, that would amount to less than 10 per cent of an increase.


John Ferguson Browne: Would the hon. member mind telling us where he gets the figure indicating that the workers are being asked to contribute $100 million to the fund?


William Arnold Peters: Well, the amount runs anywhere from $78 million to $97 million. There is $16 million over and above the $78 million which is going to come out of the treasury, but obviously a large part of that is also going to come from the workers of the country, so the amount is somewhere between $80 million and $100 million.


John Ferguson Browne: You
are including in that the employers' share?


William Arnold Peters: Certainly I am including the employers' share. Anybody who was a member of the committee is quite well aware of the fact that the employers' share of the contributions is considered to be a factor in the wage structure. Certainly we were informed by every employers' organization that this was a fact, and I do not think any of the employers' organizations were very much in disagreement with this statement. It is a wage factor. If it were not being paid in one form the workers would be getting the advantage of it in another form. Therefore I suggest that the workers are being taxed for something and not being told they are being taxed for it.
We have no objection whatsoever to the worker paying for the benefits he is going to receive. One member mentioned this morning that he would like to see the period of contributions reduced from 15 weeks to 10 or 8 weeks. I agree that this should be done. I was surprised when the minister rose and said that this would cost money and would we support the 30 per cent increase if this were done. I suggest to the minister that we will support some of the 30 per cent increase to take care of a reduction in the number of weeks necessary to establish the benefit period. I do not know whether or not it would cost an extra 20 per cent. I am not familiar with what the cost would be, but I think we could quite easily add that amendment and still find that in the 30 per cent contribution the worker is being charged more than he is going to get out of it, even if that additional benefit were given to the worker.
I am suggesting that we are not opposed to the worker paying for what he gets. Under any insurance plan you only get what you pay for if you are lucky. In this case the

worker is paying a lot more than he is going to receive. I suggest that is not fair or honest, and I am not in favour of that type of policy. Several organizations have also suggested that we should bring the civil service within the scope of the legislation, because there are 140,000 civil servants. I do not think it is very fair to bring in these 140,000 lost souls, because they have no chance of getting anything out of the plan. They are guaranteed their jobs as long as they continue to do the work for which they are hired. They are fairly well protected. If they were called upon to contribute to the plan they would just be another milk cow, because they would not get anything from the plan. I do not think that is fair or just, and we should not adopt that suggestion in order to increase the amount of money in the fund.
Let us say that contributions to the fund are increased by $100 million this year. If unemployment continues to be as bad as it has been for the last two years I suggest that the fund will be broke before another two years have passed. We have not got enough money and cannot pay enough money into the fund on this basis to carry the scheme. We cannot carry the unemployment we have had in the last two years no matter what we do about the premiums paid by the people covered by unemployment insurance.
If unemployment continues, and I certainly hope it does not, we are going to have to come back to parliament again in a short time and ask for supplementary grants to the fund from the treasury of Canada so these payments can be continued. When that happens I think everybody will agree that is the way it should be done. In the meantime I do not think there is any point in asking Canadian workers or Canadian employers, if you want to include them, to increase their contributions by 30 per cent to raise a certain sum of money when the workers have no chance of getting a fair percentage of it back from the fund.
For that reason I do not believe the government are being very fair to the workers when they ask them to make contributions beyond the amount they can get back from the fund. It is a little bit like going to a horse race, shall I say. Quite often you bet $2 and you lose your shirt, but at least you have a chance to get back that amount or more. You are not paying $2 for something that will only return you 60 cents or 70 cents.
There is another question that has not been answered, and it has to do with the action of the unemployment insurance commission
Unemployment Insurance Act itself. According to a letter that the hon. member for Timmins read into the record yesterday the commission issued a directive to a number of employers in Canada, and the directive must have gone out very early in the month of June.
I should like to ask the minister this question. When did the unemployment insurance commission decide it was inevitable that Bill C-43 would pass through the industrial relations committee and the House of Commons without any major change, and that it should go into effect on June 28? I do not think the officials of the unemployment insurance commission have the right to say that parliament cannot make any change in the legislation. I do not think they have the right to draw up these directives without first having seen what parliament is going to do with the bill now before us. What authority have they received, and from what source, to order the amendments into effect? This is what has happened in the directive, bulletin No. 20, which they sent out to employers.
Have the officials of the unemployment insurance commission already ordered the new issues of stamps with the amounts shown on them? If they have, how could they tell what was going to happen in parliament. Does this mean that the officials of some government departments look at the huge Conservative majority and say to themselves that the Conservative majority can steamroller through anything they want; that this is what we recommended to the minister, and we are sure that the minister will produce it?
If this is true, Mr. Chairman, I think it is probably as flagrant a disregard of parliament as we have seen. I believe these allegations should be answered and we should know these particular things. The fact that these bulletins went out is only an indication that they were already published. I am not so much concerned about whether or not they went out, but I am concerned with the attitude and mentality of officials who have been able to decide for themselves, in a dictatorial way, that this is what the act is going to say; this is what the interpretation is going to be; this is the way we are going to implement it. I do not believe that shows much regard for parliament. It makes a hollow mockery of the establishment of a committee and having these people come before it, especially if there is no intention whatever of allowing amendments.
Although the opposition is very small in numbers, Mr. Chairman, I do not believe it can be assumed that there is no intelligence in that opposition. This is true not only of the opposition, but I think there was a considerable amount of intelligence amongst the representatives from both sides of the fence

Unemployment Insurance Act who sat on that industrial relations committee. It is quite possible that the people who were members of that committee could have found loopholes or modifications in the proposed recommendations contained in Bill No. C-43 which should have been considered.
If we do not agree that some good could result or some further information could be obtained from the investigation by this committee, then it seems to me it is a waste of the time of parliament to establish such a committee. I think we have been wasting our time. If this is an indication of the attitude of officials of departments toward the decisions of these committees, and it is reflected in every committee on which we sit, then I think some consideration must be given to it. I feel that the officials of this department must be asked how they were in a position to write this directive; to tell people what the stamps were going to cost; when it was going into effect; where it was going into effect, and all the other matters that were in bulletin 20.
It is a surprising thing, but we endeavoured to obtain copies of bulletin 20 and we were told it was unavailable. We have applied for a copy of the table of amounts, U.I.C. 465-4-59, and we have been told this also is unavailable at the distribution office. It seems to me odd that members of parliament cannot obtain a copy of this particular directive that has been floating around the country and which has been sent to nearly all the employers in certain districts. These are matters to which consideration will have to be given before we give our agreement to this bill. Some explanation must be given as to why the unemployment insurance commission has acted in the manner it has.
Then, too, consideration must be given to why the workers of Canada should be asked to pay, directly or indirectly, nearly $100 million when they will only receive benefits estimated by the unemployment insurance commission at between $20 million and $25 million. It seems extremely odd that the workers are being asked to spend a dollar and only get 25 cents in return. I do not believe this is a good investment. I do not see how many of the members opposite are going to be able to vote for a measure of this nature. I do not think it is going to be a satisfactory answer to tell them that the 75 cents is for administration costs. Unless some further consideration can be given to this and some further explanation, I do not believe the workers of Canada are going to welcome the measure. They are not going to be awaiting it with open arms, nor are they going to want it when they get it.


John Whitney Pickersgill: I just want to speak for one minute to support very warmly what has

been said by the hon. member for Timis-kaming. This is not by any means the first example we have seen of this government considering parliament as a rubber stamp. After the Easter recess there was a point raised by the Leader of the Opposition that the government, in the budget papers-I merely offer this by way of analogy-referred to a statute which had never been introduced, much less passed by this house, and gave a name to a statute that did not exist at all. In addition, they represented that payments had been made that had never been made, voted or even asked for by the government.
Now we have this action taken by the government, action taken under a measure that is controversial and that has not yet been passed by this parliament, just as though what parliament did mattered not at all. It seems to me, sir, this is an extraordinary reflection upon parliament. I can imagine that there would not have been just one minute or two minutes taken up when we were on the other side if this sort of thing had happened, but this sort of thing did not happen when Mr. St. Laurent was prime minister. It happens now because there is an extraordinary carelessness at the top in this government, in watching the proprieties, in considering parliament and the way parliament ought to be treated. This government simply takes it for granted that what happens here does not matter at all.
I think the hon. gentleman has made that very clear indeed. Every conceivable device short of closure itself is used by members of the treasury bench on every occasion on which a controversial measure comes before this house. This is another evidence of that steamroller mentality that we have had exhibited on so many occasions.
I should like also to join with the hon. member for Timiskaming in what he says about this special tax on two special classes of people. It is not insurance for their benefit at all; this is for the replenishment of this aspect of the fund which, as we have maintained from the outset of this debate, should be a charge upon the treasury and not upon two particular groups of citizens. (Translation):


Alexis Pierre Caron: Mr. Chairman, I think the Minister of Finance (Mr. Fleming) has managed, through his customary tactfulness, to extend the debate considerably. Now that he has left the house, perhaps the discussion will proceed a little more apace.
Mr. Chairman, some rather direct charges were levelled against us. In fact, the hon. members for St. Hyacinthe-Bagot and Brome-Missisquoi (Messrs. Ricard and Graff-

tey) in their speeches have berated me personally. I shall not take them up on it, as the member for Beauce (Mr. Racine) has done a great job of answering them. However, I distinctly remember that the hon. member for St. Hyacinthe-Bagot, in seeking to show that the Liberals and the C.C.F. members-in other words the opposition-were really not interested in the welfare of labour, told us in pathetic tones, almost with tears in his eyes, that he knows the labouring man and that the labouring man knows him.
Mr. Chairman, if the hon. member's remarks were aimed at the opposition, let me point out to him that he was barely out of the cradle when I organized a store employees' union and that, in 1936, I negotiated various collective bargaining agreements in the riding of Hull, at a time when the hon. member for St. Hyacinthe-Bagot had everything to learn about industrial relations.
Mr. Chairman, my remarks so far were meant as a preface to the fact that several hon. representatives, including the hon. members for Brome-Missisquoi, St. Hyacinthe-Bagot, Cape Breton South (Mr. Mac-Innis) and even the Minister of Labour (Mr. Starr), have sought to indicate that our purpose in rising in this debate was to block passage of this bill.
For my part, I maintain that the bill is so inadequate that it would be to the advantage of labour if it did not go through. And since those hon. gentlemen claim that our reason for taking the floor is to retard proceedings, let me remind them that we suggested to them, early in the session, that the debate on the address in reply to the speech from the throne be adjourned so that we might consider any legislation calculated to check unemployment in this country. I remind them that they unanimously refused to accept our suggestion.
Mr. Chairman, why did not the government accept at the very start of the session, the opposition's suggestion to take up right then a bill as important as the one now before the house?
Some hon. members claim that our purpose is to hinder passage of this bill. Yet, they do not agree with the Prime Minister (Mr. Diefenbaker) who said, as may be seen on page 4239 of the official record of June 2: (Text):
I do not belong to that school, nor have I ever adhered to the suggestion that beneficial discussion shall not take place on every measure that comes before the house.
(Translation):
And further on, the Prime Minister said: (Text):
There is no question of a target date-
Unemployment Insurance Act (Translation):
And the Prime Minister went on to say: (Text):
-as he suggested. I for one would not to the slightest degree concur in any suggestion that we determine upon a target date-
(Translation):
Those were, Mr. Chairman, the remarks made by the Prime Minister. And yet, the Minister of Labour has set a deadline for consideration of his bill. He put off introducing it to forestal a thorough discussion of it. Well, we availed ourselves of the rights granted members of the opposition to discuss the legislation, just as my friends opposite did in 1950 and at all sessions which have taken place since I have been a member.
In fact, since 1953, they have used the standing orders of the house to extend the debate as long as possible. The pipe-line debate lasted twenty-one days without the substance of the matter having been considered at all. It was all made up merely of points of order and questions of privilege.
Mr. Chairman, we intend to consider this bill fully, and if the ministers want to take part in the debate and indulge in personalities, we intend to return to the charge and reply on each occasion.
The hon. Minister of Labour said this morning that, in 1950, the hon. member for Essex East (Mr. Martin) who had, at the time, introduced the Unemployment Insurance Act had, by means of interruptions and points of order, prevented the opposition from discussing the bill.
Mr. Chairman, according to a report from the Canadian Congress of Labour, in 1950 Mr. Gordon Graydon, a Conservative member, used precisely the same line of argument we are using today; and yet the situation was not the same then, because there were about $600 million in the fund at the time, and the fund kept growing, whereas today it is in perilous condition. The situation is therefore different. Here is what Mr. Graydon said, as recorded on page 214 of Hansard for February 24, 1950:
(Text):
It seems to me we have reached the limit of absurdity when we ask the workers of this country to put up more money to solve the unemployment situation. That is the government's job, not the workers.
(Translation):
That, sir, is what we contend today. It is up to the government to make up for the deficit in the unemployment insurance fund. We are told that this bill will yield $78 million or more to replenish the fund.

Unemployment Insurance Act
If we consider that the figures supplied to us are based on a five year period during which there would be good and bad years, it cannot be taken for granted that the initial year, when the winter will be as in former years, will call for less withdrawals from the fund than were made last winter.
According to figures appearing in table no. 3-
(Text):
The excess of expenses over revenue for the year, $227,948,740-
(Translation):
That means that if the Minister of Labour has to face an unemployment situation similar to that which prevailed last winter, and if we consider that, according to statistics, there were 585,409 unemployed in Canada last May, we will have to draw enormous amounts on the unemployment insurance fund next winter, as we pointed out last year, when, unfortunately, this government did not want to listen to us. As a matter of fact, if we have to spend amounts larger than the intake of $248 million, it will mean that, considering the present condition of the fund, and if we have to levy further amounts to pay those benefits, there will be hardly anything left in the unemployment insurance fund. The government will then have to restore the balance of the unemployment insurance fund by depositing into it a certain amount taken from the consolidated revenue account. Why then does not the government decide today to replenish the unemployment insurance fund out of consolidated revenue, thus leaving the unemployment insurance contribution rate at the same level as before the introduction of the amendments now considered?
We then could have a committee consider the Unemployment Insurance Act and submit a well prepared and serious report which we might accept or reject on the strength of some specific argument.
The bill is based on contingencies, on possibilities that are pointed out to us. We are told that the bill was prepared on the basis of a five year average. Now, if we take the average figure for the last five years, we find that, as far as unemployment insurance is concerned, there were quite a few variations with regard to the amounts spent during that period. As a matter of fact, they amounted to $186 million in 1954, to $257 million in 1955 and to $250 million in 1956. In 1957, they reached $231 million; in 1958, $385 million and in 1959, $478,000,676. This means that, far from decreasing, they were steadily on the increase.

Then, as we do not know what next winter keeps in store for us, instead of submitting an imperfect bill, one that workers cannot accept because they are asked to make too large sacrifices for something which will benefit the whole Canadian people the government should, during the present session, submit a winter works program in order to lessen unemployment and relieve municipalities which have once more to contend with all the legislation passed by the government. Municipalities will have to shoulder the main burden of unemployment, while the government will wash its hands like Pilate did before Jesus.
I maintain, Mr. Chairman, that the government has no right to act in this way. Once more I urge it to stop and think before taking a course which the whole people of Canada, with the exception of Conservative members, are asking it not to take.
(Text):


Murdo William Martin: Mr. Chairman, I do not propose to speak very long on this matter today, but I would like to know if the minister could answer a couple of questions. Unfortunately I was away from the house yesterday when he explained what happened with regard to the letter I received that day. At page 4846 of Hansard the minister said that, unfortunately, inadvertently some of these bulletins were placed in the mail last week.
Mr. Chairman, as I stated this letter was dated June 12, and the writer states that the office where she is employed received bulletin No. 20 a week or more ago, which puts it back at least as far as June 5. She also states the bulletin was under date of June 1, 1959. Therefore it appears that it was more than a week ago that this bulletin No. 20 was placed in the mail, which does not exactly conform with what the minister said yesterday. I wonder if the hon. gentleman could explain it a little more fully.


Michael Starr: I inquired into this immediately, and I read the words exactly as reported to me in this regard; that inadvertently a small number of these bulletins, because of a mistake by one of the civil servants working in the commission, were put into the mail bag. I must accept that. I feel we are all human, and if this civil servant made a mistake it is regrettable, but I am not going to try to punish him for it.


William Arnold Peters: Could I ask a question on that point? Would the minister not agree that this information could not have been prepared and should not have been prepared before the committee reported? The committee did not

report until June 9, and this directive went out some time during the first week of June. I suggest that it contained detailed information regarding the cost of stamps, the amount of benefits and so on for the use of employers, officials of the commission and others, information which could not have been provided and which should not have been prepared before consideration of this question had been completed by the committee.
I agree that we do not want to blame some official for letting this get into the mail bag, but the bulletin itself should never have been prepared because, really, the facts are not available yet and will not be available until this bill has received third reading. Nobody has the right to predict in advance what this house is going to decide. Would the minister not agree with me that this directive should not have been published at all?


Michael Starr: This matter lies entirely within the purview of the unemployment insurance commission, and it was only after these preparations had been made that I was aware they had been completed. But this is a practice which has been followed in the past. The commission tells me that nothing different has been done from what has been done on former occasions. If any changes had been made then naturally whatever material had been prepared would have had to be corrected.
However, there is a great deal of information which must go out to every employer in this country, and in order to save time the commission did what it had done in the past. It made preparations and had all this material ready to go out. The commission had, of course, hoped that it would have been able to put into effect by July 1 whatever amendments were made by parliament. It became apparent, however, that this would not be possible, so they have set another date-September 28, I am informed-because of the delay which has been experienced in the passage of this legislation.


Paul Joseph James Martin: Because of the failure of the government to introduce this bill earlier.


Murdo William Martin: I agree that it might be wise and expedient to prepare these things as far ahead as possible, but surely the minister and his officials must have realized that they were not dealing here with non-controversial legislation. That has been demonstrated not only by what has happened in this committee, but also by virtually every submission which was made in the standing committee and the views expressed by practically every organization from coast to coast.
Unemployment Insurance Act
The minister said that some copies of this bulletin had been sent out. Does this word "some" mean 50, or 100, or 3? In view of the fact that a certain number, at least, have been sent out would the minister be prepared to table one of these directives in the house so that hon. members might know what is contained in this document which has been prepared and dispatched to certain places in this country?


