1959-07-02

[Stage Direction]
Fifth report of standing committee on estimates.-Mr. Smith (Calgary South).
(Text):


Right Hon. J. G. Diefenbaker (Prime Minister):: Mr. Speaker, with the leave of the house, I should like to suggest that the speeches delivered by Her Majesty yesterday, one to the nation by television and the other on the dedication and unveiling of the commonwealth air memorial, be printed as an appendix to today's Hansard.


Mr. Speaker:: Is it the will of the house that the speeches of Her Majesty be printed as an appendix to today's Hansard?


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.
[For text of speeches above referred to, see appendix]



URANIUM


Hon. Howard C. Green (Secretary of State for External Affairs):: Mr. Speaker, hon. members will recall that on March 3 of this year the late secretary of state for external affairs informed the house that formal negotiations were about to begin with the government of Japan for a bilateral agreement on the peaceful uses of atomic energy. I am happy to announce that these negotiations have now been successfully concluded, and I accordingly table for the information of the house copies of the agreement, together with certain related documents, all of which were signed earlier this morning by the ambassador of Japan and myself acting on behalf of our respective governments.
The agreement is the fourth of its kind so far concluded by Canada. It will make possible the exchange of technical information and the provision of equipment and materials including uranium. The protocol attached to it stipulates that its provisions shall apply
to any source material that may be supplied from Canada to the Japan atomic fuel corporation as authorized by the government of Japan, after the date of signature of the agreement but prior to the entry into force of the agreement itself.
It is the hope and intention of the two governments that this agreement will provide the framework for mutually beneficial cooperation between Canada and Japan in the development of the peaceful uses of atomic energy and the wider utilization of the many benefits which it is capable of bringing to the peoples of both countries.
Hon. L. B. Pearson (Leader of the
Opposiiion): Mr. Speaker, I am sure the house will welcome the news of the signing of this agreement, the negotiation of which has been going on with Japan now for a great many months. It seems to me, Mr. Speaker, that it is of the greatest possible importance to negotiate agreements of this kind with foreign governments to protect and advance, among other things, the exporting interests of the uranium industry of Canada. It is particularly important because of the fact that the United States has been successful in making bilateral agreements with different countries on terms which are going to make it very difficult for Canadian producers to compete because the United States, as part of the agreement, can supply reactors to the countries concerned of a type which will be tied to the use of uranium from the United States. Therefore that is only one reason why we welcome the news of this particular agreement with such a very important Pacific country as Japan.


Mr. H. W. Herridge (Kootenay West):: Mr. Speaker, this group, knowing the attitude of the Japanese government and the Japanese people toward the uses of these sources of energy, is very pleased with the minister's announcement. This is a constructive development and will provide a market for Canadian uranium that we can develop in good conscience.



NORTHLAND NAVIGATION COMPANY


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. Harold E. Winch (Vancouver East):: Mr. Speaker, I should like to direct a question to the Minister of Labour. Can the
5346	HOUSE OF
Inquiries of the Ministry Minister of Labour give any further information relative to the strike involving the Northland Navigation Company of Vancouver; and has his attention been drawn to a statement by Mr. Greaves, president of the marine engineers, that the seafarers international union has imported 15 musclemen, commonly known as goons, from the United States to violently influence the situation in Vancouver?


Hon. Michael Starr (Minister of Labour):: Yes, Mr. Speaker, I am in receipt of a telegram from Mr. Greaves, the president of the marine engineers. The situation in the dispute between Northland Navigation Company and the national association of marine engineers is as follows. The company obtained a court injunction against picketing being carried on by the national association of marine engineers in pursuance of the strike declared by the marine engineers against the company. The injunction was to be effective until the decision of the Canada labour relations board was given on the application for revocation of certification granted to the national association of marine engineers as bargaining agent of engineers of the company.
It is understood that this application for revocation of certification is sponsored by the seafarers international union. The Canada labour relations board has reserved its decision until it meets on July 7, next week. The international longshoremen's and warehousemen's union has been observing the picket lines of the national association of marine engineers. The company, it is alleged, has employed men supplied by the seafarers international union to load and unload its vessels.
Following the lifting of the picket lines as a result of the court order the international longshoremen's and warehousemen's union members attempted to resume work but were not rehired by the company. They therefore established their own picket lines and the company has obtained an interim injunction that can be appealed within 24 hours.
The company has taken the position that it no longer employs longshoremen, having contracted out such work to another company. The telegram this morning alleges that the seafarers international union has imported persons from the United States to take over longshoremen's operations. These allegations are now being investigated. The charges that are made by Mr. Greaves in the telegram as to the importation of persons from the United States are being investigated by the Department of Citizenship and Immigration.


Harold Edward Winch: May I ask a supplementary question of the Acting Minister of Citizenship


and Immigration, in the absence of the minister. If as a result of the investigation it is found that importees have been brought in to influence the situation in Vancouver, will they be deported?


Mr. Speaker:: I think the hon. member might reserve that question until it has ceased to have a hypothetical character.


Herbert Wilfred Herridge: should like to ask a supplementary question of the Acting Minister of Citizenship and Immigration. How is it possible under our law and regulations for 15 goons from the United States to enter Canada to support the illegal activities of the seafarers international union?


Hon. E. D. Fulton (Acting Minister of Citizenship and Immigration):: As has been stated by the Minister of Labour, the allegation that there has been such importation is being investigated, and until the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration has the facts it is impossible to answer that question.
ILater:1


Herbert Wilfred Herridge: I should like to ask the
Minister of Transport a belated supplementary question. In view of the fact that the Northland Navigation Company receives an annual subsidy of $294,000 from this government, and in view of the fact that the marine engineers were under the impression that public money was being used to import these goons, would the minister make inquiries as to what is really happening from the company's point of view in this situation in Vancouver?


Hon. George H. Hees (Minister of Transport):: I think my colleague the Minister of Labour has this matter well in hand, and he is making inquiries.


Harold Edward Winch: May I ask a supplementary question of the Minister of Transport. Can he inform the house if, in the event of an industrial dispute, the annual subsidy is continued?


George Harris Hees: I think that comes under the heading of a hypothetical question.


Harold Edward Winch: You know whether or not you are paying it, don't you?



SHIPPING


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. D. M. Fisher (Port Arthur):: Mr. Speaker, I should like to address a question to the Minister of Transport of which he has had informal notice. Can the minister give us

any information on the collision in lake Huron last week which resulted in the loss of the Liberian ship Monrovia, and can he indicate whether or not this ship carried either a United States or Canadian pilot?


George Harris Hees: I have not received the details of this collision, Mr. Speaker, but so far as I am aware neither ship had a pilot on board.



PUBLIC BUILDINGS


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. Hazen Argue (Assiniboia):: I should like to direct a question to the Minister of Public Works. In view of the great interest of Canadians in the provision of a national library, can the minister say when the construction of a Canadian national library is likely to be commenced?


Howard Charles Green: Mr. Speaker, this is one of the buildings to be built in Ottawa which has been under very active consideration. It had been hoped that work could be commenced this year. The hon. member will have noted that there is no item in the estimates for 1959-60 for this particular building. I am sure we are all hopeful that this building can be erected in the very near future.


Hazen Robert Argue: Could I ask the minister
whether, by that statement, he means that construction cannot begin this year, or would the minister consider an item in the supplementary estimates?


Howard Charles Green: I am afraid that construction cannot begin this year. I point out to the hon. member we have been busy building post offices all across Canada, for example one in Radville, in the hon. member's own constituency. We cannot construct all these buildings at once.


Hazen Robert Argue: I wonder if the minister would not agree that there are enough people unemployed in the country to build the national library?


Hon. J. W. Pickersgill (Bonavista-Twillin-gaie):: May I ask a supplementary question. Have any steps been taken as yet to demolish the buildings that are now on the site of the proposed national library?


Howard Charles Green: If I recall correctly, temporary building No. 1 is on at least a portion of the site for the national library and, as the hon. member knows, when the Jackson building was severely damaged last fall it was necessary to move several branches of different departments into temporary building No. 1.
Inquiries of the Ministry Mr. Pickersgill: It is still being occupied?


Howard Charles Green: I think so; I have not looked at it recently.



DOMINION-PROVINCIAL CONFERENCE INQUIRY AS TO COMMUNICATION FROM QUEBEC ON CONFERENCE AGENDA

[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Hon. Lionel Chevrier (Laurier):: May I
direct a question to the Minister of Finance. Has he yet received from the Quebec government any answer to the agenda or comprehensive report which he sent out to all the heads of delegations in connection with the conference?


Hon. Donald M. Fleming (Minister of Finance):: No, Mr. Speaker. I have made inquiries since yesterday and I am informed that no specific reply has been received in that respect.



CANADIAN NATIONAL RAILWAYS

[Stage Direction]
st. John's, nfld.-request for increased

[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. J. R. Tucker (Trinity-Conception):: should like to direct a question to the Minister of Transport. In view of the inadequate hotel accommodation in St. John's, Newfoundland, will the minister urge the Canadian National Railways to enlarge the Newfoundland hotel at St. John's?


George Harris Hees: I shall be glad to pass on to the management of the Canadian National Railways the hon. member's suggestion. (Translation):



PARLIAMENT HILL


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. Yvon Dupuis (St. Jean-Iberville-Napierville):: Mr. Speaker, I should like to ask the Secretary of State a question concerning the trooping of the colours ceremony which took place yesterday in front of the parliament buildings. I would like to know why neither before nor after the ceremony, the hymn "O Canada" was played?


Hon. Henri Courtemanche (Secretary of State):: Mr. Speaker, I was not in charge of this ceremonial, and therefore have no comment to make in the matter.


Yvon Dupuis: Mr. Speaker, could the minister tell me who was in charge, and to whom I could address my request for information?

Inquiries of the Ministry


Henri Courtemanche: Mr. Speaker, I shall consider the question as notice and answer the hon. member tomorrow.



INQUIRY FOR RETURNS


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
(Page 5348)
Mr. Alexis Caron (Hull):: Mr. Speaker, I should like to direct a question to the Secretary of State. Does the Secretary of State think he will be in a position to reply to my questions Monday?


Henri Courtemanche: Mr. Speaker I am pretty sure that Monday the natural curiosity of the hon. member for Hull will be satisfied.
(Text):



LABOUR CONDITIONS


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Hon. Paul Martin (Essex East):: Mr. Speaker, may I ask the Minister of Labour whether, in view of the fact that we are approaching what looks like the end of this session, he is in a position to announce the government's winter works program in preparation for next fall and winter, or is there going to be such a program?


Michael Starr: Mr. Speaker, that remains to be seen.


Paul Joseph James Martin: Mr. Speaker, may I ask the Minister of Labour if he does not think, in view of the importance of this problem, that parliament is entitled to have an answer as to whether or not the government is going to have a winter works program to meet possible unemployment next fall and next winter?


Michael Starr: When the government, upon reviewing the situation, feels that such a program is necessary, it will announce it to the house if the house is in session at the time.


Paul Joseph James Martin: It will be too late.



PUBLIC SERVICE


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Hon. Paul Hellyer (Trinity):: Mr. Speaker, I should like to direct a question to the Minister of Finance. Does the minister propose to introduce further supplementary estimates which would permit the payment of long and patiently awaited pay increases for federal civil servants?


Hon. Donald M. Fleming (Minister of
Finance): Mr. Speaker, the hon. member is well acquainted with the procedure in the house. If supplementary estimates are to be introduced they will be introduced in the house for all hon. members to become immediately aware of the fact.


Paul Joseph James Martin: Parliament does not matter, it seems.


Paul Theodore Hellyer: I have a supplementary question. Does the minister feel that the time has arrived when the employees of the government deserve to have an increase which would bring them in line with increases which have been obtained by employees in private industry?


Donald Methuen Fleming: Mr. Speaker, when the proper time comes for an announcement on this subject or an announcement of policy on this subject, it will certainly be made and there will not be any repetition of what happened under the government of which the hon. member was a member, when the government simply dilly-dallied and did nothing about the problem and left it to their successors.


Paul Theodore Hellyer: We gave the last increase. That was two years ago.


Donald Methuen Fleming: You left it to your successors to pay for it.
(Translation):



TRANSPORT


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Yvon Dupuis: Mr. Speaker, I should like to direct a question to the Solicitor General. The hon. gentleman said yesterday that he would reply to my questions today. Is he now in a position to answer them?
(Text):


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


Yvon Dupuis: Mr. Speaker, as the Solicitor General is late, and as the Minister of Transport (Mr. Hees) is here, may I direct my question directly to the Minister of Transport? I should like to know whether the hon. minister has received from the city of St. Johns-and here is the question I asked him yesterday:
Has the Minister of Transport received a request from the city of St. Johns (Quebec), for the lease of a site south of Central Vermont railway bridge, at St. Johns?
I would also like to ask a supplementary question. Has the Minister of Transport been requested

by the junior chamber of commerce of St. Johns that this site be leased to the city of St. Johns rather than to private interests?


George Harris Hees: Mr. Speaker, since I was not in the house yesterday, I shall take the question as notice and answer it tomorrow.
(Text):

The house in committee of supply, Mr. Sevigny in the chair.
DEPARTMENT OF NATIONAL DEFENCE 214. Departmental administration. $3,380,550.


Hon. G. R. Pearkes (Minister of National Defence):: Mr. Chairman, in asking the committee for approval of the 1959-60 estimates of the Department of National Defence, I welcome the opportunity that is given for a debate on defence matters.
I would like first to pay a sincere tribute to the personnel of our armed forces, both regular and reserve. During the past year I have had occasion to visit a number of service establishments at home and overseas. Many members of this committee have also had this opportunity. I am sure I have the concurrence of all in congratulating the personnel of our armed services on the manner in which they are carrying out the tasks which have been assigned to them. As a result of their efforts and those of our allies we have enjoyed during the past 12 months a period of comparative peace; but even in such times there are many occasions which call for acts of outstanding bravery by members of our armed forces. I am sure the house will be interested to know that Her Majesty the Queen while in Canada is awarding two air force crosses, five George medals and one British Empire medal to individuals of the Royal Canadian Navy, the Canadian army and the Royal Canadian Air Force. Her Majesty is also presenting colours to the Royal Canadian Navy and to certain regiments of the Canadian army. In addition, service personnel both regular and reserve have been honoured by participating in the ceremonies taking place across Canada in connection with Her Majesty's tour.
While I realize that in the time at my disposal I cannot cover all facets of defence, it is appropriate now to make some general remarks on our defence thinking. There are a number of factors that must be considered in introducing these estimates. The requirements deemed necessary for defence today will almost certainly be outmoded a few years from now. This, of course, is not solely a Canadian problem; it is a problem facing
Supply-National Defence every country today. In our endeavours to solve it we should be ready and willing to consult with our partners in Europe and on the North American continent.
We must also be prepared to take advantage of our collective agreements so we can provide a better and more lasting peace within our economic limitations. By co-operating with our allies we are able to have an integrated, balanced force among all the allies rather than attempting to have a balanced force within each nation. It has been obvious for some time that no country can stand alone or can plan its defence in isolation.
This is particularly true of Canada. Our geographic position and our varied interests require us to take part in collective defence. Therefore when planning a defence program we have to take into account many considerations, such as the changing threat which is brought about principally by rapid developments in the technological field, particularly in the area of offensive weapons introduced into the armament inventory of a potential enemy, and also the very long time required to develop and produce modern defensive weapons systems and the ever increasing costs of research development and production.
A full appreciation of the concept of modem war which might come without warning requires our forces to be trained, equipped and immediately ready for operations. Gone are the days when a protracted period of time might be devoted to mobilization and the conversion of industry from a peace to a war footing. I have discussed the threat on previous occasions, but as all our preparations are linked with the appreciation of the threat it is perhaps worth while emphasizing some of the aspects of this part of our defence problem.
The evaluation of the threat cannot be completely reliable, since development of ways and means of waging war is of necessity one of the most closely guarded secrets of any country. In fact the record shows that there has been a tendency in the past to underestimate the achievements of the Soviet union in this particular field. They have been particularly successful in concealing their intentions. However, the best assessment that we can make of the type and scale of attack against this continent is roughly as follows.
For the present and in the immediate future the principal attack against North America would be by a relatively small number of long range manned bombers carrying megaton weapons. These might well be augmented by a large number of medium bombers on one-way missions carrying nuclear weapons of varying yields. Russia might not care

Supply-National Defence if she had to jeopardize these one-way mission bombers. In the early 1960's it is expected that the ballistic missiles will have reached a stage of reliability whereby such missiles will replace the bombers as the primary means of delivering nuclear weapons on North America. However, if an attack on this continent is made in the early 1960's it is considered quite probable that a variety of weapons would be used in an effort to saturate the defences and thus deliver a devastating attack.
This kind of attack would include ballistic missiles, both long and short range, land based or from submarines, as well as other nuclear weapons delivered by aircraft. As most of the major strategic targets are situated in the United States it is more than likely that certain targets in Canada would be attacked by bombers, although the primary threat would be from the ICBM's.
It is not possible to say with any degree of accuracy when the ICBM will be available in sufficient numbers to take on all the targets in North America, or when we can completely dispense with the requirement for defence against the bomber. In other words we believe we may have to face a combination of weapons, some delivered as ballistic missiles and others from manned bombers. Thus the possibility of attacks on Canada by manned bombers may extend into the mid-1960's, although the threat, compared to the missile, would be on a diminishing scale.
The next point to mention is the lead time necessary and the risk involved in research and development of modem weapon systems. In giving evidence before a congressional committee this year the United States secretary of defence, Mr. McElroy, said:
We are living today in an era of extremely rapid advances in science and technology. Some of the programs which appeared to have had great merit only 12 months ago, now, in view of the progress made on more technically advanced projects, no longer have the same importance or urgency.
We know that having started upon certain projects these have had to be cancelled before they were completed because of changed circumstances. From a study of research and development in the production of modern defensive equipment in the United States and the United Kingdom, and from our own limited experience, it is clear that it takes about nine or ten years to develop and produce modem, highly sophisticated defence equipment. The cost of this development and production is becoming astronomical, and there is always the risk that the end product may arrive too late, that new methods have overtaken its development or that the enemy threat has changed considerably.


