1959-05-11

MISCELLANEOUS PRIVATE BILLS

[Stage Direction]
Ninth report of standing committee on miscellaneous private bills-Mr. McCleave.


Right Hon. J. G. Diefenbaker (Prime Minister):: Mr. Speaker, it will be recalled that at the time of the inauguration ceremonies of the federal legislature of the West Indies in 1958, the ministers representing the government and people of Canada stated that a presentation of two clerks' tables would be made by Canada to the federation, one for the house of representatives and the other for the senate, to commemorate the occasion. These presentations will be made this afternoon by the commissioner for Canada, Mr. R. G. C. Smith.
This house, too, bears evidence on every hand of similar presentations. No doubt most hon. members are aware that your chair, sir, was presented to the parliament of Canada in 1921 by the United Kingdom branch of the empire parliamentary association. Incorporated into it were portions of the old oak roof of Westminster hall which was constructed in 1397. The mace was, of course, a gift from the United Kingdom, presented by the lord mayor and sheriffs of London in 1916. So, in taking the course we do, we but follow an example which has been set on previous occasions.
The gifts which are being presented to the West Indies legislature, like the gifts which repose in this house, serve as tangible reminders of the continuity and the growth in strength of parliamentary government and of the close and cordial relations which exist between the various parts of the commonwealth. I am sure hon. members in all parts of the house will wish to join with me on this occasion in extending our very best wishes to the federation of the West Indies.


Hon. L. B. Pearson (Leader of the Opposition):: We on this side of the house have heard with great pleasure and approval the statement the Prime Minister has just
made, and we agree that the presentation of clerks' tables to the parliament of the new federation will be a reminder that both federations have inherited the same parliamentary traditions. It will also be an indication of the good will of the parliament and people of this country to the new federation as it enters on the first stage of its constitutional existence, and the desire of the people of Canada to maintain the closest and friendliest relations with this other western hemisphere nation of the commonwealth.


Mr. H. W. Herridge (Kootenay West):: On
behalf of this group, Mr. Speaker, I wish to say that we consider this a most appropriate gift to this new member of the commonwealth. It stands as a symbol of our common parliamentary heritage, traditions and procedures, and is a visible indication of our good will and best wishes for their every success in the future.



BRETTON WOODS AGREEMENTS ACT


Hon. Donald M. Fleming (Minister of Finance) moved: that the house go into committee at the next sitting to consider the following resolution, which has been recommended to the house by His Excellency:
That it is expedient to introduce a measure to amend the Bretton Woods Agreements Act to provide for the payment, out of the consolidated revenue fund, to the international monetary fund and the international bank for reconstruction and development of sums not exceeding in the whole an amount equivalent to the subscriptions thereto required from Canada, that is to say, thirteen hundred million United States dollars, and to authorize the necessary borrowing therefor in the manner provided by the said act.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to.


Donald Methuen Fleming: that the house go into committee at the next sitting to consider the following resolution, which has been recommended to the house by His Excellency:
That it is expedient to bring in a measure to authorize the Canadian National Railway Company to make capital expenditures in the year 1959 not exceeding $348,900,000 and to make certain

Motions for Papers
capital expenditures and enter into certain contracts prior to July 1, 1960; to authorize the national company to issue securities to provide amounts required for the authorized expenditures; to provide that, except as expressly provided, the aggregate principal amount of securities outstanding at any time shall not exceed $289,900,000; to authorize the governor in council to guarantee the principal and interest of securities issued by the company for the purpose aforesaid; to authorize the Minister of Finance to make loans to the said company secured by such securities and not exceeding $289,900,000 in principal amount to enable the said company to meet such expenditures and with authority to give financial aid and assistance to other companies of the national system.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to.


Mr. Speaker:: Pursuant to section 2 of standing order 21, this government notice of motion stands transferred to and ordered for consideration under government orders later this day.


Hon. Howard C. Green (Minister of Public Works):: Mr. Speaker, may I ask for the unanimous consent of the house to have this motion put today. I do so because the committee is anxious to commence sitting tomorrow in order to deal with the estimates of the Department of the Secretary of State.


Mr. Chevrier:: It is agreed in so far as we are concerned.


Mr. Winch:: Agreed.


Mr. Speaker:: Is the house prepared to give unanimous consent to the motion being put today instead of being transferred?


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


Mr. Speaker:: By unanimous consent the motion will be put today. Mr. Green, seconded by Mr. Brooks, moves:
That items numbered 372 to 379, inclusive, relating to the Department of the Secretary of State, and item number 67, relating to the civil service commission, as listed in the main estimates of 1959-1960, be withdrawn from the committee of supply and be referred to the standing committee on estimates, saving always the power of the committee of supply in relation to the voting of public moneys.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to.


[Stage Direction]
Motion No. 97-Mr. Batten:
For a copy of all communications addressed to the Minister of Public Works or the president or other senior officers of Central Mortgage and Housing Corporation since April 1, 1959, regarding the St. John's housing authority, together with any replies to such communications.
Motion agreed to.

st. John's housing authority-federal

[Stage Direction]
Motion No. 100-Mr. Argue:
For a copy of any letter or letters exchanged since January 1, 1958 between the Minister without Portfolio from Newfoundland on behalf of the government, and the minister of municipal affairs of Newfoundland, regarding the appointment of federal nominees to the St. John's housing authority.
Howard Charles Green: Mr. Speaker, I would ask that this motion be agreed to subject to obtaining the consent of the government of Newfoundland with respect to the tabling of the documents and also that it be understood that the government is not admitting that this is any precedent for the future.


Harold Edward Winch: Is it also understood that this motion is changed in accordance with the advice given by Mr. Speaker?


Mr. Speaker:: The motion as presented
carries the correction which I directed be made the last time this matter was before the house. Subject to the reservation requested by the minister, is it the pleasure of the house to adopt the motion?


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to.
TREASURY BOARD MINUTE T.B. 537517 Motion No. 101-Mr. Argue:
For a copy of treasury board minute T.B. 537517, September 11, 1958.
Motion agreed to.


[Stage Direction]
Motion No. 103-Mr. Argue:
For a copy of all correspondence, telegrams, reports, by St. Lawrence seaway authority inspectors and Warnoch Hersey Company, and other documents exchanged between the minister, the St. Lawrence seaway authority or any government department, and any person or persons since January 1, 1955, regarding construction work considered unsatisfactory and not up to specifications demanded by the authority in connection with the Cornwall high level bridge, locks, and the erection and painting of mitre gates and sector gates at that site.
Hon. Leon Balcer (Solicitor General):: Mr. Speaker, there is no objection to this motion passing subject to the usual reservation regarding privileged papers.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to.

[Stage Direction]
Motion No. 104-Mr. Pearson:
For a copy of all communications received since February 1, 1959, by the Prime Minister or any other member of the federal government from the premier or any member of the government of

Manitoba, and any replies thereto on the subject of federal assistance for flood control on the Red river.
John George Diefenbaker: Mr. Speaker, there is no objection to this motion passing subject to the consent of the province being obtained.


Mr. Speaker:: Subject to the reservation expressed by the Prime Minister is it the pleasure of the house to adopt the motion? Motion agreed to.



NATIONAL DEFENCE


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Lester Bowles Pearson: Mr. Speaker, I should like to ask the Minister of National Defence if he would care to comment on a report attributed to what are called defence authorities that from now on Canada will rely completely on its allies, and particularly on the United States of America, for new armaments?


Hon. G. R. Pearkes (Minister of National Defence):: Mr. Speaker, there is no truth whatever in that statement. I have no idea who the alleged defence authority is.



BOMARC MISSILE


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Harold Edward Winch: should like to direct a question to the Minister of National Defence. I sent him notice two and a half hours ago, and I hope he received it in time. Has the minister noted the report from Washington carried in today's Globe and Mail to the effect that committee members of the United States congress contend that the Bomarc on all tests was capable of shooting down a subsonic aircraft, such as were used in the second world war, but has failed to hit a target travelling at supersonic speed? Will the Minister of National Defence inform the house whether any change is contemplated in government policy in establishing two Bomarc stations in Canada as a defence against intercontinental ballistic missiles, in view of this information? Will he also inform the house why Canadian taxpayers should be committed to buy obsolete United States equipment which is useless against intercontinental ballistic missiles?


Mr. Speaker:: Order. Perhaps the minister wishes to deal with this question, as he has had notice of it, but it does not seem to me to be the type of question that should be asked at this time. In the first place, it calls
Inquiries of the Ministry for an opinion and opens up a subject which can scarcely be dealt with at this time.


Harold Edward Winch: Mr. Speaker-


Mr. Speaker:: I will give the Minister of National Defence an opportunity to answer if he wishes.


George Randolph Pearkes: Mr. Speaker, I have said on several occasions recently that it is not the practice to make comments on statements which are alleged to have been made before another body in another country by officials of that other country.


Harold Edward Winch: May I ask a supplementary question?


Mr. Fulton:: If the first one was out of order, how can a supplementary be in order?


Harold Edward Winch: It is because the minister makes such statements that I do not know whether to love him or hate him. However, in view of what has been said may I ask the house leader when the estimates of the Department of National Defence will be called for discussion?


Howard Charles Green: They will be called at as early a date as possible. I am not just sure when it will be.



POLYMER CORPORATION


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. J. W. Murphy (Lambton West):: Mr. Speaker, I wonder whether the Minister of Labour can bring the house up to date on the strike situation at Sarnia involving the Polymer Corporation?


Hon. Michael Starr (Minister of Labour):: Mr. Speaker, I received a report from Mr. Ainsborough on his discussions with the parties to the Polymer dispute. In effect Mr. Ainsborough reports that neither party is prepared to move from its present position, and he does not believe that either party will change its position in the very near future. In view of his report, no good purpose will be served by continuing Mr. Ainsbor-ough's appointment as commissioner at this time, and this appointment has been terminated accordingly.
I am sending copies of the report to the parties and have pointed out to them that there is a serious responsibility on both parties to depart from the uncompromising positions which Mr. Ainsborough reports they have maintained, and to be prepared to make reasonable compromises and to resume negotiations in good faith in order to reach a settlement of the dispute.

Inquiries of the Ministry Hon. Paul Marlin (Essex Easl): May I ask
the Minister of Labour if Mr. Ainsborough had previously been assigned the responsibility of mediation with respect to these two disputing parties?


Michael Starr: Mr. Ainsborough has been connected with this dispute for some time.


Mr. Marlin (Essex Easl):: Does the minister agree with the allegation made by the union in Oshawa on Friday last, that the participation of Mr. Ainsborough was not really helpful in the context of the situation?


Michael Starr: I do not agree with that at all. NATIONAL REVENUE



ALLEGED IMPORTATION AND SALE OF CARS BY DIPLOMATS

[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. Hubert Badanai (Fori William):: I wish to direct a question to the Minister of National Revenue. Can the minister inform the house whether any foreign diplomats have been guilty of breaking the Customs Act or the Excise Act by importing luxury cars free of duty and then selling them in Canada at a profit? If so, does the government intend to investigate-


Mr. Speaker:: Order. I wonder if the hon. member would put that question on the order paper. It obviously requires some research to obtain statistical information, and I think it would be more appropriate to have it on the order paper.



UNEMPLOYMENT INSURANCE


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Paul Joseph James Martin: May I ask
the Minister of Labour if he can tell the house whether any report has been provided to the government by the unemployment insurance advisory committee since that tabled on August 18, 1958?


Michael Starr: Even though the hon. member for Essex East gave me notice of his intention to ask this question, I am sorry to report to him that I have not had an opportunity of checking thoroughly in order to give him a reply, but I would hope to do so tomorrow.
[Later:!


Paul Joseph James Martin: Mr. Speaker, I would like to ask a supplementary question of the Minister of Labour. In view of the fact that we are going to deal later today with his proposed amendments to the Unemployment Insurance Act, will the minister not endeavour before that discussion begins to


ascertain whether or not a second report was made by the unemployment insurance advisory committee since that tabled on August 18, 1958? I think the minister will agree that this might be very important information for purposes of the debate today.


Michael Starr: Even though I think the hon. member already has that report, I will look into it.



ATOMIC ENERGY


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Herbert Wilfred Herridge: Mr. Speaker, I wish to direct a question to the Minister of National Health and Welfare based on a statement made in the proper place. In view of the contents of the report on strontium 90 in Canadian milk powder, tabled by the minister on Friday last, and particularly the graphs contained therein, would the minister inform the house who provided the information on which he bases his statement, and I quote:
Of first importance is the fact that our findings indicate no basis for alarm about this matter.


Hon. J. W. Monleilh (Minisler of Nalional Health and Welfare):: I should like to thank the hon. member for having given me notice of his intention to ask this question. As I mentioned in my statement to the house, the stringent standards referred to were suggested by competent international authorities. The levels illustrated in the graphs to which the hon. member refers are the results of analyses carried out in the radiation protection division of my department. Departmental officers work closely with Atomic Energy of Canada Limited and with recognized experts in our universities. In addition, we keep closely in touch with national and international bodies, and have access to the latest data in this field of science. Information from all these sources was taken into account in the preparation of my statement to the house.



HOUSING DOWN PAYMENTS ON LOW COST HOUSING IN REMOTE AREAS

[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Hubert Badanai: I have a question for the Minister of Public Works. Can the minister inform the house whether down payments on low cost housing in remote areas, such as the town of Atikokan, are on a par with down payments asked in larger centres?


Howard Charles Green: Mr. Speaker, I shall have to take this question as notice.



DEFENCE PRODUCTION


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. G. J. Mcllraiih (Ottawa West):: I should like to direct a question to the Minister of Defence Production. My question is based on newspaper reports from Washington over the week end dealing with the inability of a Canadian company to get an order from United States army engineers for eight hydraulic turbines for the Big Ben dam in South Dakota, notwithstanding the fact that the Canadian bid was considerably lower than United States bids after allowing for taxes and the 12 per cent differential because it was a foreign bidder.
My question is this. Would the minister look into this matter and make a statement to the house giving the full information and telling us whether or not this is at variance with the arrangements for production sharing, and if it is what can be done about it?


Hon. Raymond O'Hurley (Minister of Defence Production):: This is a lengthy question, the reply to which needs a lot of preparation. I think it should go on the order paper, and then we would give an appropriate answer.


Mr. Speaker:: Do I understand the minister is taking it as notice?


Some hon. Members:: No.


George James McIlraith: My question implied that the minister make a statement on the subject to the house, and I took it that he would require notice. It is something that should be dealt with by the minister in a statement to the house.


Mr. O'Hurley:: There are other contracts in this field, and negotiations are going on between my department and the United States. There are a number of contracts that have to be discussed and are being discussed. It is for this reason that I still believe I will take the question as notice.


George James McIlraith: That will be satisfactory.



TRANSPORT


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. G. W. Baldwin (Peace River):: Mr. Speaker, I have two questions for the Acting Minister of Transport, one of which I sent
Inquiries of the Ministry him notice. In view of the minister's absence possibly these questions will be taken as notice. Would the minister comment on an article appearing in the Financial Post of May 9, 1959 entitled, "Pine Point Plan Postponed. 80,000 Get Time to Think", which states that the government has decided in favour of the Waterways route for the proposed railroad to Great Slave lake, having reached this decision a year ago; and in particular would he say if it is correct that the government has concluded that the railroad should be built by the eastern or Waterways route?
My second question is, would the minister assure the house that all relevant facts will be considered before a decision is reached, and that this railroad will be built for the benefit of the people of Canada and not just as a convenience for the C.P.R.-


Mr. Speaker:: Order. Perhaps the hon. member would allow the minister to answer the first question.
Hon. Leon Balcer (Acting Minister of
Transport): I will take both questions as notice, Mr. Speaker.



INDUSTRY


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Hon. Gordon Churchill (Minister of Trade and Commerce):: Mr. Speaker, on Friday last the Leader of the Opposition asked a question about a report which had appeared in the press relating to a proposed sale of transport planes by a Canadian company to two United States companies. Negotiations for the sale of such planes are in fact in progress, but to give full details at this stage might preclude the successful conclusion of these negotiations. If they reach a successful conclusion I will give full details to the house at a later date.



FISHERIES


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. Robert Muir (Cape Breton North and Victoria):: Mr. Speaker, may I direct a question to the Minister of Fisheries arising out of a telegram I have received from the Victoria co-operative fisheries of New Haven, Nova Scotia, in which they advise that ten fishing boats lost their trawl gear last night as the result of dragger operations. Can the minister assure the house that he will have his officials immediately investigate this report with a view to preventing a recurrence of this unfortunate, and I might say costly, incident?

Inquiries of the Ministry


Hon. J. A. MacLean (Minister of Fisheries):: Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank the hon. member for giving me notice of his intention to ask this question. Unfortunately as yet I have no report on the matter to which he refers, but I can assure him that my officials will give it their immediate attention, if they have not already done so. I might add that I would welcome any additional information which the hon. member might be able to give my department.



FINANCE


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Paul Joseph James Martin: Mr. Speaker, I should like to ask the Minister of Finance, in view of the fact that we will soon be discussing-perhaps today-amendments to the Unemployment Insurance Act, if he can say as Minister of Finance whether or not during the months of April and May, but particularly April, he made any loans to the unemployment insurance commission?


Donald Methuen Fleming: Mr. Speaker, I think there were some loans made in pursuance of the provisions of the statute, but I will make inquiry to determine the precise amount.


Paul Joseph James Martin: May I ask a supplementary question. Is it a fact that very substantial loans were made in the amount of many millions of dollars, and in that event can the Minister of Finance explain to the house and to the country why no disclosure of this was made in the budget speech?


Donald Methuen Fleming: Mr. Speaker, this is not the type of matter which is disclosed in the budget statement at any time. As to the amount, I shall make inquiries and determine the amount and give the house the information.


Paul Joseph James Martin: Was it less than $80 million?



ARCTIC EXPLORATION AND DEVELOPMENT


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. Erik Nielsen (Yukon):: Mr. Speaker, I would like to direct a question to the Minister of Northern Affairs and National Resources, notice of which he had this morning. In view of recent press comments, particularly in the last issue of Maclean's magazine, in respect to the protection of the public from unscrupulous stock promoters in connection with the exploration and development of our Arctic oil and gas lands, can


the minister give the house any assurance that the public interest is being protected?


Hon. Alvin Hamilton (Minister of Northern Affairs and National Resources):: Mr. Speaker, I believe any hon. members or any others in Canada who think the oil exploration in the northern Arctic islands will be the type of thing which will lend itself to speculation underestimates the judgment of the people of Canada. First of all I would like to make it clear that we have not issued any exploratory permits, as this article states, with regard to the Arctic islands and the continental shelf. What we are issuing at the present time are exploratory licences valid for one year which give the applicant the right only to carry out general geological reconnaissance. The exploratory permits, if and when issued to permittees, will give them the right to carry out all types of exploratory work, such as seismic, of geophysical and geochemical, which includes drilling, and also the right to obtain up to 50 per cent of the grid area as an oil and gas lease. It is in my opinion likely that speculation taken in anticipation of any rights which may he acquired upon obtaining exploratory permits will be minimized because section 10 of the territorial oil and gas regulations provides that the crown must be satisfied that the applicant is able to undertake exploratory work of value. The government intends that each applicant shall furnish the following information:
(a)	Proof of financial ability to carry out the necessary exploratory work on the area applied for;
(b)	The latest audited financial statement of the company or the individual;
(c)	The exploration program the applicant intends to carry out during the first half of the term of the exploration permit.
Mr. Speaker, I might conclude by saying that the author of the Maclean's magazine article referred to is not only out of touch with our oil and gas regulations but is also out of touch with government policy. I can assure the house that the public interest is being safeguarded to the maximum within our powers.


Mr. M. A. Hardie (Mackenzie River):: Mr. Speaker, I would like to ask the minister a supplementary question. Has the minister assurance from all those who have received licences that geological and other surveys will be carried out before the end of the one year period?


Francis Alvin George Hamilton: Mr. Speaker, under the licences they acquire all they require to give us is a plan of general reconnaissance during the first 18 months, and that they have done.


Mervyn Arthur Hardie: Every licensee has done so?


Francis Alvin George Hamilton: Yes, Mr. Speaker.



POST OFFICE DEPARTMENT


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Harold Edward Winch: Mr. Speaker, I would like to ask a question of the Postmaster General. I would ask him whether his attention has been drawn to a certain report in today's paper. I would ask him whether or not he is the man named in today's press as having been chosen for an award in advertising techniques and experience throughout Canada and if so, Mr. Speaker, I would like to ask the Postmaster General if he has received an all-Canada award and whether that technique, experience and vision will be applied to future designs of stamps so there will not be in future-


Some hon. Members:: Order.


Mr. Speaker:: The hon. member is asking a question which I take it is perhaps a personal one rather than relating to the administrative duties of the minister, and the hon. member then proceeds to give advice about the design of postal stamps.


Harold Edward Winch: And if so-


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh.


Harold Edward Winch: -will he deny a member of the opposition-


Mr. Speaker:: Order.


Harold Edward Winch: Could I have an answer?


Mr. Speaker:: I do not think the hon.
member's question really calls for an answer.


Harold Edward Winch: On a question of privilege, I should like to make clear that I was trying to pay a compliment to the Postmaster Oeneral.


Mr. Speaker:: I think the house will have appreciated that the hon. member was trying to do that.



EXCISE ACT

Donald Methuen Fleming: the second reading of Bill NTo. C-45, to amend the Excise Act.