William Moore Benidickson: I know that every day we have a new edition of Hansard and I know, of course, that the remarks of the hon. member for Cape Breton South were replied to very effectively by others, with the exception, possibly of his statement that the bill was brought forward at the earliest possible moment, a subject which has been repeatedly referred to in this debate.
Now, Mr. Chairman, I want to avoid repetition, but on this particular point there has been no discussion today relative to the fact that on January 15 this government indicated, at a time of crisis, that they had amendments of consequence to make to the Unemployment Insurance Act. The hon. member for Cape Breton South chose to introduce this question again today, and I simply want to have in the same issue of Hansard a repetition-probably not desirable, but one which certainly is necessary- making it clear, as everybody knows, that this government put its chest forward and stated on January 15, through the mouth of the Governor General of this country, that it had plans for labour and that in particular it had plans for amendments to the Unemployment Insurance Act.
No time was lost by the Leader of the Opposition, having regard to the crisis that existed in respect to unemployment in this country. He said on January 19, as reported at page 37 of Hansard-and I want everybody to note that although we go through thousands of pages, this suggestion was reported on page 37 on the second day of the session; there is no possibility of a suggestion of this kind being made on the first day because formalities and etiquette prohibit that being done-but on page 37 of Hansard for this session the Leader of the Opposition, as reported, suggested, having regard to the serious crisis which existed in this country with respect to unemployment, that the government proposals to deal with this serious problem should be debated without delay. A debate such as that on the speech from the throne might perhaps have been more important to the small opposition than to the government of the day. Notwithstanding this, the Leader of the Opposition went on to suggest that the debate

Unemployment Insurance Act might be deferred if the government had plans such as are now before us, with regard to this measure.
On January 21, as reported on page 147 of Hansard, my desk mate, the hon. member for Bonavista-Twillingate asked whether, if the government was not willing to suspend the debate on the speech from the throne having regard to the unemployment emergency, it would at least indicate to the country what it had in mind with respect to amendments to the Unemployment Insurance Act. Hon. members who refer to page 147 of Hansard of that date will find that the hon. member for Bonavista-Twillingate put his finger on the essence of the whole thing. The legislation just was not ready.
This question was repeated, and the government should have a red face about this matter. At page 353 of Hansard for January 26 hon. members will find that the same request was made to this government. It was stated that we as an opposition were prepared to forsake certain rights that are very important because of the general debate that is possible under the speech from the throne legislation. The government was asked if in the interests of the unemployed it had a proposition to put forward.
If I wanted to delay the committee, which I do not, I could read at some length a question put by the hon. member for Essex East as recorded at page 555 of Hansard, where he again challenged this government as to whether when it announced these fancy things in regard to unemployment it had the legislation ready. It did not have the legislation ready, and that was confessed by the Minister of Labour in the committee on industrial relations. He said that the unemployment insurance commission had a great many obligations to fulfil during the critical months of last winter.
I could understand that, but the thing I cannot understand is that a government would put forward, through the mouth of the Governor General, an indication that it had plans for comfort, for welfare and for the alleviation of difficulties, and then delay as it has done in the introduction of this bill. The worst part of all is that at a time when this subject required critical examination the government attempted to place on the opposition the onus, the responsibility and the blame for any delay in providing advantages. As a matter of fact, when speaking of advantages, it has been well pointed out that advantages represent perhaps only 8 or 10 per cent in relation to costs of the other financial elements that are included in this bill.
I said last evening that I was hoping the Minister of Finance would be with us in our further discussion of this legislation. I had

every desire this morning to rise and ask the Minister of Finance about a few matters connected with this bill which are very closely related to the Minister of Finance and his department; I want to say too much so. May I say I did not do so because I felt that a new subject had been introduced into the committee. Relevant or not, it was introduced by the Minister of Labour in relation to the 1950 amendments. I felt it was desirable that the public and this committee should read in consecutive fashion the arguments that were related to that point once it had been admitted for debate, but I am continuing to show interest and concern and to entertain very grave doubts about two or three points which I feel have great relevance and import with regard to the legislation before us.
They relate to matters upon which the Minister of Finance unfortunately is not present to answer me. However, I see here the Minister of Justice. Surely no legislation is prepared for submission to this house without his approval. I also see here the Minister of Labour, who is of course continuing to pilot forward this bill.
I received no adequate answer either in the committee on industrial relations or in the debate on second reading of this bill to my question as to whether or not, having regard to section 86 of the bill, this government can defend its policy of deciding that bonds-as many hon. members of this party have suggested, bonds purchased under a rather dual responsibility on the part of the majority of the investment committee but none the less purchased, a decision upon which was taken on April 2 as evidenced by an order in council-should be held rather than liquidated.
As I said the other day, as events transpired with respect to the market, had the bonds been sold at that time instead of held perhaps a capital loss of $3,500,000 or $3,800,000 might have been avoided. I was fair and frank in saying that this was said from a position of hindsight. I do not in any way challenge the integrity of those people who reached that decision. I did say, however, and I want to repeat now, that I find it inconceivable that when one is dealing with a portfolio of $80 million of government bonds a decision should be taken representing something that was never done from 1941 forward. I find it inconceivable that this new cabinet would decide to do so without either what I regard as an adequate requisition under section 86 of the Unemployment Insurance Act or reference to two of the three members of the investment committee, the governor of the Bank of Canada and the deputy minister of finance.

I asked the Minister of Finance about that yesterday, and he said he felt sufficiently confident about his own judgment that with respect to this important decision he had not consulted in any way the governor of the Bank of Canada. I can draw only one conclusion, and I think this is something upon which the government must satisfy our worries by a further reply.
The budget was to come down on April 9. This decision was made by the cabinet on April 2. This indicated a further huge, massive deficit under the operations of this government. I suppose the government had some knowledge as to what effect this would have on the bond market of Canada. I want to repeat that 80 per cent of the funds of the unemployment insurance commission are non-public funds which are put up by private people.
I said the other night that more than 50 per cent of the capital losses related to the bonds that are pledged to the Minister of Finance in connection with this loan occurred within a matter of weeks after the second budget of the minister. We had nine months from the date of the issue of the conversion loan; but within a matter of six or seven weeks 50 per cent of the capital losses occurred with respect to the bonds pledged in connection with this new departure from long time practice. I say the significant thing Is that that occurred after the second budget of the Minister of Finance.
I do not propose to pursue that further, but I do think this committee is entitled to know why, if the unemployment insurance commission was formally prepared to write a letter to their agents the Bank of Canada on March 25 and say that their cash requirements would be such and such, $57 million, I think, for the forthcoming month of April, the unemployment insurance commission changed its mind between March 25 and April 2, the date of the order in council. Everybody realizes that in between those few days there was paper work to be done and necessary delay. I want to know whether or not this was cabinet interference or cabinet judgment, or whether or not the unemployment insurance commission had, because of section 86 of the act, come to the conclusion in a formal way in a meeting as a commission that this step should be taken.
This morning I was not angered very much but I did have regret when I listened again to some remarks made by one of the newer members of the house. Everybody knows that I am pretty lenient with newer members of the house as they are with me; but I do wish to say that I was rather disappointed with some of the remarks made not only this
Unemployment Insurance Act morning but the other night by the hon. member for Brome-Missisquoi with respect to the proceedings of the committee. He said in the committee that some of us in the committee were rude; that we had had one of the most distinguished witnesses before this committee that could possibly come before any House of Commons committee. Mr. Chairman, somebody to my left has asked the question whether I was rude. If I was rude, Mr. Chairman, I want to say only this. It was the judgment of some of these new young Tories who should be aggressive with respect to parliamentary rights but were not so. It happens that I have had a long acquaintance not only with the witnesses but with the other members of the investment committee for whom I have said in this house I have a tremendous regard as to their ability and efficiency. This morning I corrected a statement which I had not seen in the committee proceedings. The word "incompatibility" should have appeared instead of "incompetency". I think any member of that committee will support me when I say that I did not use the word incompetency. The point I want to make is that I was surprised that a person who had had Liberal feelings in the past, as he said in this house, a former member of this party-


William Heward Grafftey: I will never live it down.


William Moore Benidickson: -would say that. We felt for a while, when he was near us and had the opportunity of getting a little fresh breeze from this particular section of the house, that he would not deteriorate as much as he has, as indicated by the words he used the other night. I find that that is typical of every Tory. They have this undue reverence for a banker, but when they get the banker of the banks then, Mr. Chairman, you cannot imagine how a young Tory, a Turk or otherwise, can really bow down and say that anybody who criticizes for a moment the views of those people is rude in the interrogation that he carries on. Anybody who has any regard for parliamentary rights, in a committee or otherwise, will support me when I say I am disappointed that some of the younger elements in this new government who hold these views certainly do not hold the parliamentary views held by the Minister of Finance when he was opposition critic. I think it is very tragic that this should develop, and that a member, such as the one I have described, would have such reverence for a banker that he would think a parliamentary committee was not justified in inquiring about some of his activities.
The hon. member for Brome-Missisquoi asked this question, and this is what I want

Unemployment Insurance Act to answer. He asked: "What information was withheld from the committee?" I have already dealt with the matter of the information that could have been available to this committee from the advisory committee on unemployment insurance and I do not want to repeat it. The odd thing I have found so far in the debate is that everybody excuses himself for not hearing the members of the advisory committee, and particularly the labour representatives of the advisory committee, by saying that they are no longer members of the committee. We know they felt obliged, through lack of confidence in the government that appointed them, to resign. The point is that what the industrial relations committee should have examined those people about was the decision not after they resigned but the decision, examination, information and knowledge that they had with respect to things before they resigned when they advised this government that it was undesirable to do what is proposed in this bill but rather to increase the government contribution to the scheme because in many elements it was a welfare scheme, it was a government type of disbursement that should not be levied upon the long time contributors to this scheme.
I simply want to put this question on the record of this house, particularly for the benefit of young members whom I would have thought had particular interest in parliamentary rights. I want to ask the hon. member for Brome-Missisquoi whether he will look at section 20 of the Unemployment Insurance Act. I want to ask him whether on reflection, whether he sits on the opposition side or the government side, he would consider what he said in the industrial relations committee about being rude to a witness even of this prominence is valid?


William Heward Grafftey: You were rude to all the witnesses, though.


William Moore Benidickson: Will the hon. member say I was rude to all the witnesses.


William Heward Grafftey: No, I withdraw that.


William Moore Benidickson: The hon. member is very fair to me. On the other hand, having regard to section 20 of the Unemployment Insurance Act, which designates certain public officials as the investment committee under the act, will he say that this precludes him, should he at a future time be sitting in the opposition, and in a committee as a member of the opposition, from the right to examine in a committee set up by parliament a witness as to how many times the investment committee met in a fiscal year?
I never heard of anything more scandalous. I know of no case where a majority has

utilized its strength to a greater degree to snuff off investigation of a committee in charge of a fund involving a paper value of $490 million, and everybody says now this is irrespective of the obligations of at least two of the members of the committee with relation to their other functions. For instance, we were not attempting to ask the governor of the Bank of Canada about his functions with relation to the Bank of Canada. We were asking him only about his obligations to parliament which asked, in fact demanded that he be one of the three members of the investment committee.
I am quite satisfied that on reflection some of the younger members of the house who served on the committee, and served very effectively, will wonder about the view they took that it was a rude and improper inquiry and that it was not desirable to ask an official, designated to be a member of the investment committee in a statute passed by parliament, for information as to how many times the committee had met in the course of a certain fiscal year. We were steamrollered with respect to that matter. There is no question about that. The investment committee was brought before the industrial relations committee as a result of a motion made by two supporters of the government. That does not mean that we in the other parties would not have wanted to do the same thing. But the point is that they moved the motion and having brought the governor of the bank there they then supported him in saying that it was not the committee's business as to how many times the investment committee, created by statute, had met in the course of a certain 12-month period. I have been here since 1945 and I have never heard anything that seemed to be more in derogation of parliamentary rights than the statement that "it is none of your business how many times we met in the last 12 months". This stand was supported by the hon. member for Brome-Missisquoi and many others elected to the House of Commons only recently. I do not derogate in any way the value of their contribution but I want to emphasize again what would have been said if the present Minister of Finance had been the opposition critic and a statement was made by a government witness appointed by statute that "this is none of your business".


[Stage Direction]
Clause agreed to.
Clause 2 agreed to.
On clause 3.
Paul Joseph James Martin: Can the minister tell us what revenue he expects will be derived from the change in clause 3?


Michael Starr: Would the hon. member be
good enough to wait a few moments until the officials get here?


Paul Joseph James Martin: Having waited
so long for the bill, I agree.


Joseph Pierre Albert Sévigny: Shall clause 3 carry?


Paul Joseph James Martin: No, the minister wishes to wait for his officials. We are always anxious to accommodate the minister.


Michael Starr: The hon. member for Essex East asked what revenue the raising of the ceiling would bring into the fund. My answer, subject to correction if there is any to be made, is approximately $2 million.


Paul Joseph James Martin: So that my
estimate was correct.


Alexis Pierre Caron: Mr. Chairman, I see that the word "remuneration" has been changed to "earnings" and in the French version the word "remuneration" has been changed to "remuneration a gains". Would the minister tell us what is the difference and why a change has been made from "remuneration" to "earnings" in English and from "remuneration" to "remuneration a gains" en frangais?


Michael Starr: There are a number of clauses in the Unemployment Insurance Act where the word "earnings" is used and only in a few is the word "remuneration" or "remunerated" used. In order to make the act consistent by using one term it has been decided by the commission and its legal department to make this amendment so that in all cases the reference will be to "earnings".


Alexis Pierre Caron: I see in the dictionary that "earnings" means fruit of work, salaries, wages, and "remuneration" means reward, pay for services rendered. It is not quite the same. If you study the etymology of the words there is quite a difference and they might be used in both ways, a charge on the remuneration and on the wages.


Michael Starr: I am told by the legal department that they can define "earnings" easier than "remuneration" under the act.


Alexis Pierre Caron: I did not quite hear.


Michael Starr: They can define "earnings" much more readily and in a better way than they can define the word "remuneration".


Alexis Pierre Caron: The reason they have changed the wording from "remuneration" to "earnings" is that they have an easier task in defining it with relation to the act.


Michael Starr: Yes.


[Stage Direction]
Clause agreed to.
Clauses 4 and 5 agreed to.
Unemployment Insurance Act
On clause 6.
William Hector McMillan: Mr. Chairman, this is the vital clause of the whole bill. It has to do with the increased contributions which are out of all proportion to the increased benefits available under the act. I maintain that if the government wants to give the same increased benefits to the workers that they are proposing in the bill they can do so at a fraction of the cost of these proposed increased contributions. Under clause 6 working people who come under the Unemployment Insurance Act are set apart from working people who do not come under the act. I noticed this morning that the Minister of Finance revealed a high rate of interest in the bill and I think he has good reason to do so. In my opinion clause 6 is a clarion call to these select Canadians to come to the aid of the government.
The government is in trouble through its inept financing and is calling on the working people of Canada to help it out. The working people of Canada are the only ones being called upon at the present time. They, and they alone, are being called upon by the government to meet, in large part, the government's deficit. As citizens of Canada they will be called upon also, along with the other citizens of Canada, to assume the rest of the deficit.
I feel that this is unfair but it is something which the big majority in the house, no doubt, can carry through. However, I hope that they do not push it through the house because it is not to the advantage of the workingman. I believe there is something deeply wrong in the Department of Finance and the workingman is the sucker who is being called upon to meet these deficits. Many of the representations made in the committee were to the effect that the wording of the act was ambiguous and allowed various interpretations. I know many who said this, and I think labour also said it, although I am not sure of that. I said in the house that before the March election some people in my area who had been making contributions under the Unemployment Insurance Act, but who were elderly and had not been working for some considerable time, received letters telling them to come down and collect their unemployment insurance. I hope that the election had nothing to do with this practice, but I have repeated this statement in the house before and I know that it is true.
I do not begrudge people this money. I can say this, too, that at election time there was no criticism of the administration of the act. However, now I do hear criticism about certain ambiguities in the act. I would hope that the present government would not use

Unemployment Insurance Act these increased rates to build up a big fund for distribution, as a result of the ambiguities in this act, just before the next election.
Brief after brief from both labour and management suggested that the fund should cover only those with reasonably steady employment, those who did not face the same hazards as those in seasonal employment. Seasonal workers should be covered by a special category, a separate type of insurance. If they are covered by the Unemployment Insurance Act, then the government should make contributions from the consolidated revenue fund to cover the cost of their insurance.
By charging larger contributions to most workers, many times over the cost of supplying the actual benefits, the government is actually taxing them to take care of the deficit and to make up for the fiscal mistakes of the government. In so far as the fund itself is concerned, I maintain that the fund would be rapidly increasing now under the management of the former government. It should be rapidly increasing at this time, and I say that by reason of the fact that two or three days ago the Minister of Labour said that there were more people employed now than in any other May in history. He also gave an indication, although I do not believe he said so, that in June the number of unemployed would be definitely reduced. The Minister of Finance said that the gross national product would go up by 7 per cent and would exceed $34.5 million. The other day he said there would be less necessity for him to borrow money. I feel this is another indication that employment should be up.
The Prime Minister has intimated this outside of the house on different occasions. I see it is reported in the paper in front of me that the Canadian economy is on an upsurge. Why, then, do we have increases in the contribution at a time when there is the highest employment in our history; at a time when our Prime Minister and our responsible ministers are going around this country just exuding confidence? I know that they have great confidence in the situation because the Minister of Finance-I cannot say this very often-does go out and pay high interest rates. Why, then, make the small people of our country pay taxes that should properly be paid by all Canadians? The government should not be so callous. I have been in medical practice amongst workingmen all my life, and I know they want to pay their share but they do not want to pay more than their share. That is what the government is asking them to do under clause 6 of this bill.
I am making one last appeal to the minister for the workingman, for the man who carries

the dinner pail. I honestly believe he should not be singled out to pay for the mistakes in fiscal policy this government has made. I do not believe that he alone should carry the load of seasonal unemployment. We should all give him a break and just give him his fair share to carry.
Now, Mr. Chairman, in connection with clause 6, I should like to move:
That clause 6 be amended by deleting all the words after "act" in the second line thereof and substituting therefor the words "is maintained".


Joseph Pierre Albert Sévigny: An amendment has been moved by the hon. member for Welland, and in that connection I must refer the committee to Beauchesne's fourth edition, page 169, citation 202, subitem 14, which reads:
An amendment which would produce the same result as if the original motion were simply negatived is out of order.
It is the opinion of the Chair that the present amendment deletes the clause of the bill in question and is therefore negative in its form. The same result could be obtained by voting against the clause. It is therefore the opinion of the Chair-


John Whitney Pickersgill: Before Your Honour makes a ruling would you be prepared to hear argument?


Joseph Pierre Albert Sévigny: I will finish my remarks, if you do not mind. It is therefore the opinion of the Chair that having regard to article 202, subparagraph (13), this amendment is out of order.


John Whitney Pickersgill: Mr. Chairman, before you make a final and definite ruling, could I direct Your Honour's attention to paragraph 278 on page 227 of Beauchesne's fourth edition, the third subparagraph of which reads:
Reductions can be made in committee on the bill, but no grant can be increased except upon recommendation of the crown.
It seems to me that if this clause were defeated there would be a defect in the whole bill in that there would be no provision whatsoever and no schedule whatsoever. Therefore the only way in which we can, without destroying the whole purpose of the act, successfully accomplish what my hon. friend from Welland wants to accomplish is to amend the clause in such a fashion that the bill stands on its feet. It is true that perhaps in substance the same effect would be obtained if the clause were simply defeated, but there would be no clause 6 at all in the bill and there would be no schedule left in the bill. Therefore it seems to me that for that reason this was the only effective way by which the hon. member could get the sense of the committee.


Mr. Fulion:: Mr. Chairman, I submit the hon. member for Bonavista-Twillingate has misconstrued the effect of this clause and of the amendment. Clause 6, which we are now on, is the only clause which attempts to vary the schedule to section 37, and subsection (1) of section 37 is repealed and clause 6 substituted therefor. If clause 6 is deleted there is no change in the schedule, and therefore the amendment now before the committee would simply have the same effect as if clause 6 were itself defeated. Therefore the citation referred to by the Chairman is completely in point.


Alexis Pierre Caron: Mr. Chairman, you gave a while ago citation 202 (14). Subparagraph (13) says:
An amendment to alter the main question, by substituting a proposition with the opposite conclusion, is not an expanded negative and may be moved.
In this case it is just coming back to what it was before. It is just maintaining the Unemployment Insurance Act as it was. If we come to article 201, that says:
The object of an amendment may be to effect such an alteration in a question as will obtain the support of those who, without such alteration, must either vote against it or abstain from voting thereon, or to present to the house an alternative proposition either wholly or partially opposed to the original question. This may be effected by moving to omit all the words of the question after the first word, "That", and to substitute in their place other words of a different import. In that case the debate that follows Is not restricted to the amendment-
So it seems to me quite clear that we do not have to accept the whole thing, but if we substitute something to replace that clause it should be accepted. It is up to the house to decide in that case whether they want a substitution or whether they want to leave the clause as it is.