As an example of the costs and complexity of these development problems it was shown in the evidence produced before the United States congressional committee this year that the Bomarc missile has been under development for over eight years and has cost so far $1.9 billion, while some $3.7 billion has been expended on the Nike-Ajax and the Nike-Hercules missiles.
It is clear that a country the size of Canada cannot embark unilaterally on any of these long range, technical and costly development programs. We must of necessity take advantage of our position in the western alliance and be able to obtain proven equipment from our partners to meet our limited requirements, thus avoiding the exorbitant cost of development and the risk of failing to produce the weapons in time to meet the threat. Thus, we are pursuing a policy of production sharing, the details of which have already been communicated to the house by the Minister of Defence Production.
Earlier I mentioned the changing threat and expressed some doubts as to whether or not we are in a position to forecast accurately this threat either in time or in character. This dilemma is further exaggerated by the trend of future development, which indicates a much more rapid technological advance in the weapons of offence than in the defensive type. It may be said with some degree of certainty that the weapons available in the next few years can produce total destruction, but the defence against these weapons is a different story and that causes us great concern. This is one of the matters to which all members of the alliance must devote a great deal of attention.
As has already been announced, the defence research board is working with the United States authorities in solving some of these problems of defence against ballistic missiles. These are problems in relation to tracking ballistic objects in and beyond the atmosphere. Some progress has been made in the field of detection of missiles, and a comprehensive communications system is being installed to give warning of the approach of the ballistic missiles. These detection stations to which I refer are not located in Canada, although Canada is providing facilities to assist in the communication and passing on of the information. It is expected that by 1961-62 a reliable detection and warning system will be in operation on the North American continent, but this is only one aspect of the problem.
The major question to be answered is how to intercept the ballistic warhead and destroy it before it reaches its target. This is a research and development project of very great technical and financial proportions, as these

missiles will be travelling at several thousand miles an hour. The whole question of locating, tracking, intercepting and destroying the missile must be accomplished within the time of flight of the missile which may be as short as 15 or 20 minutes. The United States have given this project first priority and are putting a great deal of effort and money into a program of defence against missile attack, but it appears unlikely that a satisfactory means of intercepting and destroying the missile will be accomplished within the next few years. In consequence, there may be a period between the time when the ICBM is available to a potential enemy and the time when some defence against the ballistic missile is possible.
At present there is no defence against the missile after it has left its launching pad, and several years may elapse before such a defence is operationally practical. Therefore this gap in our joint defence must be considered most carefully in our defence planning and in the steps we are taking to ensure our survival if unfortunately we are forced into war during this interval.
In view of the consequences of nuclear war the world is perhaps approaching the stage when the use of force as an instrument of policy to settle man's differences is no longer valid. It is hoped that some means other than armed conflict will eventually be found to settle international disputes. To this end we have demonstrated our willingness to lend assistance in order to help reduce tension in potentially explosive areas, thereby preventing the exploitation of force as an instrument of policy. Our troops assigned to the United Nations emergency force and to other peace preserving teams are continuing examples of our interest in this direction.
Until general agreement on disarmament is reached, however, we must support the maintenance of an adequate deterrent to war to make it quite apparent to any would-be aggressor that he cannot use force as an instrument of policy without running the risk of devastating retaliation. It is necessary, therefore, for us to maintain our forces both here and abroad as part of the deterrent of the west. It is our fervent hope that these two primary elements of defence policy will succeed and that war will be averted. However, there is an element of miscalculation and misunderstanding that cannot as yet be removed from international relations; therefore it is prudent that these deterrent forces should be so designed that they will be of use to blunt any attack and to assist in survival.
With these observations in mind I would now refer to Canada's defence policy. This
Supply-National Defence policy was set forth in the paper on defence tabled at the end of April. This paper is intended to assist hon. members during these discussions. Anyone who has read it should have a better understanding of our policy and the state of our forces. The paper is not intended to be the instrument through which major new policy is announced. During the year changes in policy and the procurement of new equipment have been communicated to the house as decisions have been reached. The effects of these decisions are reflected in the estimates now before the committee, and are detailed in the report.
The committee will be aware of some of these important decisions, all of which have been announced or referred to in the house during the past year: for example, the cancellation of the Arrow program, adoption of the Bomarc missile and related semi-automatic ground environment: the acquisition of a surface to surface missile for the Canadian army; negotiations for the procurement of nuclear weapons announced by the Prime Minister on February 20 of this year; construction of six additional destroyer escorts; plans for a tanker supply ship to increase the range of the destroyer escorts and thus enable these ships to stay at sea for longer periods of time, and the granting of facilities at four Canadian air fields for SAC refueling aircraft; the tasks assigned to the Canadian army in respect of survival operations and civil defence. Had a policy of withholding this information been followed and the first announcement given in the white paper it would indeed have been a sensational document.
The format of the report is not intended to copy what is known as a British white paper, although the latter does not always announce new policy. It will be recalled that in 1957 a so-called five-year plan was announced by the British government with regard to defence. The details of this plan were, in general, already well known in that country prior to the publication of the white paper. The British report on defence in 1958, however, had the following introductory remark:
This paper reports the progress made in implementing that policy.
That is, the policy which had been announced a year before. Recently another British white paper announced the details of some major changes and reorganization of the British army. No such changes have taken place here because they are not applicable to our organization.
In the report that I made available in April -and it is the type of report that requires some time to prepare-I endeavoured to set forth our defence policy, to outline how that

Supply-National Defence policy was being carried out, to show the distribution of our forces and to explain briefly the estimates required for this financial year. Amidst all the verbiage that has been uttered since I tabled the report I can find but two or perhaps three points of criticism, and these all affect matters that require major policy decisions. I refer to the re-equipment of the air division in Europe, the defence against the manned bomber at home, and the defence against the ICBM of the future. I have already made mention of the problem of defence against the ICBM and I shall refer later to the defence against the manned bomber.
Hon. members will realize that a decision such as the re-equipment of the air division, involving not only millions of dollars but also our relations with our NATO allies, is not easily arrived at. At the time I tabled the report no such decision had been taken. Now, after the government has had the opportunity of hearing the views expressed by General Norstad, the supreme allied commander, Europe, and having taken into consideration many other factors including costs, I am in a position to announce that the government has decided to re-equip the air division of the R.C.A.F. The U.S.S.R. and its satellites have large, mobile and fully equipped forces deployed along the European border of Russia and in the territory between the Russian border and NATO Europe. These deployed and combat-ready Soviet forces would be capable of launching and sustaining for some time a major ground attack against NATO Europe. To prevent the overrunning of NATO Europe it would be essential to defeat enemy forces launching such an attack.
The mobility of enemy forces and the target information requirements for the effective use of surface to surface missiles, with which the allies are now being armed, clearly indicate a need for aircraft which can penetrate the area between the combat zone and the Russian border for reconnaissance and for strikes on targets of opportunity such as advancing columns of troops.
The NATO military authorities have recognized this deterrent force requirement and have requested Canada to provide a strike reconnaissance aircraft contribution. This contribution requires an aircraft capable of flying at a comparatively low altitude at great speed in order that targets on the ground, either stationary or moving, can be located and attacked. While such action would only be taken after hostile ground forces had commenced operations in western Europe, the presence of these aircraft in Europe would considerably enhance the value of the deterrent. The government, therefore, has decided to re-equip the eight squadrons


of the air division, now armed with the F-86 day fighter, with a strike reconnaissance aircraft. The four CF-100 squadrons are continuing in their present role.
The F-86, although in service for a number of years, is still an effective aircraft; but if we are to continue to support NATO a decision had to be made as to the role the air division would play in the years ahead. Some two years will elapse before new aircraft will come into operational service, and by that time the value of the F-86 will have diminished in comparison with other aircraft in operation. Failure to take a decision now, therefore, would jeopardize the effectiveness of the R.C.A.F.'s contribution in the future and undoubtedly would cause serious alarm and harm to the alliance. The decision now taken is in accordance with the recommendations of the supreme allied commander and re-emphasizes the fact that Canada, as a member of the NATO alliance, intends to continue to meet its agreed commitments as we have in the past, despite the heavy costs involved.
Provided the negotiations which are being carried on with the Lockheed Aircraft Corporation can be brought to a satisfactory conclusion in respect to costs, production sharing and other contractual terms, the aircraft selected will be the F-104G, a single seater supersonic aircraft equipped with the J-79 engine. It is an advanced version of the F-104, which is now in service with the United States air force. Members of the committee will be aware that this aircraft was also selected by the Federal Republic of Germany and will come into operation with the air force of the Federal Republic of Germany at about the same time as it will come into operational use with the R.C.A.F. squadrons. In the meantime the German air force is taking into operational use the F-86. While the airframe and engine will be manufactured under licence in Canada, final details of production and costs will be announced by the Minister of Defence Production in due course.
The F-104G was selected as the most suitable after more than 20 types of British, American and European aircraft had been evaluated by the R.C.A.F. Consideration was also given to the possibility of modifying existing Canadian aircraft with a view to converting these aircraft to carry out the new role assigned to the air division. Such aircraft were developed essentially as fighter or interceptor aircraft, and were designed to engage hostile bombers at great heights. The requirements for a strike reconnaissance aircraft do not demand long range and great height, but do call for the ability to fly fast at low altitudes. The two requirements are not compatible, and it was not deemed

practical to adapt present aircraft to this new role. Past experience shows that to have attempted to design and build a new aircraft in Canada would have been prohibitive in cost and would have taken much longer to become operational.
I mentioned a few minutes ago that to understand the estimates one must know what our policy and commitments are. For the benefit of those who have not read "Defence 1959", I would quote from that paper:
Canadian defence policy derives directly from our foreign policy and is designed to ensure national security and the preservation of world peace.


The Deputy Chairman:: Order. I am sorry to interrupt the minister, but I have to advise him that his time has expired. Has the minister unanimous consent to continue?


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


George Randolph Pearkes: I continue with the quotation:
These objectives are reached through collective arrangements within NATO and the United Nations. While the increased range of offensive weapons equipped with nuclear warheads brings the North American continent within the target area in any future war, it is realized that the defence of this area cannot be considered in isolation. The advantage in collective defence within the framework of an alliance such as NATO is that an integrated balanced force can be provided by each member nation concentrating on the provision of those elements which constitute its particular needs and can be most effectively maintained.
In order to meet the objectives of the alliance and in support of the United Nations, it is the defence policy of Canada to provide forces for: The defence against an attack on the North American content: the collective defence and deterrent forces of NATO in Europe and the north Atlantic; the United Nations to assist that organization in attaining its peaceful aims.
It should be understood that since the development of offensive weapons has not been matched by comparable advances in defensive technology, effective retaliatory forces are still the best and perhaps only defence. That is part of the concept of NATO.
If the deterrent is to be effective it must contain four basic elements. The free world must have forces in being, fully trained and immediately available for action. They must be so organized as to be able to repel and counter any attack. We must also have the will to build up and maintain those forces and the determination to employ them if circumstances warrant; and the potential enemy mUst be convinced of the strength of our forces and our willingness to use them if required. Some of the exaggerated statements regarding the obsolescence of some of our equipment have not been helpful in that respect.
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While realizing that the main deterrent to war is the retaliatory forces, we must continue to maintain a good defensive posture. For one thing, we must protect the offensive forces, such as the SAC bomber bases, from destruction by a surprise attack. Protection against such an eventuality is one of the principal roles of our air defence forces on the North American continent. The aim of the western alliance is, first of all, to deter the outbreak of war. Should this fail and an attack follow, we must be in a position to defend ourselves and to destroy the enemy's ability to continue to wage war.
I turn now to defence against the manned bomber. Despite the diminishing threat of the manned bomber in the years ahead, to which I have already referred, it has been considered sensible to maintain defences against such a form of attack on this continent. With the development of stand-off bombs launched from manned aircraft, it is imperative that the interception of such aircraft should take place as far distant from the target as possible. To accomplish this and to provide defence in depth, Canadian and United States interceptors would engage enemy bombers as far north as possible.
We are maintaining nine squadrons of CF-100 all-weather interceptors and are making arrangements so that United States interceptors can operate in Canadian air space, and consideration is being given to providing facilities so that United States aircraft may be able to operate from Canadian airfields. Those hostile bombers that succeed in escaping these defences would then be engaged by a series of Bomarc units located close to the Canadian-United States border. In other words, we are concerned with area rather than point defence. The United States are providing some point defences at their key strategic bases, SAC bomber bases, by such missiles as the Nike-Hercules.
As we are participating jointly with the United States in the air defence of North America under NORAD, it is only good sense to equip our air defence forces with similar weapons so as to permit the most effective joint operation. The United States air force, faced with the same requirement for an area air defence missile, are developing the Bomarc as a weapon so as to complement the other elements of the defence system against bomber aircraft; the radar warning system is also being developed, interceptor aircraft and the semi-automatic ground environment.
Two Bomarc B units will be stationed in Canada, one near North Bay, Ontario, and one in northern Quebec, as part of a system

Supply-National Defence protecting the heavily populated areas of both Canada and the United States. The United States air force are now engaged in establishing their portion of the over-all system stretching from the Atlantic to the Pacific, with interlocking stations. While some changes in quantities have occurred as the system has developed, the first units will soon be operational.
The cost factor in so far as Canada is concerned with regard to the Bomarc program has already been demonstrated. As the result of a cost-sharing agreement with the United States, improvements to the Canadian air defence system-and this includes additional radar sites, gap fillers for the Pinetree system, Bomarc missiles and the SAGE electronic control equipment- amount to some $125 million, of which $20 million is for the Bomarc. This represents Canada's share in the new program, the United States sharing the total cost of the program on an approximate two thirds, one third basis. This compares, as hon. members know, to the estimated cost of $750 million if the Arrow program had been continued until that aircraft was in operation. We are getting comparable defence for considerably less money.
Improvements to the air defence of Canada which have been announced include SAGE, one of whose functions is to provide instructions automatically to the Bomarc missiles and to the interceptors, be those interceptors R.C.A.F. or United States aircraft; the modification of existing radar stations to make them part of the SAGE complex; seven new heavy radar stations and a number of gap filler stations to be added to the Pinetree line. These increase materially the effectiveness of our defences. Each of the seven new heavy radars will be manned by R.C.A.F. personnel. Construction will get under way shortly at Moosonee, Ontario, and Chibougamau, Quebec. Preliminary investigations are being carried out for five western radars. When completed each station will be manned by approximately 250 R.C.A.F. and civilian personnel.
It might be of interest to hon. members to know that since the decision was made that Canada would adopt SAGE, the first unit has begun successful operation in the northeastern United States. The version of the system to be installed in Canada will be a later development; its electronic computers will make use of transistors rather than the less efficient and bulkier vacuum tubes. In order to "harden" the SAGE centres, the Canadian unit will be constructed underground.
The major threat to Canada from the sea continues to be the submarine. The Royal

Canadian Navy and the maritime command of the R.C.A.F. are being organized, equipped and developed so that in close co-operation they can cope with the primary task of locating and destroying submarines. Since there is at present no means of destroying a missile once it has been launched, it is most desirable that missile-carrying submarines be kept as far from our shores as possible so that targets ashore are beyond the range of the submarine's weapons. Our ships and marine aircraft are designed and equipped for this purpose.
On each coast a maritime commander has been established who exercises unified operational control over R.C.N. and R.C.A.F. forces in his area of responsibility and maintains direct liaison with adjacent NATO and national commanders.
To improve our anti-submarine capability and to simplify logistic and training problems, the navy has transferred all the new St. Laurent class escorts to the west coast, while the Restigouche class escorts will be stationed in the Atlantic command. Of the original seven Restigouche class escorts, five are now in commission and the remaining two, Columbia and Chaudiere, will be commissioned by the end of this year. These ships, together with the Argus aircraft of the R.C.A.F. maritime command, form an effective hunter-killer anti-submarine team whose effectiveness increases as new and more advanced equipment is introduced.
To replace world war II escorts a construction program for six repeat Restigouche escorts has been commenced. Work has already started on the first of these ships, a second will be laid down this month and the remainder will follow at approximately three month intervals.
Another aspect of the defence of Canada is the survival role to be carried out by all regular and reserve forces not directly involved in operational duties in the event of war. With the advent of the ICBM we do not pretend that we can ensure a complete defence of North America. Therefore the government feels that it is prudent to give more thought and consideration to the passive measures of defence which may have to be adopted should our efforts fail to prevent war. With this in mind the regular and reserve forces have been organized for survival operations. All defence forces which are not actively engaged in repelling the attack will be trained and ready to take active measures to assist survival.
An order in council known as the civil defence order, 1959, has been approved by the governor in council and tabled in the House of Commons. This order has given the

Department of National Defence various civil defence powers, duties and functions which will provide for a system of warning the public of attack, determining location of nuclear explosions and fall-out patterns, assessing damage and casualties, re-entry and rescue. The Department of National Defence will be responsible for all re-entry operations in seriously damaged or contaminated areas. The department has also been given the tasks of providing emergency support to provincial and municipal authorities for the maintenance of law and order and the maintenance and operation of emergency communications facilities.
The Canadian army is the designated service responsible for the conduct of survival operations, and will be assisted by such elements of the R.C.N. and R.C.A.F. as can be made available for this task. A director general of survival operations has been appointed to head the army organization which will be responsible for the role which was first referred to in the defence report issued in April.
In the event of attack on Canada, communication with all parts of the country would be essential. In consequence, arrangements are being made to ensure that if the main communication facilities should be interrupted, alternative means will be available.
On September 1 the Department of National Defence will assume full responsibility for the operation of the warning system in Canada. This will involve obtaining the information from the appropriate source and transmitting the warning in the shortest possible time to provincial authorities, probable target areas, military headquarters and installations, and all segments of population likely to be affected. Warning will deal with the threat of direct attack and will also provide information on location of nuclear explosions and resulting radioactive fall-out which may follow such an attack. Detailed studies are now under way aimed at providing the fastest and most effective system within our capability.
The Canadian army has organized a number of mobile support columns within the regular army and the militia. These columns will be based on major units and training establishments in the regular army. In the militia they will be based on groups of units. Each column contains rescue companies and such other elements as will permit them to perform re-entry and rescue tasks, as well as supplying manpower for maintenance of law and order and such other internal operations as may be necessary under conditions of war. Mobile support columns will be grouped into task forces.
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Rescue training sets are being issued to these mobile columns. Provision is being made for additional equipment to be provided early in 1960. Requirements for communications equipment for national survival have been established and arrangements for procurement are being made on a priority basis. The requirement for radiation detection equipment has been established. Industry, however, is as yet unable to meet the standards in all cases. Action is being taken on a priority basis to obtain suitable equipment as it becomes available, and it is expected that substantial deliveries will be made this year. Some radiac equipment suitable for training has been issued.
Detailed examination of other items of equipment normally held by the army is being carried out with a view to providing adequate scaling for survival operations for all troops involved.
National survival training was introduced to all components of the Canadian army in 1957. Since then emphasis in training has been placed on rescue and radiation monitoring. To date over 750 armed forces personnel have received survival training at the civil defence college at Arnprior and over 1,000 at the joint atomic, bacteriological and chemical school at Camp Borden. The army commands across Canada have conducted numerous courses to provide instructors in rescue operations. Twelve simulated disaster areas have been constructed for practical training of instructors, and provision is being made for an additional 21.
Army headquarters have prepared and issued training directives and provisional training instructions in all aspects of national survival training. These instructions will soon be incorporated in training manuals in both English and French. There have been numerous exercises conducted by both the regular army and the militia on national survival operations with encouraging results, and there can be no doubt that the forces have embarked on training for their new role with realism and enthusiasm.
In the context of what I have said the importance of research and development is more than ever apparent. In the present military environment and for the future, research has and must continue to have a major role in defence planning. In fact our hope of survival may well rest in the hands of the defence scientist.
The defence research board works in very close co-operation with our major NATO partners, and because of its contributions to the common pool of knowledge obtains much greater benefits than could otherwise accrue. Active projects in upper atmospheric physics,