Mr. W. M. Benidickson (Kenora-Rainy diver):: Mr. Speaker, I find that in the bill ;here is no departure from the language ised or from the announcements made at arovious stages of the debate, on budget night and when the resolution was being discussed.
Excise Act
I simply wish to remind the house that we are being asked here to provide an all-time high rate of taxation on distilled spirits.
I believe that prior to the introduction of this bill the excise tax amounted to $1.31 on a 25-ounce bottle of distilled spirits. The increase will bring this figure to $1.42, with sales tax to be paid in addition. As in so many other cases connected with this budget, we find there has been a desire on the part of those who merchandise a product to do some profiteering beyond what the increase resulting from taxation would have justified. Even my own province of Ontario was not slow in this respect. The authorities immediately imposed an increase in price well beyond the amount which the Minister of Finance had announced would be the net tax cost increase per 25-ounce bottle of spirits.
We know that as a result of criticism the government of Ontario did decide to lower those prices. It may have had something to do with the subsequent decision to hold an election. I do not know. Perhaps it was the result of a comment by the Prime Minister, who said that merchandisers were improperly and unjustifiably raising prices to consumers beyond the additional amount of taxation. In any event, we have seen that the liquor control board in Ontario, and perhaps in other provinces too where there is a government monopoly, has since reduced the price to the consumer to a figure which more nearly takes account only of the extra amount of the tax.
I have heard the Minister of Finance speak in the past about taxation in fields of this kind, and he always used to warn his predecessors that there was a point of diminishing return. I hope the minister, who never wants to appear wrong in front of the public, may never have to do what his colleague the Minister of National Revenue suggested he might have to do, and play some personal part in trying to make up the deficiency in tax revenue if there are diminishing returns.
In any event, we have in connection with this product an all-time high rate of government taxation either in peacetime or wartime.


Mr. Erhart Regier (Burnaby-Coquitlam):: Looking at the proposed amendments to the Excise Tax Act, Mr. Speaker, it is very obvious that the Minister of Finance is against evil. We have often had ministers of finance who where against evil, and when they needed more revenue they simply levied taxes on the people of Canada who consume liquor or who have the habit of smoking.
I feel that a growing number of people in Canada are becoming increasingly irritated

Excise Act
about this attitude which various ministers of finance have taken over the years. They feel that there is a limit beyond which their particular weakness or vice if you want to call it that should not be exploited. I am saying this merely for the sake of the readers of Hansard, that a bottle of ordinary liquor, rye for example, could be purchased for roughly $1.10 if it were not subject to taxation. Yet, after the various levels of government have taken their toll, the Canadian consumer finds he has to pay around $3.00 extra. A package of 20 Canadian cigarettes can be purchased, in those places where it is tax exempt, for 9 cents. Yet, in Ontario today people are asked to pay 35 cents a package.
I do not like this continued punishment of what some puritanically-minded people may consider to be a vice. I believe it is high time that the majority of the people of Canada began to voice their opinions about these continued impositions year after year upon practices which they regard as unharmful but which a minority regard as harmful. However, it seems that the days are few and far between when public representatives are willing to make their voices heard on behalf of those people who occasionally buy a bottle of whisky or a package of smokes. I feel that if there is a need for added taxation in Canada we should not take it out on these people simply because there are no members of parliament ready to take up the case on their behalf.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to, and bill read the second time, and the house went into committee thereon, Mr. Rea in the chair.
On clause 1-R.S. c. 319 s. 12.
Lester Bowles Pearson: I only wish to say one word in order to fortify the spirits of the minister as we deal with this important provision of the bill. The hon. gentleman knows through observation, though not of course from experience, that the law of diminishing return does apply to the consumption of this commodity, and I wonder whether he thinks the level of taxation has now been reached where the law of diminishing return is likely to apply also.


Donald Methuen Fleming: Obviously I would not be recommending this modest increase to the committee if I thought it would give rise to the application of the law of diminishing return. We are not raising the amount of the tax just for fun; we are raising it because we think greater revenue will accrue. The increase is a modest one, $1 a gallon.
Clause 1 agreed to.
Clause 2 agreed to.

On clause 3-R.S. c. 319 s. 12


William Moore Benidickson: Mr. Chairman, I ask if this in effect is a 100 per cent increase in crown revenue in this category?


Donald Methuen Fleming: On the cigars?


William Moore Benidickson: Yes.


Donald Methuen Fleming: Well, Mr. Chairman, in that sense it is 100 per cent in the particular tax that is proposed here, but of course this is only one of the taxes on cigars and the net result is a very slight increase in the total tax.


Mr. Pickersgill:: Will the minister assure us that this is not a punitive tax?


Donald Methuen Fleming: Mr. Chairman, I can assure my hon. friend that it is not a punitive tax on him.


John Whitney Pickersgill: Oh, I do not smoke.


Lester Bowles Pearson: Mr. Chairman, does the minister realize that this is going to make it much more difficult for us on this side of the house to keep the hon. member for Essex East supplied with cigars?


Donald Methuen Fleming: Mr. Chairman, my heart bleeds when I think about my friend the hon. member for Essex East in this respect, but I console myself with the thought that as he lights those big cigars of which he is so fond and blows large billows of smoke all over the place, his satisfaction will be the greater for realizing that he is contributing to the excise.


Paul Joseph James Martin: Mr. Chairman, we have had an argument non ad rem sed in persona. May I say to the Minister of Finance that this is in many respects a regrettable tax, not from my point of view as a cigar smoker but from the point of view of the tobacco growers of our country.
Clause 3 agreed to.
Clause 4 agreed to.
Bill reported.


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


Donald Methuen Fleming: Now, by leave.


Mr. Speaker:: Mr. Fleming moves third reading of the bill. Is it the pleasure of the house to adopt the motion?


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.
Motion agreed to and bill read the third time and passed.



OLD AGE SECURITY ACT

Donald Methuen Fleming: the second reading of Bill No. C-46, to amend the Old Age Security Act.


William Moore Benidickson: Mr. Speaker, I made some remarks with respect to these three tax increases at the resolution stage on May 4, appearing at page 3306 of Hansard, and I believe some amplification of those remarks is justified.
The Minister of Finance and I had the privilege of serving together, I believe in 1950, on the joint parliamentary committee which looked at the question of ways and means of improving social security for the aged, and I think he will agree with me that that committee was a most useful one. It also was quite devoid of partisanship in the preparation of its report.
It is true that the committee did not lay down in a dogmatic way recommendations to the government as to how the improved social legislation should be financed. I am not going to read the committee's recommendations, but they are contained at page 703 of the committee report of June 28, 1950.
The committee agreed that it was desirable to have basically a pay as you go system for supporting old age security. It did not specifically instruct the government as to how this might be financed. It did point out the fact that certain important tax sources might on a percentage basis provide the necessary revenues. On the whole I believe the committee was recommending a compromise between what would be called contributory old age pension system, on the insurance pattern such as we examined in respect of other countries, and the matter of having the fund in balance at all times.
The committee at no time said the fund should be completely in balance. It recognized that in the past the federal treasury had been responsible for making contributions out of general revenues to certain social security measures existing up to that time and, as I said, did not dogmatically state that the fund should be completely in balance. In other words there was the thought that if there was an occasional deficit in connection with the fund it might be reconciled with the amount of revenue that had been utilized previously from general taxation in the past.
However, the following year the government did decide that it would apply to three of the important tax fields for contributions to the very widely expanded old age security plan that was introduced in 1951. It introduced what was known as the 2-2-2 formula. The minister is proposing in this legislation a 50 per cent increase in that form of tax receipt.
In 1952 the revenues that were received were not actually to be new taxes in the main. That is the difference between what
Old Age Security Act
the minister is proposing now and what the government of that day proposed when this legislation was introduced in 1951. It may be said that with a very slight exception instead of increasing existing taxes the new fund was provided with allocated revenues, but it did not involve extra taxes for that purpose affecting the actual individual taxpayer of the country. The existing tax rate was adjusted in such a way that there was assigned without increase in rates 2 per cent of the sales tax, 2 per cent of the corporation tax and 2 per cent of the personal income tax for the purposes of this fund.
To establish that this was essentially so and that this vastly improved benefit scheme was provided without extra specific taxes on the public as a whole I want to quote from the Canadian Tax Foundation which in its review entitled "National Finances, 1958-59" at page 84, confirms what I have said in these words:
In general these rates-
For old age security.
-represented the earmarking of a part of existing taxes rather than the establishment of new imposts.
That, I point out, is the contrast between what was done then and what is proposed in this legislation. The additional burden of taxation at that time was negligible. The major source of financing therefore came to the fund from a transfer of taxes rather than from an increase in taxes that were already being imposed in the country. In subsequent years there were deficits, I admit, but in the year 1956-57 the fund was almost in balance.
I think the deficit that year was only $7,500,000, which hon. members will recognize is negligible in relation to the portion that it was always expected would come from general government revenues.
In the budget of March, 1957 there was proposed an increase of $6 per month in the basic pension. Of course later in 1957 there was an additional increase and that increase, together with the $6 increase, made it obvious that the deficit would be considerably increased. But the point I want to emphasize today is that between March, 1957 and the next assembly of this parliament the people of this country, in an election campaign, were told that it would be possible by miracle or otherwise to provide extra pensions out of this fund without any increase in taxation. We have heard even in this debate, and I am not going to document the quotations-and we heard the Prime Minister not only in 1957 but subsequently thereto, and he was just repeating what he said in 1953-say that it was possible to reduce taxes by $500 million-

Old Age Security Act


Donald Methuen Fleming: No.


William Moore Benidickson: -and balance the budget and provide extra social welfare benefits.


Donald Methuen Fleming: He did not say that.


William Moore Benidickson: In the fall of 1957,
although this parliament was sitting, we were not the ones to get the announcement. The Prime Minister went to the television audience and told it of his intentions with respect to the additional increase of $9 in the basic pension rate. In June, shortly after assuming office, the Minister of Finance told this country that it was his intention to have a new look at the finances of the country and as a result to have a budget in the session that was called in the fall of 1957. We know that did not develop. We know now why it did not develop. It was obvious to the administration that the miracles they talked about were not likely to prove possible of performance, and as a result we had no budget at the time that legislation was provided for the increase in benefits from this fund.
The position of the Liberal party was made very clear by the then leader of the official opposition, the former prime minister, Mr. St. Laurent, who on October 16, 1957 at page 44 of Hansard said this:
As for the measures forecast to increase old age security and other social benefits, naturally every true Liberal will welcome them in principle. Our sole concern will be to see how they fit into the whole financial picture and how far the government will take effective measures to control the rise in the cost of living which, if unchecked, could easily take away all the advantages of the proposed increases.
Well, the increase, of course, did involve the solvency of the fund, as we now see it clearly, in a very substantial deficit. The Minister of Finance was one of those who, as I say, was a member of the original committee. He was well acquainted with the views of the committee, and there was not too much disagreement among the members of the committee despite their party allegiance. When this legislation came up these were his views with respect to this particular fund; I refer to what he had to say in 1951.


Donald Methuen Fleming: What is the page?


William Moore Benidickson: It was in 1951, on the old age security debate.


Lester Bowles Pearson: Pages 609 and 610.


William Moore Benidickson: It was in October, and this is what the minister had to say at that time:
In the second place, I think that the house will desire to preserve-as the committee recommended in paragraph 64 which I have just read-the consciousness on the part of the individual of the association between the contribution he is making

to the cost and the benefit he is to receive. It is on that basis that rest our ideas, our beliefs in the house, that we are departing as far as we can from the idea of any handout, any payment as of grace, and are seeking to supplant that type of payment with a payment which will be received by the pensioner as of right.
I think the house will be glad to see that the minister-
That is the present hon. member for Essex East. I continue:
-in his proposals, has recommended that the entire cost ... is to come out of the special old age security fund.


Donald Methuen Fleming: I think the minister referred to was the minister of finance at that time. It was he who brought in the financial proposals for providing the revenues for the fund.


Paul Joseph James Martin: That is right.


William Moore Benidickson: Mr. Abbott spoke, of course, right after the minister of national revenue-


Paul Joseph James Martin: I spoke right after him.


William Moore Benidickson: -who introduced the proposals, the financial portion of which was referred to by the minister of finance. I continue:
We are subscribing as a house, I take it, to the principle of a pay as you go measure, a pay as you go universal scheme.
Well, if those were the minister's views so strongly and clearly expressed, as he always did express his opinions in those days, I ask what happened to him in December of 1957, when he had full information as Minister of Finance, and had all the calculations, all the forecasts that would be available and decided that it was not desirable or appropriate at that time to tell the public what the cost would be. I am not saying that at that time, if there were some storm warnings, it would have been desirable to do what the minister is doing now, namely have a real over-all increase in the actual rates paid by the individual taxpayers. But if the minister was consistent and still held the views that he so strongly expressed in 1951, I say it was his duty to inform the house of the likely effect upon the fund and to do what was done in 1952, namely allocate from existing taxes the additional amount that would be required to keep this fund in balance.
That, I think, is the important thing that was not done. We know why it was not done. It was not done because there was no desire to let the public know that this could not be done as a result of surpluses available, which they talked about, $500 million, and

other things which we heard so much about not only in the 1957 election campaign but later.
The ministry had very much in their minds the fact that they probably would soon be in another election campaign, and in consequence the bill is coming up only now.


Donald Methuen Fleming: May I ask the hon. member a question. Can he tell me why Mr. Harris, when faced with the same question in the spring of 1957, did not propose to deal with the measures required to meet the cost of the additional $6 per month which he was then proposing?


William Moore Benidickson: I am familiar with that because I remember the discussions that took place. First of all, we were in boom times and revenues were flourishing. I gave the minister the figure for the best result in any of the previous five years-a small deficit in the fund only $7.5 million. For the year ended March 1957, which had just concluded, the fund was almost in balance, and I do not think an increase of an additional 1 per cent in each particular tax category would have been practicable. Had an increase been made at that time from 2 per cent to 3 per cent in each category the fund actually would have been put into a surplus position based on the expectations of revenue at that time, and that was never the intention of the fund.


Donald Methuen Fleming: Would the hon.
member permit another question. How then did the Liberal government propose to meet the additional cost of the $6 increase, which amounted to over $60 million for a full year?


William Moore Benidickson: Having come to the point where the deficit in the fund was only $7 million, and the requirements out of general tax revenues for the old age security program were so much less than had existed even before this legislation, it did not seem unreasonable that by the end of 1958 the anticipated revenues would have kept to normal levels the proportion of contributions from general revenues.
Another matter that I think is very interesting in this connection is the question of the reduction in the actual purchasing power of the pension since it was introduced on January 1, 1952. I have looked at the cost of living figures and at January 1, 1952, the figure was 118.2. In June, 1957 after a period of five and one half years, it had reached 121.6. I calculate that to mean a reduction in the purchasing power of the pension of $1.12 per month. I give this figure after a period of five and one half years, and I now give the figure covering something less than two years of the new administration. During that time the cost of living 66968-9-223
Old Age Security Act
index went up to the extent that the equivalent real value of the old age pension has declined by $1.70. That was part of the thinking in March, 1957. So I emphasize that the real net value of the $9 increase, after taking into account the rise in the cost of living in this period of less than two years, works out to about 17 per cent-


Mr. Browne (St. John's West):: May I ask
the hon. member a question?


William Moore Benidickson: May I conclude first- but for this 17 per cent increase the purchasing power of the cheque of the old age pensioner there is proposed in this legislation an increase of 50 per cent in the actual taxes that are to be levied for it. This is not a matter of merely making a transfer from the general tax rate to the fund without an over-all increase with respect to the individual taxpayer, as was done in 1952, but it is a completely new and additional 50 per cent rise in the amount of taxes that it is recommended be provided for this fund.


Mr. Browne (Si. John's West):: Could I ask the hon. gentleman on what amount of pension he has worked out the $1.12 and on what amount of pension he worked out the $1.70?


William Moore Benidickson: I refer to the $9 increase, and if my hon. friend will apply that to the $46 rate he will find it is roughly 20 per cent. My point is that in less than two years the actual purchasing power through inflation has been reduced by the percentage I gave-and down to 17 per cent.


John Ferguson Browne: From the $55?


William Moore Benidickson: It is $9 on the $46.


John Ferguson Browne: But the $1.70 comes off the $55, not off the $9.


William Moore Benidickson: The $1.70 certainly is related to the $9 because it is the $9 that was so blatantly advertised as the increase. The result is that, having regard to the reduced purchasing power, the amount of the pension went up net only 17 per cent, and we are now being asked to provide 50 per cent more in contributions to the fund by the taxpayers.
I think that sets out in essence, Mr. Speaker, the difference between what this government is asking and what was done in 1952. In 1952 practically no additional taxation was imposed on the Canadian people as a result of this very big step, as was thought at the time, in improving and enlarging our social security program for the aged. It was done by transfer. This time it is being done

Old Age Security Act
wholly by an increase ot 50 per cent in the actual new rates that will be paid by those who benefit.


Erhart Regier: Mr. Speaker, I do not think anyone can quarrel too much with the minister for levying new taxation if such new taxation is necessary for the welfare of the people of Canada. However, in this particular case, as was mentioned on another occasion, the old age pensioners of Canada seem to be getting the blame for the new taxes that are to be levied at the present time. They are being advised that the old age security fund is losing money and that the books have to be brought into balance, even though I do not believe it was ever the intention of parliament that the books of the old age security fund should be brought into balance. It was always recognized that there would be many people in receipt of old age pensions who, for various reasons, had not paid very much into the fund in their lifetimes, and therefore it would only be reasonable to expect that for a goodly number of years at least lump sum payments would have to be made from the consolidated revenue fund to the old age security fund in order to balance the books.
I have in mind one particular category of those who receive $55 a month. Under the amendments introduced approximately a year ago any person 70 years of age or over who has been in Canada for as little as ten years is entitled to receive $55 a month. It is obvious that a person who has only lived here for ten years will not have paid nearly as much into the fund as the average Canadian who has paid into the fund over a working lifetime of 30 or 35 years.
So the plea that this additional taxation is necessary in order to balance the books is not valid. Rather, we contend that it is a new plea which has been introduced in order to justify a new imposition and, as the hon. member for Kenora-Rainy River has pointed out, it is a heavy increase in taxation. It amounts to an increase of 50 per cent, and if such an increase were applied in other places there certainly would be very serious repercussions. I can well imagine what would happen if the minister were to raise income taxes by 50 per cent or if he were to raise corporation taxes by 50 per cent. However, when it comes to putting the responsibility on the old age pensioners of Canada, we find that we have a government in office which is willing to blame them for a tax rise as great as 50 per cent.
We are just wondering on this Monday, Mr. Speaker, whether these tax increases are

at all necessary. After all, we have been reading our week-end newspapers and listening to the radio, and we know that a certain prime minister made a speech in Montreal over the week end in which he forecast a fantastic improvement in the Canadian economic situation over the balance of this year, at least. He did not have too much to say about the year after.
However, if improvement on the economic scene is going to take place, as was predicted by the Prime Minister, then one would imagine that the old rates would have supplied the Minister of Finance with sufficient revenue so the additional tax imposts would have been looked upon as unnecessary. I have no doubt that the Minister of Finance has also read the Prime Minister's speech delivered last week end in Montreal. I was expecting him, at this sitting of parliament, to say that in the light of the prediction by the Prime Minister over the week end the government was now asking the consent of the house to withdraw the bill now before us. The whole attitude surrounding the new bill is certainly a far cry from the new kind of deal the pensioners of Canada were led to believe they would get. They were informed clearly that the $9 per month added pension was only the beginning.
We now have the Clark report filed, and so far as we can gather from the replies to questions on the orders of the day the Clark report has been truly filed. In fact the house may never even get a chance to consider the Clark report. The new deal seems to be to put the blame for the 50 per cent increase on certain already onerously taxed people of Canada. In the case of the sales tax there is an increase of 10 per cent. We find this position very difficult to reconcile. On the one hand we have the Prime Minister saying the economy is going to move forward at such a rapid pace that we would expect the minister to be in receipt of a great deal of added revenue, and on the other hand the minister says he regrets that because of the deficit in the pension fund, he must levy this unusually heavy, 50 per cent increase in taxation.
If the minister's argument that this is necessary in order to bring the fund into balance is true, then Mr. Speaker, the minister is also introducing a new principle. This will confirm the fact that henceforth old age pensions are a matter of right. This also confirms the claim that has long been made by many old age pensioners, that they are entitled to this money inasmuch as they are the ones who have paid for it. If that is the case, then the minister is very remiss in that he does not allow these pensioners to

decide when and where in the world they are going to spend their money. If the minister is going to put this fund in balance, if the minister is claiming that it shall be self-liquidating, then the people who are in receipt of their own savings ought to be at liberty to determine where they are going to spend the money. They should have the right to spend it anywhere in the world.
I regret very much this increase in taxation, and especially do I regret the blame being put where it is. We feel that if the economy had not been in a period of recession this added impost would not have been found necessary. We find that once again the minister, by his acts, is admitting that conditions in the country are not as they were claimed to be last week end by the Prime Minister. We would suppose that rather than adopt these added imposts, the government should seriously consider how they could increase revenues by expanding the economy of the country as a whole.