Joseph Pierre Albert Sévigny: I have listened with interest to the remarks of the hon. member for Hull who has read paragraph 202 (13). I have read paragraph 202 (14), and I would now like to read 202 (12), which says:
An amendment proposing a direct negative, though it may be covered up by verbiage, is out of order.
I shall read the amendment again, which is as follows:
That clause 6 be amended by deleting all the words after "act" in the second line thereof and substituting therefor the words "is maintained".
What actually the hon. member for Welland wishes to do is to eliminate what is proposed in the present bill to maintain the present rates as they are. This in itself, in my opinion, is a negation of the complete purpose of this bill to amend the Unemployment Insurance Act and as such cannot, 66968-9-310
Unemployment Insurance Act in my view, be accepted. It is my opinion that in view of article 202 (14) which says:
An amendment which would produce the same result as if the original motion were simply negatived is out of order.
I must make my ruling according to the words I have just read, and with regret I must declare the amendment by the hon. member for Welland to be in my opinion out of order. Of course, if the hon. member for Hull wishes to convince me-


Alexis Pierre Caron: I may not be successful but I wish to try. Article 202 (12) says:
An amendment proposing a direct negative, though it may be covered up by verbiage, is out of order.
It is not a direct negative because it comes back to the original rate of contribution; and it is not verbiage because there is very little in the amendment. The intention is to restore the original position, because we claim that there is no need to increase the contributions. To do that we had to present this kind of amendment and let the government find the way, and the only way is to have recourse to the clause of the bill. For those reasons it is not verbiage and it is not a direct negative. I do not accept the fact that it is a direct negative at all.


Joseph Pierre Albert Sévigny: I will phrase it in another way. I believe the solution to this would be to vote against this clause as it stands, which would achieve the same purpose as the present amendment which is before us. Therefore I declare that the solution to this problem may be to ask the committee if they are ready for the question and submit it to a vote.


John Ferguson Browne: Mr. Chairman, before we vote on this I would like to say to the committee that any vote against this clause is, of course, a vote against the whole principle of unemployment insurance as we understand it in this country, and as we have understood it for a number of years.


William Moore Benidickson: Nonsense.


John Ferguson Browne: The
schedule included in clause 6 proposes a 30 per cent increase in the contributions to the fund. I would like to refer to a statement of the actuary that was brought before the industrial relations committee.


Joseph Pierre Albert Sévigny: I regret to interrupt the hon. member but I am afraid he is straying from the subject under discussion. The question is:-is the house ready for the question?


John Whitney Pickersgill: What is the question?


Joseph Pierre Albert Sévigny: The question is the following: shall clause 6 carry?

Unemployment Insurance Act


William Moore Benidickson: I do not want to interfere with the hon. member for Vancouver-Kingsway who would have prior rights on the point I am raising. I take it, Mr. Chairman, you have said that the amendment is out of order and that therefore the debate is on the clause. If that is so, I think the hon. member for Vancouver-Kingsway has priority over myself.


John Ferguson Browne: I
thought I was in order in discussing clause 6 because I think this is one of the most important clauses in the bill. I believe that unemployment insurance could not succeed without it. I will refer now to this document and I do not know why other members of this committee who have taken part in this debate-and a number of them were members of the standing committee-have not referred to this particular document, because they were all given these figures.
This is the financial and statistical statement of the unemployment insurance commission dated March 31, 1959, and statement No. 6 is a statement of the actuary outlining why an increased contribution by 30 per cent was necessary. Here is what the statement says. The average yearly expenditure from the fund over the past five years has been $337 million, while the average yearly revenue for the past five years has been $259 million. The average yearly shortfall has amounted to $78 million. I do not know where some hon. members got their figure of $100 million and so on, but the figure I have given is the amount intended to be raised by these increases.


William Moore Benidickson: The extra is the government's contribution.


John Ferguson Browne: The
average yearly revenue is $259 million, and if we add 30 per cent, which amounts to $78 million, this gives us a total of $337 million, which would balance the income and the outgoings.
Unless this is carried, it is quite evident that the fund could not continue to bear a loss of $78 million a year. If unemployment insurance is to continue to exist, this clause must necessarily be carried.


William Moore Benidickson: Referring to the concluding remarks of the hon. member for Vancouver-Kingsway that the fund could not long continue on this basis,-he states that as the necessity for this legislation before us-I agree. But I want to say first of all in reply to another hon. member who was serving on our committee, the hon. member for Cape Breton South who indicated that he had received certain representations about this bill from mine workers, steelworkers
[The Chairman.]

and so on in which they seemed to be approving of this measure, that we are a national body here, and all I can do is say that I keep in close touch with some of these labour organizations, as does the hon. member for Essex East, and whether insincerity is charged or otherwise, we read assiduously anything of this nature which comes to our desks, as do all responsible members of parliament. Now in the last issue of the Canadian Congress of Labour news there appeared an excerpt to which I wish to draw the attention of the hon. member for Cape Breton South. I am afraid I cannot give the page number, because this is a blue sheet inserted into the monthly magazine. It says this:
Persons covered by unemployment insurance are being burdened with costs which should be shared by the country as a whole, the Canadian Labour Congress said in a memorandum submitted to the commons industrial relations committee dealing with proposed changes in the Unemployment Insurance Act.
The C.L.C. said that despite substantial increases in contribution rates there was for most groups-
And this is the essence of what we are debating.
-no change of any substance proposed in benefits.
I think that is very important as we pursue this debate. The hon. member for Cape Breton South may have received these representations, but surely they come from bodies subsidiary to the Canadian Congress of Labour, and surely we must show respect, and not disrespect, for evidence which is presented on a national basis to a parliamentary committee which is examining a bill of this kind.
The essence, as I see it when we regard this clause, is whether, either in 1950 or in subsequent years, we as parliamentarians considered our amendments as being in the nature of improvements to an insurance principle; or whether we considered them as being in the nature of improvements to a welfare plan in the interest of the insurance fund; or whether, as I want to suggest to this committee at this time, we are asked to vote for a tax plan, contrary to a welfare plan or an insurance plan in connection with our amendments to this particular section.
In other words, there was from the time of the election of this government utilization of the millions of dollars which were in this fund for the purpose of courting the voter, and did the party opposite not court that electorate by the utilization of the fund available under this statute and the huge amount of money which was available here. In doing this they neglected to take care of the normal welfare relief, as one hon. member mentioned yesterday, and now they tax the labourers

and the employers of this country so as to do a job which really belonged to the government in view of the economic situation which existed during the time since they took office. I do not think there has ever been a time in my experience when representations to a parliamentary committee from employers and employees contained such agreement that we had a bad bill, and yet the government has made no amendments whatsoever with respect to this bill-no compromise. I suggest the reason is this huge majority they have behind them; this feeling that might is right. I suggest to you that many members of this huge majority will be very embarrassed not only by management or employers but by employees perhaps not now but when the tax bills-and this in essence is a tax measure- come before them either three or six months hence.
The hon. member for Cape Breton South this morning referred to a certain element of labour and indicated that he felt confident that he was speaking for labour. I feel nobody can speak for labour. In my riding I would imagine that the largest element is comprised of people who work for wages. I have been endorsed from 1945 onward even in a tight Diefenbaker glamour election, although it was very tight indeed at that time. The wage earners, the people who carry the lunch pails and to whom a few cents here or there in terms of direct or indirect taxes represents an important consideration will wake up perhaps three months from now when they see that this clause involves an indirect tax, as was mentioned this morning by the hon. member for Welland.
Under this clause I believe we are obliged to review the rates and the statute that existed heretofore notwithstanding what the Minister of Finance said by reason of the fact that the position of the fund was perilous, not only because of the ordinary demands upon it but also because of the $72 million of market value depletion obvious to the officials of the Minister of Labour when he saw fit to bring before us a revision in the rates of contribution.
I want to assert again that from June 1957 up to the time of the introduction of this bill the government chose to give candy and syrup to the people of this country suggesting to them that it did not have to be paid for. Nowhere is it more evident than in the indirect type of taxation that is exacted by this bill. In 1957 the government imposed upon the unemployment insurance fund, a fund that was contributed to by the working people of this country, certain additional benefits. The government went through the ensuing election saying that this was straight 66968-9-310J
Unemployment Insurance Act candy not to be paid for. Today, however, we have the chickens coming home to roost.
Clause agreed to: Yeas, 47; nays, 23.
Clause 7 agreed to.
On clause 8-Separate from estate in bankruptcy, etc.


Michael Starr: Mr. Chairman, clause 8 was deleted by a motion in committee but inadvertently the wording to renumber the subsequent clauses was left out. I would ask my colleague the Minister of Justice to move now to renumber the following clauses.


Edmund Davie Fulton: Mr. Chairman, I move:
That clause 9 be renumbered clause 8 and that the subsequent clauses be renumbered accordingly.


[Stage Direction]
Amendment agreed to.
Clause agreed to.
On clause 9.
Frank Howard: Mr. Chairman, this clause seeks to amend subsection 2 of section 45 of the act. I should like to know what the actuaries have been able to determine with respect to extra costs to the fund if the present 24-week period were reduced to a 20-week period, let us say? I am interested in knowing if any actuarial consideration has been given to the reduction of the 24-week period, what the new period would be and what extra cost would be involved.


Michael Starr: Mr. Chairman, this was not up for consideration as an amendment and consequently the actuaries did not endeavour to establish a cost figure. There has not been a computation at all by the actuaries concerning the reduction of the number of weeks of contribution in order to qualify for benefits.


Frank Howard: I know for a fact a number of requests have been made by organizations and people who are adversely affected by subsection 2 and who are not able to claim or receive benefits because of the seasonal nature of their employment. Representations have been made to the department of late and even before this government took office. I personally requested that the 24-week period be reduced and suggested a period of 20 weeks merely as a basis of discussion. Has any research been done along this line or have the minister, his department and his officials ignored what is a legitimate request on behalf of people who are adversely affected by this subsection?


Michael Starr: Mr. Chairman, I am advised that a review was made some two years ago. Nothing has been done since. I think the hon. member refers to the fact that if a person

Unemployment Insurance Act has fewer than 24 weeks of contributions, then of course he is not eligible. But I want to point out to him that if it is over 15 he is eligible for seasonal benefits and he gets his benefits as of December 1 of that calendar year.


Frank Howard: I am not talking about
seasonal benefits.


Michael Starr: He is eligible for seasonal benefits even if he is below 24 and over 15.


Frank Howard: Can the minister indicate what were the results on an actuarial basis of the extra cost to the fund for this survey that he said was done a couple of years ago?


Michael Starr: I am told by the officials that they have not the information here, but we shall be glad to give it to the hon. member for his study. We shall look it up and supply him with it.


Frank Howard: That can be done at some future time; I am not too concerned about it at this time.
I should like to make a comment or two about the effect of subsection 2 of section 45. A few years ago when the alteration was made with respect to computing the contributions and benefits on a weekly basis instead of on a daily basis the period of time which was originally set was 30 weeks. We discovered, especially in so far as the loggers on the west coast were concerned-I was associated with the union at that particular time-and also in so far as other workingmen were concerned, that many of them found it nearly impossible to comply with the 30 week requirement and a request was made for a review and a reduction. At a subsequent session of parliament the 30-week period was reduced to 24, which did allow many more workmen to fit into the qualifications and thereby receive benefits.
If I may explain again to the minister, in so far as the logging industry on the west coast in concerned, it applied to the logging industry in the interior of the province and it applied in a degree to the construction industry in various parts of Canada. It also applied to other similar categories of workingmen who found that because of the weather particularly, they were unable to obtain sufficient working time during the year to accumulate 24 weeks contributions, and thereby were denied the right of benefits except, as the minister said, the right of seasonal benefits which may or may not correspond with that particular time of the year. Many of the employees find that they are out of work in the summer time, not in the winter time when the seasonal benefit scheme applies, but in the summer when in some instances the entire
logging industry is shut down because of extremely high fire hazards in dry weather. We find that this 24 week period does work adversely on many workingmen in the country. It would certainly be desirable if the minister would undertake to give more study to this particular question than he has given to it in the past and review the work which was done two years ago, as he said. I presume that was in 1956, nearly four years ago, when the period was reduced from 30 to 24 weeks.
In any event, I think it is necessary to raise this particular question as it affects a particular group of workmen. I think it is necessary to raise it by way of debate and ask the minister to consider it. Not only that, but I think we should afford the committee an opportunity to debate this question in a formal way so that the minister may be guided by other opinions. I think we should afford the committee an opportunity to make a decision by vote as to whether or not this particular 24-week period should be reduced. Accordingly, I have an amendment along these lines which I should like to move. It reads:
Subsection (2) of section 45 of the said act is repealed and the following substituted therefor:
"(2) If an insured person, within the period specified in paragraph (a) of subsection (1), had established a previous benefit period, then the subsequent benefit period is not established unless he proves that at least 20 of the contribution weeks referred to in the said paragraph (a) were
(a)	in the period of 52 weeks immediately preceding the most recent Sunday before the day on which he makes the claim, or
(b)	in the period since the commencement of the immediately preceding benefit period, whichever is the longer period."
This is word for word subsection (2) as it is at the present time, with the exception of substituting "20" for "24".


Michael Starr: May I point out to you that section 45 (2) is not under discussion, nor does it appear in the amendments at all. It is only section 45 (3) that is being amended in the amendments before the committee.


Joseph Pierre Albert Sévigny: I understand the hon. member is trying to fit this into the subclause we are discussing. It does not seem to be relevant at all to what we are discussing.


Frank Howard: The minister is seeking to have section 45 (3) amended. This is the only place where one can suggest an amendment to another part of section 45, namely subsection 2. It is for that reason that I seek to move this in a formal way. There is no other way in which it can be done, other than to bring it forward in this way. I do not think we should have to wait until the minister decides whether or not he himself intends to propose an amendment to subsection 2, in which case

I might be allowed to follow in his footsteps and propose some other sort of amendment. It is for this reason that I move an amendment to subsection 2. The minister objected and the Minister of Justice shakes his head as to the acceptability of this amendment. Are we to understand that they are objecting to reducing the 24 weeks to 20 weeks merely by hiding behind some obscure point in the rules? If so, then we shall have to adopt some other means.


Joseph Pierre Albert Sévigny: The amendment read by the hon. member for Skeena seeks to amend subsection 2 of section 45. It has nothing to do with what we are discussing at the present time. If it is accepted then subsection 2 of section 45 could be amended at the present time and we would have to accept every amendment that might be brought forward by any member to any other subsection. It is, therefore, with regret that I have to inform the hon. member for Skeena that his amendment is out of order. To substantiate my ruling I should like to refer the committee to Beauchesne's Parliamentary Rules and Forms, fourth edition, citation 203 on page 171. Paragraph (1) of citation 203 reads:
It is an imperative rule that every amendment must be relevant to the question on which the amendment is proposed. Every amendment proposed to be made either to a question or to a proposed amendment should be so framed that if agreed to by the house the question or amendment as amended would be intelligible and consistent with itself.
It is with regret that I must inform the committee that the Chair is refusing the amendment of the hon. member for Skeena.


Frank Howard: May I make a comment and, if necessary, raise a point of order? I would point out with deference that the initial discussion entered into by the Minister of Labour and myself under clause 9 as renumbered dealt specifically with the amendment I have proposed and dealt with the actuarial consideration that was given to reducing that. The minister did not object to entering into the discussion and no point of order was raised that it was irrelevant and did not deal with the question. No opinion was expressed by you, Mr. Chairman, that our discussion was out of order. Therefore it would seem that the amendment followed the discussion precisely.


Joseph Pierre Albert Sévigny: Order. It has been brought to the attention of the committee by myself and the deputy chairman that we insist on all members adhering to the rule of relevancy. It may be that sometimes it escapes the attention of the Chair that the member who is speaking may be out of order but whenever the Chair has observed that hon. members are not adhering to the rule of relevancy it
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has been brought to their attention. In the present instance the amendment proposed by the hon. member is out of order and must remain as such.


[Stage Direction]
Clause agreed to.
Clause 10 agreed to.
Joseph Pierre Albert Sévigny: I must remind members once again that all clauses are being renumbered. In other words, clause 10 is actually numbered in the bill as clause 11.
Clauses 11 to 21 inclusive agreed to.
On clause 22-Coming into force. (Translation):


Alexis Pierre Caron: Mr. Chairman, at this point, I merely want to point out how right I was in saying that, if the Minister of Finance (Mr. Fleming) stayed away for the remainder of the afternoon, things would go very well in the house.
(Text):


[Stage Direction]
Clause agreed to.
Title agreed to.
Joseph Pierre Albert Sévigny: Shall the bill as amended carry?


Paul Joseph James Martin: On division.


Joseph Pierre Albert Sévigny: Shall I report the bill?


Paul Joseph James Martin: On division.
Bill reported.


Mr. Speaker:: When shall the said bill be read the third time?


Paul Joseph James Martin: Next sitting.


John Whitney Pickersgill: Next sitting.

The house in committee of supply, Mr. Rea in the chair.
DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE A-Department-
149. Departmental administration including annual contribution of $200 to the conference of commissioners on uniformity of legislation in Canada, $741,825.
(Translation):


Mr. Eudes:: Mr. Chairman, while we are discussing the estimates of the Minister of Justice (Mr. Fulton), would his department be kind enough to inform the house what progress is being made in implementing the recommendations of the Fauteux commission.
The parole board has now replaced the remission service.
It would be of general interest, I think, to make known the number of prisoners in this country for the various provinces, also how many of these prisoners' files have been studied by the new parole board and the result of that study.

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The committee would also be interested to hear from the minister how this parole board operates.
I suppose that, as I do myself, several hon. members-
(Text):


Edmund Davie Fulton: Mr. Chairman, if the hon. member will permit, it had been my expectation that I would have to deal with this subject on the second item, item No. 150. At that time I will have the officials of the new national parole board with me and if it is agreeable to the hon. member to wait until the next item we could deal with that subject then.
(Translation):


Raymond Pierre Eudes: I presume that, as I do, many hon. members get from their electors requests for assistance in securing parole for a prisoner. What is the procedure to be followed in such cases? What advice can we give to those electors who, in all confidence, solicit assistance?
In that connection, would the minister please explain, later on, the increase in estimates on item 150? That item, which for 1956-1957, amounted to $224,180, has now been raised to $344,531 for 1959-1960. And I hope he will be able to satisfy the committee that this increase furthers the purpose of the national parole board.
On April 22 last, as recorded on page 2928 of Hansard I asked the Minister of Justice the following question:
1.	Have any representations been received by the government to appoint a woman member to the national parole board?
2.	If so, from whom have any such representations been received and what action, if any, is contemplated?
The minister replied as follows:
Since this question involves the necessity of circularizing my colleagues, I would ask that it be made an order for return.
And the house decided accordingly, but the return has not yet been forthcoming.
Eight weeks have elapsed since then. I presume that, in the meantime, the Minister of Justice has circularized his colleagues and that he is now in a position to reply to my question.
Could the minister tell us how many women are now in prison, and inform us how the national parole board proceeds with their rehabilitation?