Supply-National Defence aerophysics and explosive physics are being conducted jointly with the United States in an effort to close the gap between offence and defence in the ICBM era. The Prince Albert radar laboratory is one of the facilities being used jointly by Canada and the United States.
High priority is also being given to problems of anti-submarine warfare, partic-cularly in the field of detection and tracking of submarines. Both the naval and air aspects of this difficult problem are being considered. The Canadian program is closely co-ordinated with the programs of the United Kingdom and the United States. It is of interest to note that the British admiralty has recently adopted a towed sonar developed by the defence research board naval research establishment.
Apart from the major problem of defence against the ICBM and the missile launching submarine, the defence research board is carrying out research in many fields which are of vital importance to defence. Many of the projects are directly allied to air defence, nuclear warfare and survival.
The enormous speed of the ICBM requires split second reaction time, long range detection and tracking. All of this is beyond the manual capacity of the human being. There is a continuing effort to develop fast, long range and automatic devices for detection, tracking and computing. These must be reliable and work at speeds far beyond those at which the human mind is capable of reacting. Operation must often be by remote control by means of electronic devices.
Electronics play a major part in a modern military force. There is a constant seeking to develop more reliable light weight devices to be fitted into aircraft, ships and vehicles to serve a host of purposes which the human has neither the time nor the resources to carry out. The human being himself is not free from development. New techniques of training are designed to develop latent capabilities which improve his efficiency and indeed his chances of survival. New and improved rations which are compact and nourishing, better and simpler methods of preparation, are being developed. Development of the large complex weapon systems of the future is not contemplated, but development of components for such systems is quite within Canadian capabilities on a co-operative basis with our larger partners.
Referring to the estimates directly, it will be recalled that the standing committee on estimates last year recommended a division of the main defence vote. That recommendation is carried out this year and there are now 15 parliamentary votes instead of one main vote, two votes for each service and the


defence research board, operation and maintenance, and construction or acquisition of buildings, works, land and major equipment. Separate votes are also provided for development and mutual aid. This new structure will give parliament tighter control over defence expenditures, as transfer of funds between services will no longer be possible without supplementary estimates being brought before the house.
It might be of interest to hon. members if I furnish a breakdown of this year's estimates according to the major functions. It should be noted that the amounts shown under ACLANT are for naval and maritime forces earmarked for assignment to this NATO command in an emergency. Since these figures represent functional cost estimates, the amounts in some cases do not correspond precisely with amounts shown in the 1959-60 estimates for the particular activity. For example, the figures for reserves and cadets represent estimated total costs of these forces, whereas the estimates provide for direct costs related to personnel of these forces only.
Contributions to NATO: In so far as SHAPE is concerned, we have allocated $150 million or approximately 8.9 per cent of the total defence budget; to ACLANT, $203.5 million or 12.1 per cent; for defence of the Canada-United States region, including all army field forces in Canada, $398.8 million or 23.8 per cent of the defence budget; training forces, $227.7 million or 13.6 per cent; logistics support forces, $338.2 million or 20.2 per cent; command and administration, $102.9 million or 6.1 per cent; reserves and cadets, $53.6 million or 3.2 per cent; research and development, $51.1 million or 3 per cent; search and rescue, $11.4 million or 0.7 per cent; pensions, $58.4 million or 3.5 per cent; mutual aid, $21.8 million or 1.3 per cent; and various unallocated amounts, $62.8 million or 3.6 per cent.
In conclusion, hon. members will have noted that the total estimates this year amount to $1,680,194,006. For a country our size this is a very considerable sum and represents about 5 per cent of the gross national product and 27.3 per cent of total government spending for this fiscal year. Some critics, perhaps outside this house suggest we are spending too much. To do less would mean failure to live up to commitments we have made, and to run the risk of weakening the western alliance and invite disaster. I can assure these critics that every effort is being made on my part and on the part of the officials of the department to ensure that the funds voted are wisely spent and all extravagance removed.
Other critics complain that we are too dependent on our allies and presumably that we should spend even larger sums. To these

I say that we are in a partnership and that our partners fully appreciate our position, our sovereign rights and the efforts we are making. With the high cost of modern equipment we must weigh most carefully the advantages and requirements that can be expected before embarking upon any new enterprise or project. The criterion must be how essential is the new project or piece of equipment to the over-all defence picture. With changes taking place as rapidly as they are there is no time for hasty decisions. I place reliability of equipment before prestige weapons, and I make no apologies if I have taken some time to reach decisions. To be cautious does not mean that one lacks courage.
Still other critics have suggested different methods of spending the funds which are made available. I hope I will always be receptive to new ideas, but as no two critics in this group seem to be able to agree I can but thank them for their help and say that I prefer to rely upon the informed advice of the chiefs of staff, a group of dedicated men in whom I have great confidence.


Mr. Pearson:: Mr. Chairman, I am sure the committee will have listened with the greatest possible interest to the statement the minister has just made. In expressing my appreciation of that statement I feel I should say at once that I do not believe this statement or indeed the discussion that will follow it is an adequate substitute for the kind of searching examination of our defence policy that could have taken place before a committee to which experts and witnesses could have been summoned, the kind of examination of our defence policy and planning we have not had this session and which I suggest we should have had.
It is difficult if not impossible to think of a more important subject than that which we are discussing this morning so soon after the happy ceremonial military events of yesterday associated with the equally happy occasion of the visit of Her Majesty.
Whatever it may have been in the past, as the minister has indicated in his statement, defence today is survival because war is total destruction. Defence is also to be found not only-or perhaps now not primarily-in arms, but in policy and diplomacy because the only alternative to destruction, which is world war, is peace. Perhaps we should keep clearly in our minds this morning as we begin the discussion of the defence estimates that we are discussing only one form of defence which, as the minister himself pointed out in his statement, is perhaps not even the most important form of defence because, I take it, military defence must now be subsidiary to political defence. It was
Supply-National Defence possible in earlier times to associate defence with victorious war and political achievement, indeed with international security. That possibility has gone.
While I will not be able to agree with everything the minister has said there are some parts of his statement with which I am certainly in entire agreement. I am sure that every hon. member of the committee will subscribe wholeheartedly to the tribute the minister paid at the beginning of his statement to the Canadian armed forces in whose hands we have entrusted our military defence. It is in good hands, because the armed forces of Canada are efficient, devoted and loyal. I join the minister in paying tribute to the work they are doing.
For a short time I had the honour and privilege, as so many hon. members of this committee have had, of being identified with the armed forces of this country; and although my identification was undistinguished and obscure, unlike that of my hon. friend the minister, nevertheless it will always remain one of my proudest memories.
In participating in this discussion I am going to divide my remarks broadly into the following categories, all of which I may not be able to cover in my first intervention. I want to talk first about certain basic developments that have occurred in defence concepts, planning and strategy and indeed in the nature of war itself in the last few years. Then I want to discuss the nature of the threat which faces us, because it is essential to an understanding of the policies that should be adopted. This was discussed by the minister. I wish then to refer to the methods we appear to be adopting to meet, defeat and remove that threat. Finally I hope to discuss what in my view should be Canadian policy in that effort, which policy I agree, and should say so at the very beginning, cannot be dissociated from the policies of our friends and allies. In these matters there can be no isolation for us, and because there can be no isolation for us there can be no neutralism for us.
I may be critical in my remarks of some aspects of policy. I am going to suggest that there are some phases of United States defence policy which are now reflected in Canadian policy perhaps to a greater extent than before in our history which must in my mind arouse anxiety. If I am critical I hope to be critical in a constructive way. I recognize that we in the opposition have not all the facts and information at our disposal. Because of that fact we have to deal responsibly with defence questions and realize that perhaps there is information at the disposal of the government which we do not

Supply-National Defence have. It is possible that the minister will be able to deal with some of the criticisms I make and dispose of some of the questions I raise before the end of this discussion.
Since world war II and indeed, I believe, until 1957, the concept of defence policy, the nature of the threat and the means of encountering it were all based on principles and planning derived from the experience and lessons of world war II, just as we entered world war II with plans based on the experience and lessons of world war I. It seems to be the fate of man, as long as he has been engaged in war, to begin one war in accordance with the methods which may have been successful in the previous one but which are really not appropriate for the war in which he is engaging.
It is quite true that after world war II and even during it atomic weapons had been developed, but their use and method of delivery, I suggest up until about 1957, were an extension of earlier ideas rather than entirely new ideas in themselves; that the picture both for defence and offence was reasonably familiar and followed the general pattern of the last war; that the nature of the defence problem had not changed in essentials, even though it had certainly changed in scale and in scope.
True, the political mechanism of defence through collective security introduced in NATO was new. This is perhaps more political than military. The pooling of strength in an organization like NATO with collective responsibilities discharged by collective action planned and organized in advance was a new concept. If we had had such collective arrangements in 1939 the world might be a far better place today and we might not be participating today in this kind of defence debate. Perhaps it is just as well to remember this amidst the clamour from certain quarters that we should do away with collective security in the alleged interest of easing of tension and facilitating negotiations.
Then, Mr. Chairman, two years or so ago, in the fall of 1957, in my view the whole defence picture changed in a very fundamental way. The first satellite went into orbit from the Soviet union and the intercontinental nuclear balistic missile became a reality. An entirely new dimension of war was introduced at that time; an entirely new problem of defence was created. Perhaps this development may turn out to be even more important in warfare than the invention of gunpowder. Surely therefore, Mr. Chairman, it became of the most obvious and the most vital importance for all western countries, including our own, to re-examine the whole


basis of defence policy in the light of this new situation, associated as it was with the frightening growing power and effectiveness of the nuclear weapon, perhaps the ultimate weapon.
Surely, Mr. Chairman, this was the time for the great debate, for a complete re-assessment, agonizing or otherwise. We have had such a debate extending over many, many months in the United States congress, the results of which the minister may have read in the publications that emerged from the committee hearings. I attempted to read them, and they are in hundreds of hundreds of pages by now. We have had that kind of debate at Westminster where the government in the last two white papers on defence has certainly shown its awareness of those changes I have mentioned. In 1957 the United Kingdom government in its white paper on defence said:
The time had come to revise not merely the size, but the whole character of the defence planning; to make a fresh appreciation of the problem and the new approach to it.
The United Kingdom has done just that, especially in connection with air defence of the island. The white paper also had this to say on page 5:
It is only now-
This was in 1957.
It is only now that the future picture is becoming sufficiently clear to enable a comprehensive reshaping of policy to be undertaken with any
degree of confidence.
I ask the question, Mr. Chairman; is there any evidence that this comprehensive reshaping of policy is required in Canada and that it is being undertaken? The minister's statement this morning, interesting as it was, does not suggest that any fundamental re-assessment, re-examination or reshaping of that kind is taking place. Now, it may well be that Canada's direct relationship to these defence changes, these defence developments of which I have spoken, does not compare in importance with that of London or of Washington. But we have our part to play in these developments, and that part is one of very real significance, both politically and militarily, even though Canada's contribution to collective defence seems very often to be ignored or merely lumped with the British or American effort.
I think we in this house should know-and I am not at all certain that we have the information from the minister's first statement -what Canada's role is to be in relation to these new situations, these new circumstances. It seems to me that all we know at present is that our role is to be dominated to a greater extent than ever before by Washington. And I say that as one who believes

100 per cent in what the minister has said, namely that we cannot do these things alone; that defence is indeed collective and that there has to be a partnership. But my quarrel with his concept of collective defence-and I shall have a good deal to say about this later-is that we are in danger of replacing the Atlantic concept of collective defence by the North American concept of fortress America.
Discussion of these matters is for us all in Canada the more important because of our collective responsibilities under NATO and, indeed, because of our essential and necessary relationship-and it is a special relationship and must by the facts of geography and economics remain a special relationship- with the United States in continental defence. That relationship has existed for about 20 years, but it has now reached, I believe, the point of almost complete integration.
Well, now, what have we had from the government in the last two years in this house to show its appreciation of these developments? I suggest, Mr. Chairman, that we have had very little. Indeed, in this present session we have had a special discussion of one aspect of defence only, made necessary by the cancellation of the CF-105. Up to the present that is all. That is in startling and depressing contrast with the United States where certainly a great debate has been going on.
The committee will recall that more than once this session and last session, inside the house and outside the house, we on this side have argued for the examination of this problem before a committee. We have not been successful in achieving that end, and as a result we have had to get a great many of our facts and the information on which to base our statements and our views from the United States, where they are really much concerned with what has happened and with what should be done about it, and where they are, as I have said, discussing it at great length in congress. A similar situation prevails in London. Here when we have asked questions in the House of Commons, very often prompted by reports in the press on defence policies and defence statements in Washington that have a very important bearing on our own policy, very often when we have asked those questions the minister's reaction has not been, shall I say, very appreciative of our interest, and some of our questions it seems to me he has not taken very seriously. I quote from the Ottawa correspondent of the Globe and Mail of June 13, who said:
The Canadian defence muddle which has developed largely as a result of Defence Minister 66968-9-340
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Pearkes' olympian refusal to state clearly what the problem is and what is the government's approach-
Then, Mr. Chairman, came the white paper about which the minister spoke a short time ago, from which we expected a serious analysis of some of the problems I have mentioned. We did not get it, I suggest to the minister, in that report. Canada defence policy, in the nuclear world of missiles and outer space, is not found in this white paper which, in its substance and form, follows pretty much the papers of previous years from the Department of National Defence. It does not take sufficiently into consideration the changes that have been taking place.
The minister, however, has stated-he certainly did not do so this morning, when I think he took a far more realistic view of the threat-and this is certainly not to be accepted in lieu of a defence policy, that the west "can knock the stuffing out of the aggressor". That kind of statement, Mr. Chairman, seems to me to be on a par with one that was made some months ago, as reported in the press, by an unnamed general in the Pentagon that "nuclear war will mean universal destruction but I am sure we can win it." I feel that statements and observations of that kind are no substitute for policy. Canada is now in what has been called the classic but uncomfortable position of the buffer state. Let us not become a bluffer state as well.
What, Mr. Chairman, will the aggressor be doing when we are knocking the stuffing out of him? Well, the minister gave us some pretty sobering observations on that point this morning, and I am able to quote them because he was courteous enough to let me have an advance copy of his statement just before he made it. He said:
In the early 1960's it is expected that ballistic missiles will have reached a stage of reliability whereby such missiles will replace the bomber as the primary means of delivering nuclear weapons on North America.
This is the early 1960's.
However, if an attack on this continent is made in the early 1960's it is considered quite probable that a variety of weapons would be used in an effort to saturate the defences and, thus, deliver a devastating initial attack.
This is the aggressor whose stuffing we can knock out, and while we are doing that he is going to deliver a devastating initial nuclear attack on us. The statement goes on:
This kind of an attack would include ballistic missiles, both long and short range, land-based and from submarines, as well as other nuclear weapons delivered by aircraft. As most of the major strategic targets are situated in the United
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States, it is more than likely that certain targets in Canada would be attacked by bombers although the primary threat would be from ICBM's,
Well, that is a pretty sobering statement of the threat that confronts us, all the more sobering because, as the minister pointed out later in his statement, there is no defence of any kind at the present time against intercontinental missiles. I repeat that there is no defence of any kind. The minister has said previously and he indicated this morning that a defence is being sought against intercontinental missiles, and I think he said in the house-I do not want to do him an injustice -in answer to a question some time ago that this is likely to be secured soon. He was a little more specific on that point when he said that the Nike-Zeus, which is the United States anti-missile missile, would be operational in the near future.
No such claim as that has been made in the United States that I have been able to ascertain. On the other hand, a recognized authority, though I admit one who holds very strong views on one side of the question, Admiral Hayward, has said that the best we can hope for in regard to defence against missiles would be 50 per cent effectiveness by 1965. I certainly hope he is wrong when he says that the best we can hope for is 50 per cent effectiveness by 1965 against intercontinental nuclear ballistic missiles.
What about our defence against bomber attack? The minister has said in the past, and he is right, of course, that some will get through. Some bombers always get through. How many would be needed for destruction?
Another example of what I call the unrealistic approach to the Canadian aspect of the problem, and which I have ventured to call bluffing in some of its manifestations, was the announcement, which has a bearing on defence matters, especially defence against missiles, that Canada will soon be launching a satellite of its own, giving the impression that we are moving into the nuclear outer space field, an impression which has very little basis in reality as we were able to find out from the Prime Minister when we questioned him about it. He admitted at that time that the satellite will be of American construction, that the propulsion will be American, that it will be launched from the United States and that it will have some Canadian instruments inside. There is no doubt that they will be important, but that hardly justifies giving the impression that we were going to launch a satellite which no doubt would be the forerunner of the kind of defence which the United States may be seeking, either by counter-offensive or by direct defensive, against intercontinental ballistic missiles.


Another example is in the way the CF-105 contract was cancelled. Perhaps this would be a good time for me to call it one o'clock, Mr. Chairman.
At one o'clock the committee took recess.


[Stage Direction]
AFTER RECESS

The committee resumed at 2.30 p.m.
Lester Bowles Pearson: Mr. Chairman, at one o'clock I had mentioned the cancellation of the CF-105 contract as an indication of the lack of policy on the part of the government. We have had some time now to examine the reasons for that cancellation, and have secured more information on the way the cancellation was brought about. While I do not, on this occasion, propose to go into this matter I cannot forbear from saying that the information we have now received, and which we have had time to examine, increases our worries about the way this matter was handled.
We have had information since the first announcement, for instance, that the actual cost involved in the production of this aircraft varies from the information we received at the beginning. We were told by the Prime Minister on February 23, as recorded on page 1299 of Hansard-he was referring to the advice he had received from the chiefs of staff-that this aircraft would to all intents and purposes be obsolete by the time it became available for squadron service. We know now that the CF-100, which this aircraft was to have replaced and which if the CF-105 was to be obsolete would be even more obsolete, if that expression can be used, is to be retained for our home defence squadrons. We know also something about the Bomarc which is to replace two of the squadrons.
Everything we have learned, Mr. Chairman, confirms and indeed intensifies our criticism of the government on the way in which this matter was handled. This criticism was expressed in very strong terms in an article in Toronto Saturday Night of May 23 by one Robert Jamieson who, I take it, is a Canadian resident but only recently arrived in this country. In this article he states:
Two thirds of the workers on the Arrow came from Britain. It was Canada's business whether she went on with the Arrow, but people in Britain are accustomed to seeing their governments looking at issues in the round and working out broad solutions in the light of all probable consequences before announcing decisions. Does any Canadian seriously suggest this happened when the Arrow was dropped? I believe that the inept handling of this issue will have greater and more lasting

effect in the United Kingdom alone in deterring potential immigration than all the now notorious articles in "The People".
I should like to return, Mr. Chairman, and elaborate on a matter with which the minister dealt this morning, the nature of the threat that faces us and, after that, what defence have we against it. The main threat in terms of a major war, though not perhaps the only threat, perhaps at the moment not even the most imminent threat because we may be facing more imminent dangers than a calculated all-out nuclear invasion, but the particular threat upon which so much of our defence has to be based is nothing less than one of total nuclear destruction. I do not want to put on the record of the committee a great deal of evidence to support this, because we know it is true. Nevertheless, perhaps it is just as well to remind ourselves, on this pleasant summer afternoon, that the biggest bomb dropped in world war II carried the equivalent of ten tons of t.n.t.; that was the grand slam bomb. The atom bomb which was dropped on Hiroshima had the equivalent of 15,000 tons of t.n.t.; that is a jump from 10 tons to 15,000 tons. The first hydrogen bomb exploded in 1954 carried the equivalent of 15 millions tons of t.n.t. These figures certainly give us cause to ponder.
One of the most outstanding United States authorities in this field of nuclear development, a man who is not given to emotional statements and a very hard realist in these matters-I am referring to Dr. Teller, who had so much to do with the decision to go ahead with the hydrogen bomb-said not long ago that "50 of these bombs could make the United States uninhabitable".
I do not know on what basis these calculations are made. I know they are made by men with scientific knowledge and, I think, political responsibility. The office of civil and defence mobilization of the United States, before a committee of congress, said the other day it estimated 49 million people of the United States would be killed in a hydrogen bomb attack of the kind of which the Soviet was now capable. General Partridge, who is well informed on these matters, and who incidentally is an officer of Canada as well as the United States because he is commander of the North American air defence command, told a house of representatives subcommittee on defence: "If the enemy launches an all-out attack against us I think we must be prepared to accept casualties in the millions".
Surely this is sufficient evidence that the only potential enemy of this country has the capability for such an attack, and makes all our references to defeating him and knocking
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Supply-National Defence the stuffing out of him in a nuclear attack seem rather meaningless. What form would this attack take if it ever were permitted to develop? What is the particular nature of the threat? Again I return to General Partridge's evidence before the United States congressional committee last February and I quote from it. He said this:
At the present time the Soviets can attack us only with bombers. We do not think they have any operational intercontinental missiles.
This was last February, but only the other day the secretary of defence of the United States amended this statement and gave evidence to the effect that it was the view of the defence department of the United States that the Soviet would have ten of these missiles before the end of this year. That is quite a change from General Partridge's statement of last February. But General Partridge in his earlier statement went on to say this:
We think that in the future they-
That is the Soviet.
-will reduce the numbers of bombers in their inventory.
That is something the minister has confirmed in his statement in this house.
Our national intelligence estimates are that they will improve the quality of those bombers, and that in a few years they will have a supersonic rather than a subsonic bomber force. This means that we must not only maintain the defences against bomber attack which we have today but we must also improve those defences so we can counteract a supersonic attacking force.
In other words, there will be a mix in attack of bomber and missile. According to General Partridge there must therefore be a mix in the defence. But that mix is obviously changing in favour of intercontinental missiles against which, as I ventured to say this morning and as the minister confirmed before I spoke, there is now no defence. Senator Russell who, I think, is the chairman of the senate armed services committee, speaking in Washington a few weeks ago said this:
If the Russians attacked us tomorrow-
This is contrary to the view usually expressed.
-it would not be with manned bombers; it would be with missiles.
While the house military appropriations subcommittee report, after a great deal of evidence was taken from a great many experts-and this is the report of May 27, 1959 -concluded with this:
During the early 1960's Russia could have three times as many intercontinental "ballistic missiles in position" as the United States.
That is one aspect of the threat, and it is a sombre enough one. But there is another