Lester Bowles Pearson: The bill before us is a bill to meet the bills. In so far as the attitude of the official opposition toward the principle involved in the bill is concerned, that has been clearly stated by the hon. member for Kenora-Rainy River. I desire to add only a word or two to what he has said. In so far as the principle of the legislation is concerned, and the benefits involved in old age pensions, as my hon. friend has said our former leader, Mr. St. Laurent, explained our position on October 16, 1957. Our position now is as it was then. He said then that every true Liberal will welcome in principle this increase in old age security and other social benefits, but our concern, as he said then and it is our concern now, is to see how they fit into our financial picture.
We know now how they fit into that picture because, as has been pointed out, the increase in benefits which necessitated this bill, the real increase having regard to the increased cost of living, is 17 per cent and the taxation increase is 50 per cent. Economic considerations have now made it necessary, therefore, for the government to take the kind of action which party political considerations prevented them from taking only a year ago, when it should have been taken. As a result the sales tax is now at the highest level in our history.
This must be of interest to the minister, in view of what he said in the past about sales tax, and I refer to the debate in 1951 from which my hon. friend has already quoted. The present Minister of Finance stated, as reported on page 610 of Hansard for November 1, 1951:
We must recognize as well that it is a costly tax to the consumer because it pyramids as the result 66968-9-223i
Old Age Security Act
of mark-ups as the goods pass from hand to hand, from the manufacturer or producer, who pays the tax in the first instance, to the wholesaler, from the wholesaler to the retailer, from the retailer to the consumer, and that a 2 per cent sales tax-
That is what we were talking about then.
-in this way levied on the manufacturer or producer will probably cost the consumer not 2 per cent but closer to 4 per cent on the cost of the goods that he has to buy.
Now, Mr. Speaker, we are proposing to increase this tax from 2 per cent to 3 per cent. The position of our party on this matter is clear. We think the government is to be condemned for its refusal to apply the pay as you go principle in the fall of 1957, when it increased the pension without increasing the contributions and at a time-this is in contrast to the situation which prevailed in the spring-when a deficit was as certain as anything could be. The increase could have been made and should have been made at that time, having regard to the economic picture, by transferring receipts from existing taxes to the fund. This was the best method at the time of keeping it in reasonable balance.
At that time, Mr. Speaker, party considerations took precedence over economic considerations. So far as we are concerned we do not want to share the blame now, because we would have approached the whole problem in a different way then. The government took full responsibility before the election for the political decisions which have led to the present financial difficulties. It must now, therefore, accept full financial responsibility for the measures that have to be taken to get the country out of these difficulties, and this bill is the reflection of one difficulty. I think we can leave it at that.
Motion agreed to and bill read the second time, and the house went into committee thereon, Mr. Rea in the chair.
Clause 1 agreed to.
On clause 2-Tax payable by individuals.


Mr. Peters:: Mr. Chairman, I would like to say I disagree with the clause where in (b) we put a limit or a ceiling on the amount of money which can be collected of $90. This means that anyone earning more than $3,000 will still continue to pay only a maximum of $90. I think the limit of $90 is not fair and reasonable. There are many people in this country who are making a large enough sum of money now to be in a much better position to pay more than $90. To make it fair and equitable I think the $90 should be removed. Obviously there will be more tax available, and this would be a much more reasonable method of increasing the amount of revenue

Customs Tariff
for the fund than would the imposition of a higher tax which affects mainly those in a lower wage category. I would suggest to the minister that some consideration should be given to the removal of this ceiling of $90.
Clauses 2 and 3 agreed to.


[Stage Direction]
Title agreed to.
Bill reported.
Mr. Speaker:: When shall the bill be read the third time? By leave, now?


Some hon. Members:: Now.


Donald Methuen Fleming: the third reading of the bill.


Mr. Speaker:: Is it the pleasure of the house to adopt the motion?


Some hon. Members:: On division.
Motion agreed to on division.
Bill read the third time and passed.



CUSTOMS TARIFF

Donald Methuen Fleming: the second reading of Bill No. C-44, to amend the Customs Tariff and the New Zealand Trade Agreement Act, 1932.


William Moore Benidickson: Mr. Speaker, again I find nothing in the bill, beyond the amendments which were given announcement at the resolution stage to the schedule, that is contrary to what we have had in our hands since the budget debate. While I am on my feet, however, before we leave the particular stage of the debate perhaps the minister would indicate whether or not those several amendments which were announced on May 4 or 5 have been the subject of any complaints since we last discussed them? It is rather short notice and the minister knows that the first reading of the bill was only Friday, and therefore any report on this bill missed the financial and trade papers of last week. Has he received any communications since the debate on Monday and Tuesday of last week which indicate any objections to the amendments which he proposed a week ago? I ask that question and I will continue very briefly, Mr. Speaker.


Donald Methuen Fleming: Mr. Speaker, perhaps it will facilitate matters if I answer now?


Mr. Speaker:: Has the hon. minister leave to reply now?


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


Donald Methuen Fleming: As I indicated to my hon. friend earlier this afternoon, I will have an amendment when we come into committee of the whole on items 438b, 438c, 438d and 438e pertaining to automotive parts arising out of the reference to tariff item 411a.

That is the only matter upon which any representations have been received, to my knowledge. The changes which were made in the committee stage on the resolution, Mr. Speaker, were very slight, as you remember.
I explained the reason for them at that time and indicated the steps we had taken in advance of their introduction in the committee to ascertain information on them on the part of those who were interested.


William Moore Benidickson: Mr. Speaker, I do not want to delay the house, because, as I say,
I find that except for the amendments of last week the bill appears in the form of which notice was given, and the public would have every expectation of the things in the bill as a result of the minister's budget address of April 9. But I did feel the other evening that I had overlooked a comment which I would very much have liked to have made when we were discussing the Customs Tariff, and I refer to the fact that we have recently lost, I guess, our very distinguished former chairman of the board. I would like to pay my compliments to him. He is a man who has served under five prime ministers, and I think even the present minister asked him to continue a little beyond the time when he might have otherwise wanted to have had some leisure.


Donald Methuen Fleming: Twice.


William Moore Benidickson: Twice. We have in Canada some very sterling servants of the public, and I do not think any of them have more general admiration than is held for him by people not only in Canada but in places abroad.
I have found tariff a most intricate and difficult subject to study. I think it is even more difficult than certain presentations to the courts. Usually in courts we have only two conflicting opinions; but anyone who peruses the very exceptionally exhaustive reports of the tariff board in recent years will understand that in an economy such as ours the board is not considering the conflicting desires and economic interests of merely two litigants appealing to the board, but in many cases perhaps half a dozen or more in more or less conflict. In other words, the judicial and sensible decisions which have to be resolved are extremely onerous indeed. I think that both governments have followed the recommendations of this board fairly closely. Certainly the minister did last year, and I realize that he went a long way this time to accept the recommendations of the tariff board in that very intricate study of fruits and vegetables. This was not quite so simple as in other reports. Sometimes the Minister of Finance if he chooses can actually take the suggested amendments to the tariff

schedules as recommended by the board without much personal contribution to policy. But in this case the minister and his officials in the department had treaty obligations to a number of countries, and they had to relate the recommendations of the board with those involved treaty obligations. I should also like to pay my respects to other members of the tariff board some of whom are retiring at this time. Perhaps during the committee stage we shall be able to refer to others, in front of the minister, right now. I think of Mr. Glass who has been made a member of the board-


Donald Methuen Fleming: And vice chairman.


William Moore Benidickson: And vice chairman. I had reason over the years to consult him quite frequently in seeking his counsel and advice on these matters which are so detailed and complicated. I did not consult him or anybody else in the minister's department this year, because I thought the changes taking place were uprooting and I was not quite sure what the result will be. I know the minister will be equally well served in the department in having Dr. Annis as Mr. Glass' successor. We have exceptionally devoted civil servants engaged in a most exacting task, and quite irrespective of party politics I think the minister will agree that they are most deserving of recognition by this house and by the country.


Donald Methuen Fleming: I quite agree.


William Moore Benidickson: The minister will have noticed that the committee on estimates has concluded a very interesting course of meetings with the officials of the Department of National Revenue. It was hard to draw the line, sometimes, between those who administer our customs laws and the Minister of Finance who actually has to recommend the customs rates which shall prevail. However, I did note that in paragraph 1 of the committee's report there was a suggestion that it be made mandatory that all goods from outside Canada should be labelled. Perhaps the minister could make some comment on that when he replies, if he has an opportunity.
I take it that we shall in committee be able to be our own judges on the matter of procedure, and while there is no desire to be repetitive and to go over individual items, there are items in the schedule which, after a few days' lapse, do require, perhaps, some further clarification. I am sure the minister will make that possible at the committee stage. I do not wish to alarm the minister, and I hasten to say that there are not many items which this group is proposing to follow up, having regard to less formal discussion we had in committee last week. But I should
Customs Tariff
like to direct a few questions to the minister about the new category of machines which are deemed to be made in Canada. Am I right in thinking that this could properly be done on the committee stage, on the schedule?


Donald Methuen Fleming: Yes.


William Moore Benidickson: Although the items which have been subject to increases in this budget are, for the most part, or in large part, not items with which many people in the public are familiar, I think it has been understood that the over-all emphasis was on increasing protection again. Certainly, with respect to machines, we are simply returning to precedents that were followed when we last had a Conservative government, and once again we have something which is in the nature of a legalistic and arbitrary determination of what is made in Canada, without the usual adjudication by officials of the department and the courts. It is true that if any taxpayer is aggrieved he has the right to appeal to the tariff board and, in succession, to the exchequer court and to the Supreme Court of Canada. I think this is another matter which we can discuss further on the committee stage.
The section having to do with woollen goods, as we predicted last year, is likely to have repercussions among some of our better customers-people to whom we export goods in excess of the imports which are to be subject to the new duties. Again, I think this is a matter which can appropriately be discussed in committee.
In conclusion, I might mention, as I did the other day, that the minister and his officials have helped the house considerably by the actual new grouping of the schedules and by the explanatory remarks which were made on April 9 which led the average member of parliament to a better understanding of the appropriate occasion on which to debate these items, which is usually on the schedules. I will leave it to the minister to decide later whether or not we should call each item individually or whether we shall deal with them in a broad group.


John Whitney Pickersgill: If no one else wishes to speak, I want to say about three sentences in order to express once again the very strong objection which I feel to this regrettable increase in the wool tariff. This objection is shared, I believe by everyone engaged in the fishing industry. I think it is also probably shared by primary producers in the wheat growing areas of this country.
The minister referred to it as a modest increase. That is his favourite word, and one which he uses in connection with almost every impost. He says they are modest increases, implying that they are of no use

Customs Tariff
as protection measures. But it is quite obvious that the government would not have made these changes at all if they had not been expected to keep out goods. Certainly, the minister has never argued that this particular change is a revenue-producing one, and it seems to me this is a retrograde step for a trading country such as Canada to take when we depend so much on maintaining our exports to countries abroad.
The minister may be right in saying that its effect on the cost of living may be very small, but practically everything which this government has done since taking office two years ago has tended to increase the cost of living as well as the cost of production of primary producers. This is another stage in that direction and it seems to me to be regrettable on that account, also.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to, bill read the second time and the house went into committee thereon, Mr. Rea in the chair.
On clause 1.
William Moore Benidickson: Before we deal directly with this clause I should like to have something in the nature of a positive answer from the minister as to the circulation to business people across Canada of the amendments which were proposed last week. The minister will agree that they were presented to us and carried on May 5 last. There has not been time for some of these things to appear in trade and financial journals. I do not think most businessmen subscribe to Hansard. If they are interested in the customs field they probably subscribe to the bulletins with which my hon. friend will be familiar that go out from the Department of National Revenue. I am wondering if there would have been time for the amendments decided upon last Tuesday to have gone out to the subscribers for these bulletins from people who are interested in customs schedules.


Donald Methuen Fleming: Mr. Chairman, these amendments were before the committee of ways and means six days ago. It is obvious that those who are interested in the tariff proposals arising out of the budget have followed them. With respect to the amendments which were introduced at the committee stage we have received no criticism but we have received a number of commendations.


William Moore Benidickson: Have the actual bulletins gone out? I know that I myself subscribe to them. I received, for instance, the budget resolutions in the form in which they are given to subscribers to the day to day customs bulletins but there was not time to have the information appear in the Thursday

financial papers in Toronto and Montreal which usually comment on some of these tariff changes. Is my hon. friend confident that there is nothing in these that would cause much complaint if they were to be dealt with in haste?


Donald Methuen Fleming: Mr. Chairman, I do not regard six days as haste in the light of experience in some other years. In that light this is quite a long time to have elapsed between the resolution stage and the stage of second reading of the bill with respect to tariff changes where the bill simply follows the language of the resolution precisely.


Erhart Regier: Mr. Chairman, this is the first opportunity we have had to ask the minister a question or two on this subject. I notice that this is not a significant item with respect to a change in the receipts of the Minister of Finance; however, he does expect to collect $3 million more in customs tariff as the result of these amendments he is now proposing.
As the hon. member for Bonavista-Twil-lingate mentioned earlier, it is obvious that ever since this government took office every time it has introduced amendments to the Customs Tariff the net effect has been the raising of the tariff against products from other countries entering Canada. I should like the minister to give the committee an indication of what steps he has taken since he became Minister of Finance toward obtaining a reversal of this tendency.
The minister has made numerous references to commonwealth meetings on economic matters. I believe a meeting was held in Montreal a year ago. Has the minister or the government ever made any proposals to other commonwealth countries, NATO countries or other countries adhering to GATT that would tend to liberalize world trade and especially that would liberalize trade as between members of the commonwealth, members within NATO or the member nations of GATT? If so, what has been the reaction of these countries to such a proposal? If a proposal of this nature has been made why has it not been carried out? Why has the minister followed this process of asking parliament to amend the act each year the net result of which is to curtail the free flow of trade between nations?


Donald Methuen Fleming: Mr. Chairman, the increase in revenue from the customs tariff is expected from the customs duty on liquor and that alone. As I indicated in the budget speech, we do not expect any appreciable difference in receipts of revenues from customs duties in respect of the other changes.

The hon. member for Burnaby-Coquitlam is completely wrong in talking about the trend and the result of this year's tariff proposals. I will give it for the third time. I gave it in my budget speech, full details of which appear at page 2422 of Hansard of April 9 in the second column. I repeated this in the discussion in the committee of ways and means on May 5 but I shall be quite happy to give it again. I said that with respect to the changes proposed in the tariffs this year that 142 tariff items and sub-items are affected by the resolutions. In the case of 32 items the rates of duty are being increased. In the case of 40 items rates are being reduced. In the case of 9 items, all involving fruits and vegetables, rates are being both increased and decreased depending on the season. I concluded by saying that there are 61 items for which rates of duty are left unchanged and for which the changes proposed are, for the most part, purely formal.
So far as GATT is concerned, there will be a GATT meeting shortly and negotiations will proceed there. There will be GATT negotiations again in the autumn and also in 1960. These occur from time to time. Within the course of these negotiations, whenever we ask for an increase in a bound rate we are asked to give compensation in some other form, sometimes in the form of decreases. This process of negotiation with consequent increases and decreases has become almost a continuous process due to the frequency of the meetings of GATT.


Erhart Regier: Mr. Chairman, the minister says I am completely wrong. He claims he has increased the customs tariff on 32 items and decreased it on 40 items and that we are therefore, ipso facto, bound to assume he has lowered the rates when he has in fact done nothing of the kind. It all depends on which items are raised or lowered. May I refer the minister to his own remarks in the budget address on April 9 last at page 2414 of Hansard. In table 3 on that page he indicates that his receipts from customs tariffs in the year 1958-59 are forecast as being $486 million. In the following fiscal year ending March 31, 1960-and this was before the currently proposed tax changes-he anticipates revenue from this source in the amount of $525 million. Therefore in one year the minister expects a rise in income under the customs tariff of $39 million.
I am aware of the fact that his anticipated increase because of the bill now before us is not very large. He records that on page 2425 of Hansard, and he indicates that he expects that in a full year his income in regard to these changes will grow by only $3 million.
Customs Tariff
However, we had this a year ago, Mr. Chairman, when the house was informed that there really is not much of a change here. Many items are being reduced and the tariff on a lesser number of items is being raised. However, it all depends on the volume of imports of those items as to whether or not the cost of living of the Canadian people is really being raised. I cannot let the minister get away with saying that I am completely wrong. His income under the customs tariff has been rising since he became minister and since these amendments have been introduced. The hon. member for Bonavista-Twillingate was perfectly right when he said that the over-all effect of customs tariff changes since this government has taken office has been a rise in the amount of tariff that the Canadian people have to pay.
I was pleased to note that the minister said there would be many more meetings of GATT. However, the minister gave us no indication that his government is planning any proposals to the member nations under GATT that would lead to a lowering of tariffs. The minister indicated that each time they meet there is a demand made for the raising of some tariffs but no proposal on the part of his government to reduce them. The minister also completely ignored my request for a report of the meeting of the commonwealth economic conference which was held last fall, the object of which was supposed to be to enhance trade within the commonwealth. Presumably one of the methods that would be employed to enhance the exchange of commodities between commonwealth countries would be by rather severe amendments to the existing customs tariffs acts of the various commonwealth members. I hope that at this time the minister will indicate some of the results in this regard that have emanated from the Montreal economic conference, which was an important conference.


Donald Methuen Fleming: Mr. Chairman, I thought that hon. members were aware not that receipts from customs revenue have increased steadily since the government came into office but that they dropped in the year
1958-	59 as compared with the fiscal year 1957-58, and the reason is that imports were down. Similarly, when in the budget I estimated that we would have an increase in
1959-	60 over 1958-59 in the receipts from the customs duties, I assumed that imports into Canada would be greater in 1959-60 than they were in 1958-59. I thought that was quite clear.
Now, as to the course of negotiations, all hon. members are aware of the report that

Customs Tariff
came from the commonwealth trade and economic conference held at Montreal last autumn.
The GATT conference of 1960 has been called to discuss proposals, including one from the United States, for tariff reductions. In those negotiations the desires of various countries which are members of GATT, whether to increase or reduce their tariffs, are to be discussed. This is a general sort of discussion, and it would hardly be appropriate on my part, if we had any reductions in mind which we might be intending to use in the course of negotiations on a quid pro quo basis, to be disclosing them publicly at this point.


William Moore Benidickson: On this clause I continue to think that while this is rather an innocent looking change, this matter of the utilization of the interchange of the words machinery and machines is questionable. I do not think we have had an adequate explanation about it from the minister.


The Deputy Chairman:: May I ask the hon.
member whether he is on clause 2?


William Moore Benidickson: I am on clause one, subclause 3.


Charles Edward Rea: Perhaps the hon. member is on clause 2.


William Moore Benidickson: I am thinking of the customs tariff schedule, which reads:
Resolved,-
(a) That it is expedient to amend-
And so on. Are you dealing with (a) ? I am still using my working notes.


Charles Edward Rea: The hon. member is on clause 2. Shall clause one carry?


[Stage Direction]
Clause agreed to.
On clause 2-"Machinery" construed as "machines".
Charles Edward Rea: Perhaps this is the clause the hon. member has in mind.


William Moore Benidickson: I must say, I was using my basic notes on the resolutions of the budget as dealt with in Hansard. This change looks innocent enough, but I do not think the minister has fully explained to the committee the reason for the change. The change says:
The word "machinery" wherever it appears in this act shall be read and construed as "machines".
If we want something interchangeable and not something arbitrary this would seem to be a radical departure from past practice. What would the minister's view be about a substitution for that language say something

like this: "The word 'machinery' wherever it appears in this act shall be interpreted as including 'machines' "?


Donald Methuen Fleming: That would not be acceptable because it has the effect of reversing the situation, Mr. Chairman. With respect, I did my best to make this as clear as I could when I dealt with it and answered questions on it in the committee of ways and means on May 5. I can only invite my hon. friend to consider the explanation I gave at page 3331 and elsewhere of Hansard in that respect. It it a matter of definition, and the need for a proper definition, I think, was made clear in the illustrations that I gave of what might happen if the change is not made.


[Stage Direction]
Clause agreed to.
Clause 3 agreed to.
On clause 4-Schedule A amended.
Donald Methuen Fleming: Mr. Chairman, in connection with clause 4, I presume you will be calling the schedule separately, because I have an amendment. I may say that the change that I wish to make will affect the reference in line 23 to clause (d) of section 4 of the bill. I would ask my colleague, the Minister of National Revenue, to move the following amendment, that Bill No. C-44 be amended as follows:
(1)	By deleting the numbers "438d, 438e" where they appear in clause 4 on line 23 of page 2;
(2)	By striking out the reference to tariff item "411a" where it appears on page 16 in tariff item 438b in part IV of the schedule;
(3)	By striking out the reference to tariff item "411a" where it appears on pages 17 and 18 in tariff item 438c in part 4 of the schedule;
(4)	By deleting from part IV of the schedule tariff items 438d and 438e on pages 18. 19 and 20.


Mr. Nowlan:: I so move.


Donald Methuen Fleming: Perhaps the committee would like an explanation of this item, Mr. Chairman. This is a matter that was brought to my attention by the hon. member for Comox-Alberni since it was before the committee of ways and means and reported back to the house on Tuesday last, May 5. He brought forward representations also received from the British Columbia loggers association in this respect.
The effect of the amendment which is now proposed is to withdraw a proposed change which had been introduced in the budget at the request of the Canadian automobile chamber of commerce. The objective was to simplify the administrative procedure in importing certain parts of logging trucks. It was brought to my attention by the hon. member for Comox-Alberni, however, that the change might have some adverse and, I may say, completely unintended effects upon the Canadian logging industry. Tariff item

411a covers certain equipment used in logging operations. This item carries a mostfavoured-nation rate of 12J per cent and imports under it are exempt from sales tax. The purpose in proposing that tariff item 411a be enumerated in the automobile parts items was to provide entry for such parts as were ruled not to be made in Canada either free of duty or at a most-favoured-nation rate of 7J per cent.
It now appears, however, that while the original amendment would have had this effect it would also raise questions as to the continued exemption of such parts from the sales tax, and it was certainly not our intention to deprive these parts of the exemption they now enjoy in respect of sales tax. Therefore the amendment now proposed will have the effect of restoring the position which existed prior to the budget both as to the rates of duty and the application of sales tax, and further consideration will be given during the course of the next year to this whole situation.
I may say that since the hon. member for Comox-Alberni brought this matter to my attention we have communicated with the Canadian automobile chamber of commerce and they are not offering any objections to the amendment now proposed. I should like to express my very warm thanks to the hon. member for Comox-Alberni for bringing this matter to my attention as he has done. It was, I think, a very useful service that he rendered to me as well as a very useful service to the British Columbia logging industry.


Mr. McQuillan:: Mr. Chairman, I should like to say a word of thanks to the minister for the prompt action he took when I brought this problem to him. He did not have much time. It was only a matter of hours. I appreciate and I am certain that the industry in British Columbia appreciates the action he took so promptly.


[Stage Direction]
Amendment agreed to.
Clause 4 as amended agreed to.
Clause 5 agreed to.
On the schedule. Part I.
Charles Edward Rea: On the schedule, shall part I carry?


William Moore Benidickson: On the matter of the schedule I wonder what your views are. Will we serve ourselves well and be more expeditious if you call the individual items?