That rehabilitation matter is, in my opinion, extremely important. In recent years, especially after the investigations made by the Fauteux commission and the recommendations embodied in its report to the cabinet, the government, and society, have been taking a more humanitarian view of prisoners.
As a result of Freud's discoveries in the field of psychoanalysis and of the work carried out by his disciples in that same field and in the field of psychiatry, for some years now, lawyers and legislators have come to take a different view of men who at one time were simply described as criminals.
The view today is that the person condemned is perhaps not solely responsible for the crime he has committed. Society environment and family life, to an extent which is impossible to specify but which exists, have also shared in the commission of the crime.
Fortunately, today, a condemned man is no longer considered as a criminal. He remains a human being, whose rehabilitation is a duty upon society.
In Canada, in recent years, great progress has been made in this field.
However, among the convicted there are women. To help in their rehabilitation, I feel that a woman should be appointed to this national parole board.
Now, Mr. Chairman, I should like to join with the hon. members who have commended the Minister of Justice for his bill to increase the number of superior court judges, particularly in the province of Quebec. This bill, when it comes into force, will help make the administration of justice more efficient.
It is my hope that the time lapse between the date when a case is registered for a hearing and the date of the investigation will be shortened.
A similar bill had in fact been suggested by the predecessors of the Minister of Justice, but for reasons known only to "Lady Politics", the bill never saw the light of day because of a lack of assent on the part of the Quebec government.
In closing, I should like to ask another question of the Minister of Justice, namely whether capital punishment has been abolished.
Over the weekend, another death sentence has been commuted to life imprisonment. I think I am not mistaken in stating that, since this government took office, 90 per cent of death sentences have been commuted by order in council.

I am not taking a stand either for or against the death penalty.
However, I find that section 206 of the Criminal Code has not been amended, and this section contains the following provision:
Every one who commits murder is guilty of an indictable offence and shall be sentenced to death.
A judge who sentences a person found guilty of murder by a jury has no alternative.
There is, of course, the royal prerogative of remission, whereby the governor general, as the representative of Her Majesty the Queen, can commute a sentence of death by hanging to a sentence of life imprisonment.
It is known that His Excellency the Governor General exercises this royal prerogative only on the advice of his counsellors, the cabinet in council.
In view of the number of commuted sentences, we have a right to ask whether the present government, without admitting it, has decided to abolish the death sentence.
However, it is parliament's responsibility to decide whether the death sentence should be maintained or abolished.
If the government favours abolition, it should have the courage to submit its opinion to the house.
It will be recalled that last April, Justice A. M. Manson, of Kamloops, stated in no uncertain terms, that by its actions, the cabinet was substituting itself for parliament, and that the executive was appropriating legislative power. Carrying this thought a little farther, it might be said that the judiciary no longer serves a useful purpose.
After all, it is permissible to believe, in practice, in the abolition of the death penalty, without the act having been amended.
May I point out to the minister that the government's policy in this matter is hardly in line with the solemn pledges made by some members of his party in the last elections, when they promised to restore the prestige and prerogatives of parliament, the alleged infringements of which still remain to be proved.
Every member of this committee will be pleased, Mr. Chairman, to hear the comments of the Minister of Justice on those matters. (Text):


Frank Howard: Mr. Chairman, I have a specific matter to raise which concerns a question of justice having been denied to certain people in Canada. The particular item before us at the moment affords the only opportunity for this denial of justice and removal of rights to be raised in a formal way. I would say from the outset that the feelings which I am going to express and the action which I am going to propose should in no way be interpreted as casting any reflections whatsoever upon the present
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Minister of Justice or the operations of the department. It is merely that he happens to be the minister and is thereby charged with the responsibility, by statute, of making recommendations with respect to certain matters. His responsibility in so far as this question of the denial of justice to, and the abrogation of the rights of, people in a certain part of Canada is concerned is established by virtue of section 4 (d) of the Justice Act.
Therefore, because justice has been denied and delayed to certain people in Canada, because their freedoms have been removed in an arbitrary and despicable way, and because their fundamental rights have been interfered with, I feel it is necessary to afford this committee the opportunity to express its views, both by voice and by vote, on this particular matter. Accordingly, I would move:
That vote No. 149 be reduced to $1.
I do this, as I mentioned earlier, because justice has been denied, freedoms abrogated and fundamental rights removed by reason of the passage of Bill No. 2, trade union (emergency provisions) act, dated March 6, 1959, by the house of assembly of the province of Newfoundland, and by reason of the failure of the federal government to disallow this particular piece of legislation. This is being done as a matter of principle only and is not designed to interfere with the operations of the department.
Amendment (Mr. Howard) negatived: Yeas, 5; nays, 49.
(Translation):


Mr. Meunier:: Mr. Chairman, I wish to draw the attention of the minister to a fact that has happened recently.
The Minister of Justice visited Montreal this week, and addressed the better business bureau on the subject of restrictive trade practices. In an interview he gave at the end of his conference, he stated his views on a much discussed trade practice, that of the premiums given by dealers to their customers in exchange for trading stamps or coupons.
The minister said that trading stamps are a matter of provincial jurisdiction, because they have to do with property and civil rights. It is deplorable that the minister did not give a more definite explanation of his views on that problem, so that we could know exactly where the matter stands, because when a question such as this is put to a public man without notice, his answer can possibly be incomplete.
I take the liberty of disagreeing with him on that point, and to remind him that the

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matter of trading stamps comes under the Criminal Code, especially under sections 322(b) and 369.
Section 322(b) of the Criminal Code defines trading stamps as follows:
"trading stamps" includes any form of cash receipt, receipt, coupon, premium ticket or other device designed or intended to be given to the purchaser of goods by the vendor thereof or on his behalf, and to represent a discount on the price of the goods or a premium to the purchaser thereof-
Section 369 of the Criminal Code lists the penalties for persons who use trading stamps.
The section reads as follows:
(1) Every one who, by himself or his employee or agent, directly or indirectly issues, gives, sells or otherwise disposes of, or offers to issue, give, sell or otherwise dispose of trading stamps to a merchant or dealer in goods for use in his business is guilty of an offence punishable on summary conviction.
Subsection (2) also deals with the offence committed by the merchant who issues trading stamps to his customers. I have read the annotated code of the learned Justice Lagarde. His book contains remarkable comments on that trade practice, and he has no hesitation in saying that the sale of trading stamps or premium stamps, as they are commonly called, constitutes an offence. He says about section 369 that everyone who issues trading stamps to a merchant to be used by the latter in his business commits an offence. And at subsection (2), he expresses the opinion that the merchant who issues trading stamps to his customers commits an offence.
I must point out to the minister that that matter of trading stamps is detrimental to trade in general, favourable to the big dealers and prejudicial to the small ones.
The Canadian Consumer Association, the Canadian Labour Congress and other organizations have clearly come out against the practice and have urged the government to stop it. The principal argument invoked, as I said earlier, was that the practice was favourable to big dealers, detrimental to small ones, and that the distribution of trading stamps is done at the expense of consumers. In fact, the dealer who buys his stamps for distribution to his customers has to pay for the stamps and for the goods he gives out as premiums, and naturally he has to mark up his goods accordingly. In the last resort, the consumer foots the bill and has that much less money to meet other expenses.
Thus, the sale of trading stamps becomes a restrictive trade practice because the small

dealer cannot compete on the same basis as the big one. The big dealer, with a high volume of sales, does not have to mark up his goods as high as does the small dealer and, consequently, the small dealer is the victim of unfair competition.
I ask the minister to consider the remarks I have made, and if he is not convinced that the matter of trading stamps is not covered by the Criminal Code, he should amend the code in order to eliminate this evil of unfair competition, so that the small dealer will be freed from annoyances of that kind which are quite detrimental to him and which finally lead to the loss of all that he might have earned as a result of years of hard work.
(Text):


Mr. Regier:: Mr. Chairman, I have a matter on the first item of the minister's estimates which I really hate to raise because I have to say things about the present Minister of Justice that I never expected I would have to say in this house. It is a question concerning the minister recommending to Central Mortgage and Housing Corporation a list of the attorneys who would be acceptable to the government to act on behalf of Central Mortgage and Housing Corporation. I am afraid that in this matter the government can be charged at least with party politics of almost the worst and most discriminatory kind.
It is obvious from the records that I have been supplied with that a certain lawyer or attorney, a Mr. Irving Freeman, of St. Catharines, Ontario, was placed on a list of attorneys who would be acceptable to the government of the day in May of 1957 to act on behalf of the government in cases involving Central Mortgage and Housing Corporation. I would like to read a portion of a letter sent by the office of the minister's predecessor to Mr. Freeman under date of May 22, 1957. It says in part:
In reply, I am pleased to confirm that on the recommendation of Mr. Cavers, you have been listed on May 13th, 1957, for your share of the legal work of the corporation at St. Catharines.
This, Mr. Chairman, indicates that the practice that the minister is now pursuing was also being pursued by his predecessor. I might add for purposes of identification that the individual concerned, Mr. Irving Freeman, served at one time, as I understand it, as an alderman on the St. Catharines city council at a time when the present member for Lincoln was mayor of the city.

Upon the assumption of office of the minister after the upset of the Liberal government apparently a new list of acceptable attorneys was made up and Mr. Freeman noted that he was no longer on the list of acceptable attorneys. Therefore he wrote and applied for his name to be placed on the list of attorneys acceptable to the minister's department for legal work in connection with whatever work Central Mortgage and Housing Corporation might have in that area. He applied as early as October 17, 1957, and I have in my hand a copy of the letter sent to Mr. Freeman by Central Mortgage and Housing Corporation dated October 25, 1957, in which they say:
We have for reply yours of October 17.
In selecting legal agents we adhere to a list provided to us by the Department of Justice. Because our discretion is limited to this extent we regret that we cannot initiate action to have your name included on the list of agents who may undertake work for us from time to time.
I hope the minister will explain why his department submits a list to Central Mortgage and Housing Corporation of who or who might not be adequate attorneys to act on their behalf. I believe that an institution such as this-a well established crown corporation-ought to be given the right to determine who should or should not be doing its legal work in various places across the country. It is very obvious from the letter sent to Mr. Freeman on October 5, 1957 that Central Mortgage and Housing Corporation cannot engage a lawyer anywhere in Canada unless such attorney's name is on the list submitted to the corporation by the minister. I fail, in the first instance, to see the need for this procedure in any respect. It is obvious that Mr. Freeman was unable to get his name placed on the list again after the assumption of office by the new minister, and I understand that there has been some correspondence since between Mr. Freeman and the hon. member for Lincoln, representing, I presume, his area. I should like to read into the record a letter which the hon. member for Lincoln has sent to Mr. Freeman. The date of this letter is December 16, 1957, and it says:
Your name has been referred to me for certain reasons of which 1 think you are aware.
I should like to underline every word of that first sentence. This hon. member said to Mr. Freeman, an applicant to be placed on the list as an attorney eligible to do business on behalf of a crown corporation:
Your name has been referred to me for certain reasons of which I think you are aware.
The letter goes on:
In our way of living one is often asked to approve of someone's abilities to fulfil certain obligations.
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I have no quarrel with that.
You will recall that you undertook to certify against my abilities to assume certain obligations, which you did in a public way.
The only construction I can place on that is that obviously Mr. Freeman was active in the election campaign, and not active in the interests of the hon. member for Lincoln. However, the letter goes on:
Knowing your opinion of me, I am neither for you nor against you.
I should like to compliment the hon. member for Lincoln on that statement. I wish I could say that subsequent actions were able to bear this out.
If you have changed your mind about me, I could change my thoughts about you, also.
This is the crowning glory of it all, Mr. Chairman, since you will recall that this letter was written on December 16. It concludes:
Wishing you and your family the season's greetings.


John Whitney Pickersgill: This is the government
which abolished patronage, is it?


Erhart Regier: I am very pleased to note that the hon. member for Lincoln holds no grievance against this attorney in St. Catharines because he was, obviously, a Liberal or a supporter of the C.C.F. I do not know what he is; I am taking this up as a matter of principle. However, he was assured that if he would only change his mind about the abilities of the hon. member for Lincoln that might have some effect, and he might be placed again in the good graces of the Central Mortgage and Housing Corporation in the roundabout way of receiving the nod from the Minister of Justice.
I have here another letter which worries me a little more in that it involves the integrity of the minister which I had always held to be beyond the shadow of a doubt. On August 30, 1958 the hon. member for Lincoln once again writes a letter to Mr. Freeman, and he opens it in this way.
I have been asked by the Department of Justice to write to you regarding Central Mortgage and Housing Corporation legal work in connection with direct central mortgage and housing loans in Lincoln county.
Now it was our understanding that parliamentary secretaries had not yet been appointed, and we completely fail to appreciate the procedure whereby an hon. member of this house who is not a member of the government but only a supporter of the government is able to write to a person in his constituency in this way, and I hope the minister intends to deal with this particular matter. I have always assumed that the minister was able to deal with his own

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responsibilities and that he was able to deal with his own correspondence and that other members of parliament at no time receive authority to write letters and say that they have been asked by a department of the government or by a minister to take up a certain question. That would introduce an entirely new principle into our process of government.
This individual, apparently a persistent man, carried out a considerable correspondence with the minister, the hon. member for Lincoln and the Prime Minister. He finally realized he was not going to get very far under the present arrangement or system, so he mentioned in one of his letters that he may have to appeal to public opinion by way of revealing what has taken place in the newspapers and to members of the opposition in the House of Commons. In this regard, having been advised of Mr. Freeman's intention, the minister writes a letter to Mr. Freeman under date of February 12, 1959. The last part of that letter reads as follows:


Edmund Davie Fulton: Read the whole letter.


Erhart Regier: It is rather long. It is two pages long. Very well.
I acknowledge your further letter of January 29 in which you protest against not being retained to act for C.M.H.C.
You state that you intend to write to the newspapers and others about this matter in accord with the draft letter which you have sent me.
It is of course a matter entirely for you to decide as to what you write, or to whom, and therefore I make no comment upon your announced intention, except to let you know that the sending or withholding of such a letter will have not the slightest effect upon the situation.
My responsibility as Minister of Justice includes recommending from time to time the names of lawyers across Canada who are best able to perform the legal work that the government of Canada or certain of its agencies may require to have done. In carrying out this responsibility it is my duty to exercise my judgment as to the names of those *who should be recommended, on the basis of the best assessment I can make of the situation.
At this point I should like to interrupt and ask the minister what was the basis of his assessment? Was it as indicated earlier in this correspondence that the attorney was unwilling to recommend the election of the hon. member for Lincoln, or had he any other basis of assessment? I continue:
This is a matter which is kept under constant review.
As far as I can find out there was only one occasion when a review took place and that was when the Liberals were defeated. The old list was abolished and a new list of Conservative attorneys was brought in. I continue:
In addition to general assessments on the basis of what appears in the standard law lists, any lawyer, including yourself, whose name is drawn to my

attention, from any source, has his ability to perform the services in question carefully weighed and assessed in the light of the work requiring to be done. In the case of work for an agency such as C.M.H.C., or indeed any other work for the government, one of the additional factors to be borne in mind is of course the necessity to ensure that those recommended for the particular work can have no conflict of interest as between their other client or clients and the government or agency in question. My recommendations are made from time to time on the basis of these assessments and you are quite in error in your conclusion that there is any other basis.
I recognize that there will of course not always be unanimity of opinion as to the conclusions reached or the recommendations made, but this is true in all situations where judgment must be exercised. In this respect, the government of Canada is in no different position from private persons who may also from time to time have to choose between lawyers whose services are available.
May I interrupt again and say I am not in agreement with that claim of the minister because a huge corporation such as Central Mortgage and Housing Corporation is being paid for by all the taxpayers of Canada and therefore all lawyers regardless of their political affiliation, and all other factors being equal, ought to be entitled to their share in the work that this large corporation does. To return to the letter:
I am not aware that it has ever been established as a principle that a lawyer is entitled to complain because a client has chosen not to avail himself of that lawyer's services, but has preferred another. In any event, even if complaints are made, it is and must always remain the responsibility of the government, just as it is in the case of an individual, to decide whose services will be used. In this case the government acts on my advice.
The minister fully confirms his role in this situation by those words. I continue:
While I regret that my decision in your case is disappointing to you personally, nevertheless, it is the sort of decision that it is my responsibility to make and for which I am prepared to accept responsibility. Perhaps it may occur to you that the fact that you have on two occasions resorted to direct or implied threats to write to the papers and elsewhere-
You will note, Mr. Chairman, that the opposition is known as "elsewhere". I continue:
-in your efforts to influence my decision, can only reinforce my judgment on the question of whether you are a suitable person to be retained by the government of Canada.
In other words, the minister is here claiming that an attorney who insists on his rights as a Canadian citizen, who puts a little bit of confidence in the Prime Minister's oft-expressed intentions in regard to a bill of rights and who uses the means available to him of informing the people of Canada what is taking place, is no longer eligible for service to the government in the eyes of the minister once he has resorted to these things.

The letter goes on to state:
If therefore you do carry out your intention to send out letters in the form of the one you have sent me, I can only suggest that you should send, in each case, a copy of this letter also. In that way, those who receive your letter will have all the facts.
I might add that they would not have nearly all the facts. Some of the letters I placed on the record earlier should also be known to the public. However, the gentleman in question did not let the matter drop at that point but appealed to the Prime Minister in reply to which he received a letter from the executive assistant and private secretary to the Prime Minister, Mr. Guest, which caused me some added concern. The letter reads in part as follows:
Naturally, as a lawyer myself, it is embarrassing for me to see a colleague at the bar actively soliciting clientele in this manner,-


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh.


Erhart Regier: Yes, Mr. Chairman, Conservative members in this house who are barristers may applaud. They may think there is merit in that sentence. I say it is a despicable sentence and an intolerable thing that a citizen of Canada should be denied his rights as a citizen, whether or not he is a lawyer, to ask frankly and in a polite way over a period of years that he be restored to a position that he held under a previous government. The correspondence reveals that he was placed on the roster by the previous government not because he was a Liberal but because he was able to persuade the former minister of the equity of his claim. That is how he got on the roster at that time and was able to do some work for Central Mortgage and Housing Corporation. However, Mr. Guest continues:
-but it may be that there is some special circumstance you do not disclose which excepts this situation from the usual ethical considerations governing practice.
Under ordinary circumstances, your letter would be forwarded to the Minister of Justice for his comments, but since you say that you have been finally informed by him that your name would not be recommended to the corporation as counsel, I presume there would be little purpose in such action on my part. If, however, you feel that this office or the Prime Minister could render you any ethical assistance in soliciting legal business, I would be very pleased to hear from you.
That is the crowning glory of all of this correspondence. Here is the Prime Minister's offer to assist this barrister to obtain a livelihood in an ethical fashion after the government of the day so unethically removed his name without cause. There is no indication of any complaint against the man in any of the correspondence. According to the correspondence he committed only one offence and that obviously was when he found himself 66968-9-311i
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unable to endorse the election to this house of the hon. member for Lincoln. That is something I thought we were getting away from in Canada. I am very disappointed to see a British Columbia member of the cabinet involved in this kind of deal. I hope he will take steps to rectify the situation. I know that no minister can be informed of everything that transpires in his office. I can only express the hope and the wish that all of this has taken place without the knowledge of the minister and without his agreement and consent, and that this has all been done by one or more officials in his department, and that he will take early action.
The last letter I wish to refer to is dated February 24 last. It is a letter to Mr. Freeman from the minister, in which the minister says: I really do not think that there is anything that I can add to what I said in my letter of February 12 in which I outlined the basis of selection of lawyers to represent the government of Canada and its agencies generally, in so far as my responsibility is concerned. I refer you particularly to the fifth paragraph of my letter of February 12, and to the last sentence of that paragraph.
In this letter the minister merely reminds the lawyer in St. Catharines of what he had said on an earlier occasion, and particularly the last paragraph and the last sentence which is as follows:
If, therefore, you do carry out your intention to send out letters in the form of the one you have sent me, I can only suggest that you should send, in each-


James Ross Fulton: My hon. friend is reading the wrong paragraph. The letter of February 24 reads:
I refer you particularly to the fifth paragraph of my letter of February 12, and to the last sentence of that paragraph.
The last sentence of that paragraph reads: My recommendations are made from time to time on the basis of these assessments and you are quite in error in your conclusion that there is any other basis.