Supply-National Defence threat that the minister also mentioned this morning which surely must have an important bearing on western defence policy and on Canadian defence policy, especially naval policy. That is the threat of the submarine, of which the Soviet union now has hundreds of the more modern type and will no doubt soon have nuclear-powered submarines, though I believe there is no evidence that the Soviet possesses any of those at the present time. Admiral Rickover of the United States, who is perhaps as well informed on this question as anybody on this continent, said in his evidence before the house subcommittee, and it is in their report:
Russian submarines can come near our coasts. They can fire missiles. If their submarines come off our coast they can drop hydrogen or atomic warhead missiles into our cities. One such missile, accurately placed, could destroy a city.
Then he added this:
The best way we know to destroy these submarines is by other atomic-powered submarines.
I may have a word to say about that matter when I come to what I think should be our Canadian policy in this field. Then the admiral added this paragraph, which certainly has a significance for us. As reported at page 439 of the testimony he said:
What nuclear power has really done for the polar regions-
He had been talking about the submarine in the polar regions.
-is to make another large area of the earth insecure and bring it into warlike focus.
This is an area very much the concern of Canada. He added:
It has been immune from war up to now, but any nation that possesses nuclear submarines can now use that area for warlike operations.
What are the nature and effectiveness of our present defences against this threat which I have outlined and which the minister outlined before me? I suggest, Mr. Chairman, that there has been a good deal of unrealistic talk about this matter, a good deal-if you like-of bluffing. The minister is reported as having said over C.B.C. television on Sunday, June 7, as follows, and I quote from the text of what he is reported to have said:
The CF-100 was designed for and is capable of meeting the threat which the Russians now have.
I have given some indication of what that threat is. Yet, Mr. Chairman, that statement by the minister has been denied, denied by the minister himself. It was certainly denied by the Prime Minister in the statement I have just read from our debate on the CF-105, that the CF-105 would itself be obsolete before it came into squadron operation. If the CF-105 would be obsolete in those circumstances, how can we accept the view that the

CF-100 is capable of meeting the threat the Russians now have? I have just indicated what I think that is.
The minister himself in this house, or perhaps it was before the estimates committee last year and repeated by me when I was quoting him in this chamber, said the CF-100 was capable of engaging the majority of Russian bombers. If the CF-100 is capable only of engaging only the majority of the Russian bombers, how can we consider the CF-100 to be an effective mechanism in the context of the threat I have mentioned? But the minister said this morning-this was something new, and I venture to bring it to the attention of the committee-that while the CF-100 squadrons would be maintained-I have not his exact words before me-facilities would be provided or provision might be made for United States interceptor squadrons to fly from Canadian air fields.
I think this is something the minister will undoubtedly want to deal with when he replies to these questions. Would this mean that men from perhaps the same Canadian bases with Canadian CF-100 planes would be asked to do the same job that the United States squadrons would be expected to do with more modern and more effective machines for that particular kind of work? Having given up the Arrow, and if the CF-100 is obsolete, is our only effective protection in the field of manned interceptors now to be United States interceptor squadrons, some of which will be flying from Canadian air fields?
Certainly I agree with the minister when he says that manned interceptor squadrons are still a necessary element in the mix of defence which the Americans talk about. Certainly the United States at the present time is apparently not giving up its development of the F-108 which is a supersonic long-range fighter; and in startling contast to the CF-100. It shows how amazing has been the development over the last two or three years. The F-108 is a supersonic long-range fighter with a speed in excess of 2,000 miles per hour designed to police the early warning line and to begin the destruction of attacking aircraft long before they reach our shores; that is to say, to begin the destruction of attacking aircraft over Canada.
That is from the testimony of a deputy chief of staff of the United States air force, namely Colonel Andrews, before the house subcommittee on April 10, 1959. This F-108 which is now in the process of development, and according to one of the senior officers of the air force, General Irvine, is as good as the Bomarc. Also he said that present bombers will be replaced in years ahead by air to surface missiles from bombers, which mean*

that bombers will have to be intercepted farther out than ever if the interception is to be effective. We are told that the F-108 may be able to do this; certainly the CF-100 will not be able to do it. I repeat; are we therefore to have in the future, if we are to maintain this kind of defence, United States squadrons of F-108's flying from Canadian bases as our main protection, or are we to have Bomarcs, or are we to have both on Canadian soil?
That leads me to the consideration of this very important and controversial missile, the Bomarc. What about this ground to air missile on which we seem to be basing our defence now? A year ago, I agree the reports which reached us of the effectiveness of the Bomarc were much more impressive than they seem to be now in the light of all the information which has come from the congressional hearings in Washington. Certainly they are more effective than CF-100 against supersonic bombers, because I doubt if the CF-100 would be effective at all.
Doubts have been raised as to the effectiveness of this missile upon which we in Canada are now counting so much. There is-and perhaps this is not too strong a word -a furious controversy going on in Washington over these missiles. There is a controversy between the use of the Nike-Ajax and the Nike-Hercules which the army has at the moment, and the Bomarc B which is the choice of the air force and which is Canada's choice. But before I go on to discuss those missiles let me emphasize once again that neither of them, the Nike nor the Bomarc, has any value whatever against missiles. The evidence on that is conclusive. I made that statement this morning, Mr. Chairman, and I propose to substantiate it from evidence in Washington where they have the facts on this matter. One of the high officials of the Pentagon, General Partridge, testified before the house of representatives subcommittee, again on February 19, 1959. He was asked by a congressman:
As of the moment you do not have any defence against ICBM's if Russia should have them and apply them to us at the moment?
General Partridge: That is correct.
The congressman went on:
The only way that you could protect yourself under those conditions would be by having a knowledge through intelligence as to when they are going to be fired, and only then, if you had adequate devices to knock them down?
General Partridge: That is right.
Later in the same hearing General Partridge had this to say:
The present system of air defence as it exists today has no capability to provide either warning or active defence against an incoming intercontinental ballistic missile.
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Then he went on, and the minister echoed this this morning:
This system must be devised; the warning portion is now being built. The active missile defences, the Nike-Zeus system must be pushed along to completion as rapidly as possible.
Then a congressman asked:
Is it true since that has not been tried out we do not know what it would do?
General Partridge replied:
Work is proceeding on the development equipment, research and development equipment, and it will be tested, I believe, at White Sands proving ground.
From this evidence it becomes very clear that it will be some years before these antimissile missiles can possibly be effective, and they will cost billions, of course far beyond our financial reach if we ever get involved in this field by ourselves. Even then there are some doubts as to the ultimate effectiveness of this anti-missile missile. The assistant secretary of the air force research and development branch, Mr. Horner, testifying again on February 19, said:
It appears to be much cheaper to launch an ICBM than it is to shoot one down.
Then he was asked by the chairman of the subcommittee:
As I understand it, you are saying that the Nike-Zeus and other suggested ways of shooting down ballistic missiles would be so expensive that probably the better answer to the threat is the production of more ICBM's by the United States as an additional threat and deterrent against the opponent. Is that correct?
Mr. Horner replied:
Yes, sir, that is correct.
Then he was asked to give an estimate as to the effectiveness of this missile if they did proceed with it, and Mr. Horner said:
My reaction to that is that the defence has never been 100 per cent successful. With this tremendous advantage that the offence now has with the advent of thermonuclear weapons and ballistic missiles, it certainly becomes even more difficult to postulate 100 per cent success in defence and interception.
The conclusion of this, Mr. Chairman, and surely it has a bearing on our own policy, is that at present there is no defence against missiles, that it will be some years before any defence against them will be operational, and there is not likely ever to be complete defence against nuclear missiles.
Then what about the other form of defence which, according to some, is the best defence against the more immediate threat? What about missile defence against bombing planes? That brings up, of course, the controversy between the Nike and the Bomarc. The Nike, as the minister pointed out this morning, is an army short range, but operational, ground

Supply-National Defence to air missile for what he called "point defence". The Bomarc is for "area defence"; it has a longer range than the army missile. When we were talking about Bomarcs a year ago we were presumably talking about what is now known as the Mark A, though at that time-the minister will correct me if I am wrong-there was no distinction made in our discussions between one type of Bomarc and another type. We assumed there was only one type.
The Mark A, which we were considering a year ago, has been tested only against subsonic targets, and even at limited range and height those tests were only partially successful and are now to be discontinued because this particular weapon is to be discontinued in favour of what is now called the Mark B, which the minister now says is the only Bomarc weapon we ever had in mind for Canada's weapon. It is a solid fuel booster missile, having solid fuel booster rockets for take-off. It has had one test on May 26 against a subsonic, not a supersonic, target; and the test was, we are told, inconclusive.
I do not know whether the minister has had the opportunity to read the testimony given to the House of Representatives subcommittee on the Bomarc weapon, especially the questions asked about this matter by Representative Flood of Pennsylvania. This is what he said, and it is interesting in light of the conclusions the committee came to later with regard to this weapon. He said:
The army had Nike-Ajax. They had Nike-Her-cules. Immediately the air force had to have something. They couldn't have that going on. Somebody thought up Bomarc. This was in the early days. Colonel, now you have Bomarc A. You took one shot at one drone at . . . feet and it worked. That is all you have done with Bomarc A at that altitude.
Then he went on:
Here is Bomarc A, the great air force unmanned interceptor. It takes one shot at one pigeon at .... it hits, and that is the end of that. You buy it, and we are in procurement. But now you are through buying A's, are you not?
And the colonel to whom he was addressing the question said yes, they had dropped it in favour of Bomarc B. Then Mr. Flood asked:
How many B's have you tested at 400 miles?
The colonel said:
I don't know, sir.
Mr. Flood then went on to say:
So you will scrap A because you have a better one, B, solid fuel, which you have not tested against anything. Yet you are going to buy it because there are a few little gimmicks here and a few little gimmicks there, and you know from experience that since this concerns only the booster solid fuel, and you have had great experience with boosters and solid fuels on aircraft and all that, all these things being equal you are firmly

convinced you should stop buying A which is no good anyhow, after $2 billion, and go into B which you know nothing about except as our logic and experience indicates. That is Bomarc B and Bomarc A for over $2 billion.
That was testimony given this spring in Washington. The Senate armed services committee report of May 24, after discussion on the same subject-and no doubt this paragraph is familiar to the minister-had this to say:
The untried Bomarc will be becoming opera tional-
At least two years away. I continue:
-in the air defence picture at a time when the major emphasis should be on anti-missile defence.
All this means is that the value, effectiveness and timing of the Bomarc-the Bomarc B, if you like-is now under serious attack in the United States, and as a result of that attack the administration has agreed on a compromise between Bomarc missiles and Nike missiles and anti-missile missiles, as a result of which the amount to be spent on our weapon, the Bomarc, is to be reduced by $925 million over the next five years.
I am informed that its bases in the United States are to be reduced from 30 to 16. Senator Symington, who is a defence critic in the Senate and who was once secretary for air, said of this compromise:
It is merely a guarantee of further waste of billions of dollars.
In spite of United States doubts about this weapon the minister confirmed this morning that we are proceeding with Bomarc bases and SAGE installations in Canada, SAGE installations being essential, I take it, for the effective operation of the Bomarc, without waiting to see what finally happens in the United States with regard to this weapon. When we have asked the minister questions about this we have not received very illuminating replies. The minister has indicated that it is necessary to have the bases ready in case the weapon is a success even though, I suggest, we will have the information on this in lots of time to construct the bases, if necessary, before SAGE could be ready for them. SAGE, we are told, is an essential part of the Bomarc system.
The deputy chief of staff of the United States air force, General Irvine, on April 10, 1959, said that Sage would not be finished for four years. I am wondering if it would not have been good policy to have postponed final consideration of this matter and postponed the initiation of the actual construction until the situation in Washington became a little clearer.
The minister said that the development of the Bomarc B in Washington is proceeding

according to schedule though he is not quite sure, nor are we, what is the schedule. Why not have waited for a short time until this particular matter was cleared up? Canada has scrapped its own plane, the CF-105, for this unproven United States missile now so bitterly controversial in the United States. Even the minister, though he appeared very confident about the effectiveness and value of this missile in the references he made to it in the house, seems to have had some second thoughts. In a press interview in Winnipeg on June 5-the minister will correct me if this is not an accurate account of what he said-the minister is reported to have stated that the government will await the results of United States tests before a final decision is made on the Bomarc.
Does that mean that no final decision has yet been made? Is that the present situation? If so, is it not a fact that the construction of the bases has begun tying us up closely to the whole Bomarc-SAGE system? It means that we are tied not only to the Bomarc system but to the whole SAGE complex, because SAGE is certainly essential to Bomarc.
As to the main argument advanced in favour of Bomarc, it is perhaps not one which has a broad Canadian appeal. The argument is that it has a longer range than Nike-Hercules or Nike-Ajax and could push the area of effective defence north of the United States border. That apparently is the tactic to be followed by NORAD, as General Partridge made perfectly clear to the house committee on February 19 at page 336 of the evidence, in these words:
The interceptors which take off for interception purposes are fully armed and ready to fight.
This would apply to missiles too, apparently. I continue:
We want to start the battle as far out from our targets as we can and put on increasing pressure by increased numbers of interceptors as the battle moves in toward our target areas. If we do not destroy the enemy before he gets to these target areas, we want to apply surface to air missiles against him.
And again on the same day, in terms which apply to the missile and the manned interceptor, General Partridge had this to say:
We would like very much if it were possible to do so to fight the air battle far out from our targets over uninhabited areas of northern Canada or out at sea-
We want to engage the attacking forces as far out from the targets as we can and break up the bomber stream, shoot down as many of the enemy airplanes as we can and get to them before they can launch air to surface missiles. Then we would like to take them under fire by Bomarc if this is possible, again offshore or in relatively uninhabited areas of Canada.
I suggest that the effectiveness of this kind of defence, which I think is becoming
Supply-National Defence increasingly dubious at best, will depend on a good alert or early warning system, and this effectiveness should not display itself in a form which would mean that the battle would be fought, if it ever had to be fought, over Canadian populated territory. I agree that it should be pushed, not over the United States border but far north of the Canadian border, if this kind of defence is to be adopted.
If it is going to work at all-and the minister did not have very much to say about this in his statement this morning-we have to have an effective early warning system designed to take care of these new developments. The minister will correct me if I am wrong, but I understand that the early warning system we now have is adequate protection against bombers provided there is no jamming, and that is quite a proviso. For missiles, there is no early warning system available at all, but billions of dollars are going to be spent to secure one through the ballistic early warning system, in order to achieve how much warning? From 15 to 20 minutes.
About this new development and the accompanying expenditure, a gentleman who is probably the greatest radar authority in the world today, a man to whom the free world should be eternally grateful, Sir Robert Watson-Watt, is very sceptical indeed. As he stated in Washington the other day he is pessimistic about the effectiveness of early warning systems for missiles and the wisdom of spending these billions on them. I am in no position, of course, to judge whether what I am about to read is an accurate and reasoned assessment of the situation, but certainly anything this man says is worthy of attention. A couple of weeks ago he is reported to have said:
The heavy expenditures you are devoting to SAGE systems; BMEWS in the north, and the Nike-Zeus anti-missile missile, is a rather forlorn effort to jack up radar to levels it won't reach.
Let us hope he is not correct in this. He went on to say that improvements contemplated in the D.E.W. line BMEWS are-and I quote his words-
-at best a very expensive way to get a still inadequate warning.
Our anxieties and preoccupations about this are increased by General Partridge's statement before the house committee-and perhaps the minister could comment on this -when he said:
The Russians could jam the D.E.W. and mid-Canada lines if they wished to do so.
If this form of continental defence, this system of early warning, interception and destruction has a valid purpose-and let us assume it has a valid purpose-that purpose

Supply-National Defence is not to protect this country or indeed even the populous centres of the United States, because indeed that is not possible. Its valid and primary purpose, the purpose on which it must stand and on which the expenditures must be justified, is to protect the bases from which the deterrent must operate and which would be the primary target of any aggressor.
In fact, Mr. Chairman, I suggest that today our main protection is the deterrent, providing it can operate. So let us not fool ourselves. There is no protection, or very little protection, or almost incidental protection for Canadian soil or for Canadian citizens in this form of defence. The protection is in the deterrent in so far as it is able to keep the peace. If we ever had any doubts in our own minds as to the real purpose of the deterrent and the real validity of early warning interception as a protection for the deterrent, the testimony of General Power, who is the head of the strategic air command, I think, in February before the house subcommittee would remove those doubts. This is what he had to say:
The real backbone of SAC's deterrent posture is our alert system. As you know, under this system we maintain a certain percentage of the command on the alert 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year. Airplanes are loaded with bombs; crews sleep close by. They are tested every day- we can get them rolling in about five minutes, that is, the first airplane starts rolling down the runway in five minutes.
This is the only force that a potential aggressor knows he will have to reckon with, no matter how cleverly he plans his surprise attack. If that force is big enough, and if it gets the 15 minutes' warning for which it is tailored, and if it can penetrate we think an aggressor will be strongly deterred.
If we get that warning, we can get these airplanes off the ground; therefore, even though an aggressor launches missiles against the United States-and nothing can stop them today-we will still get the retaliatory force off, that part of it that is on this alert; it will not be destroyed, and the aggressor will have to absorb it.
Well, Mr. Chairman, there is our protection, not interceptors and not missiles in the skies. There is our protection at the present time. That, I suggest, is the purpose, if it has any purpose, of continental air defence and early warning systems.
Now, the United Kingdom is perfectly realistic about this matter, as we would expect, realistic in a way perhaps that we should apply to Canadian defence policy. The United Kingdom, as I understand from reading defence discussions there and white papers, is not now even attempting to defend the island as such or even pretending that it is doing so. The white paper of 1958 had this to say in paragraph 33:
Fighter command has now the more limited task of protecting the bomber bases.
I ask the question, should Canada adopt the same principle? Perhaps the minister

will deal with this when he replies. I ask it as a question and not with any illusion that I know the answer myself. Certainly the United Kingdom now relies primarily on the strategic nuclear deterrent as a defence against all-out attack. Should we rely primarily on that deterrent and make our contribution to the deterrent? This is a view, Mr. Chairman, which is increasingly supported in the United States itself, notably in the evidence given before the house subcommittee on April 20 by a naval officer whom I quoted this morning, Admiral Hayward. He said this:
We are a member of a free alliance. There are 45 nations allied with us. We swim or sink with this alliance, and if we go to fortress America, and just forget it, we are going to die.
At page 316 he had this to say:
Since the air defence business of the United States has gotten under way, we have spent $25 billion to defend the United States against the manned bomber.
He was asked "Since what date?", and he replied:
From about 1949, I would say, when SAGE, D.E.W. line, interceptors, and Bomarc were initiated.
He repeated what he had said earlier at this hearing:
I do not believe in fortress America. If we go to fortress America, the free alliance is going to die, and the proposal to put billions into these fixed systems for defending the United States I do not buy. I do not agree with it. This is my own personal opinion.