Charles Edward Rea: If it is the pleasure of the committee I will be very happy to call the individual items.
66968-9-224
Customs Tariff
Items 85, 87, 89, 90, 92, 93, 95, 99d, 106, 107, 187d and 505c agreed to.
Part I agreed to.
On part II.
Items 84, 85a, 85b, 87, 89, 90, 92 and 95b agreed to.
Customs tariff-95c. Passion fruit (passiflora edulis) :	British preferential tariff, free; most
favoured-nation tariff, 15 per cent; general tariff, 20 per cent.


John Whitney Pickersgill: Can the minister tell us how much passion fruit is imported into this country?


Donald Methuen Fleming: I am sorry to disappoint the hon. gentleman but it is not separately classified in the revenues.


[Stage Direction]
Item agreed to.
Items 105i, 106 and 107 agreed to.
Part II agreed to.
On part III.
Item 160 agreed to.
Customs tariff-162. Vermouth, aperitif and cordial wines, containing more than 32 per cent of proof spirit and not more than 40 per cent of proof spirit: British preferential tariff, 50 per cent; most favoured nation tariff, 50 per cent; general tariff, 80 per cent; and in addition thereto, under all tariffs 421 cents per gallon.
John Whitney Pickersgill: Here I am really inquiring more seriously for information than I was in the last case. There are two or three questions I should like to ask the minister. Will he tell us how much in quantity or in monetary terms, whichever is more convenient and I do not insist on both, vermouth, aperitif and cordial wines were imported from France and how much from Italy in the last year for which we have complete records? I should also like to ask the minister if there has been any reduction in prices by any of the vendors anywhere as a result of these concessions, or what I understand are supposed to be concessions, and which will be, of course, of no use to the countries to which they are made unless the retail price is decreased.


Donald Methuen Fleming: In reply to the first question I may say that again the figures are not segregated as to these particular wines. In the second place, I am not informed as to any changes that have been made in prices since April 9.


John Whitney Pickersgill: Perhaps the minister could then tell us what kind of arguments were used to convince the Italian negotiators that there would in fact be some value in this concession. It is perfectly apparent that the purpose of the increases in the woollen items,

Customs Tariff
which we will come to in a moment, is to increase the price here, and presumably therefore, since this was supposed to be a matter of negotiation, in order to give some advantage to the other country in exchange for the woollen increases the government had some kind of argument to offer as to what advantage would go to the Italians.


Donald Methuen Fleming: This item is of principal interest to Italian exporters and they have not required any instruction on the part of Canada as to what the value of a reduction in the tariff on these items may mean to them. There have been negotiations and in the course of those negotiations they have put whatever value they think is proper on this particular concession.


John Whitney Pickersgill: Were these things asked for by the Italians or were they offered by us?


Donald Methuen Fleming: It is very difficult to separate any particular time in the course of negotiations and say when something was initiated. The negotiations with the Italian government representatives in regard to these changes in the tariffs so far as they were of interest to Italy have been going on for some time. This particular change has taken place in the course of the negotiations. It was regarded by the representatives of the Italian government as something of interest to them and, as the committee is aware, the tariff proposal will have the effect of reducing the British preferential and most-favoured-nation duties by 30 per cent, that is, from 80 per cent to 50 per cent. I do not need to tell hon. members that most of the types of wines imported under this item are not produced in Canada.


John Whitney Pickersgill: I think it is pretty obvious that none of them is except I believe there is a kind of vermouth produced in the Niagara peninsula. I do not know whether that is the kind the minister uses. But the minister must realize that as far as I am aware-it may be that I am wrongly informed but I believe it is true-in every province I know anything about there is a monopoly in the sale of these products by an agency of the provincial government, and even if the duty were reduced to nothing the advantage would be nil to the exporting country unless there was some assurance that the reduction in duty was not simply going to be put into the provincial treasury but was going to be passed on to the consumer. With the exception of our marble imports from Italy which I cannot imagine are very extensive, although I intend to ask about them later, it would appear that the only concessions that were offered to the Italians for the injury we were

proposing to do to their exports of woollens involved the commodities in items 162 and 163, items which to the best of my knowledge are controlled by monopolies in every province. There may be one province in which that is not true. I am very surprised that the minister is not informed as to how it was that the Italians were satisfied, which I doubt, with concessions of this character.
I would urge the minister to be a little more frank with us and tell us what arguments were used in this context.


Donald Methuen Fleming: Mr. Chairman, the Italians are quite capable of defending their own interests in any negotiations. I do not think it is the duty of any Canadian to suggest that they should ask more in the way of concessions than they thought, in the course of these negotiations, they should ask.


John Whitney Pickersgill: I am not suggesting that they should ask more, but I happen to represent a constituency which has a very valuable market in Italy for one of the two products produced in that constituency, namely salt codfish. This market, in my opinion, is likely to be jeopardized by these changes in part III. Although the minister has never shown much interest in that section of the country or in that community, it does seem to those of us who represent this area that we should have the right to have our questions answered.
We have an interest in seeing that a good customer, Italy-in fact, we have not in recent years been able to satisfy the demand of the Italians for this product-should not be lost by tariff action taken by this government. I have no apology whatever, for this reason, for pressing for assurance about this matter. Moreover, as the minister well knows, the establishment of a common market has brought Italy and France, into a very close relationship. France has become a very serious competitor of Canada in the world market for salt codfish. There is every reason to be apprehensive about this Italian market.
It does not seem to me that it is incumbent upon the government in making tariff changes to see that they do not injure a community like the fishing community which has to sell its products in an export market or not at all and which, from a consumer's point of view, is a captive market for other industries in Canada which do benefit from the protective tariffs. I do not think it is unreasonable at all to expect the Minister of Finance, when asking us to change the tariff structure of this country to the apparent detriment of one industry and one section of the country, to give us assurances that he satisfied this valuable customer of ours that these changes

were not going to injure his capacity to buy these primary products of Canada such as fish and wheat.


Donald Methuen Fleming: We were over all this in the committee of ways and means. I dealt with this subject and gave the hon. member a full explanation. He is just asking me to repeat it.


John Whitney Pickersgill: I am not asking the minister to repeat. The minister keeps saying that we have been over all these things, but he gives no explanation and no answer. He does not deal with any of the questions that we ask. The minister seems to forget that it is not so many years since he sat over here and I predict it will not be so many years before he will be back here, especially if he treats parliament in the way in which he has been treating it lately.
When we are raising the tariff structure of this country we are entitled to know why these things are being done, and to know that some Canadian interests and industries are not being injured by these changes. In my opinion this change is a most retrograde step and is very detrimental to this country in every respect. It is most unfortunate it was made at all. It does seem to me we are entitled, at least, to be told some serious effort was made to get some assurances that Canadian producers who do have to stand all the cold hard winds of international trade are not to be injured any more than can possibly be avoided. If the government intends, as I know they do, to persist in this unfortunate course they have undertaken, then we are entitled to this information.


Donald Methuen Fleming: The hon. member likes to keep himself busy, Mr. Chairman, trying to raise storms and dust. We were over this whole subject and I shall direct the hon. gentleman's attention again to what was said just six days ago in this house as recorded on pages 3358 and 3359 of Hansard. We were over this same matter, and he is asking me to repeat what I said then. No doubt he is entitled to do that if that is his conception of the proper use of the time and facilities of the house. I was hoping to acquaint the committee with the fact that this point had been covered and that it was a matter of record. I traced there, Mr. Chairman, the course of our negotiations with the Italians.
The hon. gentleman now says, in effect, that the Italians were too easily satisfied in the negotiations; that is about what he says. The changes to which they were asked to agree were covered under the terms of GATT, and were tentatively agreed to on the basis of 66968-9-224 J
Customs Tariff
certain concessions we made to them, one of which is now before the committee as item 162b. The committee is well aware, I think, of that fact. Now the hon. gentleman says, in effect, that the Italians should have asked for more; they should not have been so easily satisfied in the course of the negotiations. His argument amounts to about that. I may say we worked out the arrangement with the Italians, and it was tentatively agreed to by them following our negotiations. I cannot say more than that. I said that a week ago, Mr. Chairman; that is the fact and it is on record.


John Whitney Pickersgill: The minister said that it is on record, and he keeps on saying that. What he has not told us is whether there is any conceivable way in which an advantage can be secured from this reduction in the tariff in items 162 and 163. I do not believe the minister would get up and argue that any advantage could be derived unless retail prices are reduced by the liquor commissions or whatever those authorities are called in the various provinces. This concession means absolutely nothing whatever unless that is done. This leads me to the conclusion that perhaps the Italians were told we were going to do this anyway, and it did not make any difference, and they may have said, we can easily retaliate and the Canadian primary producers will suffer, as I predict they will.


William Moore Benidickson: I do not expect the minister to have a crystal ball to enable him to predict the value and volume of the new trade which will result from the changes in the tariff schedule. Surely, however, he is able to tell us what was the value of the woollen goods that were imported from Italy in 1958 and which were the basis of these new negotiations. I am told, too, that the minister, for political purposes, was in great haste to announce, as he did in December, 1957, some increase in the tariff against British woollen goods. Having done that, of course, France and Italy realized they were tied into it, and in consequence our bargainers did not have the elasticity they might otherwise have had.


Donald Methuen Fleming: The hon. gentleman is talking about the other side of the ledger in the negotiations, namely the value of our imports from Italy of these woollen goods and fabrics which will be affected by the proposed increase. The total value in 1957, I am informed, was between $3 million and $4 million. The figure for 1958 is not available as yet.


William Moore Benidickson: Has the minister the figures of vermouth importations from France and Italy?

Customs Tariff


Donald Methuen Fleming: No. These particular wines are not separately recorded as statistical items.


John Whitney Pickersgill: Does the minister seriously tell us that we send people to the GATT negotiations and they trade away these things without knowing what they are worth, and that they have so little information about what they are talking about when they go to Geneva that they do not know what the imports are of these commodities? I find that very hard indeed to believe, and I would be very surprised if the hon. minister is not ill-informed on this subject.


Donald Methuen Fleming: I am told the best estimate we have on the imports from Italy of these three types of wines is about $400,000 a year. But these are not precise figures and cannot be.


John Whitney Pickersgill: Can the minister give us an approximate figure for item 163 as far as Italy is concerned, and also for item 162?


Donald Methuen Fleming: No sir, we have no figures on that.


John Whitney Pickersgill: Once again the minister is telling us that serious negotiations were carried on with Italy about their loss of a good part, at any rate, of the woollen market, but he and his negotiators have no idea what they were offering in exchange. This really strains our credulity, I think, beyond the breaking point, Mr. Chairman.


Donald Methuen Fleming: I can only regret that the hon. member, when he was a minister of the crown, did not learn a little more about the facts of the situation than he apparently did. The fact is that there are many items of imports and exports for which we have no precise figures broken down. There is nothing new about that. It is as it always has been, and negotiations under GATT have been carried on for years on that basis.


John Whitney Pickersgill: I very much doubt whether in the days when a different kind of government was in office which was interested in expanding trade instead of restricting trade that negotiations were carried on about items on which the government was not informed. That is probably one of the things which came in with the new look in 1957. If the minister has not the information, of course I do not expect him to manufacture it. I know that the fabrication plant of his party is outside the house rather than inside.


[Stage Direction]
Items agreed to.
Item 163 agreed to.

Customs tariff-307a. Manufactures of marble, n.o.p.: British preferential tariff, 20 per cent; mostfavoured-nation tariff, 221 per cent; general tariff. 40 per cent.
John Whitney Pickersgill: Surely the minister is not going to tell us he does not know how much marble was imported from Italy?


Donald Methuen Fleming: Mr. Chairman, I will send for the blue book. The officials do not happen to have those figures here. They are in the blue book, if the hon. gentleman wishes them.


John Whitney Pickersgill: Yes, I certainly do wish them, because up to now we have been told that they were willing to sacrifice a market worth $3 million or $4 million for some $400,000 of vermouth and $X worth of other wines, as well as some quantity of marble which is detailed in the blue book. It does seem to me that the minister might have come to the committee prepared to answer these obvious, simple and elementary questions and that we should certainly have that figure. However, if the minister would like to go on with the other items and let this point stand so that we will not hold up the work of the committee, I would be quite agreeable.
Item stands.
Customs tariff-554b. (1) Woven fabrics composed wholly or in part of yarns of wool or hair, n.o.p.: British preferential tariff, 20 p.c.; most favoured nation tariff, 27J p.c.; general tariff, 40 p.c.; and, per pound; British preferential tariff, 20 cts.; most favoured nation tariff, 36 cts.; general tariff, 40 cts.
The total duty leviable shall not be in excess of per pound: British preferential tariff, 60 cts.
(2)	Woven fabrics composed wholly or in part of yarns of wool or hair and weighing not less than twelve ounces to the square yard: British preferential tariff, 20 p.c.; most favoured nation tariff, 27a P-c.; general tariff, 40 p.c.; and, per pound: British preferential tariff, 15 cts; most favoured nation tariff, 33 cts.; general tariff, 40 cts.
The total duty leviable shall not be in excess of per pound; British preferential tariff, 55 cts.
(3)	Woven fabrics composed wholly or in chief part by weight of yarns of wool or hair and weighing not more than nine ounces to the square yard, n.o.p.: British preferential tariff, 20 p.c.; most favoured nation tariff, 27J p.c.; general tariff, 40 p.c.; and, per pound: British preferential tariff, 20 cts; most favoured nation tariff, 38 cts.; general tariff, 40 cts.
The total duty leviable shall not be in excess of, per pound: British preferential tariff, 60 cts.; most favoured nation tariff, $1.10.
554g. Woven fabrics composed wholly or in part of yams of wool, imported in the web in lengths of not less than five yards each, for use exclusively in the manufacture of neckties, scarves or mufflers: British preferential tariff, free; most favoured nation tariff, 15 p.c.; general tariff, 40 p.c.; and. per pound; general tariff, 40 cts.
In the case of such fabrics weighing not more than nine ounces to the square yard, the total duty leviable shall not be in excess of per pound: most favoured nation tariff, $1.10.


William Moore Benidickson: With regard to 554g, is that another item that Italy is more interested in than France?


Donald Methuen Fleming: Yes, Italy is more interested than France.


John Whitney Pickersgill: Was the figure which the minister gave on item 554b and 554g a global figure for them both? I mean the figure he gave a few minutes ago to the hon. member for Kenora-Rainy River?


Donald Methuen Fleming: The French figure would be about a quarter of that.


John Whitney Pickersgill: Is the $3 million or $4 million for both France and Italy, or just Italy?


Donald Methuen Fleming: The figure I gave of $3 million to $4 million was for Italy. We were talking about trade with Italy as against which certain concessions had been made in respect of wines and marble. The figure for imports of woollens from France is about one-quarter of the Italian figure.


John Whitney Pickersgill: The question I was raising was, does the figure of between $3 million and $4 million embrace both items 554b and 554g? I take it it does?


Donald Methuen Fleming: Yes.


William Moore Benidickson: Our fish exports are
almost exclusively to Italy.


[Stage Direction]
Items agreed to.
On part IV.
Items 27, 27a and 72a agreed to.
Customs tariff-79h.	Multiflora rose bushes:
British preferential tariff, 121 per cent; most favoured nation tariff, 121 per cent; general tariff, 30 per cent.
William Moore Benidickson: 
Donald Methuen Fleming: Item 79h which concerns multiflora rose bushes is a new item which reduces the duty on multiflora rose bushes to the same rate as applies to other shrubs and plants. Multiflora rose bushes had been classified as rose bushes and as such were dutiable at 3 cents each, although the value of them is about 1 cent or 2 cents each, whereas decorative rose bushes are worth 40 cents to 50 cents each. The association of Canadian nurserymen has indicated that there is no objection to this change.


[Stage Direction]
Item agreed to.
Items 79i, 82i, 134, 134a, 135 and 143 agreed to.
Customs Tariff
Customs tariff-152j. Dehydrated citrus fruit juices with or without stabilizers or sugar: British preferential tariff 21 per cent; most favoured nation tariff, 71 per cent; general tariff, 25 per cent.
William Moore Benidickson: This is a matter of
concessions on the fruit and vegetables trading with the United States; is that correct? This is a reduction in duty?


Donald Methuen Fleming: This was done on a unilateral basis.


John Whitney Pickersgill: Is this a reduction?


Donald Methuen Fleming: Is the hon. member speaking of item 156?


John Whitney Pickersgill: No, 152j.


Donald Methuen Fleming: I thought the
hon. member was speaking about 156. Item 152j, Mr. Chairman, concerning dehydrated citrus fruit juices, with or without stabilizers, is a new item which makes provision for dehydrated citrus fruit juices at a most favoured nation rate of 7J per cent, which is the same rate applying to orange juice. Formerly the rate was 20 per cent.


William Moore Benidickson: I am still using my
work notes from the budget papers, but there is no "j" in the printing of that item. Was that a typographical error? Perhaps in the bill it is "152j", but according to my copy it was just "152" in the resolutions tabled on budget night.


Donald Methuen Fleming: 
William Moore Benidickson: I assure the minister
that I am using the official appendix to the budget debate on April 9. I suppose it was a typographical error.


Donald Methuen Fleming: I notice in the
reprint in Hansard of April 9 the "j" was omitted.


John Whitney Pickersgill: Did these citrus fruit
juices come mainly from the United States?


Donald Methuen Fleming: Entirely, Mr. Chairman.


John Whitney Pickersgill: Was this one of the concessions in return for the changes on fruit and vegetables?


Donald Methuen Fleming: No, the United
States was not prepared to regard this as significant enough to be a concession.

Customs Tariff


John Whitney Pickersgill: It may not be significant
enough, but what prompted the government to do it?


Donald Methuen Fleming: It was thought
only fair that these crystals should be put on the same basis as orange juice coming in in other forms.


John Whitney Pickersgill: The minister will be interested to know that is one of the changes of which I approve.


Donald Methuen Fleming: I am glad there
is something the hon. member approves of.


William Moore Benidickson: We had a discussion
the other night, and we did learn that this was a peculiar crystal formed by dehydration. But why not use the word "crystal"? It is explanatory, and it is not referred to here.


Donald Methuen Fleming: This is the way
it was worked out with the administrative authorities, and it was thought to be an adequate and clear description. There is no question about what this refers to.


John Whitney Pickersgill: Before we leave this item, which is a very interesting one, I wonder if the minister could tell us what stabilizers are?


Donald Methuen Fleming: An ingredient
which prevents the crystals from becoming damp again. These crystals, as I recall, are packed in hermetically sealed tins.


[Stage Direction]
Item agreed to.
Customs tariff-156. (a) Whiskey, per gallon o£ the strength of proof and In addition thereto, under all tariffs, $9.00 per gallon of the strength of proof: British preferential tariff, $4.50; most favoured nation, $5.00; general tariff, $10.00.
(b)	Gin, n.o.p., per gallon of the strength of proof and in addition thereto, under all tariffs, $9.00 per gallon of the strength of proof: British preferential tariff, $4.50; most favoured nation, $5.00; general tariff, $10.00.
(c)	Rum, n.o.p., per gallon of the strength of proof and in addition thereto, under all tariffs, $9.00 per gallon of the strength of proof: British preferential tariff, $4.50; most favoured nation, $6.00; general tariff, $10.00.
(d)	Brandy, per gallon of the strength of proof and in addition thereto, under all tariffs, $9.00 per gallon of the strength of proof: British preferential tariff, $4.00; most favoured nation, $4.00; general tariff, $10.00.
(e)	Liqueurs, per gallon of the strength of proof and in addition thereto, under all tariffs, $9.00 per gallon of the strength of proof: British preferential tariff, $4.50; most favoured nation, $4.50; general tariff, $10.00.
(f)	Ethyl alcohol, or the substance commonly known as alcohol, hydrated oxide of ethyl or spirits of wine, n.o.p.; spirituous or alcoholic liquors, n.o.p.; absinthe, arrack or palm spirit, artificial brandy and imitations of brandy, n.o.p.; cordials of all kinds, n.o.p. mescal, pulque, rum shrub, schiedam and other schnapps; tafia, and alcoholic bitters or beverages, n.o.p.; and wines, n.o.p., containing more than forty per cent of proof spirit,

per gallon of the strength of proof and in addition thereto, under all tariffs, $9.00 per gallon of the strength of proof: British preferential tariff, $5.00; most favoured nation, $10.00; general tariff, $10.00.
When the goods specified in item 156 are of greater or less strength than the strength of proof, the measurement thereof and the amount of duty payable thereon shall be increased or decreased in proportion for any greater or less strength than the strength of proof.
Bottles and flasks and packages of gin, rum, whiskey and brandy of all kinds, and imitations thereof, shall be held to contain the following quantities (subject to the provisions for addition or deduction in respect of the degree of strength), namely:
Bottles, flasks and packages, containing not more than one-eight of a gallon per dozen as one-eighth of a gallon per dozen;
Bottles, flasks and packages, containing more than one-eighth of a gallon but not more than one-sixth of a gallon per dozen, as one-sixth of a gallon per dozen;
Bottles, flasks and packages, containing more than one-sixth of a gallon but not more than one-fourth of a gallon per dozen, as one-fourth of a gallon per dozen;
Bottles, flasks and packages, containing more than one-fourth of a gallon but not more than one-half of a gallon per dozen, as one-half of a gallon per dozen;
Bottles, flasks and packages, containing more than one-half of a gallon but not more than three-fourths of a gallon per dozen, as three-fourths of a gallon per dozen;
Bottles, flasks and packages, containing more than three-fourths of a gallon but not more than one gallon per dozen, as one gallon per dozen;
Bottles, flasks and packages, containing more than one gallon but not more than one and one-half gallons per dozen, as one and one-half gallons per dozen;
Bottles, flasks and packages, containing more than one and one-half gallons but not more than two gallons per dozen, as two gallons per dozen;
Bottles, flasks and packages, containing more than two gallons but not more than two and four-fifths gallons per dozen, as two and four-fifths gallons per dozen;
Bottles, flasks and packages, containing more than two and four-fifths gallons but not more than three gallons per dozen, as three gallons per dozen;
Bottles, flasks and packages, containing more than three gallons but not more than three and one-fifth gallons per dozen, as three and one-fifth gallons per dozen.
Bottles or phials of liquors for special purposes, such as samples not for sale to the trade, may be entered for duty according to actual measurement, under regulations prescribed by the minister.
John Whitney Pickersgill: I wonder if the minister can assure us, on item 156, that these changes in the tariff are precisely the same as the changes on the domestic products, or if there has been any additional protective element.