Erhart Regier: I wish to apologize to the
minister. I have made some marks here and I was in the wrong paragraph. However, the minister again refers to his letter of February 12 and this letter in the main, Mr. Chairman, is a claim by the minister that he reviews these lists from time to time. I hope the minister can now disclose what is the basis of such review, whether or not political affiliations and history of crown attorneys are involved in this review, and how often he has made such a review since taking office.
As I indicated earlier, I hope the minister will agree that this situation ought to be remedied. I notice that my house leader had an order of the house passed on April 20 last, and at noon today a reply had not been received, the order of the house had not yet

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been complied with. I do not see why an order of this kind has not been complied with in seven weeks time. It seems to me it has become a growing habit of this house to supply members of parliament with information on the day after the estimates have passed this house, and I think it is very much to be regretted. For a number of years now we have had the annual reports of a number of crown corporations or of ministers in our mail boxes on the morning following the final passing of the estimates. The motion passed by this house on April 20 last read:
For a copy of any letters, lists or other memoranda sent to Central Mortgage and Housing Corporation by the Department of Justice since January 1. 1956, stating the names of legal agents that may be engaged by the corporation.
That, Mr. Chairman, involved a copy of only a few lists, if the minister has in fact reviewed the list from time to time. If the minister has never reviewed the list and only once submitted a list that would be acceptable to a Tory government, then there would have been only one list to file in order to comply with the order of the house. Our only assumption can be, unless there is a satisfactory explanation, that this thing has been delayed for seven weeks until after the estimates have been disposed of.


Edmund Davie Fulton: I think I should deal with this matter immediately. I shall start with a reference to the return. Without hesitation I apologize to the hon. gentleman if the return has not been brought down. I thought it had, because it is a nil return. I say that on the basis that the communications with respect to the employment of legal counsel are not sent in the manner suggested. I do from time to time advise my colleagues, the ministers for various departments, in response to their requests for such advice, as to what lawyers might appropriately be retained by their departments as agents, or by the various agencies for which they are responsible. This advice is sometimes given orally; occasionally it is given in the form of memoranda and, of course, as such it is correspondence between ministers which is of a privileged nature. There is no correspondence of this sort between my department and C.M.H.C., in any event, and therefore there is nothing to bring down in response to the order of the house. I am sorry, indeed, if the hon. member feels aggrieved because he had not been informed of that earlier.
With respect to this situation generally, there are a number of facts here which have not emerged clearly from the account which has been given by the hon. member for Burnaby-Coquitlam and which I think should be placed upon the record. In placing them

upon the record I regret if anything I have to say may seem to reflect upon the lawyer who is the subject of this correspondence. However, I shall confine my remarks to a statement of facts and if the facts should seem to be any reflection, then I regret that I find it necessary because of the position in which he himself has placed me and the hon. gentleman from Burnaby-Coquitlam has placed me whereby an explanation is essential. I think the committee is entitled to an explanation.


Erhart Regier: I had his permission.


Edmund Davie Fulton: I am not suggesting the hon. gentleman did not have his permission.


Erhart Regier: I did.


Edmund Davie Fulton: It is perfectly true that Mr. Freeman has been attempting for something over a year and a half to obtain work as an agent for Central Mortgage and Housing Corporation. I start with this premise, and here I take direct issue with what the hon. member for Burnaby-Coquitlam has said. It is not, as I conceive it, the right of any lawyer in Canada that he should have his services retained by the government or by a government department. On that basis, if the proposition were accepted, it would be necessary for us eventually to retain the services of every lawyer in Canada.
It is my responsibility as Minister of Justice, as I indicated in my letter which has been placed on the record, to advise the government of Canada and the various departments and agencies thereof-and those departments are, of course, advised by their ministers -as to who are the lawyers practising in Canada whose services might be properly retained on behalf of the government. I think I should at this point and in order that it might appear here in the context, read what I said to Mr. Freeman:
My responsibility as Minister of Justice includes recommending from time to time the names of lawyers across Canada who are best able to perform the legal work that the government of Canada or certain of its agencies may require to have done. In carrying out this responsibility it is my duty to exercise my judgment as to the names of those who should be recommended on the basis of the best assessment I can make of the situation.
I doubt whether any member of this house would disagree with this statement. It is not possible to employ every lawyer in Canada. As I have said, no lawyer in Canada is in a position where he can come and say, "I have an absolute right to be retained by the government". Even if he did, we do not have enough work to retain them all. Therefore, it is necessary for the minister to make a selection as between the lawyers whose services are available.

As I have explained in the letter which has been read, in making an assessment of those lawyers whose services can be retained we assess the ability of the lawyer in question to perform the services in the light of the work to be done, and in the case of work for an agency such as Central Mortgage and Housing Corporation, or indeed any other work for the government, one of the additional factors to be borne in mind is, of course, the necessity to ensure that those recommended for the particular work can have no conflict of interest as between their other clients or client and the government or agency in question.
It is significant, Mr. Chairman, that in the course of his efforts, which have continued, as I said, since December 10, 1957 at least, to assert a right to work for Central Mortgage and Housing Corporation, Mr. Freeman has made it clear that one of the reasons he wanted to be retained was that he had clients who have loans from Central Mortgage and Housing Corporation. Perhaps the hon. member for Burnaby-Coquitlam has not been told that by the lawyer in question but that appears in one of the letters he wrote.


Erhart Regier: Would the minister permit a question?


Edmund Davie Fulton: I would prefer to complete the statement of facts at this time. I want to emphasize to the committee that in a reply that Mr. Freeman received on January 6, 1959 from my executive assistant that matter was drawn to his attention. Perhaps I should read that letter in full. It is dated January 6, 1959 and is marked "private" but I assume that since the lawyer himself has raised the matter it is in order for me to disclose the full correspondence. The letter, as I say, is signed by my executive assistant. It reads as follows:
Dear Mr. Freeman:
My minister has instructed me to acknowledge receipt with thanks of your letter of December 11, 1958, in connection with Central Mortgage and Housing Corporation work in the St. Catharines area. The matter of agents for the C.M.H.C. in St. Catharines has been thoroughly reviewed and we find that at present, considering the quantity of work involved, there are more than a sufficient number of lawyers who have already been instructed for the corporation's work. These matters are reviewed from time to time, however, and your interest in being of assistance to the corporation will be kept in mind when the review is taking place.
One other part of your letter that should perhaps be discussed is the fourth paragraph where you mention particularly C.M.H.C. work for a builder who is also a client of yours. The policy of the Central Mortgage and Housing Corporation and indeed, of all government departments, is that no lawyer may act both for his client and the C.M.H.C. or the department at the same time. I am sure you will readily understand the reason
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for this rule when you consider the conflicts of interest that could arise. It would, therefore, not be possible to authorize your use on C.M.H.C. work involving your own clients in any event.
Thanking you for your continued interest,
Yours sincerely,
After that I received several further letters from Mr. Freeman, including a letter dated January 29, 1959 objecting to the decision and stating in part:
To begin with, I intend to send copies of the enclosed letter to the Prime Minister, the editors of the St. Catharines Standard, the Toronto Globe and Mail, the Toronto Daily Star, the Ottawa Evening Citizen and the Ottawa Journal. After I have done so, I then intend to contact Mr. Hazen Argue and perhaps one of the other opposition members to see if this matter can be raised on the floor of the House of Commons.
This was not the first direct or implied threat-I use the word "threat" but perhaps I should use the word "statement"-that the lawyer in question intended to take this matter to the press and to the floor of the House of Commons. I replied to him in full knowledge of that possibility. As I have said, and as I said to him, it is my responsibility to make assessments of those lawyers who are suitable and qualified to do work for the government and its departments anct agencies, and that is a responsibility which I accept. I make my recommendations tO' my colleagues accordingly and I have not recommended the name of Mr. Irving Freeman.
As I indicated to Mr. Freeman, there are a number of factors that I take into account in making my assessment of the qualifications of lawyers to serve the government. In making such assessments and weighing qualifications, one of the factors that will and must weigh with me is the methods followed in cases such as this by such lawyers to have their services retained. I do not regard it as an indication of high qualification for a lawyer to importune the department and the minister to have his name placed upon a list. Particularly I do not regard it as evidence of high qualification with respect to legal ability for that lawyer, when he finds that his importunities are not acceded to, to say, "Very well, I am going to write to the papers and go to the leader of the C.C.F. and see that the matter is spread all over the record." I have no objection to the publicity but I suggest that I am entitled to take that attitude into account and the question of whether it is a proper professional attitude to take when I am weighing the qualifications of that lawyer to have his services retained by the government of Canada.
I point out, Mr. Chairman, so far as any question of influence is concerned, that the record shows clearly that Mr. Freeman first

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had his name placed on the list by the former Liberal member for this constituency in May of 1957 so it must have taken Mr. Freeman some considerable time to persuade the former government of his qualifications if he was placed on the list just one month before that government was defeated. My information is that his efforts in that direction were also continued for some considerable time.
Then again, with respect to the question of whether any member of parliament interested himself in the matter, because my hon. friend seems to suggest that it was wrong for the present hon. member for Lincoln to have an interest in the matter, the correspondence establishes clearly that Mr. Freeman requested the present member for Lincoln to do what he could to have Mr. Freeman's name placed on the list. Therefore I find it extraordinary that my hon. friend should suggest there is anything wrong in finding on the file correspondence between the present hon. member for Lincoln and Mr. Freeman.
I can only say, of course, with respect to the particular terminology of one of these letters that I can take no responsibility for the phrase, "I have been asked by the Department of Justice to write you about this particular matter." I have not had the opportunity to discuss with the hon. member for Lincoln exactly why he used those words but I fancy that what he intended to imply was, "I have discussed this matter with the Department of Justice and am writing you accordingly to advise you of the situation." I say that because, as the hon. member has said, we do not ask private members of parliament to write official letters on behalf of the department. I understand that the fact is that the hon. member for Lincoln properly reported the situation as he had learned it in the course of discussions with myself and my executive assistant.
Therefore, Mr. Chairman, I do not think there is very much more to be said on that point except that I have no apologies to make for the decision I reached with regard to the question whether or not Mr. Freeman was a suitable person to recommend to my colleague, the Minister of Public Works, as a lawyer whose services should be retained by Central Mortgage and Housing Corporation. As I have pointed out, it is my responsibility from time to time to make assessments as between lawyers and in making these assessments I am required to exercise judgment as to who is the most suitable and best qualified person or persons to use, and I recognize that in forming these judgments, as in every case where judgment is necessary to be formed, there will be those

who disagree with the judgment. It does not surprise me to find that Mr. Freeman disagrees with my assessment of him but that is something which, while I may regret it, I cannot alter. I merely repeat that under all the circumstances I can see no reason why I should change my opinion or assessment and I have no intention, whether by virtue of the fact that the lawyer in question has written to my hon. friends opposite or for any other reason whatsoever, of changing that assessment.


Erhart Regier: Mr. Chairman, I think it is very obvious that if Mr. Freeman needed this work he would not have followed the course he did. He would have continued to beg the hon. member for Lincoln and the minister to be placed on the list. I suggest that Mr. Freeman's whole object was to raise his voice in objection to having been removed from the list of those eligible without cause and that the correspondence reveals that he came to the conclusion, and obviously it was the only conclusion he could come to, that the reason for his dismissal was political and had nothing to do with the work he had been doing on behalf of the crown corporation. I am very pleased to have the minister tell us that the hon. member for Lincoln had no authority to write that he had been asked by the Department of Justice to write regarding this matter.
I should like the minister also to say whether or not the hon. member for Lincoln had authority to indicate on December 16, 1957 that if Mr. Freeman would change his mind about the hon. member for Lincoln things might be different, and there might be some hope he would be again placed on the list of those eligible. I should like to know whether or not the minister knows anything about this sentence in the letter of December 16 which I quoted earlier:
If you have changed your mind about me, I could change my thoughts about you also.
I feel the minister should make it very clear that his decision concerning Mr. Freeman had nothing whatever to do with what Mr. Freeman's thinking might have been about the hon. member for Lincoln.
The minister supplied some information that seems to be at variance with the contents of this correspondence. Central Mortgage and Housing Corporation, in a letter dated October 25, 1957, file No. 100-15-6, says that in selecting legal agents they adhere to a list provided to them by the Department of Justice. The minister informs us, in response to an order of this house, that no list is in existence. The minister is in effect, therefore, saying that the general counsel

for Central Mortgage and Housing Corporation, Mr. Wilson, is very much in error when he claims in his letter to Mr. Freeman that they adhere to a list provided by the Department of Justice. The minister even seems to indicate here and there throughout his argument that all he did was to telephone the Minister of Public Works once in a while, more or less indicating that occasionally a new barrister ought to be added to the list; that it was a matter of an afternoon conversation or a telephone call. I hope the minister is able to clear up this matter of exactly how this list is compiled and when it was last compiled.
There are indications from the corporation and from the minister's department, at least from the correspondence with the minister's department, that a new list was prepared when the minister took office. If such a new list was prepared, the expectation of the hon. member for Assiniboia should certainly have been dealt with, and we should not be faced with the answer that no list does, in fact, exist. The hon. member for Assiniboia asked for all letters, lists or other memoranda, dating back to January 1, 1956.
I should like to clear up another point. Mr. Freeman is not asking for the right to do legal work for the government of Canada or any of its crown corporations.


Edmund Davie Fulton: He certainly is; he is demanding the right.


Erhart Regier: Mr. Freeman is in the same position as other attorneys in equal circumstances, he is asking for the right to be placed on the list of those eligible to do work for the government of Canada. This is an altogether different thing from demanding the right to do any work. Even though you may be on the list, your turn may never come as the minister well knows, and as I am sure is already indicated in the correspondence.
There was one further insinuation by the minister, not only in this committee but also in some of the correspondence, and that concerned a conflict of interest. Does the minister mean that none of the attorneys who are on the eligible list now never had a nodding acquaintance with anyone who has ever used the services of Central Mortgage and Housing Corporation? If that is so, his imagination must be rather vivid indeed. Mr. Freeman uses the case in point to back up his argument and to indicate to the minister that he knows something about the housing field and therefore is capable of dealing with matters of this kind at any time. Does Mr. Freeman really complain that he is unable to serve two masters at the same time? Like
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all lawyers, even he would know he could not be serving two masters at the same time.


Mr. Smith (Lincoln):: Mr. Chairman, may I call it six o'clock?
At six o'clock the committee took recess.


[Stage Direction]
AFTER RECESS

The committee resumed at 8 p.m.
Herbert Wilfred Herridge: Mr. Chairman, I want to deal this evening with a case which was brought to my attention some months ago over which I spent a lot of time. I have listened to the representations not only of the person who considers himself the victim but a number of other quite responsible citizens from Montreal. I have promised these people to bring this matter to the attention of the minister in the committee on the first item of the minister's estimates.
I might say that in dealing with this question I have done a bit of reading, but one must realize that when an ordinary layman gets into the field of law he finds himself tangled up very easily. However, I make these representations tonight on the basis of our own law, the royal proclamation of October 7, 1763, the Quebec Act, the Constitutional Act, the Union Act and the British North America Act, and more particularly upon the recent expressions of concern with respect to the rights of the individual which have been exhibited in the parliament of Great Britain.
It is very pleasing to note that in the parliament of Great Britain, where they are concerned with serious international and national questions, they do find time to deal with the grievance of the humble subject. In that connection, Mr. Chairman, I was so interested in this case that I want to place on record an extract from Newsweek of March 2, 1959, which is as follows:
The Lad in the Gallery
The House of Commons was hushed. In the distinguished strangers gallery, the 16-year old grocer's hoy from the Scottish highlands sat tensely between his parents-sandy hair slicked back, elbows on knees, eyes wide. Below him on the floor, Britain's Prime Minister Harold Macmillan had risen from the front bench to his feet. "I will make a statement about John Waters."
For the watching boy, whose name had thus become the official business of parliament, it was a long-awaited moment. For the assembled M.P.'s and the public in many countries, it signified parliamentary democracy in its most majestic role -as guardian of the rights of the individual citizen.
John Waters' plea for justice went back fourteen months, to the night he was found bleeding and bruised in an alley near his home in the little northern Scottish town of Thurso. The boy claimed he had been beaten up by two local constables, after giving them "a bit of lip". His parents had

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appealed to the law officers of Scotland for an inquiry, and produced seventeen witnesses to support John's charge. But the lord advocate, backed by the secretary of state for Scotland, ruled that their own investigations did not justify further inquiry.
Winslow Boy?
The Waterses found a powerful defender, though, in the Conservative M.P. from their own district-
And all credit to him.
-Sir David Robertson. Impressed by the boy's references, which he said were "far better" than his own would have been at that age, Sir David pressed the matter relentlessly in parliament, and gradually gained the support of nearly 200 fellow members. The British press took up the case, comparing Waters to George Archer-Shee, the naval cadet whose exoneration in the courts 50 years ago on a charge of stealing had recently served as the basis for Terence Rattigan's play "The Winslow Boy".
Last week. Prime Minister Macmillan temporarily cast aside the great affairs of state-Cyprus, Germany, his own trip to Moscow-to tell the house that he had personally investigated the Waters affair, and decided, in view of the "grave public disquiet" that a high judicial tribunal should probe out the truth.
Cheers from both benches greeted his announcement. Parliament passed the government notice unanimously. A three-man tribunal, appointed by the government, will soon meet in Edinburgh to establish just what happened on the night of the alleged assault, and what the police did about it. Commons would then decide on the next step.
In all, Britain's parliament had spent 90 minutes discussing the private grievance of one redcheeked errand boy who had gotten himself into trouble. But few M.P.'s regarded this as time ill spent. Macmillan spoke for most of them at the end when he said, quietly, "It is encouraging to feel that at a moment when our minds are filled with the great problems between nations and vast political issues ... we should turn to try to do justice to individuals."
It is on that account that the mother of parliaments retains the respect it does throughout the commonwealth and throughout the world.
Mr. Chairman, in proceeding with my brief remarks, the statement I wish to read, which is a portion of a television program, contains some criticism of justice in this country and judges. I might say in that respect that members of parliament have the same rights as individuals to criticize the courts and to criticize justices. I want to quote briefly first of all an excerpt or two which have been brought to my attention to support my contention. We find that Lord Russell in the Queen versus Gray, 1902 Queen's Bench, page 35 at page 40, said:
Judges and courts are alike open to criticism, and if reasonable argument or expostulation is offered against any judicial act as contrary to common good, no court could or would treat that as contempt.
Mr. Justice Duff in the Alberta Bill case said:
It is illegal to interfere with the right of public discussion as to substantially interfere with the parliamentary institution of Canada.