Mr. Minshall:: You think it is another Maginot line?
Admiral Hayward: I certainly do.


James Alexander Marshall: Would you feel, then, that we should put any more money into the Bomarc system?
Admiral Hayward: Personally I say no, I would not.
Then, after testimony was heard by the two committees, one in the Senate and the other in the House of Representatives of the United States, and the committees made their reports, the United States administration apparently decided not to go so far as Admiral Hayward suggested, but to divide its money and its resources between territorial defence and the maintenance of a deterrent of overwhelming retaliatory power ready and effective for swift and devastating counterblow, and known by the potential aggressor to be ready and effective for that blow. A deterrent of this kind is now in existence and has been in existence for a good many years.
This, of course, produces an uneasy stalemate in the world situation which so far as calculated aggression is concerned may remain indefinitely. Therefore peace, the kind of peace-if you can call it that-which we

have, rests largely now on what the United Kingdom 1958 defence white paper called the balancing forces of mutual annihilation. As this deterrent is, in my view, so important in the maintenance of peace, surely our contribution to it, our attitude to it, should have a bearing on Canada's defence policy. Therefore, Mr. Chairman, though I am straining the patience of the committee, I should like for a few minutes to examine the nature of this deterrent and what our relation in Canada should be, what can it do, what can it not do, and what contribution should we, as part of our contribution to collective security, make to this deterrent. But in discussing this we should remember that this nuclear deterrent, however powerful it may be, may not prevent direct limited military action. It may not prevent indirect military action. It may not prevent the catastrophe of miscalculation. It will not prevent, however powerful it may be it will not hinder and indeed it may even facilitate economic penetration and political subversion. Therefore it has its limitations.
If the deterrent, however, is our main protection at the present time against all-out war, how much nuclear power is needed to deter? How far do you have to go before deterrent power is sufficient to deter? And if you go further the additional power is not only unnecessary and wasteful, but more weapons on the other side cancel out your own increased power, and both sides are merely wasting money, energy and power itself.
This kind of deterrent by force may, I admit, be absolutely essential at the present time against attack; but its use, if it ever had to be used, is also an assurance of the destruction of yourself as well as the enemy. Therefore if both sides have this power and cannot be prevented from using it in retaliation against an attack, then neither side will dare use it. It becomes sterilized, and paradoxically the objective of defence policy and even defence strategy is to keep it sterilized.
Yet, while we would be afraid to use it because of its results against ourselves, we might slide into such use by the nature of our defence against what might be a limited aggression. We might-and this is one of the major dangers that confront the western alliance today-by the very nature of our collective arrangements convert little wars into big wars. The minister himself in statements he has made has, I think, suggested this when he expressed scepticism about whether it would be possible to start with a minor and limited defence against a limited aggression using, if you like, tactical nuclear weapons in a limited way; whether it would be possible to start these, without going to the ultimate weapon of the hydrogen bomb and all that this implies.
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The United States position is certainly all-important in this matter, but that position seems to me to be dangerously ambiguous. The army chief of staff, General Taylor-I think he was army chief of staff until a few weeks ago; I do not think he is now-had this to say to a subcommittee of the Senate on March 11, and I quote from his testimony:
We must have a real shield of NATO forces on the ground to reassure NATO that indeed we do have some response other than general war to any aggressive action. The most likely way to have a general war is either to back into it, to have a limited operation expand into a bigger operation or perhaps to have a miscalculation of a gross kind on the part of one side or the other.
I suggest those are very wise words indeed. But the President of the United States had this to say at a press conference, I believe, on the very same date, and these are words which certainly rang around the world:
We are certainly not going to fight a ground war in Europe.
That is, the United States. What is the alternative? An atomic air war of mutual destruction? But the President added at the same press conference:
I don't know how you could free anything with nuclear weapons.
Yet he had just said only a short time before, "We are not going to fight a ground war in Europe." Well, Mr. Chairman, what voice has Canada in resolving what I can perhaps call the ultimate dilemma? Where do we stand? What is the answer to all this? What can we do to find the right answer?
I believe we have to retain, and I have to say it, the nuclear deterrent now in the hands of the United States-I wish we could do without it-and in part in the hands of the United Kingdom, to be used only after a collective NATO decision except in retaliation to an all-out, massive, sudden assault when there would be no time for consultation, indeed perhaps no time for anything else. To throw away or to urge the United States to throw away the nuclear deterrent does not seem to me to involve any service to peace but, indeed, might be a provocation and temptation to aggression on the part of a state which retained it. If we could do so by international agreement, of course, that would be the perfect solution.
But while I feel we have to retain this horribly devastating nuclear deterrent in the interests of the uneasy stalemate on which peace now rests, I believe also that there should be a shift of emphasis in the west pending an agreed reduction in armaments, a shift of emphasis also in NATO, a shift of emphasis and priority of resources from total

Supply-National Defence war weapons, especially of so-called deterrence, toward conventional weapons, conventional strength and conventional planning. In other words we should accept the total war stalemate while trying to resolve it by negotiation and reduction of armaments. We should give greater priority to improving the strength and mobility of conventional forces. We should make effective, and not merely talk about it, the concept of balanced collective forces and a co-ordinated program of collective development and production of arms which would really reflect interdependence.
The minister said it this morning, and I have said it more than once when I sat on the other side, that collective security in NATO was based on this principle of balanced collective forces. That certainly was the principle adopted many years ago, but surely the time has come when the strategy and the planning of NATO should reflect that principle more effectively than is the case at the present time. If we cannot effectively work out our arrangements in NATO on that principle, then one of these days, and it will be a great tragedy, NATO will weaken and perhaps even collapse.
What about Canada then? Even on the lowest grounds of national self-interest we should do everything we possibly can to keep NATO active, strong and vigorous; because if it should disappear, what about Canada then? Fortress America or neutralism or what? If the deterrent is largely in the hands of the United States, and it is, and in part also in the hands of the United Kingdom, though there is a debate going on there now whether it should be retained, where does NATO come in, NATO which remains the cornerstone in our system of collective defence though it is being subjected these days to increased national, political and military pressures which may impair its effectiveness?
I certainly believe in NATO as strongly as I ever did. I am talking now about the defence side of things. But here again I suggest that its purposes, plans and methods of defence should be re-examined in the light of new developments. I do not know whether that is being done. We know what the purpose of NATO is. The minister has explained it and other ministers have explained it. It is primarily, I think, to prevent an accident, to remove a temptation, to avoid, above all, having to depend entirely on nuclear retaliation. We know what the nature of this shield is. Its principle is integrated balanced forces, which is insufficiently realized partly because of our reliance on nuclear deterrence and partly because of


a growing national sensitiveness and pride which makes genuine collective control increasingly difficult.
So the question arises, is the shield really NATO-we talk so much about the NATO shield-or is it the strategic air command, which is no more a part of NATO than is NORAD? What is this NATO shield? It is perhaps now only a subsidiary shield but that would not remove its importance even if that were true. The strength of the shield, we are told, and I have never seen these figures controverted, is 21 divisions and effective air forces. On the question of air forces I should like to ask the minister -I brought this up in the house in a question a few days ago-to tell us in the course of the debate what effect the removal of United States squadrons from France would have on the supply and equipment position, the logistic position, of Canadian squadrons which remained in France.
We have been told that the NATO program is now based on a document adopted in December, 1957, dealing with minimum force needs from 1958 to 1963. Writing in the Financial Post of last February 7, Mr. Michael Barkway quoted high NATO military authorities as saying with regard to the minimum force needs paper:
For the first time each government now has in front of it a written statement showing precisely what is expected of it. Each can now refer to this annually when it makes up its military budget.
I should like to ask the minister how this program is progressing. Is it up to schedule? I should like to ask him if he can tell us what is Canada's commitment in this five year program. Have we indicated to NATO our acceptance of this five year program and how do we propose to discharge it? Is the Canadian government satisfied with the arms and equipment of its NATO forces?
To return again to the congressional subcommittee, may I point out that General Norstad had this to say on February 19 with respect to the question of the arms and equipment of NATO forces:
Within the NATO forces we are dependent upon atomic forces. We have no forces that are exclusively conventional or non-nuclear.
"No forces", he said.
Within the alliance, the forces which we have are based upon the full exploitation of atomic weapons and new delivery means. Without them they could not deal with a serious situation. When or if strategic air forces would be involved is a matter of writing some ground rules and making a tremendous amount of assumptions. It would be a very "iffy" question and a very "Iffy" answer on my part.
I prefer to leave the answer on the basis that if we are to deal with any significant situation we

must use atomic weapons, whether they are so-called tactical or strategic. It is very difficult to draw the line.
These are the words of the NATO commander in chief, General Norstad. They apply, presumably, to all the forces under his command.
On March 5 last the commander of the Canadian brigade was visited by a correspondent for the Globe and Mail, and these words were attributed to Brigadier Cameron: Our defence plans-
Presumably these are Canadian defence plans.
-are based on the nuclear weapon.
But I assume that the Canadian brigade has now no nuclear capability. I have no reason to believe, the minister can correct me if I am wrong, that it has any authority from the government to use such weapons if it possessed them. I would be grateful if the minister would clear up these very important points about the relationship of our Canadian forces in Europe to the use of nuclear weapons which General Norstad, the commander of NATO, says are absolutely essential for the effective operation and defence of these forces.
I apologize again to the committee, and I appreciate its patience, but I should like to close by saying a few words about what I think are some of the principles which should guide Canadian policies on defence at the present time. The minister dealt with some of these this morning. I certainly have no dogmatic view on matters so complex or matters concerning which, as I have already indicated, we in the opposition have not the access-I do not complain about this-to all the information which the minister has. I do not know all the answers, but I should like to get as much information as possible upon which, as a Canadian, I can base my answers to these questions.
In the first place-I believe, I have said this already more than once in my statement-I believe in collective security as strongly as I ever did. But I am worried about collective security becoming more and more continental and less and less Atlantic. I believe this should be the foundation of our policy, as indeed the minister indicated it was in his statement.
I believe in the strongest possible support for a permanent United Nations peace force to carry out United Nations decisions, to police armistice settlements, as he said in his statement this morning, and patrol danger areas to prevent small conflicts deteriorating into large wars.
Pending agreement at the United Nations for such a permanent force, and there are
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Supply-National Defence great obstacles there in the way of this development, I see no reason at all against, and many reasons for, following a course by which Canada could negotiate with other middle powers for the organization and equipment of such a force, based on a treaty relationship, which force would be made available to the United Nations on request by an assembly decision. I believe that as an integral part of our defence policy appropriate Canadian forces should be trained and equipped for such international peace preserving service as this.
1 believe that for this purpose perhaps we should have a brigade group which would be entirely airborne, air transported with all its equipment in an emergency. Certainly, the R.C.A.F. would have a big new part to play in that kind of development. Furthermore, I think that land and air forces should continue to be made available to NATO as part of a collective, and I hope it will be a genuinely collective effort.
Having said that, I should like to add that in my view NATO strategy and planning must be made effective in a way which gives its members enough strength in Europe to defend western Europe against an aggression without having to rely on every occasion on massive nuclear retaliation by the United States, the effect of which, as I said, would be to convert every limited war into nuclear suicide. I believe Canada should insist- perhaps insist is too strong a word-Canada should do its best to bring about the acceptance of NATO strategy and strength based on a balance of collective forces to which each NATO member makes a fair contribution, and for which each accepts NATO control and authority over its forces through the NATO command. I feel that this control and command should be extended over the whole NATO area. I know, as well as the minister knows, the difficulty in bringing that about, but I believe it is an objective which we should keep pressing to achieve.
I believe Canada's continued participation in NATO forces in Europe should be under continuous examination in the light of the progress made in achieving this objective. As long as our present forces remain in Europe they should know the role that they are to play in an agreed and acceptable strategy, and they must be given the most effective equipment with which to play it. It was for this reason we on this side were gratified to hear the minister say this morning that the government had decided to re-equip the air division. I am not in a position to comment on whether this new equipment is the best that could be obtained. I do not even know exactly what the purpose of the air division will be. The minister
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Supply-National Defence outlined it this morning, but certainly it will require a good deal of study. It seemed to me to be an entirely new purpose for the air division, attack support, a very important purpose indeed in the defence of western Europe, a very onerous task for the air force. I think the decision, notwithstanding what the minister has said, should have been made months ago, but it is better to have made it now than to have postponed it further because surely it has become clear to all that the air division, in its present form and with its present equipment, the F-86, was not in a position to discharge effectively the kind of task it would have been called upon to discharge.
This is no reflection on what is perhaps the best body of airmen in Europe. This is a reflection, rather, on the speed of events and it shows how quickly equipment can get out of date. Certainly the air division in Europe is second to none in any air force for skill, courage and determination of its men. It deserves, and I hope it is receiving now, a clear-cut role, which perhaps we can discuss, and the best means of playing that role.
Then, next what should the relationship of Canada be, in my view, to continental air defence? It seems to me that if Canada is to continue to subscribe to the theory of defence in depth against manned bombers, we should not deceive ourselves that this is going to be an effective defence for the Canadian people and Canadian soil. Let us not delude ourselves. This would be Canadian association with a defence deterrent which is a United States deterrent so far as this continent is concerned, except in so far as we are contributing to the early warning system.
If we are to continue to take part in this form of continental defence, surely the Canadian squadrons for that purpose must be reequipped with the latest planes. It is not fair, it certainly will not be fair in the months ahead to ask them to take their full part in continental air defence armed with CF-lOO's alongside United States squadrons armed with the latest type of interceptor, eventually perhaps the F-108.
If, on the other hand-although there is no indication of it in the minister's statement this morning-the government should consider leaving this particular form of continental defence to the United States, and giving the R.C.A.F. perhaps another and more Canadian part to play, surely the government should insist that the United States interceptor squadrons be based far enough north to permit contact with the enemy long before he reaches Canadian industrial areas and populated areas.


The minister said this morning, and I agree, that we should continue to take some share of the responsibility for the existing early warning systems while those systems are considered to be effective. However, we should leave the development of B.M.E.W.'s-ballistic missile early warnings-as we should leave the development of anti-missile missiles, to the United States. I gather from the minister this morning that he would not disagree with that statement. I think this development is not in our particular economic sphere.
I would go further, however, and say that whenever the United States desires facilities or rights to operate on Canadian soil for defence purposes which are deemed by the United States government to be essential and not by us to be undesirable though not essential, at least as a Canadian effort; I believe in these circumstances that we should give the United States those rights as part of this partnership about which the minister spoke, as is done in the United Kingdom and as was done in the case of the D.E.W. line. But only in each case after we have worked out an intergovernmental agreement which reserves all Canadian rights of sovereignty and political control.
We were able to do this when we negotiated the D.E.W. line. We discussed at that time the desirability of making this an all Canadian effort and taking full control of it. However, it was decided that that was not a good thing to do in view of the speculative character of the effectiveness of this line. But if the United States felt it was essential we agreed they should be given the right to do it and we would make our contribution to the other line. But the right to go ahead would be governed by a political agreement which was made at that time and which as the minister knows reserves every right of Canadian sovereignty and ultimate control. While I would be the last person-because I believe in collective security-to refuse any member of the Atlantic alliance any facility which they claim to be essential for collective security and require to use on our territory and which we do not wish to do ourselves; while I believe we have no right to refuse that kind of thing in that kind of emergency, nevertheless on every occasion we should make sure that through political arrangements between the two governments on the highest level Canadian rights are safeguarded and protected.
I would go further than that. We should do ourselves all of the things in our country we possibly can and that we think are necessary for continental defence. This is not an easy problem because the United States is a great power with world interests and world responsibilities. The United States cannot

allow any sector to go unguarded. They have to participate in every form of defence activity, even though they may have doubts themselves, as they have in connection with the Bomarc. But Canada is not in that position. We have a limited amount-although a big amount-to spend on defence and we have to be particularly careful that we use it to the best advantage. Normally the best way in which to use it is for defence which makes a contribution to genuine collective security. If we feel that certain proposals which are put forward are not in our view desirable for Canadian action then we cannot be a dog in the manger and prevent others from doing them who are our allies if they work for collective security.
So far as the army is concerned, it seems to me that the army should consist-and I put this suggestion forward with some hesitation to an expert in this field-of mobile brigade groups and that there should be sufficient air transport available to pick up an entire brigade group and deliver it anywhere in the world where required, whether it is required as part of a NATO contribution, as an international peace contingent or for other duties specified by the Canadian government from time to time. I think nothing can be much more important now than the equipment of the army for that purpose. If that means cutting down on some other expenditure it should be done. I think the government must now decide, and presumably it is in the midst of negotiation with the United States with a view to coming to a decision on the use of tactical nuclear weapons. The government, especially in view of what General Norstad has said, must decide whether these forces are to be armed with tactical nuclear weapons. If the decision is in the affirmative, surely the government must insist that any such weapons are under Canadian control and operation. It is a position that I think that any self-respecting nation would take. I cannot believe that, when confronted with the necessity for taking that position, the United States would consider it an unreasonable one.
There are some considerations which must be in the minds of the government in coming to a conclusion in this matter, and I hope the conclusion will be reached shortly. Perhaps I might mention one or two of them. The minister will know that tactical nuclear weapons have now been reduced to a point where they can be used by small formations against purely military targets. They are conventional almost in the sense that they are ordinary weapons with nuclear ammunition, but used in almost the same way as if it were ordinary ammunition. Second, if these weapons were not used, NATO forces in
Supply-National Defence Europe would be facing armies which had them and would not hesitate to use them. Unless we can get international agreement on this matter, the resulting military disparity created might well be considered intolerable to NATO morale. If the Canadian forces were deprived of these weapons or were not permitted to use them-this is a consideration which no doubt the government has very much in mind-their morale could hardly be expected to remain very high if they were serving alongside NATO forces which had these tactical nuclear weapons.
The matter is obviously as complex as it is important but it should certainly be given consideration, and I hope the house will have the views of the government on this matter before long. One important factor-and I want to mention this so that what I have said will not be misunderstood-in coming to a decision on this matter surely must be the possibility of abolishing the use of all atomic weapons by international agreement. Whatever decision is reached on this particular matter, I believe that Canada should use to the utmost its influence to discourage nations-and I have mentioned this matter before; it is perhaps a matter for the United Nations-which do not now manufacture atomic weapons from embarking on programs for their production. Nothing could be more disastrous for peace and security in the future than if twenty, thirty, forty or fifty nations in the world were producing nuclear weapons.
As far as naval policy is concerned, I may have a little bit more to say on that matter later. It seems to me that naval policy should be based, if not exclusively, almost exclusively on protection against submarine attacks. If nuclear submarines are required, as Admiral Rickover has stated, as the most effective submarine killers, perhaps Canada should explore the possibilities of a production sharing arrangement with Great Britain or the United States whereby Canada might obtain her requirements in exchange for components or other Canadian defence equipment without the necessity of embarking on an extensive program of development and production which it seems to me, in view of economic circumstances, would be unwise.
The upshot of all this, Mr. Chairman, is that I am advocating a complete re-examination and re-assessment of the defence problem as a means of solving defence problems on the part of the government in the light of the changes that have taken place. I am not now advocating a reduction or a substantial reduction of our defence effort. But I do not think that we are getting the maximum results for the expenditures we are making. I think we are making expenditures on

Supply-National Defence defence, in the light of situations and circumstances which do not any longer exist. I think we should, as I have said, make a complete re-assessment of the nature of our defence effort and our defence expenditures in the light of the fundamental changes in the last two years.
But Canada has to pay its fair share of the collective insurance policy against war. While we might be able to cut-and I think we could do so-defence expenditures, no one on this side of the chamber would advocate doing that at the expense of our security or at the expense of our position in the NATO alliance. I think it is possible to make a more effective contribution for less expenditures because I believe some of our expenditures now are not justifying themselves in the return they make to our security.
Above all, I believe, as I said at the beginning of my statement, that while military defence remains important and while a deterrent has to be maintained, while these millions have to be spent, the only real defence is peace, and everything must be subordinated in this government as in other free governments to the search for peace by negotiation to make the astronomic defence expenditures unnecessary in the long run. The minister said this morning that the world is perhaps approaching the stage when the use of force is no longer valid as an instrument of policy to settle man's differences. The minister might take the word "perhaps" out of that statement. The world certainly has approached that stage, and defence policy cannot surely in these days be based realistically on any other consideration. While military defence remains essential and while military deterrents remain essential, the use of these deterrents and the use of this force as an instrument of policy to settle man's differences has now become intolerable.