Donald Methuen Fleming: Exactly the same. Item agreed to.
Customs tariff-180a. Photographs, negatives and exposed film, for use only as news illustrations, under such regulations as the minister may prescribe:	British preferential tariff, free; most
favoured nation, free; general tariff, free.


William Moore Benidickson: As the minister was
always much exercised about the enlargement in legislation of ministerial discretion when he was on this side of the house, I should, perhaps, point out that the new words seem to describe what the minister can do. Could the hon. gentleman say what the practice has been hitherto?


Donald Methuen Fleming: Yes. Item 180a reads, at present, as follows:
180a. Photographs, negatives and exposed film, for use only as news illustrations, under regulations by the minister: British preferential tariff, free:	most-favoured-nation, free; general tariff,
free.
In the proposed change, there is no change brought about so far as the minister's authority is concerned. The change is made simply to bring the language into conformity with what has now become the standard wording.


John Whitney Pickersgill: I think the minister is quite right in saying that there is no change intended in the minister's authority, but is this not an extraordinary power to confer upon a minister? This would appear as if it were another form of censorship. These are photographs for news illustrations, and the minister might prescribe, say, the length of dress that might be worn by women in those photographs. There is no end to the number of things the minister might prescribe. Does the government not think it might be wise to indicate that the powers here would have to do not with what is contained on the photographs but with the photographs themselves in a purely technical sense.


Donald Methuen Fleming: The item does not relate to news illustrations but to photographs, negatives and exposed films for use only as news illustrations. It has been found necessary in the administration of this item in the past, including the period during which the hon. gentleman was a minister, to have some power reserved to the minister to deal by regulation with the use of photographs for the purpose of news illustrations, and the only change being made in this item is the inclusion of negatives and exposed film within the scope of the item.


John Whitney Pickersgill: I can accept that, but I must say that though, perhaps, I was being facetious when I began to discuss this point, I am now beginning to wonder seriously why there is the slightest need for the minister to make any regulation in this connection. Why should it not be sufficient to say "photographs, negatives and exposed film, for use only as news illustrations" and stop there. A photograph is a photograph, a negative is a negative and exposed film is exposed film. It does not appear to me that there is any need at all for regulations.
Customs Tariff
Perhaps the Minister of National Revenue knows why he wants to regulate these products, but I must say, as an ordinary layman who has never had anything to do with the administration of this department, that it is hard to see why regulations need to be made.


Donald Methuen Fleming: The words conferring this authority on the minister were inserted in 1936 and have been there ever since. I did not wish to take the responsibility at this time for taking them out. I am told that no great use has been made of the power in recent times. We shall examine this in the course of the experience during this coming year, now that the item is being revised, and take into account the observation made by the hon. gentleman.


John Whitney Pickersgill: Everyone knows that I have the greatest possible respect for that particular King, but I have never held that that King could do no wrong, and the fact that the minister says this happened in 1936, though it would lead me to think that there was some reason for it, would not satisfy me that it was infallible and that there was no reason to inquire into it. I therefore think it would be advisable to inquire into this and find out whether there was any need for regulations, because it does seem to me, at first glance, that there cannot be the slightest reason for any regulations and that these wide powers being conferred on ministers are objectionable, particularly when they are to be conferred on a government which intends to treat us to a bill of rights.


Harold Edward Winch: Are they not all free, anyway?


John Whitney Pickersgill: If they allow them in.


Donald Methuen Fleming: The purpose of the item is to enlarge the scope of duty free entry so as to include negatives and exposed film. Certainly it is for the purpose of extending free entry.


[Stage Direction]
Item agreed to.
Items 296g, 351c, 399a, 409f, and 414a agreed to.
Customs tariff-423a. Chiropody chairs and parts thereof:	British preferential tariff, free:	most
favoured nation tariff, free; general tariff, 35 per cent.
Harold Edward Winch: Is this not the item under which the minister said an announcement would be forthcoming on vibrators?


Donald Methuen Fleming: No, Mr. Chairman. The matter mentioned by the hon. gentleman concerns an amendment to the Excise Tax Act, not to the tariff.


[Stage Direction]
Item agreed to.
[Stage Direction]
Customs Tariff
Customs tariff-427. (1) All machinery composed wholly or in part of iron or steel, n.o.p.; parts of the foregoing: British preferential tariff, 10 p.c.; most favoured nation tariff, 22£ p.c.; general tariff, 35 p.c.
(2)	Seed and grain cleaning machines of screen and air blast type with a capacity not exceeding 100 bushels per hour; parts of the foregoing: British preferential tariff, 10 p.c.; most favoured nation tariff, 15 p.c.; general tariff, 35 p.c.
(3)	Industrial trucks, gas or gasoline powered, commonly known as "fork-lift" or "lift" trucks, for the movement of goods, having maximum lifting capacities, when equipped with forks, from four thousand pounds to sixteen thousand pounds, inclusive, at a load centre of twenty-four inches from the face of the forks, n.o.p.; accessories and attachments therefor; parts of the foregoing: British preferential tariff, 10 p.c.; most favoured nation tariff, 22£ p.c.; general tariff, 35 p.c.
(4)	Power shovels and cranes, convertible, with nominal dipper capacities, as shovels, from three-eighth to two and one-half cubic yards, inclusive, n.o.p.; parts of the foregoing: British preferential tariff, 10 p.c.; most favoured nation tariff, 22£ p.c.; general tariff, 35 p.c.
(5)	Power cranes, truck or wagon type, with rated lifting capacities of ten to forty tons, inclusive, computed on the basis of twelve foot radius with fifty foot boom, n.o.p.; parts of the foregoing: British preferential tariff, 10 p.c.; most favoured nation tariff, 22£ p.c.; general tariff, 35 p.c.
(6)	Paper machines; machines for calendering (not including super-calenders), slitting, reeling, winding and re-winding paper, n.o.p.; driving mechanisms therefor; parts of the foregoing: British preferential tariff, 10 p.c.; most favoured nation tariff, 22£ p.c.; general tariff, 35 p.c.
(7)	Electricity generating sets, consisting essentially of an internal combustion engine and one or more generators mounted on a common base, n.o.p.; parts of the foregoing: British preferential tariff, 10 p.c.; most favoured nation tariff, 22£ p.c.; general tariff, 35 p.c.
(8)	Vending machines for dispensing soft drinks, coin-operated, incorporating mechanical refrigeration; parts of the foregoing: British preferential tariff, 10 p.c.; most favoured nation tariff, 22£ p.c.; general tariff, 35 p.c.
William Moore Benidickson: On this item, which I consider one of the most interesting in its implications of any on the list, we had a discussion the other night. In the meantime I have made some inquiries. We were somewhat startled to think that the minister had made up his mind about one of the items- I am thinking about sub-paragraph 6 relative to paper machines-on April 9 before he had heard the result of a pending reference to the tariff board concerning the paper machines, but it is now my understanding that the tariff board in this particular case under appeal had ruled that the articles concerned were in fact made in Canada.


Donald Methuen Fleming: That is correct.


William Moore Benidickson: I do not think that ruling has been published yet.


Donald Methuen Fleming: Yes, it has been published.


William Moore Benidickson: In the Gazette?
[Mr. Fleming (Eglinton) .1


Donald Methuen Fleming: No, not in the
Gazette. But the declaration has been published.


William Moore Benidickson: 
Donald Methuen Fleming: Dealing with the last point, Mr. Chairman, I am told that paper machines have been ruled to have been made in Canada since 1907.


Paul Joseph James Martin: Two years after the minister was born.


William Moore Benidickson: All paper machines?


Donald Methuen Fleming: Yes. There has been no question raised on that point at any time. The tariff item here proposed simply is in line with the decision to which the hon. member refers.
As to the power shovel, the hon. gentleman raises a question as to the effect of the decision of the Supreme Court of Canada and as to the cubic contents of the shovel which in this item is fixed at 2J cubic yards. The Supreme Court of Canada handed down its
Customs Tariff
decision some few month ago but it was dealing with a state of facts that existed several years ago.


William Moore Benidickson: There was prolonged litigation.


Donald Methuen Fleming: Yes, there was prolonged litigation. In the meantime there had been rulings that power shovels with a cubic content of 2J cubic yards were made in Canada and therefore the change now proposed in the item is simply in harmony with the decisions and rulings already made.
As to the enlargement of the sizes, I presume the hon. member was referring to representations concerning the possible increase in the cubic content of the shovel to three cubic yards. I had representations from one source on that same point. I should like to point out to the committee that this provision takes nothing away from item 427. In other words, if the time comes when power shovels with cubic contents of three cubic yards are made in Canada they will be entitled to the benefit of the higher rate that goes with goods of a class or kind made in Canada and nothing in the proposed amendment will preclude them from doing so.


William Moore Benidickson: When we discussed this on May 5 at page 3344 of Hansard I quoted from the Financial Post of April 18 in which it was stated that the tariff board had rejected made in Canada appeals involving soft drink and hoisting machines. I now am just speaking from memory. I have no complaint against the minister or his staff. I know his staff is asked to revise Hansard afterwards. I think he gave me a categorical denial that evening that the statement was incorrect. The minister's reply as reported at page 3344 was as follows:
That statement is definitely not a true interpretation of the effect of this resolution.
Rightly or wrongly I think the minister said at that time the statement itself was incorrect.


Donald Methuen Fleming: The tariff board dismissed the appeal as to the vending machines.


[Stage Direction]
Item agreed to.
Items Nos. 437b, 438b as amended and 438c as amended, agreed to.
Charles Edward Rea: 438d?


Donald Methuen Fleming: It is deleted by the amendment. Item No. 438e is also deleted by the amendment.
Items 438f, 440c, 440k, 446e, 462d, 462i, 479, 502, 502c, 505a. 611a, agreed to.

Customs Tariff
Customs tariff-682:
Fish hooks, for deep-sea or lake fishing, not smaller in size than number 2.0;
Fishing nets and nettings of all kinds;
Lures, jiggers and artificial baits;
Metal panel devices for use in keeping nets open;
Metal swivels, of a class or kind not made in Canada;
Net and line floats of any material except wood;
Specially designed needles of a class or kind not made in Canada for use in repairing fish nets;
Threads, twines, marlines, fishing lines, rope and cordage, not exceeding one and one-half inches in circumference;
All the foregoing for use in commercial fishing, under such regulations as the minister may prescribe;
Carapace measures of any material: British preferential tariff, free; most-favoured-nation tariff, free; general tariff, free.


John Whitney Pickersgill: I should like to say a word about this item. The minister will recall that a year ago the hon. member for Burin-Burgeo raised this question in the house. Since he does not happen to be in the committee at the moment, I think it would be only right that I should express appreciation to the government for having listened to our representations.


[Stage Direction]
Item agreed to.
Items 691 and 696a agreed to.
Charles Edward Rea: I understand we are now to revert to item 307a.
Customs tariff-307a.


Donald Methuen Fleming: Mr. Chairman, the D.B.S. publication "Trade of Canada Imports" for the 12 months ended December, 1958 shows on page 155 that imports of marble manufactures from Italy in the 12 months period ended December, 1958, aggregated $78,049.


John Whitney Pickersgill: This means that the concessions we have made to Italy relate to a traffic on which they had $78,000-plus in business last year as opposed to $3 million or $4 million. I just wanted to underline the fact that this does not seem to have been a very good way of safeguarding our market there.


Donald Methuen Fleming: Mr. Chairman, the hon. gentleman is not right. He has overlooked the fact that with respect to item 554b we gave a binding to Italy on that item which had not existed before, and with respect to item 554g, this is a new item and gives a reduction in rate to Italy. This is a woven fabric.


John Whitney Pickersgill: How much does the minister estimate that trade is worth?


Donald Methuen Fleming: It is a new item and it is not possible to give an estimate that would have significance.


John Whitney Pickersgill: I was not suggesting that the minister could estimate how much more trade there would be. I presume this is an item that the Italians were exporting to us. What I meant was, what were the exports for the last year for which the figures are available?


Donald Methuen Fleming: I am told that the goods described in this particular item have never been segregated.
Item 307a agreed to.
Schedule as amended agreed to.


[Stage Direction]
Title agreed to.
The Depuly Chairman: Shall I report the bill as amended?
John Whitney Pickersgill: On division.


George Clyde Nowlan: Mr. Chairman, before you report the bill I may be permitted to say one word. I know that in the house and in the committee we do not recognize strangers on the floor as such, but I am sure the committee would permit me to say that we have on the floor this afternoon Mr. Lloyd Younger, who has been assistant deputy minister of customs for some years and on many occasions and under difficult circumstances he has sat here and assisted both the Minister of Finance and the Minister of National Revenue. So far as one can tell at the moment, owing to his own will and determination, he will retire while he can still enjoy life and the pursuit of happiness. This is probably the last time he will be seen on the floor of this house.


William Moore Benidickson: Mr. Chairman, may I just add to the words of the Minister of National Revenue the enthusiastic endorsation of those of us on this side who know the competent deputy minister. I had considerable association with him in the various stages of debate such as we have been engaged in here today and were engaged in last week. In addition, of course, he has been one of those who has been called in on pre-budget discussions. He, of course, has been a servant of distinction of the department of customs and excise. He has been most loyal to the country and to the minister and I think particularly to the statute law which we parliamentarians pass.


Herbert Wilfred Herridge: I would like to wish the deputy minister in question good health and a long, happy, enjoyable retirement.
Bill reported.


Mr. Speaker:: When shall the bill be read a third time? By leave, now?


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.
Mr. Fleming (Eglinton) thereupon moved third reading of the bill.


Mr. Speaker:: Is it the pleasure of the house to adopt the motion?


John Whitney Pickersgill: On division.
Motion agreed to on division, bill read the third time and passed.



UNEMPLOYMENT INSURANCE ACT


Michael Starr: the second reading of Bill No. C-43, to amend the Unemployment Insurance Act.
He said: Mr. Speaker, on second reading of Bill No. C-43, to amend the Unemployment Insurance Act, I wish to make a few observations. The present amendments in this bill will provide coverage for a greater number of wage earners. They will increase benefits and allowable earnings. They will also increase contributions. They will extend the benefit period to 52 weeks.
Today, in asking the house to give consideration to these amendments I would refer first to section 3 of the bill. This section raises the wage ceiling on insurability, bringing in under the umbrella of unemployment insurance protection persons making up to $5,460 as compared with only $4,800 under the present act.
I should also like to explain that we have adopted a new principle in regard to allowable earnings as shown in the table on page 6 of the bill. Hon. members will note that the benefit rate for a person with a dependant is higher than that for a person without a dependant, even though their wages may have been the same. This is the way in which the act recognizes the greater responsibilities of those with dependants. At the present time, however, this principle is not recognized in the allowable earnings schedule. We propose, therefore, a new schedule that provides for somewhat higher allowable earnings for the person with a dependant.
Furthermore, since the allowable earnings idea was first incorporated in the act in 1955 experience has shown that the amount of earnings allowed should be higher if the claimant is to have adequate incentive to take on casual work. We propose, therefore, to make the allowable earnings one-half of the claimant's weekly benefit rate, rounded to the nearest dollar. By doing this, we will be producing two desirable results with one amendment; that is, we will be recognizing the greater responsibilities of those with dependants and we will also be putting a realistic price tag on incentive to work.
Unemployment Insurance Act
I should like to deal now with the new schedule of benefit rates. This schedule appears on page four of the bill. It will be noted that two new classes of benefits are added, one a new maximum of $36 for a person with one dependent, earning $69 a week and over; another of $33 for a person with one dependent earning between $63 and $70 per week. Previously persons earning over $57 weekly could not draw more than $30. That was the maximum. The two new clauses display a more realistic regard for present economic conditions. Also, in increasing the schedule of allowable earnings all the way along the line, the maximum total income now permitted to an unemployed person with one dependent is $54 per week compared with the previous $43 per week. Thus, in order to provide a higher benefit range we have had to provide for increased contributions.
In connection with this I should point out to hon. members that during the last two winters of moderate recession, which Canada suffered along with a great number of other countries, the drain on the fund has been heavy. In 1957-58 outgo from the fund was in the neighbourhood of $385 million. For 1958-59 the figure will be higher. In the two past years the fund has been reduced by almost $400 million. No one will deny that this has been a heavy drain. On the other hand, Mr. Speaker, I do not think that anyone would quarrel with this use of the fund for the purpose for which the fund was originally set up.
The expenditures that were made from the fund in the past two years were made for the purpose of easing the lot of those whose misfortune it was to fall into unemployment. The amendments which are now before you will make possible further easement of that difficult and unpleasant situation, while at the same time keeping the fund on a sound basis. I would point out at the same time that we do not anticipate a need for drains on the fund in the immediate future of the magnitude of those of the past two years. All signs now point to a steady strengthening of the economy. However, there is a responsibility on the government to maintain the fund in a condition of equilibrium and this the new schedule of contributions will help materially in effecting.
I now come to an amendment which deserves notice at this time. I refer to section 10 of the bill which sets out the grounds on which the period of qualification may be extended and adds to these grounds time served in penitentiary up to two years. Ordinarily a person who had spent up to two years in penitentiary, would lose the benefit of unemployment insurance contributions, which

Unemployment Insurance Act would impose a further punishment in addition to those levied by the court. This disability is now removed and it will help a great deal in the rehabilitation of those who have been unfortunate enough to have punishment imposed upon them by the courts.
The final major amendment increases the maximum duration of benefit from 36 weeks to 52 weeks. This is being introduced in answer to many representations and reverts to the situation that existed back in 1955 prior to the time when there was a general revision and amendments were made to the act.


Paul Joseph James Martin: Before the minister ends his statement may I ask him if he is now in a position to table the report of the advisory committee to which I made reference on the orders of the day?


Michael Starr: Upon investigation as soon as orders of the day were over I found that the statutory report of the advisory committee of the unemployment insurance commission was tabled in the house as provided by the act. However, I asked the unemployment insurance advisory committee to give some study to some of my suggestions for amendments to the Unemployment Insurance Act, which they did. They forwarded their report to me, and under the circumstances I consider it to be confidential and for the information of the minister. It is not a statutory report. However, there is nothing in it that I feel is detrimental in any way. As a matter of fact, some of the most important things they discuss are not incorporated in the present bill. Therefore I have no hesitation in tabling that report.


Paul Joseph James Martin: Has the minister tabled it already?


Michael Starr: No, I have not.


Paul Joseph James Martin: I should like to look at it during the dinner hour because, in spite of what the minister said, I have not had the opportunity of reading it although I have heard a good bit about it.


Michael Starr: I can table the report now. It is a report dated August 26.


Paul Joseph James Martin: Mr. Speaker, in rising on second reading to comment on this particular and important measure I should like to say to the minister that I hope he will not misunderstand me if I say that I had expected, particularly in the light of previous discussion as well as because of the implications of the bill, that he would have had more to say on second reading. But perhaps the minister intends to make a

more comprehensive statement at the conclusion of the debate rather than at the beginning.


Michael Starr: Mr. Speaker, if I may interrupt the hon. member for Essex East (Mr. Martin) it is my intention, as I indicated earlier on the resolution stage, to refer the bill to the industrial relations committee where ample opportunity will be given to every member of that committee to discuss each amendment as thoroughly as possible.