Then I noticed quite recently in the March 16, 1959 issue of Newsweek the following opinion expressed by Mr. Justice Black of the United States supreme court:
Back in 1898, Mr. Justice Brewer stated in an address that many criticisms may be "devoid of good taste, but better all sorts of criticism than no criticism at all".
In 1941, Mr. Justice Black said in writing for the majority concerning a contempt case against the Los Angeles Times: "The assumption that respect for the judiciary can be won by shielding judges from published criticism wrongly appraises the character of American public opinion... an enforced silence, however limited, solely in the name of preserving the dignity of the bench, would probably engender resentment, suspicion, and contempt, much more than it would enhance respect."
Dissenting in the same case, Mr. Justice Frankfurter nevertheless said: "Therefore judges must be kept mindful of their limitations and of their ultimate public responsibility by a vigorous stream of criticism expressed with candour however blunt."
The late Mr. Justice Jackson wrote in "The Supreme Court in the American System" that "criticism by the profession" is one of the important criteria in appraising a decision's "real weight in subsequent cases".
The court is a responsible, human institution. To elevate it above criticism would be to create a tyranny above the law and above the government of which it is a part.
Mr. Chairman, as I said in opening my remarks, I have had discussions with the person who considers himself victimized and as having suffered an injustice. I have had discussions with a number of responsible and quite well known citizens in Montreal with respect to this case. I have read masses of correspondence. I have a large file concerning this matter and I have gone through it very carefully, and you will readily understand, from the point of view of the layman, that it is very difficult to appreciate the finer points of the law. But after those discussions and conversations and reading extensively and listening to the representations of well known responsible people from Montreal, I have come to the conclusion that this gentleman suffers a measure of injustice, and at the request of the people concerned I am bringing it to the attention to the minister in the house.
To make it as brief as possible, I am simply going to read an extract from a television program that was given in connection with this case in Montreal. I might say that before doing that, after the television program was given, which was on, I think, November 3 of last year, the gentleman in question intended to give it over the C.B.C. and he submitted the text to a lawyer. I would now like to quote from the Gazette; I am not sure of the date, but I have a cutting here:
He said he submitted the text of his speech to his lawyers before the telecast and was assured

it contained nothing libellous. All references to individuals had been removed.
Mr. Chartrand said C.B.C. lawyers would not say that the speech was libellous but they did say at the same time that it was "delicate".
He said he is not setting aside the possibility of suing the C.B.C. to obtain "freedom of speech".
At Ottawa, a C.B.C. spokesman said the corporation's own lawyers and those of the justice department had advised the C.B.C. that there was a possibility the courts might find Mr. Chartrand's statement defamatory and contemptuous. For that reason, the C.B.C. declined to broadcast the speech again.
It was in the first instance given over a television program on the C.B.C.'s network. I intend to quote only briefly from this speech given over the C.B.C. television service to indicate the nature of this complaint. To go into the details of all the correspondence and the amount of evidence which has been presented would have been impossible in the time one has on these occasions and, moreover, would be, I think, completely ineffective on my part. However, these are extracts from the television program, and I should explain that this is a translation; the telecast was given in French, and it has been translated, I may add by a gentleman who does not pretend to be a particularly efficient translator. It is headed "The Sommer case".
There Is one particular case, that of Edward Sommer who was the only son and an heir of Abraham Sommer who died September 3, 1934. Mr. Sommer left an estate of about $2 million in property at depression era values (which means they are worth much more today) and $185,000 of insurance.
Edward Sommer has been in court for many years. At a certain time, he wanted to intervene in a case that concerned this inheritance. An important judge declared on June 30 that he had already rendered judgment on June 7. Mr. Sommer wrote the judge to ask him for the judgment and he never saw it.
In other words, the court rejected a request to intervene, saying that the matter was settled. But the case is not settled, there exists no judgment.
Mr. Sommer complained to the bar. He complained against certain lawyers. The bar did not have him summoned for a hearing, but rather the lawyer whom he had blamed summoned him before the bar.
He appeared in court once more, and the judges criticized him severely from the bench.
Finally, on September 27, he appeared in court for a case. The crown prosecutor challenged him and asked the judge to have him confined for mental illness. An individual was brought forth as witness who has not proved that he was a doctor certified by the college of physicians. He decided that he had already seen him (Sommer) for several minutes in court following proceedings, and that the Mr. Sommer in question suffered from schizophrenia.
All this without Mr. Sommer being able to speak. While this was going on in French at which time he, being English, was requesting that proceedings be conducted in English and that he be permitted to cross-examine the witness, the provincial police took him and brought him to the cells at Bordeaux.
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After 12 days, he was seen by a social worker, who could not understand why he was there. After 20 days, the medical superintendent of Bordeaux came to see him and told him that he could not understand why he was there.
Then it was that some friends, who by chance found a conscientious lawyer at the court (there are some conscientious lawyers, and also conscientious judges) requested a writ of habeas corpus.
Here is what Judge Ouimet said in rendering his decision on the habeas corpus writ:
"There is no doubt in the mind of the undersigned that the regulations of article 451 were not observed in the present case, for the following reasons:
'There is no proof of a qualified medical practitioner before the judge:
The ruling of the judge is oral;
The petitioner was deprived of incontestable right to cross-examine according to the Criminal Code and the principles of natural justice.
In the opinion of the court, these substantial flaws are fatal and as a result the sending of the petitioner to prison for mental examination was invalid and of no effect.' "
Conclusion: Judge Ouimet maintained the writ of habeas corpus, declared the detention of Sommer and the deprivation of his liberty unjustified and illegal, and ordered that he be set free.
Mr. Chairman, I have quoted briefly from the telecast given on behalf of Mr. Sommer. The rest of the telecast continued in similar vein. I have quoted one extract dealing with what this gentleman claims to be a series of injustices which he has suffered at the hands of the courts of Quebec and at the hands of various gentlemen of the legal profession in Quebec. Once again, I wish to say that I have read the correspondence very carefully -a very slow and tedious task-and I have listened to the representations of responsible people who feel seriously concerned about the injustice which they say this gentleman has suffered. As I said before, I promised I would bring this matter to the attention of parliament and to the attention of this committee. I have done so, and I now urge the minister to give this matter his consideration and bring it to the attention of the attorney general of the province of Quebec.


Edmund Davie Fulton: I should like to say at the outset how much I appreciate the manner in which the hon. member for Kootenay West has raised this matter. It is a subject which the hon. member and I have discussed briefly on former occasions and in connection with which, as he knows, I have already made some inquiries. But while I appreciate the reference which was made to the inquiry in the United Kingdom, the hon. member will in turn appreciate that although we are no less concerned here we do operate under a federal system as distinct from the unitary system in the United Kingdom. Therefore I can only tell the hon. gentleman that the responsibility for making inquiries into this matter on the basis of the allegations made rests, in the first instance, with the provincial

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authorities. In saying that I must also say at once that I do not, of course, intend to suggest that the allegations are well founded. That question could only be established on the basis of such an inquiry. I have already referred this matter to the provincial authorities by whom, I understand, it has been investigated. I should like to say to the hon. member just this: I will, of course, gladly bring to the attention of the attorney general of Quebec the further remarks that he has made on this subject with the request that they be carefully considered and the matter again carefully investigated.


Erhart Regier: Mr. Chairman, there is a matter which has caused me considerable concern over many long years, and that relates to the minister's statement that we have a different system from that which prevails in the United Kingdom and that the result, in effect-and I do not want to misinterpret what the hon. gentleman said-is that this question must rest with the provincial authority.
I fail to see how we can even begin to think of a bill of rights for Canadians while we are content to have the administration of the rights of Canadians rest with the provincial authorities. I fail to see how we can even begin to advocate the introduction of a bill of rights for Canadians as Canadians and yet continue this old and outmoded idea that our rights as Canadians should be forever subject to interpretations which may be decided upon by ten different attorneys general in ten different Canadian provinces.
I feel that this is the position which has to be faced by the Canadian people. I say that either we have rights as Canadians or we do not have rights as Canadians, and if we do not have rights as Canadians we might as well be known as Newfoundlanders or Manitobans or British Columbians or anything else. I feel that the minister is leaning over backwards as have all other ministers in insisting on the prerogatives in the provincial attorneys general to enforce the rights of Canadians as Canadians.
I wish now to return to the debate that occurred in this chamber before the dinner hour. During the dinner recess I had occasion to read some correspondence and I am unable to reveal it because I have not permission to do so as I had with respect to other correspondence to which I referred. I have received correspondence from attorneys of the city of Ottawa who are complaining about there being a select list of well-known supporters of the Conservative party whose names are placed on a list for legal work for Central Mortgage and Housing Corporation or attorneys who may not be well-known as Conservatives but who are

partners in legal firms who have been known to make a donation to the Conservative election fund and thus have been placed on the preferred list while Liberal and attorneys of other political faith have been removed from that list.
The minister indicated before the dinner hour that there is no such list. He made that statement despite a letter I read into the record earlier in the day in which it was said that Central Mortgage and Housing Corporation is bound to engage attorneys who are on a list supplied by the minister's department. The minister has not yet satisfied us as to whether or not there is a list and concerning who is responsible for that list. The minister indicated a certain measure of responsibility but at the same time contradicted himself when he said there was no list. The committee is entitled to receive an adequate explanation as to whether there is a list, when it was last revised, who was advised of the revision of the list and why that revised list was not disclosed to the House of Commons in response to an order of the house dated in April that any such lists be disclosed. The order was passed in April and it is now June. There was ample time to disclose the list.
I know I have heard a lot of appeals to professional dignity but may I say it is my conviction that within the ranks of the Tories there is no such thing as professional dignity. There is purely political patronage and professional dignity has to take a secondary role.


J.-H.-Théogène Ricard: Stop crying and shut up.


Erhart Regier: I regret that a minister from British Columbia would associate himself for one moment with a matter of this kind. I expected that he would denounce this practice but he did not. He simply sought to get out from under by casting slurs at one attorney in the province of Ontario who had the guts and initiative to defend his rights as a Canadian citizen.


Some hon. Members:: Sit down.


Erhart Regier: All this attorney was asking for was that he be placed on the eligible list and if he could not be placed on the eligible list all he asked was that he be informed as to why he was removed from the eligible list of attorneys who are able to act on behalf of Central Mortgage and Housing Corporation.


An hon. Member:: Go back to the garbage.


Norman Leonard Spencer: Mr. Chairman, would the hon. member permit a question? I am quite interested in the subject matter that he has raised and I should like to ask him a question in order to clarify this subject. Inasmuch as he appears to be giving to the committee

some advice which he thinks we should follow, I would like to ask him this question. If I as a lawyer were to publicly proclaim that the hon. member does not possess the attributes required to properly represent his constituency would he then think that I had the soundness of judgment that would warrant his recommending me as a lawyer to represent Central Mortgage and Housing Corporation?


Lester Bowles Pearson: Why, of course he would!


Erhart Regier: I am very glad the hon. member asked that question. I would say that many of the men in my riding who openly advocated that I be defeated at the last election are honourable men and are worthy of appointment by any government. I do not like to see a government in office that pursues the idea that anyone who participates in election campaigns ought to be denied his rights as a Canadian citizen. I will say to the hon. member that there are as many liars in the legal profession as there are in any other profession in Canada today, if not more.


An hon. Member:: Withdraw.


Erhart Regier: No, I will not withdraw that statement. The hon. member who is asking me to do that is a farmer. I say there are more honest agriculturists in Canada than there are honest lawyers. There are a lot of lawyers in the C.C.F. movement. There are many lawyers who realize that the day is coming when human rights will take precedence over property rights.


Joseph Pierre Albert Sévigny: Order. I must remind the hon. member that at the present time we are discussing the estimates of the Department of Justice. I do not believe that subject has anything to do with the fact that there are some liars in the legal profession. I must tell the hon. member that he is completely out of order in pursuing this irrelevant discussion.


Erhart Regier: Mr. Chairman, I can assure you that I will not pursue the question of the number of liars there may be in the lawyer profession.


William Moore Benidickson: No, Mr. Chairman; the non-practising ones.


Erhart Regier: Mr. Chairman, I wish to ask the Minister of Justice a question with regard to the list referred to in the correspondence, which list the minister did not see fit to deny exists. I want to know how the list of acceptable attorneys is prepared and whether or not there was a complete revision of that list after the election of 1957 and how such a list might be made available to this committee?
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Edmund Davie Fulton: Mr. Chairman, as I explained before the dinner hour, it is one of the responsibilities of the Minister of Justice; and a responsibility which I take most seriously, to advise my colleagues as to the lawyers in various parts of Canada who may be considered qualified to represent the government of Canada either as agents of the Minister of Justice or on a individual basis to act for the agencies of the ministers concerned.
This is a matter which I take extremely seriously because I believe that the standards of legal representation and the conduct of counsel representing the government, whether as agents of the minister or as solicitors or counsel retained in individual cases, are matters of the greatest concern and importance to the public of Canada. I, therefore, take this part of my duties extremely seriously.
I explained to the hon. gentleman before dinner that with respect to the advice which I tender to my colleagues, I tender it to them as part of my duties and in a fashion which represents or forms part of that interdepartmental or interministerial discussion which is, of course, a matter privileged from being produced in the house. I believe there may have been one inaccuracy in what I said before dinner because I said that we did not supply directly to the department or agencies thereof lists of persons who may be retained. I have checked the matter since and I find that as a matter of departmental administration, where other departments, such as the Department of National Revenue particularly and one or two others, are in a position where they constantly or frequently need on short notice the services of solicitors or counsel where such counsel particularly are the agents of the Minister of Justice, there I do provide to my colleagues and through them to their departments what might be called standing lists of agents. I am at pains to ensure that the agents so nominated are proper and worthy representatives of the government of Canada and are proper persons to act as agents of the Minister of Justice.


William Moore Benidickson: That includes the Bank of Canada?


Edmund Davie Fulton: I shall refer to that matter of detail in a moment.
In regard to the other area in which I am called upon by my colleagues to advise them as to the names and qualifications of lawyers who may be retained in individual cases, I have explained this afternoon the basis upon which my assessment is made and the basis upon which I so advise my colleagues, and I have nothing to vary or retract in that connection. I shall, however, amplify what I said then by saying that I do take pains,

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in consultation with my advisers, to ensure that the character, qualifications and reputation of those whom I recommend are of the very highest order. As I explained this afternoon, such advice is given to the ministers of the other departments.
With respect to the point my hon. friend tries to make out of the fact that the general counsel or general solicitor of C.M.H.C. had written a letter saying that they confine their selection to the lists provided by the Department of Justice, there is some technical inaccuracy there with which I do not quarrel, my point being that I do not provide directly to C.M.H.C. as such any lists.


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh.


Edmund Davie Fulton: My responsibility is to advise my colleague the Minister of Public Works and there is a close connection between my office and his office in that connection.


William Moore Benidickson: You advise the Minister of Public Works?


Edmund Davie Fulton: Certainly, and as my hon.
friend knows, it is the constitutional responsibility of the Minister of Justice to advise the other departments of government as to legal problems that might arise. I trust this is a complete explanation of the manner in which this advice is given.
Since this matter has been raised in connection with the position of a particular lawyer in a manner which I regret and in the manner in which my hon. friend has raised it again, it makes it incumbent upon me to state the facts as to the qualifications which I believe to be present with respect to any lawyer whom I shall recommend to my colleagues. I feel I have no option, in the light of the correspondence that was read this afternoon and in the light of what has just been said by my hon. friend, but to lay before the committee some of the ethical standards which are supposed to be followed by lawyers and which I look for in any lawyer before I will recommend him as a suitable representative or lawyer to be retained by this government or its agencies. The committee will remember that there was read into the record this afternoon by my hon. friend the letter from me to Mr. Freeman in which I pointed out that in my view a matter which I would take into consideration in assessing the qualifications of a solicitor was whether or not he made direct or implied threats as to what he would do if he was not given certain work.
My hon. friend will recall and the committee will also recall that there was placed on the record references to correspondence which established perfectly clearly that Mr. Freeman had been carrying on a campaign

by which he attempted to assert his right to be retained by the government of Canada, his right to have business from the government of Canada. Let me read to the committee from the proceedings of the fifth annual meeting of the Canadian Bar Association, held in 1920, in the course of which they laid down certain canons of ethics. These, I believe, have been revised from time to time, but I am informed that in substance and in effect these canons of ethics are still those which the bar association has said should govern the conduct of members of the profession. I read from page 264, the duty of a solicitor or lawyer to himself, subparagraph (3):
The publication or circulation of ordinary simple business cards is not per se improper but solicitation of business by circulars or advertisements or by personal communications or interviews not warranted by personal relations, is unprofessional. It is equally unprofessional to seek retainers through agents of any kind. Indirect advertisement for business by furnishing or inspiring newspaper comment concerning causes in which the lawyer has been or is connected, or concerning the manner of their conduct, the magnitude of the interests involved, the importance of the lawyer's position, and like self-laudations defy the traditions and lower the tone of the lawyer's high calling, should not be tolerated. The best advertisement for a lawyer is establishment of a well merited reputation for personal capacity and fidelity to trust.
I can only repeat what I said this afternoon, Mr. Chairman-


Erhart Regier: Are you laying a charge?


Mr. Winch:: Are you laying a charge?


Edmund Davie Fulton: -that, on the basis of the correspondence which my hon. friend introduced into the record of this house and on the basis of my opinion as expressed in that correspondence at the time, formulated as it then was and still is, on the basis of what I regard to be the standard of ethics which should be followed by solicitors, I have no reason to change my opinion that the gentleman in question should not be placed upon the list for the receipt of government business.


Harold Edward Winch: Will you lay a charge against Freeman?


Edmund Davie Fulton: I say that as the minister merely exercising his constitutional advisability to advise his colleagues as to who are proper lawyers for them to retain.


John Whitney Pickersgill: Just insinuation and innuendo.


William Moore Benidickson: Mr. Chairman, the Minister of Justice enunciated or repeated the enunciation of the Canadian Bar Association in convention in 1920 as to the proper ethics for a barrister or solicitor. Has he since

assuming office received from any member of the Canadian Bar Association, or on behalf of any member of the Canadian Bar Association, representations that seem to be in contravention of the ethics enunciated there? If so, has he in any respect given any work to any of these people as a result of representations of this kind?


Edmund Davie Fulton: The answer to both parts of the question is no, with the possible exception of the case under discussion.


Erhart Regier: I cannot let the ministers statement go. He said that Mr. Freeman is carrying on a campaign. May I remind the minister that all of the correspondence reveals that Mr. Freeman, in a completely ethical manner, appealed to the government without success, I regret to say, for a period in excess of a year and a half to explain why he had been removed from the list of those eligible to act on behalf of Central Mortgage and Housing Corporation and all the answers he received over the whole 18 months indicated very clearly that the only reason he had been removed from the list was that he was not a Conservative and had not acted on behalf of the Tory party candidate.


Edmund Davie Fulton: That is quite inaccurate. There were placed on the record this afternoon the reply directed to Mr. Freeman by my executive assistant and the reply of myself both of which explain that there are an adequate number of lawyers in St. Catharines to do the work available and, further, that since one of Mr. Freeman's revealed interests in being nominated as an agent of C.M.H.C. was that he had clients who had loans from C.M.H.C. we felt this was an incompatible position, and that was another reason for our refusal to place him on the list.