Harold Edward Winch: Mr. Chairman, the estimates which are now before us are of the utmost importance to all members of the House of Commons in particular, and of course to the people of Canada in general. May I first of all offer my congratulations to the Leader of the Opposition for the speech he has just concluded. The Leader of the Opposition in his lifetime of service has undoubtedly made a great many and memorable speeches, but personally from what I have read of his speeches or from what I have heard of them, I consider his speech this morning and this afternoon one of the finest of his speeches. It is not only my own but the sincere wish of the group in this corner of the House of Commons that the questions which have been put by the Leader of the Opposition directly

or indirectly will be answered directly by the Minister of National Defence at a later time in the course of discussion before the committee.
Mr. Chairman, may I also make it clear at the outset that any remarks which I have to make upon these estimates are not directed personally at the Minister of National Defence, because I know him as a personal friend in this House of Commons, as a personal friend outside the House of Commons, and we came to know each other very well in the last world war when he was a G.O.C. of western command and I had the honour and privilege of being the leader of the opposition in the province of British Columbia.
As I said, Mr. Chairman, this is an important debate and discussion. I did not have the opportunity of serving overseas, but in the past second world war as a member of the armed forces in the militia, as only a two-pip wonder and training officer, many hundreds of men passed through my hands. It was my responsibility in the Irish Fusiliers, Vancouver regiment, second battalion, to teach young Canadians how to kill and stop being killed. Unfortunately perhaps I was not too successful in the latter because many whom I came to know so well are no longer with us because they are buried heroes in Sicily and in Italy. But one who has had that experience, and there are others, in my humble estimation has a very grave responsibility as a member of parliament; that is, to put forward proposals, recommendations and criticisms which we hope will play a part in establishing a Canadian, foreign and defence policy that will make it as certain as one can make it in this world today that never again will Canadians be placed in the position of kill or be killed.
I commend the Minister of National Defence for taking the opportunity of making the presentation in approximately one hour of his analysis of the defence situation in Canada, the defence situation throughout the world, and his view of our own Canadian defence policy. He spoke, most understandably, from a written script. The Leader of the Opposition spoke very well extemporaneously and from a written script. It is most understandable on such important estimates and such an important discussion that there should be very full notes. So, Mr. Chairman, although it is a most unusual procedure for myself, I hope I may be granted the privilege of using extensive notes. May I say it is most unusual for me to have a written script, because I am not speaking for myself personally in the short 30 minutes I am allowed to try to present in as concise a form as possible the findings, which we came to in the last analysis only shortly before eleven o'clock

this morning after weeks of study by a special subcommittee of our group, which findings were finally agreed to by all members. I, as the spokesman of this group this afternoon, would like to be absolutely certain that every word and every sentence is in its complete context.
Mr. Chairman, with that introduction I should like to say-I have no inferiority complex about it at all-that because of the major issue involved I rise with some little trepidation to speak on the very serious problem of Canadian defence. I am certain, Mr. Chairman, that the house will appreciate, and in particular those of us who sit in the opposition will appreciate, the very real difficulties which face us in attempting to evaluate all the complexities that are involved in the question of national defence. These difficulties, of course are aggravated as well by the lack of certain information with regard to the details of defence and also because of the lack of proper research facilities on the part of opposition members. Irrespective of that I feel we can fall back in part on an examination of what has transpired in the last few years.
When the Leader of the Opposition spoke I wondered if he had read my speech or if
I	had read his because I noticed that he also commenced his remarks this afternoon by saying that to understand our present position we had to examine the past. I want to go back over what has transpired in past years in order to present an insight to our present circumstances.
It will be recalled that when world war
II	ended Canada had at long last achieved the status of an independent though a small power. I am certain all hon. members will agree that there was no longer any doubt whatever that at that time we had at long last outgrown what might be referred to as our colonial childhood. Canada became a free nation, calling no one master, and bound to no other country by any ties stronger than those of sentiment. I am sure that this feeling of independence was pleasing to all Canadians if even though it was somewhat short-lived.
Scarcely had the war ended when the continuing communist drive for world domination became abundantly clear to all who wanted to see. By 1947 the United States was seeking the right to establish air bases throughout the Canadian north. Before very long three courses seemingly were open to us in Canada. The first was neutrality or some variant thereof. The second was an alliance with the United States. The third was an ahiance with the U.S.S.R. The latter, of course, was admittedly and obviously rejected by all thinking Canadians as being
Supply-National Defence morally abhorrent. Canada chose a closer alliance with our southern neighbour, perhaps principally for reasons other than defence requirements alone, and soon our defence policy evolved as if by preordination to one closely dependent upon that of the United States. Officers were exchanged between national defence headquarters in Ottawa and the Pentagon in Washington. Canadians were sent in increasing numbers on courses and attachments to United States establishments. The continued United States occupation of three bases in Newfoundland, obtained from England in its direst hour, was accepted by Canadians on Newfoundland's accession, as if permanent occupation of the nation's soil by foreign troops in time of peace was the most natural thing in the world.
This evolving dependence on our stronger neighbour under a Liberal administration has been speeded up considerably under the Conservatives. Today R.C.A.F. officers command the D.E.W. lines sites but it is a United States company which operates the D.E.W. line and, as we know, all information recorded is sent directly to the United States. The D.E.W. line remains essentially a defence installation of another nation on Canadian soil in time of peace. Our jurisdiction is limited to contributing in one way or another to its maintenance.
Shortly after announcing the cancellation of the Arrow CF-105 contract the Conservative government in March of this year stated our new air defence arrangements with the United States. We will operate and maintain the radar lines and air bases, while the U.S.A.F. will man the aircraft required for the air defence of the United States and Canada. As Le Devoir put it, the United States will fly the planes and we will sweep the landing strips. This idea of defence sharing is merely an extension of the arrangements that existed at Fort Churchill which I visited along with others only a few years ago. There was a Canadian command there responsible for housekeeping arrangements only.
At this point I think it is well that I should stress that the United States has shown remarkable restraint with regard to the power vacuum to their north. That country has without a doubt achieved a major degree of military control over Canada which is not inconsistent, I suppose, with its vast control over our economy. We have not yet, however, and I hope we never will, surrender our political position or our political control. The net result has been for United States military demands to be based on what the United States government considers necessary for the defence of that country which,
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Supply-National Defence of course, for the United States is exactly as it should be, though I maintain that for Canada it may well mean our becoming a satellite of the United States. If this transpires I have no hesitation in saying that we will have no one to blame except ourselves.
We in Canada are now bound in many devious ways to both United States defence policy and United States foreign policy. It will become increasingly difficult for Canada to act in her own best interests on fundamental issues independent of the policies of the United States. Quite honestly, how could we be independent, because under NORAD, for all practical purposes at least, the R.C.A.F. in Canada is part of the U.S.A.F. This is important. If the United States is engaged in a war, Canada will be in it right from the start. Indeed, Mr. Chairman, we will probably be the battleground, if you can say there is a battleground in modern understanding and terminology. I say without hesitation it will be most difficult to remain unimplicated in any minor peripheral war in which the United States may become involved as a great power.
There are those who may ask-and it would sound as a logical question-is that bad? There are those who would say that surely nothing should be done to weaken the western alliance. There are those who would say that we should be tied very definitely and irrevocably with the United States. But, Mr. Chairman, I would say the answer to that would be, yes if the United States policies are absolutely correct at all times. But any one who is honest knows that the United States policies are not always perfect. There are many of us who have felt very often that they are illogical and indeed upon occasions I have no hesitation in saying that the United States policies have sometimes been dangerous.
Our interests in Canada, Mr. Chairman, are not, nor should they be, identical with those of the United States. Our desire to trade with China against United States objection is merely a small example of what I have in mind. But even if our own Canadian objectives, if our own Canadian interests were identical with those of the United States, we strongly feel that it would be wrong for us to accept such complete United States domination of and responsibility for our foreign and our defence policies.
In passing, may I point out that we do not elect the president and the congress of the United States; we do not have the slightest say in the development of their policies and we certainly have no say in the appointment of the United States secretary of state. For us in Canada to accept United


States policy without question and without participating in their foreign relations is as wrong, as far as this group is concerned, as it would have been for the 13 original American colonies to have continued to accept British responsibility for their fate without adequate representation. That spirit of responsibility which reflected itself in a demand for representation which led to the Boston tea party had, according to history, very much to recommend it. I most certainly agree with that kind of spirit and the kind of spirit which I hope, and we all hope in this group, is going to be expressed here in the course of this debate, that is to debate openly and perhaps if necessary with some passion, those matters of the most urgent public importance which have a bearing on the life of every citizen of our country.
We in this group insist that if we wish to retain our status as a sovereign nation, then we must develop and give effect to foreign and defence policies of our own. That, I think, was almost the keynote of the remarks of the Leader of the Opposition. We would like to emphasize it. If we wish to maintain our status as a sovereign nation then we must develop and give effect to foreign and defence policies of our own. We must determine what our true interests are and act accordingly. If in the outcome the United States is forced to make one of those agonizing reappraisals this time with regard to Canada, then so be it. If our Canadian foreign and defence policies are sound, we will be able to ride out any storm and in the end we will have established a new relationship with our southern neighbour, a relationship based on honour and on mutual respect.
We in this group have no hesitation whatsoever in saying that our military policy is designed, or it should be designed, to dispose of our military forces in a manner most likely to carry out the basic aims of our foreign policy. It should not be necessary for me to say that in no way whatsoever should the precepts of defence policy provide the basis of foreign policy. Defence -and this is something, sir, if we cannot get anything else over, we would like to get over-must be the logical extension of our own country's foreign policy, and the basic aim of this country's foreign policy at this point in our history at least must be the national survival in the broadest sense of that term.
The most obvious threat, from all we have heard and all we read, comes from the Soviet union, directly in a military sense, but as time goes on it will be more and more an economic offence which will affect

many of the free nations of the world. Another threat coming from the Soviet union takes the form of political action outside its own borders, the threat of communism itself, a way of life, which could affect many countries of the world, and particularly some of the less fortunate peoples living in undeveloped countries. This action, economically, politically and militarily, could directly or indirectly affect our own existence in our own beloved country of Canada.
Added to these threats is the one which probably causes us the most concern at the present time and it arises out of sheer brute strength of the two strongest nations on earth, pitted like two giant gladiators, ready to do battle at the slightest provocation and only inhibited by the knowledge that each is capable of instantaneously destroying the other. To ensure our survival as a free nation, it is essential that our foreign policy, therefore, our defence policy, take account of all the factors that have a bearing on the nature and extent of the threats to which we as a nation may be subjected. It is to be deplored that Canada which might have exerted a positive influence for good in the world has allowed its leadership in the cause of peace, particularly as affecting those nations which could have together formed a wedge between the two strong antagonists, to become subordinated to the demands of short range defence policies.
Many hundreds of millions of dollars have been spent by Canada to build and staff air defence warning lines. Also the United States government has been allowed to build the distant early warning line and to share in the cost of the mid-Canada line, as well as to build and man many air defence installations in Canada. Mr. Chairman, despite what our treaties and agreements with the United States may say, it is inevitable in our nation that all such arrangements in times of peace will in one way or another have the effect of compromising our national policies, compromising our sovereignty, and thus have the effect of binding us to many of the major foreign and military policies of the United States whether we agree with them or not.
In exchange, we have simply the certitude that in any war fought directly between the U.S.S.R. and the U.S.A., Canada will become a radioactive graveyard. Six thermonuclear bombs or missiles would utterly destroy the Canadian nation. Yet our air force and air defence warning lines and the whole paraphernalia of NORAD, for which we have sacrificed our independent status, will not keep out ICBM's-I hope the lights have not gone out because of an ICBM.
Supply-National Defence


Mr. Benidickson:: Nobody is running for cover.


Harold Edward Winch: I am not running for cover and neither are you. I want to say that no matter what happens-you see, I give light-


Mr. Hamilton (Notre Dame de Grace):: You
brought the darkness too.


Harold Edward Winch: That is because you did not wait until the end of the sentence. Nor will all we have keep out a submarine fired missile nor has any competent military man ever attempted to say for a moment that they could even keep out every attacking bomber.
From all we have heard from the Minister of National Defence today, from all we have heard from the Leader of the Opposition and from all we have read we know that if even one thermonuclear weapon did land on a Canadian city there would be a catastrophe on a scale almost impossible to imagine. It therefore follows that our defence warning lines and NORAD would only make sense if they could guarantee that no thermonuclear weapon could get through. This they most definitely cannot do, neither now nor when they were conceived or at any time in the future.
Our close alliance with the United States is not and never was a question of facing the realities of a world containing two giant and hostile powers. The only defence, as we see it, against thermonuclear attack is to have the ability to retaliate in kind and that, of course, means a balance of terror. Our air defence warning lines and NORAD, irrespective of all that has been said or all the wishful thinking that goes on, do not prevent the possibility of a thermonuclear attack on the American continent. Only the United States strategic air command does that. Neither the U.S.S.R. nor the U.S.A. dares attack the other since neither can be sure of destroying the other's thermonuclear capability. If the Minister of National Defence made anything clear in the 39 pages of his text he made it clear that neither the U.S.S.R. nor the U.S.A. dares attack since neither one can be sure of destroying the other's thermonuclear capabilities.


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


Harold Edward Winch: May I ask permission to
continue?


Charles Edward Rea: Does the committee give unanimous consent to the hon. member to continue?


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


Harold Edward Winch: I appreciate the courtesy of the committee. The Liberals and the Conservatives between them, Mr. Chairman, have
5376	HOUSE OF
Supply-National Defence spent-I say "spent" but I actually mean "wasted"-close to half a billion dollars on the Arrow, an aircraft which was never necessary. All that the defence of Canada aircraft-I wish to start that again because I should like to make it clear.


Paul Theodore Hellyer: It was clear enough the first time.


Harold Edward Winch: All that defence of Canada aircraft have to do is to identify hostile aircraft as such. Neither fighter aircraft nor missiles such as the Bomarc or Nike-Hercules can ever hope to shoot down every atomic bomber, and in the thermonuclear age nothing else makes sense. The CF-105 could have been and the CF-100 is and will remain, I am told by military authorities, quite good enough to identify any Russian bomber flying over Canada toward the United States. So long as we retain this capability the U.S.S.R. would not dare to attack the United States across Canada since the U.S.S.R. must destroy all the United States strategic air command or accept the same thermonuclear annihilation that she would like to visit upon the United States.


William Moore Benidickson: That is the deterrent; that is the reason for deterrent expenditure.


Harold Edward Winch: As long as we can prevent undetected hostile flights over Canadian territory we have satisfied all the requirements of good neighbourliness that the mighty power to the south can reasonably demand. In Canada, Mr. Chairman, we require neither the Bomarc nor nuclear warheads. Neither can we afford the price of these weapons and in addition the cost of a proper defence in keeping with our needs.
It is for these reasons, that we call upon the government to make clear immediately to our friends that we have no need for and will not tolerate the placing of nuclear weapons on Canadian soil. By this firm stand we sincerely and honestly believe, after much study, that Canada can make a decisive contribution to easing, and indeed perhaps reversing, the dangerous trend to worldwide disposition of nuclear weapons.
We in this group were opposed to the setting up of NORAD and we still feel that more would have been gained and less lost if we had extended NATO in such a way as to have provided for whatever additions to air defence that may have been necessary for the defence of North America so as to have applied generally to all NATO countries. We feel also that Canada should exercise far greater control over the distant early warning line, and at the same time we must re-evaluate the whole basis upon which the United States maintains air bases on


Canadian soil to the end that we can give back to our foreign policy the flexibility which Canadian security demands.
I have no hesitation, nor has this group, in saying: Let us remain a member of NATO, for any further soviet advance in Europe must be to our disadvantage. But we must insist upon a reappraisal of NATO's basic military policy. NATO cannot hope to defend Europe against a massive atomic attack. That power rests with the retaliatory might of the United States. But we can, with a better balanced and more highly mobile defence force in Europe, defend the area against any soviet non-nuclear attack. This must remain NATO's task. We feel it can be done effectively if the purpose is now made effectively clear. There must of course, also be a willingness to limit NATO's sphere of operations in Europe, provided that a similar concession is forthcoming from Russia at the same time.
We very strongly believe that the western powers should be prepared to consider the negotiation of a neutral belt in central Europe which, on our part, would mean the withdrawal of troops from Germany and, for the soviet, the withdrawal from East Germany and the bordering soviet satellites. I feel very strongly that this combination of policy would enable NATO to defend western Europe in the only situation under which it can offer a defence, namely against a nonnuclear attack. It would prove a desire on our part or it would give an indication on our part of our willingness to negotiate a settlement of the arms race in at least one of the critical areas of the world.
In view of the dangers to which Canada could reasonably be expected to be exposed, and at the same time be realistic in our views as to what Canada could reasonably be expected to do in various circumstances, it seems to us that Canada's main role in the defence of the free world should be in the creation, control and training of an extremely mobile force which could be deployed in any part of the world to fight in any sudden outbreak which held the danger of developing into a full-scale war. We feel that these Canadian forces, along the lines we are suggesting, should be placed at the disposal of the United Nations, when and if required. You may call it a police force, if you like. It was called a police force not so long ago by the Leader of the Opposition.
When we discuss this statement we should like to hear from the Prime Minister and the Minister of National Defence as to what has happened to all their high-sounding phrases about a United Nations police force. Where was there in the white paper, and where has

there been in the excellent speech made by the Minister of National Defence this morning any statement that the reorganization, reequipping of the Canadian forces would be of the nature for the establishment of such a force? I believe that this would be Canada's finest contribution, a world police force available to, and under the direction of the United Nations. We feel most strongly that in this way Canada's defence efforts would complement those of the United States and, at the same time, leave us free to exert a positive influence throughout the world.
In this regard we feel we should be made as fully informed as possible by our military chiefs regarding the whole problem of war in the future. Certainly, it has not yet been made clear how our disunified and heavily mechanized forces will operate in conditions of nuclear warfare when it can be expected that headquarters communications and supply lines will be disrupted or destroyed. Many very sound arguments have been presented for complete unification of the armed services in the light of modern conditions. I have no hesitation in saying that until authoritative and logical arguments are presented, and they have not yet been presented by the Minister of National Defence, by his chiefs of staff or by the Prime Minister, against unification, then we can only assume that hidebound tradition and vested interests are holding back desired developments in this most necessary field.
Another matter which must cause concern to us, and it was mentioned by the Minister of National Defence, is the present civil defence role of the militia which, quite bluntly, does not seem to make any sense at all. In 1939 no one expected the militia, which was stronger then than it is today, to be ready for war in less than six months. Now, however, in 1959 we expect an inadequately trained militia to be ready literally at a moment's notice to form mobile support columns-I think I am using the term used by the minister this morning-to aid our cities devastated by thermonuclear weapons. Let us be quite clear about this: A thermonuclear war is not at all the most likely form of future war. To prepare only for such a war, that is a thermonuclear war, which certainly appears to be the case, gives us the impossible alternative of defeat in the event of a non-nuclear war being waged. Our regular forces, and more particularly the militia, should be completely trained and equipped for such an eventuality, not only of the possibility of a thermonuclear war which military authorities do not think will take place because of the power of the U.S.S.R. and the power of the U.S.A., but they should be trained for the
Supply-National Defence greater possibility of a non-nuclear war. Having said that, I should hasten to add that even a non-nuclear war waged along modern lines would be most devastating and could see the release of such horrible weapons as are indicated by the phrases "germ warfare" and "chemical warfare".
As I say, we in this group as well as the members of the official opposition, with our limited resources, with what research is available to us, with all the advice in military articles, pamphlets and books, with the help of those now in the armed services and those who have retired who have the fortitude to speak to those who are not in government, have done our best to analyse the situation and put forward the problem, and to suggest what our defence policy should be. On behalf of the C.C.F., therefore, I shall try to condense the items just a little and say that we would recommend our defence policy should very definitely include the following:
1.	In Canada there shall be no attempt to either manufacture atomic or other nuclear weapons; to use them or, for that matter, to store them on Canadian soil.
2.	That Canada in its policy should devote its major efforts toward the creation of an effective, mobile and integrated force-that means army, navy and air force-capable of either performing in Canada in her own defence or abroad under the direction of the United Nations.
3.	That Canada should proceed as quickly as possible to extricate herself from dependence upon foreign defence measures having the effect of making our foreign and defence policies less flexible than they should be.
4.	That because of the interest of Canadians in peace; because of the interest of Canadians in defence in the event of aggression; because of the heavy load the taxpayers of our country have to bear in passing the estimates of the Department of National Defence and the Department of Defence Production; and because it should be known to the peoples' representatives how and why the money is being spent, there should be established a permanent defence expenditures committee representative of both houses of parliament of this country.
Mr. Chairman, in conclusion may I try to sum up the thinking and the belief of the C.C.F. group in this house, although we represent a minority and what we believe is the feeling of the majority. I am certain that the members of this house will accept the statement-or at least I hope they will do so-that people generally-and by that I mean people throughout the world in general and the people of Canada in particular-want to think in terms of life and of
5378	HOUSE OF
Supply-National Defence how to improve it and do not want to be obsessed with the fears of a devastating third world war; not to be fed a daily dose of cold war manoeuvrings and taxed to supply even more deadly weapons of aggression or of reprisal. We in this corner of the house have a trust in the people of this country and have a trust in the potential influence of this country, if properly expressed, to say that surely right now they can give a lead to the world in vigorously promoting a required common denominator, namely a demand from this House of Commons, speaking on behalf of the Canadian people, for a permanent ending to nuclear tests, the banning of weapons of mass destruction, and intensified efforts for the promotion of world disarmament.