Paul Joseph James Martin: I welcome that suggestion which I think is a good one because of the character of the bill. However, that does not remove, of course, the fact that there are a number of very important considerations of principle and related circumstances that can more appropriately be discussed on second reading as I now propose to do. I thank the minister for tabling that report about which I propose to have something to say during the course of my remarks. I regret that I cannot treat it as he treats it, as a document confidential to the members of the advisory committee and the minister.
I think it is very important at the outset of the discussion that we should not forget that the unemployment insurance commission and its auxiliary and related bodies were enacted by statute to occupy a rather unique position, certainly different from the functions assigned to the various divisions of a particular department. The unemployment insurance commission is a body that reports, through the Minister of Labour (Mr. Starr), to the governor in council. There is nothing in the act that authorizes the advisory committee to report directly to the minister. However, as I said at the outset I will have more to say on that subject as I proceed.
The minister dealt cursorily with certain features of the bill. He referred to the fact that increased rates were going to be imposed on the main contributing bodies, employers and employees, and also a consequential increase in the grant provided by Canada out of the consolidated revenue fund. Then he said that there would also be increased benefits. I must say that I have carefully perused the legislation and I think it is a very strong overstatement to say that the bill provides for any real increase in benefits. It does make certain provision for extension of the present period to 52 weeks, restoring the old situation, but generally speaking the bill does not provide for any increases in the rates of benefit.
What this bill does is to impose on the workers and the employers a heavy increased obligation, an obligation which in its totality represents further taxation of these

two segments of the community in an amount of money equal to almost one-third of the additional burden of taxation imposed by the Minister of Finance (Mr. Fleming) in his budget. What we are now dealing with is a measure that is going to impose an additional tax burden on the workers and the employers, a burden that was not referred to by the Minister of Finance when he presented his budget to us on April 9.
It is true that in his budget speech he made reference to the unemployment insurance fund. He referred to the fact that as a result of unemployment in the country there had been an impairment of the integrity of that fund. No reference was made by him, however, and no detailed reference was made today by the Minister of Labour to indicate what this particular measure will mean in terms of additional contributions by two groups in our national community. This should be viewed in the light of the fact that the measure, as I say, does not provide for any real increase in benefits to those who are called upon to make the contributions provided for by this act.
The minister, and I think understandably from his point of view, did not deal with a matter to which I referred on the resolution stage. I do not want to revive that matter, but I do want to indicate to the minister that in my judgment, as well as in the judgment of those who sit on Mr. Speaker's left, we are not satisfied that the Unemployment Insurance Act has been complied with in so far as the appointment of Mr. MacArthur is concerned in succession to Mr. Tallon. I repeat that there is nothing against Mr. MacArthur whatever in terms of confidence. I believe that what the minister has said, and the evidence before us, clearly indicates that there has not been a proper consultation with labour as required by the Unemployment Insurance Act.
The minister indicated when he spoke the other day on the resolution, and I refer to his words at page 3361 of Hansard for May 5, 1959, that the reason for this bill is to maintain the fund in a situation of stability over the next few years. He said that during the past two years of recession which we have experienced there has been a pretty heavy drain on this fund. Those words by the minister, I think, represent the true situation. I would point out that the fund dropped by $134.2 million in 1957-58 and by $247.9 million in 1958-59, a total reduction of $382.1 million in two years. At no time previously had the fund dropped by such a large amount in any one or two years period.
This is, of course, an indication of the level of unemployment we have in this country.
Unemployment Insurance Act One would have thought from the statement made by the Prime Minister (Mr. Diefen-baker) outside of this house on Friday last that the situation was otherwise when he said that we were emerging from the recession more rapidly than any other country in the western world. Of course, the facts are precisely the opposite, particularly in so far as unemployment is concerned. It is no wonder, then, that there has been a drop in the level of the unemployment insurance fund, the replenishment of which the minister said is the primary objective of this legislation.
Now, the aggregate of the replenishment which the minister has in mind is going to be made up of two elements. First, there will be the contribution that will be made by insured persons whose earnings are in the bracket between the present maximum of $4,800 per annum and the new maximum of $5,460. The second element will be the increased contribution payable by employees and employers as a result of the increase in rates of contribution of those now earning $4,800 or less. The minister told us the other day that as a result of this legislation 80,000 contributors will be brought back into the scheme. I have calculated that each of these, if fully employed, will pay 52 times 94 cents or $44.88 per annum. The total 80,000 additional workers to which my hon. friend referred in this group will contribute annually $4 million more and the employers will contribute a like amount.
Now with regard to the present class that is up to the $4,800 range, the rates of increase vary upward from 25 per cent to 56.7 per cent. It is, of course, difficult to know the present weighting of the different classes. If we assume, however, that the average rate of increase will be 30 per cent, then the employees in this class, that is the $4,800 or less, would pay roughly 30 per cent of the 1957-58 contribution, that is to say $94 million or an aggregate of $28.3 million. If these estimates are correct, or even approximately correct, this new bill will lay additional burdens on the employers of Canada of approximately $32.3 million, and a similar burden on the employees of $32.3 million.
At six o'clock the house took recess.


[Stage Direction]
AFTER RECESS

The house resumed at 8 p.m.
Paul Joseph James Martin: Mr. Speaker, I had concluded my remarks before dinner, by observing that this bill would impose an

Unemployment Insurance Act additional burden on the two main contributors, the employers and the employees respectively, in the amount of $32.3 million. I should now like to emphasize that for those who fall into the new class who are not now making any contribution to the unemployment insurance fund, the new measure will subject them to a contribution of $48.88 per annum, which is a substantial amount particularly when one thinks of the increases in sales taxes, corporation tax, income tax and other impositions which were provided for in the recent budget. It certainly imposes a substantial burden on industry which has already been called upon to pay substantial taxes; and of course this represents an important burden now imposed on the workers of our country.
The minister said when he was explaining these proposed increased contributions that the reason was to maintain the fund in stability over the next few years. One might reasonably ask whether the increased contributions do not represent a heavy burden both on industry and the labour force for conditions which have prevailed in the last two years and for which they cannot be held, of course, accountable.
I said when speaking the other night that one of the reasons for the position in which we find the fund is because of invasions made on this fund since the period following June 1957. I indicated that of course hon. gentlemen opposite were not the first to provide for supplementary benefits, but that whenever supplementary benefits had been provided for, as they were on three occasions by the previous administration, steps were taken to replenish the fund. With regard to the two occasions that have presented themselves during the term of the present administration in respect of which there has been an invasion of the fund for the purpose of providing seasonal or supplementary benefits there was no consequential action taken by the government to replenish the fund.
No one quarrels, of course, with the desirability for these supplementary payments, particularly in the last two years when there has been serious unemployment, more serious that at any time since the period between 1930 and 1935. But we have argued in this session and in other sessions that the burden was one that should have been shared by the people of Canada generally and not a burden that should have been imposed only on two segments of the population, namely the employers and the employees. That is obviously a responsibility which should be shared by all Canadians, and to have imposed this obligation on the workers and on the employers without replenishing the fund is in part one


of the reasons why the government and the unemployment insurance commission and the advisory committee have been disturbed about the present state of the fund.
I said that when we invaded the fund for the purpose of providing supplementary benefits we took steps to replenish the fund. That was done in the years 1949-50, 1950-51, and in 1951-52. In 1949-50 vote 585 provided for reimbursement to the fund under section 87 (f) (1) of the act in the amount of $1,500,000. The actual expenditure amounted, however, to only $13,425.56. The following year, vote 597 provided for similar purposes the amount of $1,780,000, which was fully expended. In 1951-52 vote 717 provided for $40,000, of which $35,438.35 was spent.


Erhart Regier: Mr. Speaker, might I ask the hon. member a question. Were these votes to provide for the payment of seasonal benefits which were being granted at the time?


Mr. Marlin (Essex Easi):: They were consequential upon the fact that the government had recommended to this house legislation providing for supplementary payments, and the government took steps to replenish the fund in accordance with its belief that this was a responsibility which should be shared not just by the workers and the employers but by the people of Canada, generally, through the consolidated fund.
So if the government is faced with a situation where the fund in 1959 has been reduced to $496.3 million as compared with what it was, let us say, in 1954, $881.3 million, one of the contributing reasons is the failure of the government to replenish the fund in accordance with a responsibility that belongs to all Canadians. The government may have had budgetary reasons for that; it may not have wanted to add to the deficit of 1957-58 or the larger deficit of 1958-59. But that certainly does not justify the invasion of a fund contributed to by two groups for the purpose of giving them maintenance grants which they require, as this winter and last fall indicated they did require, in the event of a high level of unemployment. I am sure that in considering the increased contributions which the employers and the employees must make under this measure one cannot help but wonder whether the increased contribution is designed to improve the financial condition of the fund or whether it is designed to pay the true actuarial cost of the additional coverage. I am sure that the minister would have satisfied the house if in his brief statement he had included some explanation for the government's course in this particular.

Mr. Speaker, we all recall some of the words of the Prime Minister (Mr. Diefen-baker) in connection with unemployment insurance. At Port Alberni on March 12, 1958 the leader of the Conservative party, the present Prime Minister, told the audience in that community that when his government came to power in June 1957 there was the greatest unemployment in Canada's history. He was giving them the facts, he said. He told the audience that now we had passed the peak of unemployment in this country. Of course, he did not give the figures, but, Mr. Speaker, you and I know, as do hon. members of this house, that the situation that eventuated after that speech was made is not supported by the facts. The real situation in the measure before the house is clear, that the government did not foresee the situation which now confronts us, and in failing to foresee it did not take the necessary preparatory steps and action to maintain the integrity of the fund.
The Prime Minister said at Pembroke on March 28 that the Liberals were saying unemployment was still on the increase but he said figures from the national employment service showed that registrations for unemployment insurance which had been mounting steadily all winter were finally going down. Registrations, the Prime Minister said, had gone up by 10,000 in the first half of March, but in the week beginning March 20 there had been a drop of 3,120, an indication that Canada's unemployment crisis had passed its peak. That confirms what I have just said, because the figures for March, published late in April, reveal that for the week ending March 22 there were 590,000 persons out of work and seeking jobs-or 10 per cent of the labour force-and 883,660 applicants for employment.
If the fund is in the dangerous state in which those who have to do with this matter obviously regard it to be, a contributing factor is the heavy invasion of it because of the fact that we have had this high level of unemployment in Canada. I suggest to the Minister of Labour that the government should have been warned last year by what was said on this side of the house, and should have taken steps not only to mitigate the occasion of unemployment but also, as was done by its predecessors, to see that the integrity of the fund was maintained in a manner which represented the common contribution of the people of Canada generally.
In the short presentation which he made today, the minister took credit for the value of this legislation in that it is extending the period from 36 weeks to 52 weeks and restoring the situation which prevailed prior to the amendment introduced by Mr. Gregg. The
Unemployment Insurance Act Minister of Labour has not, of course, overlooked the fact that the unemployment insurance commission noted, in the last report but one which it made to parliament, on page 50, that in view of the high percentage of claimants who did not use the long period of entitlement which was often set up for them it was considered justifiable to reduce the period of entitlement. And the commission went on to explain that in certain circumstances a claimant might continue to receive benefit, with or without partial earnings, throughout 51 instead of 36 weeks.
The fact remains that it was indicated from experience that between 1949 and 1953, 9.9 per cent of the claimants drew benefits for 20 weeks or more and consequently it would be a pity if the great mass of contributors were called upon to pay for much longer periods of benefit than they were likely to need. This, of course, was not mentioned by the Minister of Labour. It means that for the very large number of individuals who are outside this 9.9 per cent, a heavy added burden results from the amendments proposed. I do not quarrel with this in principle, except that I think that in regarding this as one of the great advantages of the legislation now before us, the minister should have pointed out the limited number of people who, in the light of experience, are likely to profit from this particular modification of the act.
We were told by the Prime Minister repeatedly, during the election of 1957 in particular, that if his government came to office the waiting period would be eliminated entirely. I think the government should be reminded of that promise as my reading of the bill does not indicate that this particular promise is being fulfilled by the administration.
It is noteworthy that the Canadian Labour Congress has called for compensation on the basis of two-thirds of the earnings of the beneficiaries under this scheme. I took issue with the Minister of Labour at the outset of my remarks by saying that while this measure imposes additional contributions from both employers and employees it does not provide any real increase in benefits. The minister said it does, and I hope that at some point he will indicate what these increased benefits are.
In the light of the present value of our dollar one wonders whether the present level of benefit is satisfactory. One would have thought that if there was to be this additional burden by way of increased rates, to the extent of 30 per cent covering some categories, there would have been some increase in the amount of benefit provided for workers covered by this legislation. There is no
3542	HOUSE OF
Unemployment Insurance Act doubt that the Unemployment Insurance Act was intended to cover every earning worker, and to provide its benefits for all. That, I am sure, is the intention of the present administration, as it was the intention of its predecessor. It seems to me that the benefits provided by the act should enable a worker to look after himself and his family on a satisfactory basis. The failure of the government to increase the benefits at a time when it has taken such a significant step in increasing so sharply the rate of contributions, represents one of the substantial deficiencies of this series of amendments which is now before us. The amendments do not basically affect the rate of benefits. I say they should be increased in the light of the value of Canadian currency at this time, the cost of living and all the ensuing obligations which are incurred by our people as a result of policies put forward by this government.
The minister made reference at one point to the report issued by the unemployment insurance advisory committee on August 18, 1958, which was tabled in accordance with the requirements of the Unemployment Insurance Act. In this connection it is worth observing the terms of the Unemployment Insurance Act itself. Section 89, subsection (1) reads:
(1) Within four months after the end of each fiscal year the advisory committee shall make a report to the governor in council on the financial condition of the fund as of the end of that fiscal year and shall also make a report to the governor in council on the financial condition of the fund whenever the advisory committee considers that the fund is or is likely to become, and is likely to continue to be, insufficient to discharge its liabilities, and may make a report on the financial condition of the fund at such other times as the advisory committee may think fit.
This advisory committee is an important body. On it sit four representatives of the employers. Their names are Mr. James Hunter, Norman Hesler, H. Shoobridge, and Mr. T. C. Urquhart. In addition there are four representatives of employees, Mr. George Burt, Mr. Stanley Knowles, who substitutes for someone else; Mr. Jean Marchand, and Mr. J. G. McLean. And the chairman of this advisory committee is the former deputy minister of labour, Mr. Arthur MacNamara. This report was tabled in accordance with the requirements of the statute, the pertinent section of which I have just referred to. The report itself is of great relevancy to the subject we have before us at this time. By the way, this report is addressed to the governor in council. Under the act I would submit that every report of the advisory committee must be addressed to the governor in council.


The unemployment insurance commission is a unique body. The commission was established so as to remove it from the ordinary routine of departmental administration and the reports it makes are made to the cabinet as a whole-to the governor in council-rather than to the minister in particular. The first section of the report reads:
Section 89(1) of the Unemployment Insurance Act requires the unemployment insurance advisory committee to report not later than July 31 each year on the financial condition of the unemployment insurance fund as at the preceding March 31.
That is clearly in accordance with the act. The reason for my emphasizing this section will be clear, I think, in the light of what I shall have to say about the supplementary report which the Minister of Labour in answer to requests by the opposition today tabled just prior to our adjournment at six o'clock.
In the third paragraph of this report the advisory committee points out:
The balance at the credit of the unemployment insurance fund at March 31, 1958, was $744,200,124.87, a decrease of $134,241,341.68 in the twelve-month period.
And then with some significance the committee goes on to point out:
This compares with an increase of $18,970,908.62 in the fiscal year 1956-57, an increase of $13,186,624.99 in the fiscal year 1955-56, and a decrease in the fiscal year 1954-55 of $41,245,135.50.
In paragraph 8 on page 2 of the report we find these words:
It should be mentioned that there was a revenue from investment of the fund of nearly $24 million. This item will be approximately $7 million less next year.
Of course, the reason for that was the unemployment insurance fund experienced the same difficulty that attended all the holders of government securities at that particular time. In paragraph 9 of the report the committee states:
The staggering increase in benefit payments is mainly due to the large number of unemployed workers during the period, and to the extension of the period during which seasonal benefits were available.
In paragraph 12 it is stated:
In the seventeen years, over $1] billion have been paid out in benefit payments.
On page 3 the report contains a table showing the balance at the credit of the unemployment insurance fund for the years 1955, 1956, 1957 and 1958. The balance in 1955 was $846,284,000 and in 1958 it was $744,200. I have already indicated that in 1959 it was $496.3 million. Paragraph 17 on page 4 states:
The committee calls attention to the serious drain on the fund created by the heavy load of payments during the year.

We come then to paragraph 19 which states:
There was, unquestionably, a need for the special provisions to meet the emergent situation last winter. The committee is gratified to find that the benefit payments could be made so satisfactorily through the commission offices.
Paragraph 20 is extremely significant:
It is a fact, however, that the burden of this expense, in the opinion of the committee, should not be imposed on the unemployment insurance fund unless the loss to the fund is made good.
That is the recommendation, the statement and the view of this advisory committee of employers and employees. In paragraph 21 they say:
We trust the government will take action to replace the drain on the fund, by reason of the extension of the seasonal benefit period by a grant.
This government has not accepted that recommendation made by this advisory committee which recommends that what was done on three previous occasions should be done by this administration so as not to place on the two main contributors a burden which in all fairness does not exclusively belong to them.
One could go on and look at various other sections of the report to find that the advisory committee by statistical analysis supports the contentions that it has made, that the fund should be supported by grants from the government and that the burden should not be shared only by the employers and employees. In paragraph 30 we find this statement:
You will observe Mr. Humphrys' estimate that an increase of 20 per cent in the contribution rates would probably maintain the fund at the present level. The estimate is based on the assumption that a pattern of employment during the next five years, may be expected, similar to that of the last five.
That is the view of this committee, repeating the observations of Mr. Humphrys that an increase of 20 per cent in the contribution rates would probably maintain the fund at the present level but that is not what is in this bill. This bill provides for increased rates of contributions to be imposed on the workers and on the employers in some categories of 30 per cent and in some other categories of slightly over 30 per cent. Can there be any doubt that the government for reasons that it has not explained has not pursued the practice of its predecessors in this particular and has failed to carry out the recommendations of the advisory committee set up for the purpose of advising the government and the commission in these matters?
I do not say it is the obligation of the government to accept the recommendations of bodies such as this one but surely it is an obligation of the government in the presentation of legislation such as this to explain
Unemployment Insurance Act why it has not carried out the recommendations of the advisory committee, recommendations that are made only after the most careful consideration.


Jay Waldo Monteith: Pretty weak.


Paul Joseph James Martin: The Minister of Health and Welfare says, "Pretty weak". I may say to him that the policy of the government in the face of this report is obviously very weak.


Jay Waldo Monteith: I was referring to the applause.


Paul Joseph James Martin: Paragraph 33 reads as follows:
In amplification of the reasons for the recommendation that the government contribution be increased,-
Not as provided for in this bill as I hope to show, but through another formula altogether. I continue:
-attention is called to the following, as some of the expenditures, with which the fund has been burdened and for which provision for sufficient balancing revenue has not been made-
Again they are calling upon the government to replenish the fund out of the consolidated revenue fund in such a way as to distribute the burden equally on the Canadian people.
In paragraph 35 the advisory committee makes certain other recommendations as to what might be provided for in amendments brought to parliament. These include, among others, payment of benefit for unemployment caused by illness, payment of benefit for short term claimants, the revision of the benefit formula involved in the elimination of seasonal benefits, which the committee believed would develop serious difficulties, and so on. These recommendations of the advisory committee were not even referred to this afternoon by the Minister of Labour (Mr. Starr). Unless these bodies are to be taken seriously, as this one certainly should be, the government should, when it is not prepared to carry out recommendations of one of its own agencies, explain the reasons for the course that it takes.
I have indicated, Mr. Speaker, that this particular report was made in accordance with the requirements of section 89 of the statute. This afternoon I asked the Minister of Labour the following question: "Will the Minister of Labour tell us whether any report was presented to the government by the unemployment insurance advisory committee since that tabled on August 18, 1958?" The minister said that he had received notice of my intention to ask this question during the course of the morning but that he had not yet had time to ascertain the

Unemployment Insurance Act kind of reply that he should make. Before dinner he did refer to the fact that there was such a report, a report which he said was made on his own instigation when he asked the advisory committee for some supplementary information in addition to that provided for in the report of August 18, 1958. However, he said that this second report was addressed to him and he regarded it as a privileged and confidential document. I want to be fair with the minister. I do not know whether he said "confidential".


Mr. Speaker:: Order. I think before the hon. member proceeds to discuss the circumstances of the production of the report in question he should indicate how it relates to the bill. The hon. member knows that this is second reading, and the bill contains specific principles. It seems to me he is now going into something that is extraneous.


Paul Joseph James Martin: This is a supplementary report made by the advisory committee with regard to what that committee believes should be in the bill, and it is a supplement to the report already tabled, to which I have been making references for the last half hour.


Mr. Speaker:: I am not objecting to the hon. member using the report, but what I am objecting to, or what I am asking him to desist from, is a discussion of the production and manner of production.


Paul Joseph James Martin: Mr. Speaker, I do not want to quarrel or take issue with you on that point. The document to which I refer has been tabled, and it is in that context that there is an issue between the Minister of Labour and myself.


Erhart Regier: When was it tabled?


Paul Joseph James Martin: Just before six o'clock. The hon. member will recall that on the orders of the day I asked the Minister of Labour whether there was such a report. He said he would make inquiries. He told me that it was addressed to him personally. Because he said it did not contain consequential information he would have no hesitation in tabling it, and I took advantage during the recess to make a careful perusal of the report. Now the Minister of Labour says that this was a report made to him in his capacity as Minister of Labour. There is no doubt that the report does indicate that it is addressed to the Hon. Michael Starr, Minister of Labour; but, as I said at the outset-


Mr. Speaker:: That is the line of debate which I was questioning. The hon. member seeks to make a point about the character of the report. He has the report. I do not object
fMr. Martin (Essex East).]
to his using it. It seems to me that how it got to be tabled, or what its character is does not matter; at least, is not relevant to the bill.


Paul Joseph James Martin: With great respect, I think it has everything to do with the bill, because I am going to indicate that this report was not tabled in accordance with the Unemployment Insurance Act, as it should have been, and some of the amendments of which are now under consideration in this house.


John Whitney Pickersgill: Mr. Speaker, on a point of order,-


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh.


John Whitney Pickersgill: On a point of order, if my hon. friend will permit me, I am not sure whether Your Honour was in parliament at the time but a situation arose in the year 1949 when a certain document was in question that was not even directly related to a bill to amend the Combines Investigation Act which was before parliament and the precise question arose before the Speaker of that day. It was argued by Mr. Knowles and by the present Prime Minister and was established by them, with the support of the Speaker, that since the document was germane and related to the subject matter of the amendment under consideration it could be referred to and discussed in the course of the debate.


Mr. Speaker:: I quite agree that the hon. member can refer to and discuss the report but I do not think we ought to have a debate on it, whether or not it is a confidential document. He has it in his hands. It is not relevant to second reading of this bill.


Paul Joseph James Martin: What I am simply trying to do is to establish that the minister did not comply with the requirements of the statute. This report should have been tabled a long time ago, in accordance with subsection 2 of section 90 of the Unemployment Insurance Act. I suggest to Your Honour that it is clearly a matter that is of greatest relevance, having in mind the particular amendments now before the house.


Mr. Speaker:: I wish the hon. member would tell me how it is relevant to the principle of this bill.


Lionel Chevrier: May I, Mr. Speaker?


Mr. Speaker:: I would be very glad if any member could show me how it is relevant, then I will admit it. As it stands, I do not see that the character of this report, the question of what kind of report it is and whether it should have been tabled at a certain time is relevant to the debate we are now engaged in.


Lionel Chevrier: I should like to indicate to Your Honour why it is relevant. As the hon. member for Essex East has said, this report has now been tabled by the minister, and during the recess we have had an opportunity of reading it. Anyone reading this report can clearly see that parts of it refer very clearly to recommendations contained in the amendment to the Unemployment Insurance Act now before the house, and parts of it condemn some of the things that should have been done and are not contained in this bill. Surely, if it does deal with the measure now before the house the hon. member for Essex East has a right to deal with the report in all its aspects.