Erhart Regier: I think the dates of the correspondence will reveal that this was only an example used by Mr. Freeman to prove a point away on in the discussions and the minister is on very weak ground because he cannot claim and has not even attempted to claim that the lawyers who are on the list do not also have clients who have a nodding acquaintance with Central Mortgage and Housing Corporation. I think that the letters of the hon. member for Lincoln completely expose all the contentions of the minister in this regard. In other words, if you will change your mind about me I might change my mind about you and you might still get on the list.
I appeal to the minister to end this nonsense, to be as honest as a number of other members of the government have been and to announce here and now that in his department at least no pork barrel politics are going to be tolerated. I indicated earlier that it is
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not only this lawyer in southern Ontario who is involved. During the dinner hour I read reams of correspondence from lawyers in the city of Ottawa confirming what I said before six o'clock, that when the Tories took office they abolished the old list and established a new one consisting only of Conservatives.
The minister has not yet said why Mr. Freeman was removed from the list of eligible lawyers. I am not concerned with him being read out of the Ontario bar association. If the Ontario bar association wants to be that reactionary and silly that is entirely up to them. All I can say is that all the mutterings and beefings of the Tory backbenchers about unions will be completely exposed as a farce if the Ontario bar association shows itself to be the most reactionary of all unions in the whole Dominion of Canada.
Mr. Freeman is appealing to the parliament of Canada on the basis of his right as a citizen of Canada to be placed on the eligible list. He is not asking for any business or any guarantee of remuneration. The minister may laugh and in the eyes of the Tories this may be a laughing matter. After all, they put on a great big circus show in the election financed by millions of dollars. This man is appealing on the basis of his right as a citizen to be placed on the eligible list. The minister is denying him that right and the minister has not yet put forward one single argument as to why this man was removed from the list of lawyers in the province of Ontario who are eligible to do this work. I should like to ask the minister to explain why this man was removed from the list. The minister now claims that the fact that Mr. Freeman has revealed this situation to the opposition obviously shows that he is ineligible. To my mind the fact that this man has revealed the situation to opposition members shows that he is concerned with a bill of rights for Canadians, and any bill of rights that the Prime Minister will introduce will be a farce if there is going to be a continuation of pork barrel politics.


William Heward Grafftey: Pompous indignation.


Azellus Denis: Mr. Chairman, we have had a rather lengthy discussion about Mr. Freeman's eligibility. If Mr. Freeman had no freedom of eligibility, surely we have freedom of speech here, and one can come to the conclusion that Mr. Freeman had freedom more or less so far as eligibility is concerned. To me it looks like it was a question of patronage. What the hon. member has just said goes to prove to the committee that before the election those who are now in power criticized the former government for patronage but now they are doing the same, if not worse as the previous government.

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J.-H.-Théogène Ricard: So you were doing it then.


Azellus Denis: I rose just to ask one question of the Minister of Justice. I am very surprised not to see his assistant, the Solicitor General, who should be here because, although he has no ministry of his own, although he has no job to do because he was replaced by a kind of commission, still in the estimates of the Minister of Justice there is an item which concerns the Solicitor General. There is a statutory item of $17,000 but maybe the Solicitor General does not care and is not interested because we cannot lower the amount. I should like to know from the Minister of Justice if the Solicitor General is still in office and still has a job to do since the inauguration of the new commission. We do not see much of him, especially when his department is to be discussed.
I am told by many members of the government that they are checking the number of speeches made in the house but without checking anything we know that the Solicitor General is not so loquacious as the previous speaker who dealt with the Freeman matter. The Minister of Justice has invited us to ask questions or make observations before he makes a general statement, and we would like to know what is left to the Solicitor General as far as his job is concerned. Is he interested in this new unemployment insurance scheme extending the benefits he will get from 36 weeks to 52 weeks? We do not know.


Joseph Pierre Albert Sévigny: Order-


Azellus Denis: I should like, Mr. Chairman, just in passing-


Joseph Pierre Albert Sévigny: Order; I must remind the hon. member that we are at present discussing the estimates of the Department of Justice and it is out of order to discuss the actions of the Solicitor General or of any other member of the Department of Justice. At the moment, we must confine our remarks to matters that touch upon the administration of justice.


John Whitney Pickersgill: On the point of order-


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh.


John Whitney Pickersgill: -surely, the salary of the Solicitor General, which is a statutory item, is shown under the heading of the Department of Justice in the blue book. Surely when my hon. friend is seeking to find out what functions, if any, the Solicitor General performs, he is seeking to find out how the Department of Justice is administered.


Azellus Denis: Exactly; that is the question I wanted to ask the Minister of Justice. However, I have had a bad example from him and

from the other hon. member who has just taken his seat, in making lengthy statements. What are the functions of the Solicitor General, now that some of his duties have been removed from him?


Edmund Davie Fulton: Now that the hon. member has come to his question and has refrained from making these rather light remarks about his colleague from Quebec, the Solicitor General, I can tell him that the functions of the Solicitor General still relate to advising His Excellency with respect to the prerogative of mercy, with respect to pardons and remissions which are under the royal prerogative, and advising on capital cases.


Azellus Denis: May I ask-


Edmund Davie Fulton: The functions of the Solicitor General have not been altered that substantially from what they were under the previous administration, when his salary was not questioned.


Azellus Denis: Far from questioning the salary of the Solicitor General, I may say that the previous solicitor general had more to do than the present holder of that office. Most of his duties have been taken away from him since the commission has been established. He may do some other job in this department, but I am surprised that he is not here because, after all, he is working for the Department of Justice. If he is an adviser to the department, why is he not here? Perhaps he has something to do with the new definition of obscene literature or something, we do not know.


Edmund Davie Fulton: No, the answer, Mr. Chairman, as the hon. member well knows in spite of what he is saying is that the Minister of Justice is responsible for the administration of the Department of Justice. The Minister of Justice is here to answer questions that may be asked with respect to the administration of his department. If my hon. friend will confine himself to asking questions instead of casting needless slurs, I shall be glad to answer his questions.


Lester Bowles Pearson: The Solicitor General's functions obviously have not increased, which makes- it perhaps more surprising that under this item we find, whereas the department was able to do with 117 employees last year, this year they find it necessary to have 133. Why has there been this increase in staff?


Edmund Davie Fulton: The answer, Mr. Chairman, is that the number of personnel in the department has been increased. The comparison with last year is as follows:	In the office
of the Minister of Justice there are 10 persons as opposed to 11 last year; in the office of the Solicitor General, there are 7 as

opposed to 7 last year; in the legal branch of the department, there are 116 as opposed to 103 last year. The increase, therefore, is mainly accounted for by the increased number of persons in the legal branch of the department.


Lester Bowles Pearson: Page 216 of the blue book shows that there has been an addition during the last year of nine stenographers. Would the minister account for the necessity of having nine more stenographers?


Edmund Davie Fulton: Mainly because of the increased volume of work.


John Whitney Pickersgill: Can the minister explain why it takes from March 25 to June 18 not to produce a return for which this house has asked with these nine extra stenographers to do it?


Edmund Davie Fulton: I do not bother my departmental staff with that kind of thing for which the hon. member for Bonavista-Twillingate asked; that is prepared in the minister's office and is ready for tabling now.


John Whitney Pickersgill: This is the most preposterous statement that has been made by any member on the treasury benches since this government took office. What I referred to was an order of this house, of parliament itself, and this is the government that is upholding the rights of parliament. The answer is, I do not bother the department with what parliament desires; it is done in the spare time in the minister's office when they are not busy writing letters to Mr. Freeman, or whatever his name is. This is an absolutely outrageous attitude, and indicates quite clearly why parliament is not getting from this department what parliament has ordered.


Edmund Davie Fulton: If the hon. member can show me any way in which he has suffered by the fact that the return is not yet brought down I shall be interested. I point out to you that I pay attention to the orders of the house, which is something different from when my hon. friend's government was in power. What my hon. friend asked for in the return which he-


John Whitney Pickersgill: I did not order it, parliament ordered it.


Edmund Davie Fulton: -now mentions was the reproduction of a number of personal letters exchanged between private individuals and the Minister of Justice. My department is not overstaffed. Many of the officers of the department are working overtime. We have not too many stenographers. The hon. member was interested in getting his return in
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time for the discussion of my estimates, and he will have it in time for the discussion of my estimates. It has been prepared, in so far as I was able to see it could be done, without interference with the responsibilities of my department for the administration of justice in the interests of the people of Canada.


John Whitney Pickersgill: I might point out that the minister is, of course, completely in error in saying that when I was a minister I did not comply with the orders of the house. He can examine the record any time he wishes and he will find that on very few occasions was there more careful compliance with these orders than during the period when Mr. St. Laurent was prime minister. The matter was reviewed by Mr. St. Laurent himself regularly, once a week, because of the great respect he did show for parliament.
I might say also that a motion was made by me to have a return from the Prime Minister as well as from the Minister of Justice, and although the Prime Minister's staff is a great deal smaller than the staff of the Minister of Justice the return was made by the Prime Minister over a month ago and we are still waiting for the return from the Minister of Justice.


Lester Bowles Pearson: The minister used to talk a great deal about elimination of waste and extravagance and the unnecessary number of civil servants, so will he explain to the committee, as he has not yet explained, why it is necessary to have nine extra stenographers to do the work done by a smaller number a couple of years ago?


Edmund Davie Fulton: One of the reasons is that we have taken on, in order to bring our establishment to what has always been agreed to be what we should have, but what we have not yet reached, some seven extra legal officers. I do not expect that the Leader of the Opposition would expect legal officers to function without stenographers, and that is one reason why the extra stenographers were necessary. In addition, I am assured by my officers that there has been a substantial increase in the volume of work and correspondence coming into the department and we are anxious to keep abreast of the work in order that people may receive immediate replies to their correspondence so that their problems and requests may be dealt with as expeditiously as possible.


Lester Bowles Pearson: Will the minister point out where on page 216, which I have before me, which is the details of departmental administration, the seven extra legal officers mentioned on that page appear under departmental administration?

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Edmund Davie Fulton: I think there may be an error of one in my figures. If my hon. friend looks at page 216 he will see that there are 17 senior advisory counsel as opposed to 16, 11 advisory counsel as opposed to 10, 3 advisory counsel grade 1 as opposed to 1. That accounts, I think, for an increase of four. I am told that one administrative officer grade 5 is a lawyer.


Lester Bowles Pearson: He is an administrative
officer.


Edmund Davie Fulton: That makes an increase of
five. Each one of those five requires a stenographer. I am told there are in addition two stenographers to take care of the extra work in two other sections; the extra work which, as I said, is accumulating and which is in part reflected by the addition of the five extra lawyers on the staff.


Lester Bowles Pearson: On the same page there is a new appointment, an assistant private secretary. He appears in this list as private secretary to the Solicitor General. Is this assistant private secretary to the Solicitor General a new appointment?


Edmund Davie Fulton: No; that is an assistant private secretary to the Minister of Justice.


Lester Bowles Pearson: And that is a new
appointment?


Edmund Davie Fulton: That is correct.


William Moore Benidickson: An extra item of expense.


Mr. Richard (Ottawa East):: Mr. Chairman, this gives me the opportunity to renew my annual plea to the Minister of Justice to set the wheels going to amend the Expropriation Act, or to study the Expropriation Act. As I have said before, the Expropriation Act in itself is an abrogation of civil rights and should be used sparingly. The Expropriation Act as it stands on our statute books now is very old. It was designed in the first place for strict government use in the days when it was first passed. For example, it was used for the expropriation of land for post offices, defence projects, etc. Over a number of years now the Expropriation Act has been used for various purposes for which it was not originally intended. That is why the provisions of the original Expropriation Act act unfairly toward the people whose property is expropriated. There are many cases of that. For example, I have brought this before the house many times, the case of land expropriated for parks or other purposes for the federal district commission.
I spoke to the Minister of Justice about this some time ago and he intimated to me that something was being done about the Expropriation Act. I might say, of course,
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that I am not alone; there is enough correspondence I am sure with the Minister of Justice. There are also articles in the bar reviews and judgments of the exchequer court and other courts, all of which complain of the growing use of the Expropriation Act and the restricted clauses which do not define properly the basis upon which a value should be placed of lands which are expropriated. Therefore, without saying very much, I know the Minister of Justice knows what I am talking about. He appreciates, having read the bar reviews and the articles and judgments I have referred to, that something should be done with regard to the Expropriation Act to re-define it according to better modern usage.


Edmund Davie Fulton: I might tell the hon. member that we have been studying the Expropriation Act within the department and we have now got to the point where it has become necessary for us to circularize other departments concerned. We have written all the other departments concerned and are awaiting their replies. As soon as their replies are received we shall be able to move our own studies forward.


Mr. Roberge:: Mr. Chairman, on that question of the increase in staff in the office of the Solicitor General, I should like to refer the question to the Minister of Justice. I assure the minister that I am doing so not at all in the way of anti-friendship for the Solicitor General. On the contrary, the hon. Solicitor General is the only schoolmate I have in this house, and we were received at the bar in the same year and I have high regard for him. But I would like to know if possible the breakdown of the personnel working in this office of the Solicitor General.


Edmund Davie Fulton: I will obtain that and give the hon. gentleman a detailed reply before the estimates are carried.


Mr. Mcllrailh:: I would like to ask the Minister of Justice when he is dealing with the subject of expropriation if he would examine into the reason for the delays in his department in the handling of payments after settlement is made on land purchases through the national capital commission. I may tell him that there has been a considerable extension of the time required to make payment of those settlements after they leave the national capital commission and before they are received in the hands of his agents who actually deal with the closing out of the transactions. Would he look into that matter and seek to rectify it?


Edmund Davie Fulton: If my hon. friend would be prepared to give me details, either here or privately, I would be very glad indeed to look into any such case.


George James McIlraith: The sort of thing which happens is that after a cheque is issued by the national capital commission it usually takes two weeks from the time it leaves that office until it is received by the minister's agent who turns it over to the person to be paid. That delay is wholly abnormal because at that time the department have no fiduciary duties in connection with it. The duties of the department have ceased after the cheque is issued, the necessary certificates are issued and the other preparatory work is done. There has been an extension in the time taken after the Department of Justice is advised of a settlement and the agent of the department is instructed to clear up the transaction. In these two parts of the transaction there is a considerable delay, and it is working a real hardship on the persons concerned because, as the minister knows, where there is not possession the crown does not pay interest and in the few cases where it does pay interest the interest is at 5 per cent and the cost of borrowing money is much greater at this time to the person concerned. If a settlement has been reached, they are entitled to the money, and it is their money which is being unduly withheld when there is any improper delay.


Edmund Davie Fulton: I should be very much concerned if there were any improper delay, and I hope that if the hon. gentleman knows of any cases of improper delay he will bring them to my attention. I understand he had some conversation with the officials of my department a year ago when he was requested to supply particulars of any cases he had in mind. However, I am advised that he has not so far given us particulars of any such delays.


George James McIlraith: I should be very glad to give particulars of these cases to the minister.


Erhart Regier: I wonder if the minister will now admit whether or not there is an official list of attorneys being supplied to the Central Mortgage and Housing Corporation as a guide to whom they may or may not employ to do legal work.


Edmund Davie Fulton: I think that question should be directed to my colleague the Minister of Public Works because, as I have explained twice already, such recommendations as I may make are made, as must always be the case, to the minister under whose authority an agency such as the Central Mortgage and Housing Corporation works.
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Erhart Regier: I must say that in view of the admissions the minister has made during the past couple of hours his answer is not exactly adequate.


Edmund Davie Fulton: It is the third time I have answered the same thing.


Erhart Regier: The minister has admitted that he makes recommendations. We are not sure to whom he makes these recommendations or why or on what ground he makes them. May I ask the minister why he makes recommendations if he knows nothing of a list of eligible attorneys in the possession of Central Mortgage and Housing Corporation? Why does he make any recommendations whatever?


Edmund Davie Fulton: I make them because, as I understand it, it is my constitutional responsibility to do so.


Erhart Regier: In other words, I take it the minister admits that there is a list of eligible attorneys.


Edmund Davie Fulton: If the hon. member is unable to understand the situation I do not think there is anything further that I can say. I have explained this three times already, and if the hon. gentleman cannot understand it I regret I am unable to contribute to the clarification of his mind.


Erhart Regier: I know the minister well enough to know that he will regret those words on reflection. I also know his sen-sivity when it comes to political considerations. The minister knows very well indeed, and has in effect admitted, that there is in existence a list of eligible attorneys. I am not going to blame the minister. In fact I feel sympathy for the minister, and most of the Canadian people have a good deal of sympathy for the hon. gentleman and cannot understand why he has been kept under wraps and not allowed to expose himself and all his potentialities. However, there is such a list in existence-


An hon. Member:: You have said that before.


Erhart Regier: I know I have said it before. Some of the Conservatives need to be told a lot of things time and time again because they are so deaf that they will not hear. The minister admits that there is a list and that he makes recommendations to that list. I should like to ask the minister as to the basis upon which he makes his recommendations. He has spoken of such a basis, and the correspondence makes reference to such a basis. On what basis are members of the bar removed from the list and on what basis are others added to the list?

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Edmund Davie Fulton: I think perhaps I should refer to this question of the removal of lawyers from the list. It might interest hon. members to know that when I took office as Minister of Justice I inquired as to who were the solicitors who were considered by the department to be qualified professionally to perform services for the government of Canada, because I was taking over a new department and, as the hon. gentleman will appreciate, at very short notice. I was assured that there had been left in my department no lists of solicitors or lawyers. They must have been removed, and there was absolutely nothing to which I could look for guidance concerning qualified lawyers to work for the government of Canada. It was therefore necessary for me to start from the beginning to compile with my officers a list of qualified lawyers.
I can assure the hon. member that contrary to what he has suggested there have been a number of cases in which lawyers retained by the former government have continued to work for the present government. However, as I have said, I did consider it necessary to exercise my responsibility as to the advice I tender to my colleagues regarding whether a lawyer is qualified to work for a department or for an agency.
It does not follow, of course, that of those I have recommended certain persons must be used. That is the responsibility of my colleagues. After all, this is a government which believes in the doctrine of collective responsibility. I do not seek to question my colleagues as to how they administer their departments, and the details of questions such as the hon. member is pursuing must come, if they can be produced at all, from the ministers of the departments to whom I make my recommendations. As I said, these recommendations are matters of discussion between ministers or between ministers' offices and I do not consider it is any part of my responsibility to give details of the advice I have tendered to my colleagues. Indeed, as the hon. member well knows, it would be improper for me to do so.


Erhart Regier: Now I think the minister has been very plain and I should like to express my appreciation of his honesty in this regard. The minister is now saying, in effect, that he does not make any recommendations to any crown corporation as to what attorneys they may or may not engage. All he does is make recommendations to other members of the government, and I hope not too many of the backbenchers will regard themselves as members of the government as is the case so often over the airwaves of the nation.

There are only a certain number of members of the government. The minister says he makes recommendations to his colleagues in the government. May I ask him how many departments of government he supplies with such recommendations concerning who should or should not be regarded as an agreeable attorney to act on behalf of the government?


Edmund Davie Fulton: I think from time to time practically every department has occasion to request from the Department of Justice recommendations as to lawyers.


Erhart Regier: Has the minister at any time recommended to the Minister of Public Works that certain attorneys who were previously on the list of Central Mortgage and Housing Corporation be removed from the list?


Edmund Davie Fulton: Mr. Chairman, as I explained to my hon. friend I am not free, of course, to disclose the advice I give to my colleagues and as I have also previously explained every list that was in force previously was removed and I did not find any list when I came in as Minister of Justice.


Erhart Regier: In other words, then, I can safely assume that the minister abolished all appointments of the former government and made a list of his own making sure they would all be Conservatives?


Edmund Davie Fulton: Not at all, Mr. Chairman. I have already explained to my hon. friend that the former government removed its lists when it left office.


John Whitney Pickersgill: How do you know that?


Edmund Davie Fulton: That question does not require an answer.


John Whitney Pickersgill: That is insinuation and innuendo.


William Heward Grafftey: And what we hear from you is self righteous indignation.


Frank Howard: I wonder if I might deal with an entirely different subject matter from the one we have been discussing?


An hon. Member:: That is good.