William Moore Benidickson: Mr. Chairman, may I ask the hon. member who has just taken his seat a question. I refer to what I would regard as the third last portion of his interesting speech. He indicated that he had reluctance to approve, as the Leader of the Opposition had indicated, the extent of integration that might have developed under NORAD. But I took it that he felt that in the matter of co-operation of detection devices he had some approval but that he had no approval for co-operation between this country and the United States with respect to aircraft development for defence purposes. I ask him this question. In the knowledge that detection devices were a joint enterprise, would he say that once the information was obtained in a practical way through the detection devices, it should not be passed on to another country?


Harold Edward Winch: Mr. Chairman, I should say that there is nothing in what I said in a prepared text from which that implication can be taken. That is why I asked the privilege of speaking from a prepared text.


Paul Theodore Hellyer: Mr. Chairman, at the end of world war II there was again amongst people of many nations the feeling that we had won for the world a period of peace and prosperity, of good will and international comradeship. Our dreams were soon shattered with the realization that in the world there were people who did not share our views and peaceful aspirations, people who sought and still seek to impose their ideas on the world at large by any means including military force, if it is expedient for them to do so.
The United Nations, which was launched amidst high hopes and eloquently rounded phrases, was not able to cope with the situation in the real world. Canadians have been and may continue to be proud of the fact that we were amongst the first to recognize that if we were to prevent the Soviet union from


further military expansion, we must form a new alliance, a partnership of free nations dedicated to protecting each other from any act of aggression. I think it is a matter of particular pride to those of us in the official opposition that our present leader, along with our then leader, Right Hon. Louis St. Laurent, together were a team in the forefront of the shaping of the concept of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.
NATO was born and with it a new concept of collective defence and mutual co-operation. What each of the signatory nations would be unable to do alone, they would be able to do as a group working in concert. From humble beginnings, NATO forces have grown in strength and have become a shield of containment against soviet imperialism. The retaliatory power of the United States strategic air command and the existence of the NATO shield have until the present time been of sufficient strength to deter soviet aggression in Europe. As my leader stated earlier today, there have been many new and far-reaching developments in the world, demanding a re-appraisal of all old concepts and a rethinking of future possibilities. It is toward these infinitely complex problems that we must turn our, attention. Today we are being asked to vote $1,680,194,006 as the Canadian contribution toward the collective defence of the western world which, incidentally, is our only defence because it is impossible, as everyone well knows, for Canada to defend itself. This is a considerable amount of money, and we have the responsibility before granting it to Her Majesty to ensure in as far as is possible that the money is being well spent, and that it is in fact going to be translated into an effective contribution. In order to judge it is necessary, of course, to have the fullest possible information. This we have been denied by the government.
I think as an indication of the interest in this subject, we should note that after the speech we have just heard from the defence critic on behalf of the C.C.F. party there is no one from that party who is interested enough to remain in this house to listen as the debate continues. Therefore, I think we can put into better perspective some of the suggestions which they made.
The government has in fact no real defence policy and consequently has lost the confidence of parliament and the Canadian people in defence matters. To try to hide from this parliament and the Canadian people the state of its confusion and lack of policy the government has clamped down what I call a rigid insecurity blackout. The white paper on defence, the first one since the new government has taken office, tells us nothing..

I do not often quote retired General Macklin, but his comment on this subject is quite appropriate. He is reported in the Montreal Gazette of May 18 as having said:
After you have read it-
The white paper.
-you will know less about the real state of our defences than the Russians know.
This is a widely held opinion and has been referred to by a number of editorial writers.


William Moore Benidickson: That was the purpose.


Paul Theodore Hellyer: For the first time since world war II Canadian chiefs of staff are not allowed to discuss defence matters-not policy but just background information-with newspaper reporters. What is the government afraid of? Is it possible that the government's decisions do not have the backing of the chiefs of staff? The government also refused to allow General Earle Partridge, commander in chief of NORAD, to give a press conference to Canadian newsmen. Then General Lauris Norstad, the supreme commander of NORAD in Europe, was advised not to have a press conference for Canadian newsmen in Ottawa. Opposition requests that General Norstad remain to brief members of parliament on the actual military situation in Europe, a courtesy which was extended by General Gruenther, who gave members a most interesting and informative briefing off the record, were refused.


William Moore Benidickson: A briefing on two
occasions.


George Randolph Pearkes: May I ask the hon. gentleman a question? I do not think he was here a year ago, but does he recall that General Norstad then did have the opportunity of speaking to all members?


Paul Theodore Hellyer: I was not here then, as the minister well knows, but I was referring to his most recent visit.


William Moore Benidickson: I think my statement was incorrect. I recall the Gruenther visit and the Norstad visit, and that is what I meant when I said two occasions.


Paul Theodore Hellyer: The present government made sure that General Norstad did not, at this time at least, have the opportunity to talk to members of parliament. The Minister of National Defence did not make military personnel available for briefing members of the Senate and Canadian House of Commons who represented Canada at the recent Canadian-United States parliamentary group meeting, even though the United States members of the delegation had the advantage of the fullest possible briefing and several were members of the congressional and senate appropriations committees on defence. It is true
Supply-National Defence the minister himself and the deputy minister did make themselves available, for which members of the delegation were very grateful indeed; but of course the minister and the deputy minister only gave members of the delegation such information as would, they thought, not be embarrassing to the government here and certainly not sufficient to prepare us to deal with and talk intelligently to the members of the United States delegation.
Furthermore, the Minister of National Defence has consistently and repeatedly refused to give serious answers to the questions asked in the House of Commons. He has given the house and the Canadian people the impression that either he himself is not fully informed on defence matters, or that parliament and the Canadian people who are asked to foot the bill have no right to sufficient information to be able to judge the merits of the government's proposals.
This, Mr. Chairman, is an entirely different viewpoint from that held by members of the present government when they were on this side of the house. I should like, if I may, to quote from Hansard of June 21, 1956, page 5275, where the present Postmaster General is reported as follows:
Second, in this matter of changing our attitude, Mr. Chairman, it would seem the necessity for the wartime attitude that everything connected with national defence, defence expenditure and all varieties of activity in that field should be cloaked in secrecy may have to be altered. I do not think it is quite reasonable to expect the people of this country to continue year after year to willingly vote any amount of money requested by the Department of National Defence unless that department is prepared in peacetime to go further than it has to date in co-operating with this house in laying before it the details of many aspects of its operations.
It has been pointed out, and rightly so, that there are some things which should not be made public; but let me ask, Mr. Chairman, is there some marvellous capacity residing only with the armed services of this country which makes them the safe repositories of restricted information and renders a small committee of this house a doubtful repository for the same information?
The government may not want parliament and the Canadian people to know, but we have every right to know and it is a crying shame that we have to get all of our information from the proceedings of United States congressional and senate committees and other sources. It is possible, of course, that information supplied by the minister might not be any more accurate or up to date than what we receive from the United States committees; but if he would take this house into his confidence we would be able to judge for ourselves. I urge the minister during the course of this debate, when he will have lots of opportunity by way of
5380	HOUSE OF
Supply-National Defence answering questions, to raise for us and. the people of Canada the insecurity blackout.
We were pleased to have the minister's assurance that Canada would continue to support NATO. As a member of the NATO collective alliance, as well as because of its geographic position and political role, Canada is committed, as set out in paragraph 2 of the white paper, in three major spheres. They are, as the minister told us earlier, first, the defence against an attack on the North American continent; second, the collective defence and deterrent forces of NATO in Europe and the north Atlantic; and, third, the United Nations, to assist that organization in attaining its peaceful aims.
First, the defence against an attack on the North American continent. Knowing that both the great powers in the world, the United States and the U.S.S.R., have stockpiles of atomic and thermonuclear weapons which they can deliver in various ways, including manned bombers and intercontinental ballistic missiles, we are living in an uneasy state of military stalemate.
Western strategy has been based on the concept that as long as we have the capability of retaliating against a Russian attack with a blow of sufficient magnitude as to knock out all of their major cities and industrial centres, that the consequence of any action on the part of the Russians would be so great as to deter them. While the deterrent force will not necessarily prevent limited wars in various trouble spots around the globe, it seems to be a requisite to the prevention of an all-out Russian offensive. There is, of course, no guarantee, and we in the western world have no alternative but to maintain our deterrent strength until a real and enforceable agreement for universal disarmament can be reached.
Canada's role in North American defence has been primarily to assist in the defence of the United States retaliatory power. We are committed to this strategy and geographically we are on the front line of North America. Even if we wished to divorce ourselves from such a policy we could not. While North American defence measures are primarily to protect the deterrent, they do at the same time in an incidental way provide some degree of protection to our civilian population. Put very simply, it is true to say that every bomber knocked down before it reaches the target areas means less destruction and less fallout in the more populated areas. Similarly, if an anti-missile missile is developed, every missile contacted and exploded at high altitudes would mean less destruction and less fallout at ground level.
No one has suggested that there is any such thing as a complete defence. The mighty 

Goliath with his great armour fell to the well directed stone from David's sling; but while it has always been true that defence is at best only a partial thing, it seems unreasonable to take the attitude that if we cannot save all of our people and all of our cities, there is no point in making any effort to save as large a proportion as possible, provided of course that the effort to this end is not interfering with other and more essential defence effort.
The United States has told us that at the present time the greatest threat to the North American continent is from Russian bombers. Each passing year will see it diminish relative to the increasing importance of intercontinental and other missiles. In protecting the United States retaliatory force, the military chiefs and government of the United States have decided that they will not only have to develop at the greatest possible speed a defence against missiles, but also maintain for the foreseeable future an effective resistance to manned bombers.
Their concept in this regard is called a defence in depth: First, the manned interceptors, in order to knock down as many attacking bombers as possible before they reach their targets or before they are able to launch their air-to-ground missiles, second, an area defence of ground-to-air Bomarc missiles; and finally a spot defence of Nike ground-to-air missiles. Apparently the Canadian government accepts this concept but having accepted it they have made no effort to implement it on a continental basis. We now have the incredible distortion whereby for Canada-now that our CF-100 squadrons are obsolete- the Bomarc is our first line of defence, with United States interceptor squadrons as secondary support. Canada is now faced with three alternatives:
1.	To continue with its present policy in which case in the event of war most of the fighting, most of the destruction and a high percentage of the radioactive atomic fall-out would take place over the southern two or three hundred mile strip of Canada where most of our people live.
2.	Allowing the United States air force to establish interceptor squadron bases on Canadian soil, or
3.	Buying United States interceptors to reequip R.C.A.F. squadrons.
I maintained at the time the Avro Arrow was cancelled, and still maintain, that it was cancelled without due consideration to the whole consequences of the action and in addition the provision of the Bomarc was, and still is, of questionable value in many ways. The minister has given us such a vague conglomeration of jumbled jargon about the

Bomarc that it is difficult to reach conclusions. The minister has not told us that the Bomarc has been successfully tested against a supersonic target. He has said in reply to a question:
If it had been planned that it would be tested against a supersonic target, that would have been done. If it has not been, the intention is not to have it tested as at this date.
The truth is that when it was first tested against a supersonic target it missed. More recently we learned from the newspapers that it managed to contact jet targets but we still have not been told whether the targets were supersonic or subsonic. This is a question which should be answered. In fact, there are a number of other questions the minister should answer about it. Has it yet learned to track a target at low altitudes or is it still, as was the Bomarc A, ineffective at low altitudes? Can it still be jammed by approaching bombers when it switches from ground control to homing control or has that deficiency, too, been overcome? Is the minister familiar with the British operation Sunbeam and, if so, could he give the committee the benefit of the information he has which was gained by the British during that operation? If the minister cannot answer these questions satisfactorily, he should not be asking us to vote funds for Bomarc installations.
In addition to the defence against manned bombers it is obvious that we are going to have to have a defence against missiles. The United States is spending huge sums in this direction. We hope they will be successful. It is quite right that we should not attempt to duplicate their activities in this field. If they are able to develop an adequate defence weapon, however, it may become desirable for us to consider its use from Canadian bases.
The other area of possible Russian attack is from the sea. If they, the Russians, now have, or if they can or do develop a capability of launching missiles from submarines, we will have to meet the threat. We should be giving serious consideration to this matter now. It is widely held that the only effective defensive against atomic submarines is by other atomic submarines. If so, we should consider how we can best procure what we require.
The second major commitment referred to in the white paper is our NATO commitment in Europe. This has been and, in my opinion remains a most important contribution to collective security. Whereas the Russians are not likely to risk an all-out offensive while we maintain a powerful deterrent, they would not hesitate to indulge in local and limited probing if they thought
Supply-National Defence they could obtain limited objectives without detonating global catastrophe.
Canadian forces in Europe, while small, are effective and well trained. The psychological effect of having them there is invaluable for it helps to bind together the NATO alliance and sets an example to our partners. It is a clear warning to the Russians that we mean business. Any cutback in Canadian effort now could be the beginning of a chain reaction which might have serious and far-reaching consequences. By unswerving loyalty and devotion to principles we have long espoused such a possibility can be avoided.
We were very pleased to hear the minister's announcement that the air division will be re-equipped. The decision should have been made months ago but not later than last December when the minister was in Paris and when he had the opportunity to discuss these matters with the NATO commanders at SHAPE. However, better late than never. Not only are our airmen and army personnel there among the best trained and most effective, but they should have available to them the latest and most modern equipment we are able to provide.
The minister told us that he was going to re-equip eight of the air division squadrons which are presently equipped with the F-86 Sabre. He did not mention what he was going to do with the other four squadrons which are equipped at the present time with CF-lOO's-


George Randolph Pearkes: Yes, I did.


Paul Theodore Hellyer: -except that they should remain as they are at present, I quickly add. Is it possible that the NATO commander earlier had asked the Canadian government to re-equip the other four squadrons with CF-105 Avro Arrows, or if not with Avro Arrows with some such effective, high-altitude, all-weather interceptors?
Let us remember that strength created through NATO continues to be the guardian of peace. Let us remember that our soldiers, sailors and airmen remain the guarantors of our freedom. We have moved a great distance since the alliance was formed in 1949. Although there are military weaknesses and deficiencies, our strength stems from the fact that 15 countries have joined together in a common cause. Our objective should be to ensure that there are sufficient NATO forces in being to be capable of dealing with both nuclear and non-nuclear situations. They need not be massive but they must be strong enough to deal decisively with any attack short of the unmistakable deliberate all-out aggression. If we fail in this objective we
5382	HOUSE OF
Supply-National Defence face the alternative of accepting defeat on the narrow ground of the enemy's choice or risking a general holocaust.
The third sphere of Canadian participation is its contribution to the United Nations. As mentioned by the leader of the Liberal party in his address this morning and this afternoon, Canada should take the initiative in providing a brigade group as a nucleus for a United Nations permanent force to be made available to the United Nations on a request by decision of the general assembly. If we can learn anything from history, it is that situations have risen, and are likely to rise again, where such a force and such a force only would have the prestige and moral backing to prevent outbreak of hostilities in a troubled area. It is a suggestion which should be borne in mind and supported by the government and the people of Canada.
The question naturally arises, how is Canada with its limited resources going to be able to pay for the cost of participation in these three spheres? Anti-missile missiles, atomic submarines, manned interceptors, air portable brigade groups, these are all expensive. If one examines the figures more closely however, it is obvious that we could do all these things, phased over a period of years, with approximately the same annual expenditure as in the fiscal years between 1955 and 1958.
Canada has always been proud to do its share, even eager to do its share. Our defence expenditures, as a proportion of governmental expenditures, have been declining. Similarly, defence expenditures, as a proportion of the Canadian gross national product, have been getting smaller. There has been a suggestion that we are not able to do as much in the future as we have been doing in the past. This contention, of course, does not hold water if analysed. During the years of our heaviest defence expenditures Canadians enjoyed a high standard of living. We enjoyed relatively full employment and in most of those years the federal government had a budgetary surplus available for reducing Canada's debt. We have not really made any sacrifice.
The question has been asked, "What have we to show for all of the money that has been spent?" The answer is, of course, that in addition to those permanent installations which are still of value and to the defence and technical industry which has been built up, the most important, indeed the only important consideration is that our house is still standing. A person who has paid fire insurance premiums for years without the necessity of a claim does not expect a return of premiums. He rejoices in the fact that he has been spared a holocaust and is happy


to have paid the small amount for the security and peace of mind provided.
Actually, when speaking about cost, one remembers that through the inefficient use of our manpower and other resources we have lost through unemployment in the last two years enough total production to have continued with the Avro Arrow program, balanced the national budget and have something left over to assist at home or abroad.


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


Some hon. Members:: Go ahead.


Charles Edward Rea: Is it the wish of the committee to give unanimous consent to the hon. member to continue?


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


Mr. Phillips:: Read a little faster, please.


Paul Theodore Hellyer: I appreciate the indulgence of the committee, especially that of my hon. friend.


Mr. McGee:: Speak instead of reading.


Paul Theodore Hellyer: I will do that after supper. In the meantime, I invite my hon. friend to rise and participate in the debate. I think that someone on the government side in addition to the minister should show an interest in this important and far-reaching subject.


Mr. Nesbitt:: The minister knew what he was talking about.