Mr. Speaker:: I agree that he has the right to use the report-it is tabled-in so far as it is relevant; but the nature of the report and whether the report should have been tabled at some other time, that seems to me to be not relevant at this stage. It may be relevant at another time.


Paul Joseph James Martin: In joining with my colleague, the hon. member for Laurier, I would want to say that this ruling of yours would have, I think, the greatest restrictive consequence in the elucidation of this very important matter. If this report had been tabled, if the minister had not violated the statute, we would have had-


Some hon. Members:: Order.


Paul Joseph James Martin: -this report months ago.


Mr. Speaker:: I take it that the hon. member is still speaking on the point of order. I wish he would make it brief.


Paul Joseph James Martin: I would ask Your Honour also to bear in mind the interruptions. I am saying that if this report had been tabled in accordance with the act we would have had the opportunity months ago, and so would the public, of ascertaining what kind of recommendations should be made and what kind of implementation of those recommendations should be carried forward by the government in respect of amendments to the Unemployment Insurance Act. This particular report was tabled tonight for the first time. This is the first opportunity we have had to see the report, and surely I have the right to complain about the minister's failure to comply with the statute; I have the right to complain that he has violated the law in not tabling this document.


Mr. Speaker:: I differ with the hon. member there. The hon. member has the report. It is clear that it was tabled tonight. As he has indicated, he feels it should have been tabled earlier, but that is another debate. What we are dealing with is second reading of a bill
Unemployment Insurance Act to amend an act. The hon. member has the report and he is free to refer to it. In my view what he should discuss is the amendments that are being made and those which perhaps should have been made in accordance with the report but not the other question of whether there has been some anterior breach.


Michael Starr: Mr. Speaker, in view of the fact that the hon. member for Essex East has charged that I have violated the act I think I should be allowed to say a few words with respect to the report I tabled tonight.


Mr. Speaker:: I will be glad to hear the minister. The sole point I have raised is that while the hon. member is free to use the report this is not a debate on how this report got into the House of Commons, and that is my view notwithstanding what has been said. Unless the minister wants to dispute that view he might leave the matter there.


Michael Starr: I was going to say that I dispute that there is a provision in the act requiring that a report of that nature should be tabled. The act provides that the statutory report of the unemployment insurance advisory committee be tabled when it is addressed to the governor in council. The report under discussion was made to me on my own request when I asked the unemployment insurance commission to advise me on certain amendments I had in mind. Only one of those proposed amendments is included in this report. None of the other proposed amendments is incorporated in the bill.


Paul Joseph James Martin: We shall see that when we come to examine the second report, but on the point of order I would ask Your Honour, in accordance with the observations made by the hon. member for Bonavista-Twillingate, to recall what happened in this house in 1949. The present Prime Minister, then the private member for Prince Albert, charged the then minister of justice with having failed to comply with the statute in question in that he had not tabled a report he was required to table within the prescribed period under the statute. One can read the discussion through many pages of Hansard. For instance, I have page 2091 here containing the speech-


Mr. Speaker:: Was that on the second reading of a bill?


Paul Joseph James Martin: Yes, it was on the
second reading of a bill. The Prime Minister spoke twice making the complaint which I had hoped Your Honour would allow me to make tonight.


Mr. Speaker:: I am not objecting to the hon. member making the complaint in the proper place. He seems to misunderstand me.

Unemployment Insurance Act


Paul Joseph James Martin: I am submitting that this is the proper place and that the justification for it is seen in the incident of 1949.


Mr. Harkness:: Mr. Speaker-


Paul Joseph James Martin: What I say to the
Minister of Labour is that inadvertently or for some other reason-


Some hon. Members:: Order.


Paul Joseph James Martin: -he has not complied with the statute.


Mr. Speaker:: I am sorry but I have not accepted the hon. member's argument and if he persists in contravening the ruling I have made I will have to ask him to desist.


Douglas Scott Harkness: Mr. Speaker, on the point, of order which the hon. member has raised-


Mr. Speaker:: Order.


Lionel Chevrier: He has not raised any point of order.


Mr. Speaker:: The point of order has been disposed of and I would ask the hon. member to continue the debate.


Paul Joseph James Martin: In accordance with the rights of a member who feels that he has a legitimate grievance, Mr. Speaker, I ask-


Mr. Small:: Are you challenging the ruling?


Paul Joseph James Martin: My respect for the Speaker is equivalent to that of the hon. member.


An hon. Member:: Why don't you show it?


Paul Joseph James Martin: I am asking Mr. Speaker not to take this position in the light of the debate to which I have made reference. What happened in that case was that there was a discussion of the Combines Investigation Act generally-


Some hon. Members:: Order.


Paul Joseph James Martin: -and a question was put as to whether or not the minister of justice of that day had tabled a report which he was required to table within a prescribed period in accordance with the act.


Some hon. Members:: Order.


Paul Joseph James Martin: It developed that he had not and the Prime Minister of today and other hon. members, including the Minister of Finance (Mr. Fleming)-


Some hon. Members:: Order.


Paul Joseph James Martin: -belaboured the then minister of justice for his failure to comply with the act, for his failure to table the report and the absence of a satisfactory explanation.


Douglas Scott Harkness: You suppressed the report
for two years.


John Whitney Pickersgill: Nonsense. It was a much shorter period than in this case.


Paul Joseph James Martin: This is the same kind of situation. The Minister of Labour did not comply with the act. He did not table a report which under the statute he was supposed to table and which, if it had been tabled, would have provided us with information which would have given us an even better opportunity of understanding the validity or invalidity of the recommendations now made by the Minister of Labour. The words of the Prime Minister of this country are there in support of my submission.


Mr. Speaker:: I understand what the situation is as the hon. member has explained it and as did the hon. member for Bonavista-Twillingate. I suppose that the point of order has no significance now because I dare say everything has been said that can be said with respect to the tabling of this report. But my point was that we should not depart from the debate on second reading of this bill into the discussion of an extraneous matter which is in effect a charge against the minister of not complying with the statute. That is not the matter now before the house. I would ask the hon. member to proceed on that basis and use the report as he sees fit. That is my view of the situation.


William Joseph Browne: On a question of privilege, I was a member of the House of Commons between 1949 and 1953 and I remember very well the suppression of the report to which the hon. member refers. It was a report of the commissioner under the Combines Investigation Act charging several flour milling manufacturers with violating the Combines Investigation Act, and the report was held back for two years so they could not be prosecuted.


Lionel Chevrier: Where is the privilege?


Mr. Speaker:: The minister is really debating the point of order again and not raising a question of privilege. I remember the circumstances too and I do not think they are a precedent for not following what I have suggested is the proper course tonight.


Paul Joseph James Martin: I have before me Hansard in which the Prime Minister of this country-


Some hon. Members:: Order.


Paul Joseph James Martin: -took four pages and later at the end of the debate another two pages discussing his complaint against the then minister of justice for failing to comply with the statute. I am now inquiring

whether, in the face of this, Your Honour has understood the situation to the point where he is denying me the opportunity of complaining against the failure of the Minister of Labour to comply with the statute.


Mr. McPhillips:: Challenge or shut up.


Mr. Speaker:: If the hon. member feels he has a point he will have an opportunity but not in the debate on second reading of this bill.


Erhart Regier: Mr. Speaker, I should like
to have a word on the point of order. I have only now received a copy of the report tabled tonight and I am sure that even you, Mr. Speaker, have not seen it. I would point out that it refers to the addition of two new classes at the top of the earnings range, and that is contained in the bill. I maintain that if anything in the report of the advisory committee is now contained in the bill it is in order for the house to discuss the belated tabling of the report by the minister.


Paul Joseph James Martin: Do I understand
clearly now that I am not to be allowed to go on to discuss the minister's failure-


Some hon. Members:: No.


Paul Joseph James Martin: -to comply with the act, using the same precedent and the same practice that the Prime Minister used when he sought to preserve the rights of parliament against a minister whom he thought had violated the rights of parliament and, as well, the law of the land.


Mr. Speaker:: Yes, that is the view I take of it. The hon. member is free to use the report. He has already commented on the time of its filing and on the fact that he feels that under the statute it should have been filed earlier. What I am seeking to avoid, and this is all I am trying to do, is a debate on this subsidiary issue because I do not consider such a debate to be relevant to the principle of the bill now before the house.


Lester Bowles Pearson: On the point of order, Mr. Speaker; you have said that the hon. member for Essex East (Mr. Martin) is now free to use this report in connection with the bill in question. What we are trying to point out is that this matter, in the form of a resolution and a bill, has been before parliament now for some time, yet this very pertinent document bearing directly on this bill is one which we have had an opportunity of considering in relation to the bill only since six o'clock. It was only after repeated requests that the minister produced it. Surely, we have a legitimate grievance In connection with our consideration of this
Unemployment Insurance Act bill and the report. We have had such a short time to consider the report because of the action of the minister in keeping it hidden.


Michael Starr: The Leader of the Opposition
(Mr. Pearson) is talking about a hidden report. I want to say this to keep the record clear, that this second advisory committee report was not one made under section 89 (1) of the Unemployment Insurance Act to which the hon. member refers. It did not, therefore, have to be tabled. It was only upon the request of the hon. member for Essex East that I felt I would honour his request.


Mr. Speaker:: The minister is debating the very point which I do not think should be debated. I have not sought to prevent the hon. member from commenting upon the disadvantages from which he suffers by reason of having received this report only tonight. What I have endeavoured to avoid, and what I insist upon avoiding as being irrelevant, is a debate upon whether or not this report should have been tabled under the statute.


Lionel Chevrier: May I say a word on that point, whether the hon. member should be allowed to discuss a report which was not tabled in accordance with section 89. The minister has just stated it is not necessary to table this report because it is not a report to the governor in council and therefore does not require to be tabled under section 89 (1) of the act. The contention of the hon. member for Essex East, and the contention which I am making now, is that it is such a report under section 89.


Mr. Speaker:: I understand that quite well, and I stopped the minister because he was entering into a debate which I said was irrelevant. I would hope hon. members would respect that decision and proceed with the debate on second reading of the bill.


Lionel Chevrier: I shall try not to be irrelevant, and just deal with the point with which you asked the hon. member to deal. It is this. May I, sir, submit this to you, that if this report which the hon. member for Essex East wants to use and wants to discuss as being a contravention of the section had been tabled at the same time as the other report, then surely Your Honour would have allowed it and would have allowed any comment to have been made on it at that time. Simply because the report is tabled by the minister today, it seems to be inequitable that the hon. member for Essex East is not now allowed to challenge the fact that it is not made in accordance with section 89 of the act. This is the point I wanted to bring to Your Honour's attention.
3548	HOUSE OF
Unemployment Insurance Act


Mr. Speaker:: This is the point we have been discussing for the last half-hour. The hon. member is free to use the report, but what I do consider to be out of order is going into a collateral debate as to whether or not this report should have been tabled because that is not a subject before the house.


Douglas Scott Harkness: He wanted to make the allegation for the seventh time that it had not been tabled at the right time.


Michael Starr: It does not have to be tabled.


Paul Joseph James Martin: There are procedures in a situation like this to which resort has been had in other parliaments. We do not want to resort to that procedure because of our great respect for Your Honour. I hope Your Honour will have an opportunity of reading the Hansard to which I have made reference to see if the situation now is not on all fours with the situation referred to. What I had intended to do was to deal with the point made by the Minister of Labour and to use the words of the Prime Minister in condemnation of the act which I have cited.


Mr. Speaker:: I appreciate what the hon. member says. I may be wrong in my ruling, and I shall look at the report to which the hon. member refers. In the meantime, I insist that the hon. member who has the floor, if he has the regard for my ruling which he professes, proceed in accordance with it.


An hon. Member:: Go back to your reading; you were doing well.


Paul Joseph James Martin: I should like to read what the Prime Minister said, and then the hon. member would see that I am doing very well. The minister obviously is greatly concerned about this report because, at first, he said he did not recall that it was in existence; he had no knowledge of it, and could not give a reply to my question, notice of which I had sent him earlier in the day. Then when it was presented here he said it was the kind of a document that did not require the observance of the provisions of sections 89 and 92 of the Unemployment Insurance Act.
Now that the document has been produced and, for the time being, the argument that I was going to make on the failure to comply with the act stands in abeyance, let us look at the report itself. In connection with the observations I will make on the terms of this report, let us assess the value of some of the recommendations made by the minister in the amendments now before the house. This report is dated August 26, 1958.


Robert Hardy Small: You have told us that four times already.


Paul Joseph James Martin: My hon. friend is confused.


Robert Hardy Small: I understand you well.


Paul Joseph James Martin: This is the second report, for my hon. friend's information.


Lionel Chevrier: The hon. member has been asleep.


John Whitney Pickersgill: This is the hidden report.


Paul Joseph James Martin: As my hon. friend says, this is another hidden report. This report covers several meetings of the unemployment insurance committee convened on August 19,	1958. "Status of the fund";
attached to this report is a statement of revenues and expenditures for the period July 1, 1941 to July 31, 1958.
In the first paragraph, the report goes on to point out the situation is that during the past 16 months the balance in the fund has been reduced by $234,283,645.05. Here is an observation which undoubtedly the Minister of Labour, and understandably, was anxious that we should not carefully observe in connection with the matter now before the house. The report goes on to say;
The excess of payments, over revenue, persuades the committee it would be improper to recommend major changes at this time. That is changes which would very materially increase the deficit: or in the alternative would necessitate a tax on industry and workers.
The committee wishes to reserve its opinion on the "benefit formula proposal" of July 24, 1958 until the commission, and actuary, have had more opportunity to give it careful consideration in the light of further experience with the existing act.
In the meantime, we respectfully draw your attention to our report of July 18, 1958.
Incidentally, I would ask the minister if we could be provided with the benefit formula proposal which is referred to by the advisory committee to enable us to formulate a judgment as to whether or not the proposed rates, in the absence of increased benefits, are justified; so that we can compare our information with that before the advisory committee before we make up our minds on this important measure.
Then, the committee goes on to point out:
The committee recommends for your favourable consideration the following proposals of the unemployment insurance commission:
(1)	revise existing schedules of contribution and benefit rates by the addition of two new classes at the top of the earnings range.
The committee accepts that particular recommendation. Then, the second one is;
(2)	readjust and consolidate some of the lower classes:

That is not concurred in by this committee and is information which I believe is important in considering what we should do at the present time.
Then thirdly:
Revised rates of allowable earnings.
The committee accepts that. Then the committee goes on to point out on page 2:
The committee respectfully recommends that the division of responsibility for revenue to the fund as between employers, employees and government be adjusted so that the contribution from each be made equal. In other words, that the contribution from the government be made equal to one-half that of the combined contribution from employers and employees.
That recommendation is refused by the government and is in consequence not embodied in the legislation now before us. As the Leader of the Opposition (Mr. Pearson) points out, the committee persist in this recommendation, having already made it in the earlier report which was tabled in accordance with section 89 of the act.
Then other recommendations were made which are not accepted by the government. For instance, it has not accepted the committee's endorsation of the proposal of the commission that the rule for determining dependancy rate be revised to avoid frequent changes in classification in respect to dependency. Then here is the significant thing. The Minister of Labour said that this report was made as a result of a request which he made to the advisory committee. Here is one of the concluding paragraphs:
A draft of the foregoing was read at the concluding session. Certain changes were suggested and made.
It was agreed that a proposed report, based on the draft, would be prepared and sent to members, to wire approval, or to suggest changes.
Messrs. Hunter, Hesler, Shoobrldge and Urquhart approve.
Messrs. Burt and Andras-
These were two of the labour representatives.
-sent an identical telegram which is quoted:
"Reur proposed report dated August 20 of unemployment insurance advisory committee regret do not find it possible to attach signature. Feel committee should be reconvened to review benefit formula proposal of July 24 possibly in October with view to modification or in light of further study by actuary. Feel also committee should withhold comments until minister has notified it of intentions regarding recommendations contained in our report dated July 18."
Mr. Marchand of the Catholic syndicates sent a wire to the same effect. Mr. McLean, the other labour representative, was absent and unable to attend the meeting.
Mr. Speaker, in the face of this report which the minister says he was not obliged to table in accordance with the requirements of the
Unemployment Insurance Act act we have here further evidence of the disagreement of the advisory committee with some of the policies embodied in this legislation which is now before the house. Either this advisory committee is a useful body and its recommendations are to be taken seriously, or we are to be told by the minister that such is not the case. At least we have the right to be told why these recommendations, originally in the report of August 18 unanimously concurred in, are not accepted by the government of the day.
We are called upon to impose a further contribution on employers and employees to the extent of 30 per cent. That is no ordinary imposition to impose upon the two segments of our population, and we in this house have the right to know why the government has failed to carry out the recommendation of the advisory committee. We have that right in the face of the circumstances that attend the presentation of the report for the first time in public as the result of a question put to the Minister of Labour this afternoon as to whether or not such a report was in existence. We do not even know whether the Minister of Labour has complied with the recommendation and the request of the advisory committee for further meetings. Was any meeting held in October? Was the advisory committee advised of this particular legislation? Were all of these proposed amendments placed before the advisory committee? Does this legislation, apart from the differences in the recommendations which it made, not now meet with the desire or point of view of this committee which was established to represent employers and labour and to advise the commission and the government? Surely we have the right to know what is the situation in that regard.
A difficulty may be because three members of that advisory committee representing labour have resigned from the commission. In this connection I call the minister's attention to section 19 of the Unemployment Insurance Act, which says:
(1)	There shall be a committee, called the ''unemployment insurance advisory committee", consisting of a chairman and not less than six nor more than eight other members, appointed by the governor in council to hold office during pleasure.
(2)	At least one of the members of the advisory committee, other than the chairman, shall be appointed after consultation with organizations representative of workers and an equal number after consultation with organizations representative of employers.
That is a requirement of the act. At the present time three members of that body are not functioning and may have resigned. Does the minister think that he is now complying with the act in carrying on the advisory

Unemployment Insurance Act committee when three labour members are not functioning? Subsection 1 of section 19 says:
There shall be a committee, . . . consisting of a chairman and not less than six nor more than eight other members, appointed by the governor in council-
At the present time there are only five functioning members of that committee other than the chairman. Does the minister think the act is being complied with at the present time? Is it permissible for him to bring in legislation of this kind and not have consulted a body set up, not by the government but by act of parliament for the purpose of advising the government on the very kind of measure now before us? It is a measure which adds rates of contribution to the extent of 30 per cent on the employers and workers. Does the minister think that he is complying with the statute in providing for that kind of a recommendation without having consulted the members of the advisory committee?
I say that this act passed by this parliament has been violated by the minister not only with regard to sections 89 and 90 but also with regard to the violation I have just referred to in section 19. This particular legislation, in order to carry with it the support it must have from the employers and the employees, should have been discussed at least in principle with this committee, a committee which has not sat since last August. We are told by this government which claims that it specially cherishes the rights of parliament, in effect and by implication, that we do not need this advisory committee. True, it has been set up by parliament, but the government knows what to do. It disregards this agency created by parliament because it has its own ideas of what should be embodied in this legislation. This from a government whose Prime Minister is about to bring in a bill of rights; this from a Prime Minister who has established himself in the minds of some people as the foremost champion of the rights of free people and the rights of a free parliament.
Let us examine the situation further and see whether there have been any other violations of this act. I asked the Minister of Finance (Mr. Fleming) this afternoon if in the month of April the government had made any loans to the unemployment insurance commission. The Minister of Finance did not know. He was not certain whether or not in the month of April or in the month of May loans were made by the government of the day. I have before me, Mr. Speaker, a copy of order in council P.C. 1959/383, certified to be a true copy of a minute of a meeting

of the privy council approved by His Excellency the Governor General on April 2, 1959. This order in council is, of course, available to all hon. members as it was to me. The order states:
The committee of the Privy Council advise that Your Excellency may be pleased, pursuant to section 86 of the Unemployment Insurance Act, to authorize the Minister of Finance to make loans from time to time to the unemployment insurance fund in an aggregate principal amount of $50 million.
Such a large amount, one would have thought, would have been in the mind of the Minister of Finance when a question was put to him a few weeks ago as to whether or not the government had made a loan to the unemployment insurance commission. But the minister did not remember, and I call the attention of the house to the significant date, April 2, 1959. That date is significant for reasons I will ultimately show. I pass over the first recommendation as not being immediately relevant, but here is recommendation No. 2:
That the said notes be signed by a commissioner and the secretary of the commission and bear interest at the rate of 5 per cent per annum.
This is an order in council dated April 2, 1959. And the rate specified is to be 5 per cent per annum. That percentage, Mr. Speaker, was imposed by a government which is opposed, so it says, to tight money. It was imposed by a government which promised to reduce interest rates after the very document which was tabled in the report of August 18 revealed that the unemployment insurance commission held fifth, sixth, seventh, eighth and ninth victory loan bonds which bore a rate of interest of 3 per cent. And this government, dedicated to the principle of easy money, nevertheless imposed upon the unemployment insurance commission a rate of 5 per cent. And then there is this most unusual arrangement set out in paragraph 3, namely:
That the loan be additionally secured by pledge of government of Canada direct and guaranteed bonds with a market value of at least 105 per cent of the loan.
In other words, the government's own body is saddled with a fixed rate. There is no market play here. What is open on the security market to the people of Canada generally holding bonds is denied for some reason by the Minister of Finance to the unemployment insurance commission with respect to the kind of yield that it might expect from the sale of its own securities. The Minister of Finance would lend this money, but the security must have a market value; not the market value which is current, but a market value of at least 105 per cent of the loan.