Frank Howard: I wish to deal with the question of narcotic addiction, the problem of drug addicts and the effect they have on society and our penal institutions. The number of narcotic addicts in Canada is open to estimate but I am sure there are many hundreds the great preponderance of whom reside in or around the lower mainland portion of British Columbia.
Arising out of the need of a narcotic addict to secure money with which to purchase illegal drugs on the black market stems the problem of crime which expresses itself in the forms of breaking and entering, petty theft

and shoplifting among others. It is not that drug addicts become mentally unstable and develop criminal tendencies but they require money to purchase drugs.
Related to the problem of drug addiction is the impact on our society. Young people become addicted to drugs and are milked and bled for every cent they have by those who get them addicted. Drug pushers also lead girls into drug addiction and persuade them to engage in prostitution to earn money to purchase drugs and the drug pushers profit from this. Young people are led into drug addiction in order that they will turn to theft and crime in order to obtain money to buy drugs. In addition to this there is the misery of the addict who may have to spend many years behind bars and the misery that comes to his family and children. All of this adds up to a pretty sad picture in our society.
Perhaps we should examine the approach that has been adopted in the past toward this entire problem by law enforcement officers, the R.C.M.P. and the Canadian government. The previous government attempted to establish laws relating to the possession and use of narcotics. For many years we in Canada have adopted an attitude similar to that adopted in the United States with respect to this question and have tended to impose jail sentences and fines upon narcotic addicts. Sentences have ranged from a few months in a provincial jail to several years in federal institutions.


Charles Edward Rea: Order. Would hon. members behind the curtains lower their voices because it is difficult to hear the hon. member who has the floor.


J.-H.-Théogène Ricard: And he is so much less
interesting.


Frank Howard: I was saying that the tendency has been to impose jail sentences on narcotic users. This has been our attitude in Canada for a number of years. Apparently it has failed to have a deterrent effect on people continuing to maintain themselves as drug addicts, many of whom continue after release from jail, some of whom on the very day of their release seek out a source of morphine or heroin in order to get back on the habit again. Proof of the failure of our past approach is found in the steadily increasing number of drug addicts, many of whom are drawn from among teenage groups of high school age. The time is ripe for a new approach to the problem of drug addiction.
One of the first things that could be done would be to eliminate the free enterpriser in his worst state; that is, to eliminate the profit question from drugs. If possession of drugs was not illegal black market drugs that sell at exorbitant prices could be abolished. There
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would be no need for addicts to commit crimes in order to get money to buy drugs. The tendency for drug pushers to get younger people hooked or addicted to drugs in order to lead them into a life of crime or prostitution so they could reap profits from this would not exist. We might be able to tackle the problem in a better way than we have in the past.
Shortly after coming into office the Minister of Justice made some public comments outlining his ideas concerning drug addiction and the need for approaching the problem from a fresh and humane viewpoint different from the approach that was used in the past. We commend the minister on expressing those views, those ideas and those hopes about having a different official and statutory policy in so far as drug addicts are concerned. I would certainly-I am sure many others would also-appreciate very much if at this stage the minister was able to give the committee an up to date account of the development of his ideas and his thoughts in so far as the establishment of drug clinics, hospitals or similar institutions for drug addicts are concerned, and also express, if he is able to do so, his thought as to when we might see the formal establishment of such institutions or the formal arrangement, whether it be in a statutory form or a regulatory one, which will be entered into in order to put this new approach or this different attitude into effect.


Edmund Davie Fulton: Mr. Chairman, this is one of those fields in which I have to admit frankly I am not able to report as much progress as I should like to be able to and as I am sure the committee would like to hear. I recognize that every time my estimates have been up since I assumed responsibility for this department I have described in general terms some of the ideas which I hoped we would be able to put into practice in connection with the treatment of drug addicts in so far as those addicts have fallen foul of the criminal law.
I must say that while I realized this was a big problem, I find it is an even bigger one than perhaps I had taken account of at the time that I made this first statement. In saying this I do not mean to say for a moment that we are discouraged or are adopting the attitude that there is nothing we can do about it because I believe there is something we can do about it. I am simply trying to confess that I find the problems to be overcome, indeed the differences of opinion to be reconciled and the thinking and research to be done, are of a very considerable nature.
I can, however, state by way of perhaps some definite encouragement that the question of the treatment of narcotic addicts who have

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been sentenced under the criminal law is a subject which was assigned specifically to the correctional planning committee. It is one to which they have been giving some thought and which they have been discussing with the penal authorities and those responsible for reform measures in other countries which they have visited. They have, as a matter of fact, recommended to me that we in a way stop thinking about this, that we definitely take no steps until they have concluded their studies and have had time to sit down and bring in a specific recommendation as to how what you might call the philosophy in regard to treatment of drug addicts should be framed and then as to how the physical aspects of the program for their treatment and rehabilitation should be fitted in with the other parts of the new penal program on which it is their responsibility to make recommendations.
While I am anxious to make progress as rapidly as possible, I must say that I have been impressed with the reasoning, with the sense of the suggestions made by the correctional planning committee. Therefore, I do not expect that I shall be able to report any further specific progress until such time as I have had the report of that committee and had time to consider it in conjunction with the R.C.M. Police and the Department of National Health and Welfare, all of whom have views and responsibilities in this field of narcotics.


Frank Howard: I certainly appreciate the comments of the minister. I know from listening to what he said before on this particular subject matter that this is as correct and as proper an approach as can be taken at the present time, rather than to go into something as a half way measure and then have to back up after going in an incorrect or a wrong direction. It is gratifying to know that the minister still says, and I am sure he will continue to say this because of his knowledge, that in positive treatment there is a solution and not to give up even though the problem looks almost insurmountable. It looks extremely difficult now and we should not say that we cannot cope with it, that there is no solution. To say that would be to admit defeat beforehand. I wonder whether in this regard the minister might give some indication as to when he expects the correctional planning committee will complete its studies and finalize its report, maybe not its complete report but just in so far as the question of narcotic treatment is concerned?


Edmund Davie Fulton: The target has been set for the complete and final report of the committee at the end of this year. I expect to receive interim reports from them at the end of this

month, they having completed their travels and studies abroad. Then they will be working on their reports. I expect to receive interim reports and the over-all final report just about at the end of this year, and I have no suggestion that the target date will have to be set back.


Frank Howard: There is another problem with respect to narcotics that I should like to deal with and these are specific matters. The minister will recall that some time ago, during the early part of March or the latter part of April-I am not sure of the exact date-I posed a question to him with respect to a newspaper article arising out of a court case in Vancouver to the effect that a Mr. Jack Webster of radio station CKNW had been able to purchase a hypodermic needle kit, specially prepared and set up for use by addicts. This was not a fully complete hypodermic syringe, but just the bare necessities for a drug addict, a do-it-yourself kit, as it has been commonly referred to. In answer to my question the minister mentioned that he would undertake to have the question studied to see what could be done to prevent druggists or drug stores from selling this type of paraphernalia obviously prepared for sale to drug addicts and drug addicts only and not bought in any sense by people who may have to take hypodermic injections of insulin or cortisone or some other drugs for physical ailments.
Also, in so far as drugs are concerned, I hold in my hand a clipping from the Globe and Mail of April 16 which contains the heading, "Bogus Bill Ring Deals in Drugs". It refers to the seizure by the R.C.M. Police of about 1,200 counterfeit $10 bills from towns across Quebec. The thought expressed in the article was that these bills were being counterfeited and passed and that there was a connection between this counterfeiting ring and the sale and distribution of drugs. Can the minister indicate whether there has been any further investigation or has he anything further to report on this particular item?
My third point has to do with an incident which took place in the latter part of April, at which time a guard was apprehended in Kingston penitentiary on the charge of being in possession of narcotics, purportedly or presumably for sale to inmates who were narcotic addicts and who were in the penitentiary at Kingston. Is the minister able to recount at this stage what has happened in this particular case, both in so far as the guard is concerned, as to whether any of the inmates were discovered to have used narcotics around that period of time and whether any disciplinary action was taken against the inmates.


Edmund Davie Fulton: Mr. Chairman, I am afraid I have to give the answer with respect to these three questions that I will be in a better position to answer them on a later item in the estimates. With regard to the first one, the sale of what I believe are called do-it-yourself kits by certain drug stores in Vancouver, I referred that matter to the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. I have had a report from them but I have not got it before me because that will be coming forward when the R.C.M.P. item is under consideration. I recall there was a report to the effect that the matter had been dealt with in some positive way but I am afraid I would only be guessing if I tried to recall what it was and I would rather not answer until we reach the police item.
The same answer applies to the question as to the connection between counterfeiters and drug pushers. That is a matter on which I would have to get information from the police.
With respect to the guard in the penitentiary who, as I recall it, was charged with trafficking, I am advised that he was prosecuted and has just been acquitted of the criminal charge on the ground that there was no criminal intent proven. It was not proven that he knew what he was receiving and what it was that he was supposed to be passing on. The matter of disciplinary action against him within the penitentiary itself has not been yet determined because the report of his acquittal has only just come in. I will be able to discuss the matter more fully when the penitentiaries item is before us.


Frank Howard: I assume that inmates in the penitentiary may have received some of the narcotics that were being transmitted and I wondered whether any of the inmates had been discovered to be in possession of or to have used narcotics around that time and what disciplinary action, if any, has been taken so far as these inmates are concerned?


Edmund Davie Fulton: That is a matter on which I asked for a report from the commissioner of penitentiaries. I am expecting that he will bring it with him when that item is reached in the estimates.


John Whitney Pickersgill: Mr. Chairman, first I
want to remind the minister of that classic statement made by the Minister of Finance in June of 1957 when he told the country how much he was going to save the taxpayers of Canada by eliminating waste and extravagance in all departments of government. In view of the fact that the minister's estimates this year for his department, to say nothing of the R.C.M.P., are increased
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by almost $3 million I think it would be interesting if the minister would tell us precisely what waste and extravagance has been eliminated by the Minister of Finance in the Department of Justice.


Edmund Davie Fulton: Mr. Chairman, I can say by way of a general reply that we have made every attempt in the department to keep our expenditures down to a minimum and particularly to avoid any increases but we have been faced with the necessity of dealing, as I have said, with a considerably increased volume of work. I have just sent out now, for instance, for the figure as to the increase in the number of pieces of mail received in the department since I took office compared with the years when my predecessor had the responsibility because I know that the comparison shows quite a startling and definite increase in the volume of correspondence and, of course, if you get more correspondence you have to have people to deal with it. Some of the increases, and I shall be glad to deal with the specific increases when we reach the items-


John Whitney Pickersgill: Perhaps I could save the minister time. He did not answer my question. In my question I did not ask the minister to justify the increases. I asked the minister to tell us specifically what items of waste and extravagance had been eliminated.


Edmund Davie Fulton: Perhaps if the hon. member would tell me what items of waste and extravagance there were under the former administration I would be able to answer his question. I can assure him every such item has been eliminated.


John Whitney Pickersgill: And it did not take 20 minutes to do it in the minister's department either because there was none there. Anybody who knows the minister's predecessor and his record of thrift and care with respect to public moneys will know perfectly well that there was no waste and extravagance. I suspected that answer would be given.


Edmund Davie Fulton: I do not know what the hon. member is working himself into such a heat about.


John Whitney Pickersgill: I am not at all heated. I just want the minister to hear. I want there to be no doubt that he does hear me. One of the many grounds as a result of which these gentlemen are now occupying the treasury benches is that they told the people of Canada they were going to eliminate half a billion dollars of waste and extravagance from the expenditures of the government of Canada. We know that they have increased these expenditures by a great deal more

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than half a billion dollars, and up to the present time, whenever I have been present since 1957 when the estimates of any department have been under consideration, I have asked this one question.


Mr. Bell (Saint John-Alberi):: One question?


John Whitney Pickersgill: We have yet to have from any minister one single example of any waste and extravagance in any department, such as hon. gentlemen opposite were so fond of talking about, in the two years they have been in office. I simply wanted to underline that point again.


Edmund Davie Fulton: You see, Mr. Chairman, we in the Department of Justice have not been a big building department so we did not build the printing bureau but if it had been under my administration I would have been able to indicate to the hon. gentleman the type of example of waste and extravagance that has been eliminated.


John Whitney Pickersgill: The hon. gentleman does a good deal of building in his department. If I am not mistaken, he does do a good deal of building throughout the country. Would the hon. gentleman tell me of any extravagance in the building done by his department?


Edmund Davie Fulton: My department does not do a great deal of building. I do not know what the hon. gentleman has in mind. There are some penitentiaries under construction and we will be able to discuss them under the penitentiaries item if my hon. friend wishes.


John Whitney Pickersgill: I notice that the minister is evading the question.


Edmund Davie Fulton: The matter can be discussed at the proper time.


Gabriel Roberge: In the details on page 216 there is an item for publication of departmental reports and other materials and there is an increase of $20,000 over last year. What is this for?


Edmund Davie Fulton: I am sorry, I did not hear.


Gabriel Roberge: On page 216 there is an item for publication of departmental reports and other material and there is an increase of $20,000 over last year. What are these reports and other materials?


Edmund Davie Fulton: This arises in the main from the desire to fulfil a recommendation of the Fauteux committee report that there be a program designed to inform the public with respect to certain features of the then existing penitentiary and reform system and with respect to certain of the programs which the committee recommended should be instituted. I would refer my hon. friend to

page 13 of the Fauteux committee report where is contained their recommendation with regard to public information in connection with probation, and page 51 of the report which contains their recommendation with regard to a public information program with respect to parole. It is in implementation of these recommendations that there has been included an item of $20,000 for the purpose of a public information program.


Gabriel Roberge: I have a further question. Is that campaign under way?


Edmund Davie Fulton: The preliminary steps have been prepared, but the program has not been worked out in detail.


Frank Howard: I should like to make one other comment under this particular item concerning a matter which has intrigued me for some time. I refer to the fact that there are two cabinet ministers in the same department both, I assume, on a par with each other in so far as seniority is concerned. If the minister is concerned with saving money, then action could be taken on this matter. My remarks have no connection whatever with the person who presently holds the post of Solicitor General.
In looking back over the years, in talking with one other gentleman who held that particular post and in talking with members of this house who have been here many more years than I have, I cannot help but come to the conclusion but that this is a completely superfluous cabinet position. In so far as the duties of that particular office holder are concerned, and so far as matters under his jurisdiction are concerned, they are practically nil. This means that the cabinet post of Solicitor General is an unnecessary one and a costly one, at least to the tune of $17,000 per year plus the payments to whatever executive assistants there may be in the Solicitor General's office. I would have no hesitation whatever in suggesting-as I say this has nothing whatever to do with the individual who now holds the office-that here would be a prime way to start cutting expenditures and saving some money by eliminating the post of Solicitor General.
The Minister of Justice could perform the functions of the Solicitor General. I am quite sure that the Minister of Justice does now participate in many of the recommendations made by the Solicitor General. I, for one, think this is a cabinet position that is on a par, in so far as value is concerned, with the cabinet ministers without portfolio, except that the payment is a little bit higher.


Mr. Maloney:: Mr. Chairman, I should like to avail myself of this opportunity to make a few remarks in respect of some problems

that I think might be of interest to the committee and to the minister. I have listened to the remarks of the hon. member for Burnaby-Coquitlam and the hon. member for Bonavista-Twillingate, and I think hon. members of all political parties in this house would like one of the members of the house to pay to the present Minister of Justice the tribute that he really, in the opinion of all members, deserves.


William Arnold Peters: Let us remember Newfoundland; let us not be carried away.


Arthur Edward Martin Maloney: You stay back in Kirkland Lake. I know of no minister of justice who has made such an impact on his department in the history of this country. Never, under any of his predecessors, have reforms of such magnitude been undertaken, and he has brought to the department and to the whole correctional system in Canada a forward looking, up to date outlook which will in the near future have its effect in a reduction in the incidence of crime and in a general improvement of the whole correctional system.
I spoke in this house last August at a time when the minister's estimates were before the house, and on that occasion I had the temerity to advance for his consideration some four amendments, three to the Criminal Code and one to the Canada Evidence Act. As someone who feels the minister is deserving of the credit I have already given him, and as someone who realizes he cannot have everything he wants in this world, and certainly in this house, I was more than pleased to see that I got 25 per cent of what I requested on that occasion. The minister, in the amendments to the Criminal Code that are soon to be brought forward, has imported one which would direct that time served in custody pending the hearing of an appeal to a provincial appellate court should count on the sentence; that is a much needed reform. I commend the minister and the officials of his department for having taken this forward step to bring it about.
I wanted to say a word at this stage with regard to the matter of probation. It is my desire to express a point of view in this committee that the government should consider the possibility, the advisability and the practicability of intervening at the federal level in the probation field.
Business of the House
May I call it ten o'clock, Mr. Chairman?
Progress reported.



BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE

John Whitney Pickersgill: I wonder if the leader of the house would advise us if there is any change in the program for tomorrow? Could he also give us an indication of the business for next week?


Howard Charles Green: Tomorrow, we shall commence with third reading of the act to amend the Unemployment Insurance Act; then take the estimates of the Department of Justice, followed by those of the Department of Veterans Affairs. Monday we shall commence with item No. 1 on today's order paper, an act to amend the Veterans Land Act, which has been to a committee; item No. 14, an act respecting the superannuation of members of the Canadian forces; then, No. 13, second reading of a bill in respect of Canadian national financing; then, item No. 15, second reading of the act to amend the Farm Improvement Loans Act; item No. 12, second reading of the bill respecting certain public service pensions; item No. 9, an act respecting the superannuation of members of the R.C.M.P.; item No. 3, an act respecting the Royal Canadian Mounted Police; item No. 10, an act to amend the Criminal Code, and item No. 11, an act to amend the Combines Investigation Act.
Then, we intend to follow with the items standing in the name of the Minister of Agriculture, starting with the Seeds Act which I think has come over from the Senate. Then, we shall take the crop insurance measure and the farm credit measure.


John Whitney Pickersgill: Is it intended to proceed in that order throughout the week as long as legislation is carried on?


Howard Charles Green: That would be for Monday and Tuesday.


John Whitney Pickersgill: Can the minister give any indication when the government intends to introduce legislation respecting the terms of union?


Howard Charles Green: The Minister of Finance says the answer is soon.


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

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

Mr. Richard (St. Mau-rice-Lafleche): 1.	In what fiscal year was the assistance in establishing forest access roads and trails program initiated?
2.	What provinces have entered into an agreement with the federal government in each fiscal year since the inception of the program up to March 31, 1959, and what is the amount paid to each of them in each year?
3.	What provinces have not entered into such an agreement?
Answer by: Hon. Alvin Hamilton (Minister of Northern Affairs and National Resources):
1.	1957-58.
2.	The provinces of British Columbia, Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, Ontario, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island and Newfoundland entered into agreements in 1957-58 for assistance in the construction of forest access roads and trails during the period January 2, 1958 to June 30, 1958. With the exception of Prince Edward Island, agreements were entered into with the same provinces in 1958-59 for assistance during the period November 1, 1958 to June 30, 1959. The amounts paid to each province in each fiscal year are shown in the following table:
		Fiscal Year		Total payments by provinces
Province	1957-58	1958-59	$	$	$Newfoundland	
Prince Edward Island... Nova Scotia	
New Brunswick	
2,872.11 	
Nil 	
14,140.70 	
29,832.88 	
249,247.12	56,201.95 31,754.69 21,761.59 988,713.87	59,074.06 Nil 45,895.39 51,594.47 1,237,960.99Manitoba	
Saskatchewan	
Alberta	
British Columbia	
118,213.76 	
95,056.04 	
23,642.19 	
77,362.95	235,555.69 179,438.47 133.295.86 441.242.86	353,769.45 274,494.51 156,938.05 518,605.81Total payments by fiscal years	
610,367.75	2,087,964.98	2,698,332.73
3. The province of Quebec.

Friday, June 19, 1959