Again, here is a most unusual arrangement. Paragraph 4 states that the loan is to be repaid from the proceeds of the sale of government of Canada direct and guaranteed bonds at the sole discretion of the Minister of Finance, or from the cash resources of the fund. What authority is there for this kind of imposition "at the sole discretion of the Minister of Finance"? I say that the Minister of Finance must tell us what authority he has for exercising this kind of authority. There certainly is no statutory justification for his making that kind of condition with respect to such a loan.
But the most interesting part of this document, as I said at the outset, is the date. Under sections 84, 85 and 86 of the Unemployment Insurance Act the minister is given authority under certain conditions, which I do not propose to analyse now, to extend credit to the unemployment insurance commission. I hope that hon. members will peruse these sections carefully in order to ascertain whether in fact the minister acted in accordance with the act. But I call the attention of the house particularly to section 87:
The Minister of Finance shall report annually to parliament the state of the fund as of the 31st day of March last preceding and the transactions under section 86 during the fiscal year ending on that day; and the operations of the fund shall be set out in the public accounts in such detail as the Minister of Finance may decide.
Now the Minister of Finance did comply with this section of the act. He did report annually to parliament on the state of the fund as of the 31st day of March. But is it conceivable that on the thirtieth day of March, let us say, the Minister of Finance did not know of the intention on the part of the government to make a loan to the unemployment insurance commission in the amount of $50 million? Is it conceivable that the Minister of Finance or his advisers were not aware of the fact that there was about to be a transaction moving from the government through the Department of Finance to the unemployment insurance commission covering a loan of no less than $50 million? I suggest that the reason why this particular order in council is dated April 2, 1959 is because this government, with its large deficit this year and last year, and saddled by its promises to reduce these deficits while at the same time supplying additional benefits, would have been embarrassed by having to make once again in the report which it had to table on March 31 some reference to a further expenditure to the unemployment insurance commission in the amount of $50 million.
And what is amazing is that the actual transfer of funds took place on April 7. The order in council is dated April 2. There 66968-9-225
Unemployment Insurance Act is an actual transfer of funds from the Minister of Finance to the unemployment insurance commission on April 7, and on April 9 the Minister of Finance delivered his annual budget to the nation. In that budget he referred to the unemployment insurance fund. In a single paragraph he mentioned that the fund had suffered some diminution as a result of the invasions made on it. He made no reference whatsoever to the fact that only two days earlier he had transferred some $50 million to the commission. And, as he said today, that was not the kind of thing to which he had to refer in his annual financial statement to the nation. That is perhaps a clear indication that the Minister of Finance has not fully understood the obligations of a minister of finance. But if he did not mention it on April 9, can he find any excuse whatsoever in the light of the debate which ensued, for his not advising the house before the budget debate concluded that there had been a transfer of this large amount. The budget debate concluded on April 22, and from April 9 to April 22 it is inexplicable, in view of the repeated references which were made to the unemployment insurance fund, that the Minister of Finance should not have advised the house of this heavy borrowing by the fund.
As I said, the budget debate ended on April 22. And then the most amazing thing happened. On the next day we had another order in council providing for a further loan to the unemployment insurance commission. The budget debate had concluded on the 22nd and the minister was, then, safe from any likely interrogation as to whether or not moneys had been transferred from the Department of Finance to the unemployment insurance commission. It will not be forgotten that during the budget debate I asked the Minister of Finance whether or not the unemployment insurance commission had lost any money as a result of its forced participation in the bond conversion scheme of the government of Canada. The Minister of Finance said that that was not the kind of question obviously that could be replied to; that it was not in the public interest. One did not disclose the contents of the portfolios of those holding government securities, was his answer. I tried the question another way. I sent a written question to the Minister of Labour. Whether or not there was collaboration between the two, the information which was denied me by the Minister of Finance was supplied by the Minister of Labour when he told us that the unemployment insurance commission as a result of its forced participation in the bond conversion scheme of this government had lost over $10 million. That was the kind of information that could not be :. *: -s2
3552	HOUSE OF
Unemployment Insurance Act disclosed by the Minister of Finance so we had been told. I suppose the reason is now clear because, as I say, the next day, the 23rd, we had an order in council providing for an additional loan to the unemployment insurance commission of $30 million.
In the month of April we had two loans made by the government to the unemployment insurance commission in the amount of $80 million and the Minister of Finance today when asked whether or not such transfers had been made or whether any authority for loans of this character had been extended said he did not know. Is it conceivable that the Minister of Finance could not have known of these two transactions? He owes to the house an explanation as to why he did not include this information concerning the loans of $50 million and $30 million in the budget and why he did not reveal it to the house after the budget debate particularly when the Minister of Labour had revealed the extent of the loss as a result of bond conversion participation.
The terms of this order in council are interesting. The notes were to bear interest at the rate of 5 per cent per annum, the same condition as in the other order in council. The loans were to be additionally secured by pledge of the government of Canada direct and guaranteed bonds with a market value of at least 105 per cent of the loans. A further condition was that the loans be repaid from the proceeds of sale of government of Canada direct and guaranteed bonds at the sole discretion of the Minister of Finance or from the cash resources of the fund. This is a most unusual condition.
Why the Minister of Finance? What authority has he for giving himself this sole discretion? What statutory right exists for such an imposition? We have the right to ask the Minister of Finance and the Minister of Labour for an explanation of these particular loans. Why was not the unemployment insurance commission allowed to cash its own securities? If it had done that it would possibly have been able to make some money or, depending on the state of the market, it might have lost some money. In any event it had securities in its own possession. Its portfolio is a matter for the public to see. Why did the Minister of Finance And it necessary to make loans when the commission could easily have made its position liquid? I say it was only because the investment committee about which I am going to have a word to say was composed in such a manner as to make available to the commission only one course and that was a course that would not in any way have embarrassed the administration, by selling bonds below their face value.


What other explanation can there be unless, depending on the state of the market on that particular day, the commission could have sold the bonds at a profit? In any event I have no doubt that the reason for these transactions was that the government did not want to be embarrassed in any way and therefore the government was not going to allow the unemployment insurance commission to make transactions as normally it would in disposing of its securities in a manner that was conducive to its own interests.
It is interesting to note that section 20 of the Unemployment Insurance Act provides that investment transactions under sections 85, 86 and 87 shall be made only on the authorization of an investment committee of three members, one nominated by the Minister of Labour, one nominated by the Minister of Finance, and the governor of the Bank of Canada. It happens that those nominated include the deputy minister of finance and the deputy minister of labour. Does anyone think that this investment committee as presently constituted in the face of the present government's financial policy was free to allow the unemployment insurance commission to take the kind of action that would provide some liquidity from its securities?
I think the Minister of Finance owes the house an explanation of these various transactions. I ask him now some questions to which I think replies should be given before this debate concludes. What amounts were loaned by the Minister of Finance to the unemployment insurance fund during the months of April and May to the present date? Are these the only orders in council? Are these the only transactions made by the government to the commission? What issues of government bonds were pledged by the commission to secure these loans? At the time these loans were made was there outstanding to the credit of the unemployment insurance fund not sufficient for the payment of benefits under the act as required by paragraph 1 of section 86 of the act? Will the Minister of Finance report to the house on the amounts of various securities including treasury bills held by the unemployment insurance fund as of March 31, 1959? What were the purchases and sales of various obligations of or guaranteed by the government of Canada including treasury bills for each month of the last fiscal year and at what prices were these transactions made? What were the amounts of each victory loan issue held by the unemployment insurance fund sold during the conversion operation or converted into each conversion bond issue? Those are questions which in this matter we feel have great relevancy to the present situation.


Erhart Regier: Would the hon. member permit a question? I think most of us understood that there was money in the unemployment insurance commission fund. The hon. member is now referring to the unemployment insurance commission borrowing money from the Minister of Finance. Why would the commission borrow if it had lots of money?


Paul Joseph James Martin: Mr. Speaker, that is the very question with which I have been dealing. I said that the unemployment insurance commission has securities in the amount of many millions of dollars. If it required cash to meet benefit obligations all it had to do was liquidate those securities. Why was that liquidation not permitted? Was it because the government felt that the consequences would be embarrassing to it with regard to its particular financial policy? I do not know. I am simply asking the government to explain why it made these transactions. I am also asking the government to clearly establish that in the face of this situation it had the authority to extend this credit at a time when the unemployment insurance commission was in a position to meet its own obligations.
No one in this house questions the value of unemployment insurance. We sitting in the opposition under the leadership of the present Leader of the Opposition (Mr. Pearson) belong to a group that was responsible for presenting this legislation to the house in the dark days of the war. We were the first to introduce the principle of supplementary payments and we replenished the fund whenever we did provide for these supplementary payments. We support the principle of supplementary payments in the face of the serious unemployment problem that now confronts Canada; but we say that those payments given to people out of work to help to keep them alive should be borne by all of the taxpayers of the country and not imposed on the workers and on the employers of Canada exclusively.
We do not quarrel with the necessity of meeting the exigencies of this fund in the face of the perilous position in which we find it. We say that this perilous position could have been mitigated if the government had taken the right kind of steps to replenish the fund at the time they invaded it for the legitimate objective of providing supplementary benefits. We say that this bill is deficient because it imposes an abnormally high rate of contribution on the workers and on the employers of our country at a time when they are heavily taxed, without providing compensatory benefits certainly in proportion to the increased rates of contribution.
66968-9-225J
Unemployment Insurance Act
We say that this measure is only half right; we say that this measure does not give us the confidence which otherwise we would possess if we were satisfied that there had been the fullest consultation between the government and the advisory committee of the unemployment insurance commission. We say we would have greater confidence in this measure if we had been satisfied that some of the recommendations made by the advisory committee had been recognized by this government, if there had been an increase in the benefits to those who were called upon to pay the additional contributions. For these reasons I move, seconded by the hon. member for Laurier (Mr. Chevrier):
That all the words after "that" be struck out and the following substituted therefor:
"this house declines to proceed with a bill, the terms of which do not provide that the contribution from the government to the fund be made equal to one-half that of the existing combined contributions from employers and employees."
The terms of this amendment, Mr. Speaker, are in harmony with the recommendations unanimously made by the unemployment insurance advisory committee in the summer of 1958.


Mr. Speaker:: I expect the debate will continue. I will take this amendment under advisement.


Erhart Regier: Mr. Speaker, like yourself, our group would like to take this amendment under advisement and therefore I am not in a position to say at this time what our reaction will be. We received the amendment only a moment ago. However, I have an approach along these lines to the bill as proposed to the house at this time. Only recently the minister advised us of the report of the unemployment insurance advisory committee.
It was very unlucky for me, Mr. Speaker, that I was invited to a reception at Government House over the dinner hour and therefore the recent release of the minister was not available to me until after eight o'clock. However, I do not want to be unduly harsh with the minister. If I were minister of labour, Mr. Speaker, I would never consider a debate in the house of a bill that I was proposing, or of my estimates, unless the ministers most responsible for levels of employment were with me in the house and were willing to share the burden with me. We know, and I think all of us realize, the humane qualities of the Minister of Labour (Mr. Starr). However, I feel that the Minister of Trade and Commerce (Mr. Churchill) and the Minister of Finance (Mr. Fleming) ought to be here and ought to absorb the brunt of the attack in matters of employment and unemployment.
3554	HOUSE OF
Unemployment Insurance Act
As the Minister of Labour knows, he is not in the front row of the government; he is in the second row, and his responsibility is to administer the acts having to do with labour. He has very little to do with levels of employment or unemployment in the nation. I therefore hope the minister will not take the attacks from opposition ranks as a personal affront, as he will realize that these are attacks on the government as such.
If I had any adverse things to say about the minister they would be that I have completely failed to understand how the minister, knowing him as well as I do, would have the nerve to file a report today that ought to have been filed early last autumn.


Some hon. Members:: Order.


Mr. Speaker:: Order. The hon. member heard the discussion which took place earlier on the relevancy of the debate on whether this report should have been tabled under the statute or not and how it came to be tabled. I hope he will keep that in mind. It applies equally to him.


Erhart Regier: I shall abide by your ruling, Mr. Speaker, but at the same time I shall appeal to the minister's sense of fair play. I hope he realizes the handicap that the opposition is under when we are asked to discuss amendments to the Unemployment Insurance Act when the very essence of any possible amendments were contained in the report of his own advisory committee as it is established under the law, and which he had and saw fit to table many, many months after the time to table the report had passed. I am not saying that this was done intentionally. However, it places the opposition in this house under a very severe handicap indeed, and if we are to have any respect for the functions of the house-


Mr. Bigg:: That would be new.


Erhart Regier: -the opposition ought to be placed at least in a position where they are able to consider the recommendations that the minister has received as to amendments to this act at the time at which we were supposed to receive them. In the amendments the minister is advocating added burdens upon the workers and employers of Canada. It is merely another case, as I indicated on another matter this afternoon, of again adding to the tax burden of the people of the country. I hope the minister and the government will realize that the way out of our difficulty is not by adding to the burdens of the working people of the country. The solution is an expansion of our economy and greater employment. When we have greater employment, more


people paying into the unemployment insurance fund and fewer people enjoying the benefits of the fund we will work our way out of the problem we are now seized with much more readily than if the only solution is to add to the burdens of those who are still usefully employed.
The minister is asking us to agree to a 30 per cent additional imposition on the workers and yet only 1 per cent of that additional burden is necessary to meet the extension of the benefits from 36 to 52 weeks. The average worker in Canada is being asked to pay 30 per cent more into the fund than he has been paying. However, if and when he becomes unemployed he will receive nothing by way of additional benefits with the exception that if he is unemployed for more than 36 weeks he will have the assurance that he can obtain benefits for 52 weeks.
Actually what the minister is asking the workers of Canada to do is to pay more money into the pool so that the government of Canada will not be faced with a completely denuded and depleted unemployment insurance fund within a very short time. Only 1 per cent of the 30 per cent is needed to pay for the extension from 36 weeks to 52 weeks of seasonal benefits. All the rest of the added impost on the workers of Canada is intended to replenish the fund. The minister should realize, and I gather he does, that the inadequacies of his own government are the cause of the economic recession. They are the cause of the unusually high level of unemployment and are responsible for the heavy burden being imposed on the unemployment insurance fund. Yet the minister is asking the workers of Canada to make up for the lack of adequate government policy.
Our group agrees that the seasonal benefits should be extended from 36 to 52 weeks. I should like to make the plea at this time that the act be amended in such a way that a gradually rising scale of benefits will be available. It is all right to ask an unemployed person to get by on $24 or $30 a week for a limited number of weeks. However, when his period of unemployment extends to months then the need for a higher weekly benefit is obvious. I believe that the act should be amended to provide for a graduated seal? so that if a person is unemployed for three, four, five or six months he will receive a higher weekly income than if he is unemployed only for a limited number of weeks.
I also believe that the act should be amended along the lines of the resolution placed on the order paper by the hon. member for Timmins (Mr. Martin) in which he advocates that enterprises which are vulnerable and may only continue in operation for

a limited period of time should pay an extraordinary amount into the fund so that if what is commonly called a ghost town develops, if a mine or other enterprise completely closes down, there will be some help available to the insured workers over and above their normal weekly unemployment insurance benefits.
I should also like to have seen in the amendments that the minister is now proposing the adoption of the philosophy that in the Unemployment Insurance Act we have the best machinery yet devised for looking after the welfare of our unemployed. I regret that under the act as it now stands the employable unemployed, after the expiry of a certain number of weeks, are advised that there is no more assistance available and that if they need help in order to maintain their homes and their families they must now apply to the social welfare office of their local municipal government. I believe that the Unemployment Insurance Act provides us with machinery that might adequately look after the welfare of all employable Canadians. I have advocated on a number of occasions that the act should be so amended so that when a man's regular benefits have expired he will continue to receive benefits from the unemployment insurance commission. I also advocate that the unemployment insurance commission should be recompensed for these benefits out of the consolidated revenue fund. The economy as a whole should absorb the expense.
The Minister of Trade and Commerce (Mr. Churchill) is not here and has been absent on many other such occasions. The Minister of Finance (Mr. Fleming) is absent. They always leave the Minister of Labour to absorb the brunt of the attack. The Minister of Trade and Commerce ought to be here. He ought to show this house how, if we will now agree to the amendments proposed, his plan for the expansion of trade will relieve the problem a few months hence. The Minister of Finance ought to be here and ought to explain that, while this added taxation may be necessary at this moment, he has plans whereby there will be an economic expansion in the nation so that a year hence we might have hopes of reducing the impost on the working people of the country.
Our contention is that we should have in Canada an ever rising standard of living. It has never been our philosophy to pull anyone down. We do not believe that we build a better society that way, rather all our efforts ought to be directed toward bringing everyone up. We believe that an expanding economy and a policy of full employment would eliminate many of the difficulties with which the Minister of Labour is faced. We regret very much that the Minister of Labour
Unemployment Insurance Act has to be held responsible for the proposed amendments to the act. We do contend, however, that the Minister of Labour is offering nothing to the working people of Canada except an added imposition, an imposition that may be necessary because of the inadequacies of the government in supplying us with an expanding economy and full employment.


Howard Charles Green: I rise on a point of order, Mr. Speaker. I doubt very much whether this amendment is a proper amendment. Your Honour will notice that it reads that this house decline to proceed with a bill, the terms of which do not provide-and so on. Now, surely that is covered by a ruling to be found on page 170 of Beauchesne's fourth edition, where he says:
An amendment proposing a direct negative, though it may be covered up by verbiage, is out of order.
This amendment is a straight negative that the house decline to proceed with a bill. How can you get an amendment that is more truly a direct negative than that? I refer Your Honour also to paragraph 14 on that same page of Beauchesne:
An amendment which would produce the same result as if the original motion were simply negatived is out of order.
Hon. members in the two opposition parties are free to vote against this bill, and they may produce quite a few reasons why they propose to vote against it, but surely they are not entitled to move amendments on the basis of those arguments that they use against the bill. However, this is exactly what this amendment seeks to do. Then, I refer Your Honour also to page 279 of Beauchesne's fourth edition, citation 389, the opening sentence of which reads as follows:
A motion opposing the second reading of a bill must not anticipate amendments which may be moved in committee. Alterations which may be affected by amending the clauses of the bill cannot be moved on the second reading.
We have only had a short time to check up the rules in regard to this amendment, but I do suggest that even on the citations which I have read the amendment is clearly out of order.


Lionel Chevrier: May I be
allowed to say that it is quite clear from what the house leader has said that he has only had a short time to consider this amendment. It is evident from what he has said because he has not even cited one paragraph that deals with the amendment. He has referred to three paragraphs which are so general in nature that they do not meet the point which the hon. member is trying to make, namely that this amendment is out

Unemployment Insurance Act of order. My submission to you, Mr. Speaker, is that all this amendment does is to say that the government should have acceded to the request contained in a report tabled in this house by the Minister of Labour, and one at least of the recommendations in that report suggested that the contributions of the government to the fund should be made equal to one-half-
Mr. Pallet!: This is not on the point of order at all.


Lionel Chevrier: If my hon. friend wants to raise a point of order, he can do so after I have resumed my seat.


Mr. Speaker:: The hon. member for Laurier has the floor.


Lionel Chevrier: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I was going on to say, before I was interrupted, that the amendment seeks to carry out the terms or at least one of the terms of the report tabled in this house, to the effect that the contributions of the government to the unemployment insurance fund be made equal to one-half that of the existing combined contributions from employers and employees.
I thought the leader of the house was going to indicate that this amendment meant an added expenditure-


Howard Charles Green: Perhaps that is an added reason.


Lionel Chevrier: -and that because of that it was out of order. It does not mean any such thing. It means a reduction in contribution, on the contrary, and because of that it seems to me that this amendment is in order.


Mr. Speaker:: If anybody wants to use the remaining minutes to discuss the matter, I shall be glad to hear him. I shall defer my decision on this point until tomorrow, taking into account all that has been said. I would refer hon. members on both sides to citation 382 of Beauchesne's fourth edition. It seems to me that this amendment, as it stands, is one of those so-called declaratory amendments which declines the reading of the bill the second time and for reasons which could not be moved at the committee stage. However, I shall defer that matter.


Herbert Wilfred Herridge: We, in this group-


Mr. Speaker:: Does the hon. member for Fort William wish to speak?


Lionel Chevrier: It is not on the point of order.


Herbert Wilfred Herridge: We in this group, Mr. Speaker, were pleased to hear you say previously that you wished further time to consider this

amendment. We were pleased also to hear you repeat that statement just now. We are quite in agreement with that. We trust that you will not be stampeded by any of the remarks made previous to this time.



BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE

Lionel Chevrier: May I inquire what the
business is for tomorrow and, if the leader can tell us, what the government intends to do for the rest of the week?


Howard Charles Green: Tomorrow we shall continue with this debate; then take item No. 6 on today's order paper, the second reading of an act to amend the Federal-Provincial TaxSharing Arrangements Act; then the resolution which appears on government notices of motion today having to do with the Bretton Woods agreement; then item No. 15, a resolution concerning the convention covering the abolition of forced labour; then, item No. 13, a resolution preceding a measure on the Defence Services Pension Act; item No. 2, second reading of an act to confirm an agreement between the government of Canada and the government of New Brunswick respecting Indian reservations; item No. 11, a resolution approving the convention on the nationality of married women.
After that, we will take the estimates of the Department of Labour, and then the estimates of the Department of Public Works. There may have to be some change for Wednesday, but in any event we start with that tomorrow, at least.


Lionel Chevrier: Is it the intention to proceed with this work in that order during the course of the whole week?


Howard Charles Green: I cannot say about the order on Wednesday, but tomorrow we will proceed in this order. There is a chance that if the report of the special committee considering the Canadian National Railways and the Trans-Canada Air Lines is tabled we may go on with the resolution which appears today under government notices of motion concerning the expenditures of the C.N.R.


William Moore Benidickson: Mr. Speaker, may I say on that point that that is a very involved item of legislation, and if the printed records of the committee are not available until tomorrow I do not think the house leader would want us to go into the capital expenditures of the C.N.R. as rapidly as was suggested.


Howard Charles Green: We would meet the wishes of the members opposite with regard to that.


[Stage Direction]
At ten o'clock the house adjourned, without question put, pursuant to standing order.﻿MAY 11. 1959