Paul Theodore Hellyer: We should apply the positive utilization of our resources and not shrink from our responsibilities.
The truth is, Mr. Chairman, we can well afford to do as much as we have in the past and without sacrifice. What remains to be done is to work out and insist upon a proper sharing of defence production and responsibility between the several members of the NATO alliance. The case has been well stated in an editorial which appeared in the Globe and Mail on Saturday, November 1, 1958, entitled "Sharing the Work". It states what we all know to be the fact. This country is well able to manufacture most of the new weapons; or at any rate, component parts thereof. All that is needed is United States permission. We must agree with our allies that we shall produce some piece or pieces of military hardware required by them, and produce it in quantity. We will then be in a position to exchange our production for the various other weapons required to equip our forces. In this way we will not only be able to hold our heads high, knowing that we are doing our full share, but we will be able to take comfort from

the tact that such arrangement would permit the efficient utilization of productive capacity throughout the alliance-more defence for the same cost.
Defence is not a permanent solution to the world's problems. I cannot close without referring to the statements put forward in good faith by many of our church leaders in this country and by many editorial writers. They have taken the attitude that our contribution is not a significant one and that we should not continue to do as much in defence as we have in the past. Historically, Mr. Chairman, we learn the lesson that people living in a world where moral principles are not applied have to suffer the consequences. It is not too many years since the great depression, a time when we were burning food, when we were pouring milk down the drain, when we were killing little pigs to keep them from becoming a surplus on the market, and this when people were starving and others were going to bed at night hungry. We cannot continue to survive in a world where we do not accept our responsibility toward our fellowmen. We must apply moral principles in a world governed by moral law.
In the meantime, all I am suggesting is that, by our defence efforts in a collective alliance, we can buy time and continue the military stalemate, and with this time, if we take proper advantage of it, we can solve the problems of our own country and of the world in which we live. We can make our own system sufficiently attractive that it will command not only the confidence of our own people but will deserve emulation by others in the uncommitted parts of the world.
We have to learn to overcome the situation of chronic unemployment. We have to produce as much as we can and to make part of our surplus production available to less fortunate peoples in other parts of the world. If we do this, if we apply ourselves to the solution of problems which previously have not had the attention they deserve, then our money spent on defence will in fact have been well spent and the day will come more quickly when by universal agreement we can come together with persons all across the world and write a disarmament agreement which can be enforced and which will ultimately allow a lesser expenditure by people on both sides of the iron curtain. In the meantime, I feel that we must keep our defences strong because only under the shield of strength can our diplomats and we as people interested in solving world problems make the progress necessary to effect lasting world peace.
Supply-National Defence


Mr. Carter:: Mr. Chairman, the estimates now before the committee represent the largest and most important single item of government expenditure. The minister informed us this morning that they total $1,680 million and represent five per cent of our gross national product and 27.3 per cent of our tax dollar. It is obvious, therefore, that these expenditures are important. They are important not only on account of their magnitude but because they are related to our very survival. Survival implies attack and we must not let these huge expenditures, this great emphasis on military defence, blind us to the fact that there are other threats to our survival just as deadly and perhaps even more dangerous.
This morning my leader referred to political attack, economic attack, psychological warfare, and to those I think we can also add ideological attack because that too, although much confused with the others, is something quite different. Attack by the enemy's armed forces is probably the last resort because he relies mainly on his other forms of attack to attain ultimate victory. He will use his armed forces only if all other forms of attack fail, and perhaps this great effort in military defence may really turn out to be not only the most expensive but perhaps the least effective.
A national defence policy must, therefore, take into account these other threats, and military defence must be developed in conjunction with other measures to ensure economic and ideological defence as well. Military defence, must of necessity be developed within the framework of what we can afford without danger to our economic structure. That amount is a finite sum and so we are posed with the problem of dividing that sum between our NATO commitments and home defence.
The minister told us this morning that we are passing through a transitional stage. Technological progress is advancing at such a rapid rate that conventional weapons, manned aircraft, the bomber and so on, are gradually being phased out and pushbutton weapons such as missiles are gradually being phased in. Under these conditions our economy will not permit us to go into the fields of nuclear weapons, intercontinental ballistic missiles, anti-missile missiles or even ballistic missile early warning systems. For that reason we must depend upon collective security. We must depend for our protection upon the nuclear deterrent of our great neighbour, the United States. We must depend also on the integrated and balanced forces of our NATO allies.
I think, apart from the policy we have at the present time, that the question in people's

Supply-National Defence minds today is, what should the policy be during the transitional stage which will perhaps be with us for the next two or three years during the missile gap? What will it be when the missile age has become completely established? What will be the effect of these different stages upon our defence industry and, above all, how can we get the best for the little we can afford?
I think hon. members will realize that never at any time has there been a total defence. Always the enemy has been able to get through and we must ask ourselves what other defence is worth while if we cannot have a total defence in a nuclear age. If some of the enemy are going to get through, and that enemy is going to deliver atomic warheads, what does it matter if we shoot down 85 or 90 per cent when the other 10 per cent that gets through, in all probability, will be sufficient to destroy us? I think we should be asking ourselves, is the money that we are spending today for ground defence going to be effective? Are we just going through the motions and trying to keep up appearances? If we face the question honestly, is it worth anything at all in terms of defence? I believe that is the fundamental question in the minds of many Canadians today. It is one that deserves an honest answer because there are many things that can be done if our main protection depends upon a nuclear deterrent.
There is a danger, I feel, in the development of a defence psychology, not only in Canada but also in NATO. We know that the best defence is attack. While we are not an aggressive nation, and while NATO is not an aggressive organization, yet there is no reason why we should not take the initiative in as many ways as possible while relying on the nuclear deterrent capacity of our allies.
Coming nearer to home, I think the question in our minds respecting our various armed services is, what will be their particular role? This morning the minister gave us a very clear-cut picture of the role of the navy. The navy's role is anti-submarine operation. We have developed in that field destroyers of which we can be justly proud. At the same time we must realize that technological advance will make these obsolete. Already we have heard that the best anti-submarine weapon is another atomic submarine. I suppose this raises the question, first of all, whether we can afford to develop or purchase nuclear powered submarines, and if so to what extent we should do that.
When we come to the role of the army and of the air force, the picture is not nearly so clear-cut as it is in the case of the navy.


We are told that the army's chief role will be to carry out survival operations. I think the term "survival operations" in the minds of many people is associated with the operations of civil defence. I should like to support the suggestion made by my leader this morning that we should have an attack formation, a brigade group of highly mobile paratroopers, fully trained, and which could be moved from any point in Canada to another to deny our land to enemy forces. If we are going to be realistic about this, and if a war does break out, Canada, of course, will be the no man's land. Even the tremendous advance in technological progress has not made the foot soldier obsolete. Even when atomic weapons were used in the last war the infantryman had to come in and take over the subjugated territory.
I cannot envisage any situation, even in the future, where an attack is made in which the enemy forces will not have to be consolidated and in which they will not have to take physical possession of the territory. I think if we are realistic we will realize, too, that Canada is not the prime target. The main objective of the enemy, and there is only one enemy, is our neighbour to the south. In order to take possession of a country of that size the enemy will require some territory in which he can assemble his formations, consolidate his supply lines, and he will require to use that territory as a base of operations to take possession of the country which has been devastated by nuclear attack. Canada is a very suitable country for that with its sparsely scattered population and wide open spaces. Surely we need forces in being to prevent the enemy from getting a foothold in our territory. In my opinion, this is something outside a role which could be included in the term "survival operations". We need, I think, a hard-hitting mobile formation which will be equipped with the best weapons we can give them and which will be effective in preventing any enemy from getting a bridgehead on our soil.
The role of the air force, I think, is going to be very doubtful. I was glad to hear the minister announce this morning that in Europe the air force would be utilized in tactical support of ground troops. Under conditions which I have just mentioned, we would need something like that here in Canada as well. I mentioned earlier that there were other forms of attack, and of course we are well aware of the economic attack. It would be foolish for us to build up defence expenditures which would undermine our economy and cause it to collapse, because that is a prime objective of our potential enemy

and one that he hopes to attain. He hopes that it will not be necessary to use armed might at all because by forcing us to spend more and more money on defence equipment and establishments he will eventually ruin our economy and we will fall an easy prey.
There is a psychological attack that is going on at the present time, and it is going to continue until this struggle, which is a global one, is Anally resolved one way or the other. This other attack that I am referring to is designed to destroy our will to survive, our will to Aght back. On several occasions when the defence estimates have been before the house I have referred to the need for ideological training, not only for the armed services but for all the people of Canada. This is something which is not very costly- it will cost us hardly anything-but it is something which is essential because without it all these other millions of dollars we are spending will have little effect. A few dollars spent or even a few hours put in on ideological training will have the effect of an insurance program to ensure that the moneys we spend on other phases of our defence will not be wasted.
The militia is to be the backbone of our civil defence structure, and the militia is a particularly Ane starting place to develop ideological training. That involves not merely religious training. It is not merely a matter of morale. It has been interpreted in some ways that this ideological training is just something to keep up morale. It is much more than that. That is the one phase where we have not begun to match the soviet. They have an economic attack; they have military forces; they have economic forces. They have mobilized all of these. But in addition to these, they have psychological and ideological thrusts which we do not have at all. Until we begin to think in those terms and to take the initiative, we cannot ever hope to match their efforts and they are fully justiAed in thinking that if they can get us to believe in coexistence long enough so that their other attacks can bear fruit, the ultimate victory will be theirs.
I would ask the minister again to give this matter serious thought. What I have in mind is not just a padre's hour where a soldier or serviceman goes to the padre with some personal problem involving domestic affairs or even morals. It is an understanding and an evaluation of the principles and the values upon which our way of life and our institutions have been developed. It is even more than that. It is a commitment to live them out and that is where we fall short of meeting the communists. They live out their ideals and we do not. Until we match them in that respect most of the money and the
Supply-National Defence effort that we put into other phases of our defence are not going to be fully effective.


Paul Theodore Hellyer: Last September, Mr. Chairman, the Prime Minister made an announcement which told Canada that the Avro Arrow interceptor plane would be continued until March 31 next, at which time the programs would be reviewed in the light of events-
Mr. Pallet!: That statement is not accurate.


Paul Theodore Hellyer: -existing at that time. Newspaper reports varied in their interpretation of this announcement. Many accepted the Prime Minister's statement as being a warning that the program would in effect be cancelled on March 31. Others took it at face value that the program was to continue and that a re-evaluation would in fact take place as indicated.
During that period of time the Minister of National Defence made repeated efforts to try to sell what appeared to be a remarkable aircraft to some of our NATO allies. In the debate which took place in this house earlier this year, he told us that even after the turn of the year efforts were made to sell to the British, and that it was only in January that the British Anally indicated that they had no requirement for it. Similarly he advised the house that only in December did he get a Anal turn-down from Mr. McElroy, the secretary of defence of the United States. During this period there was unfolding a drama which was interesting to the Canadian people and, which affected directly our defence effort and the lives of thousands of Canadian taxpayers. Then in February, when the Prime Minister entered the house on a Friday morning, without any notice he announced to the house and the people of Canada that notwithstanding his statement that the program would continue until March 31 of this year, it was to be cancelled forthwith.


Mr. Pallelt:: Get your facts right.


Paul Theodore Hellyer: You can check them later yourself. As I was saying, the announcement was made that the program was to be cancelled forthwith. Telegrams went forth that day from the Minister of Defence Production advising that production of the Avro Arrow aircraft, the Orenda engine and all its components should cease immediately.
In the debate which took place in the house there was, in the statements of the Minister of National Defence and of the Prime Minister, a curious mixture. First they would tell us that the plane had been overtaken by events; that it had been outpaced by the development of missiles, that it would no longer be required in the concept of North American defence. A moment later we would

Supply-National Defence be told that the cost was too great, that it was an expensive aircraft and that because of the huge sums involved the government could not recommend proceeding with it. Never at any time was it clearly and categorically stated whether the decision was in fact strictly a military one or an economic one or a combination of the two.
However, we had a clear indication that manned interceptors would not be required and that they would in fact be replaced in the Canadian defence concept by the Bomarc missile and that we would place our reliance on that missile. Events which have taken place since then certainly lead us to wonder about the rightness of that decision. We have to go back and examine the decision in the light of events which have taken place since then.
At the time the Prime Minister entered the house we stated that we did not have the facts and information on which to judge. Information was not made available to us and we had to accept the word of the Prime Minister and of the Minister of National Defence that it was no longer required. We did, however, object very, very strenuously to the way in which the decision was announced, the fact that it was done brutally, with callousness, and that thousands of people were laid off work without any notice or consideration whatsoever. We complained bitterly to the government which had made a decision of this importance without having planned in advance any alternative. The announcement which was made today to re-equip the air division could have been made at the same time if the government had applied itself to the problems which it had to face, and if it had spent the time last fall giving effective consideration to serious problems instead of half the ministers spending their time circling the globe making friends and influencing people in other countries.
It is necessary for us to look at the evidence which has been made available to us since the announcement on that Friday morning in February. We have to call in witnesses. We do not have direct evidence from our own government. We have to call in witnesses to decide whether in fact the manned interceptor is still required in the concept which this government has no later than today told us it still subscribes to, a concept of protecting the deterrent presently in the hands of the strategic air command of the United States of America. If this government subscribes to the theory of protecting that deterrent, it has also told us it subscribes to the theory espoused by the United States of defence in depth, the North


American defence in depth. If it does not subscribe to that theory it would have told us today.
Are manned interceptors required within the United States concept? Yes. Who are the witnesses we call in? Well, we have a wide variety of witnesses. The first witnesss we call is Air Commodore J. A. D. McCurdy. I would like to read a paragraph from the Globe and Mail of May 22, 1959, which is as follows:
The man who 50 years ago inaugurated powered flight in Canada, Air Commodore J. A. D. McCurdy, today said the manned fighter aircraft will continue for some years to come to have a place in warfare.
Of course, the minister may reply that Air Commodore McCurdy has not been active in military affairs for a number of years and that this is just his expression of personal opinion. Then we have to call other witnesses, and the next witness is General Partridge, retiring commander of the North American Air Defence. He is reported as having said this, as recorded in the Toronto Telegram of May 5, 1959:
We must not only maintain the defences against bomber attack which we have today but we must also improve those defences so we can counteract a supersonic attacking force.
We must continue to have an interceptor force capable of intercepting anything which flies in our direction . . .
Our present intelligence estimates are that . . . in a few years they (the U.S.S.R.) will have a supersonic rather than a subsonic bomber force.
A supersonic bomber force to be met at the first stage of the defence in depth by manned interceptors. By what manned interceptors? The obsolete CF-100?
What other witnesses do we have? We have as witness Air Marshal Slemon. Air Marshal Slemon-he was the only witness who was available to us at the time the decision was announced in this house-is reported as having said at Colorado Springs:
For as long as we can foresee we must have an effective defence against attack in space-from manned bombers or other weapons travelling in the earth's atmosphere.
For this purpose we must have both manned interceptor and ground-to-air missiles.
In "fringe areas" of the defence system-and Canada was a fringe area-there was a need for long range interceptors to engage hostile invaders as far from populated areas as possible.
That is Air Marshal Slemon.
Another witness, General Curtis Lemay. This report appears in the Ottawa Citizen of April 22, 1959 where General Lemay is quoted as having said:
Our ballistic missiles have not yet demonstrated the type of reliability or accuracy which is required to ensure the most effective use of the relatively small yield warheads which they carry.

Later he went on to say:
Even after missiles achieve the reliability and accuracy they now lack, Lemay said, there will always be a requirement for a mixture of manned and unmanned weapon systems.
Another witness we have is Mr. McElroy, the United States secretary of defence. Mr. McElroy told the defence appropriations committee of the United States congress that because the Russians are maintaining an inventory of manned bombers and because they are reported to be building a new supersonic manned bomber, manned interceptors will be required in North American defence for as many years as they can at present foresee, at least for the next five or ten years.
Then a witness from outside this continent, from the British ministry. This is a quotation from an article appearing in the Ottawa Journal of May 22, 1959:
Although missiles are gradually taking over as Britain's chief air weapon, the end of the manned fighter era is nowhere in sight. In fact, say defence ministry spokesmen in London-


Charles Edward Rea: Order. It being six o'clock I do now leave the chair.
At six o'clock the committee took recess.


[Stage Direction]
AFTER RECESS

The committee resumed at 8 p.m.
Paul Theodore Hellyer: Mr. Chairman, at six o'clock I was discussing the Avro Arrow and the reasons why it had been cancelled. I had brought forward the evidence of a number of experts who all declared that manned interceptors would be required for a number of years to come. The evidence is overwhelming that manned interceptors are in fact a continuing requirement for the protection of the North American deterrent. If that is so, this question immediately arises: Why was the Avro Arrow cancelled?
In response to the question as to whether or not it was a good aircraft, let me again call Air Marshal Slemon as witness. I quote again from the same press conference at Colorado Springs to which I already made reference:
Choosing his words carefully, and with NORAD commander-in-chief General Earle T. Partridge standing at his side, Slemon said that if the CF-105 is put into operation it will be the best interceptor available for air defence of the continent until the U.S. F-108 is in operation five or six years hence.
We have been told a number of times that Canada cannot afford to do everything, yet here is a case where the one thing we were doing was the best in its field. No one has
Supply-National Defence ever told us that it was not the best manned interceptor available to the western world. And yet, when we were out front, when we were pre-eminent in a specific field, at a time when we had the best our government decided to cancel the thing which we had demonstrated we were able to do best.
No satisfactory explanation of the reason for the cancellation of the Arrow has ever been given. As I said, the statements made in the house by the Prime Minister and the Minister of National Defence were a mixture of military rationalization and a discussion of economic cost. The only conclusion to which we can come is that the Avro Arrow was scrapped because of the impossible financial position into which this government plunged the Canadian economy. The only other reason that has ever been adduced has been that there was some difference of opinion between members of the government or the Prime Minister and some members of the Avro company itself. We sincerely hope, now that heads have rolled, this reason wifi no longer be valid and that the Avro company will have an opportunity to produce an aircraft to re-equip the air division, and that the innocent victims who are at present not working in the Toronto area will have the opportunity to go back to work and to take their place as productive men and women in the Canadian economy.
What have been the Canadian losses as a result of this cancellation? They have been tremendous. We have seen the disintegration of a great industry which was built up over a decade. We have seen the disintegration of one of the best design teams in the western world. What has happened to it? Many of these scientists and engineers have gone back to the United Kingdom-


Mr. Speakman:: Good.


Paul Theodore Hellyer: One of the Conservative members says, "Good". Apparently he does not regret the loss to Canada of the training, experience, knowledge and skill of these people who have contributed so much to the industrial development of this country.


James Stanley Speakman: They were interested only in the money they could make.


Paul Theodore Hellyer: My Conservative friend states that they were interested only in the money they could earn.


James Stanley Speakman: That is right.


Paul Theodore Hellyer: They came to this country to establish themselves. They believed in this country and thought their talents could be utilized in the building up of this young, dynamic nation which they thought was going somewhere-
5388	HOUSE OF
Supply-National Defence


James Stanley Speakman: It is.


Paul Theodore Hellyer: -in terms of economic development and status among the nations of the world.


James Stanley Speakman: It is the best country in the world.


Paul Theodore Hellyer: They hoped to bring up their children in Canada to enjoy its great future. I do not see that they could reasonably be blamed for this. All of our forefathers from the great mother countries came here for precisely that reason. I do not think there is anything wrong with people coming to Canada to join us in the development of this large but yet young country.
We have been told that approximately 2,500 of these people have gone back to the United Kingdom. This represents a capital loss which can only be estimated in the hundreds of millions. We are also told that most of the Canadian born engineers, scientists and technicians who are not still employed at Avro have crossed the border into the United States. This is another great loss to our country. Something more than the Avro Arrow has been killed. The cancellation of it has killed the hopes and aspirations of countless thousands of people-


Mr. Ricard:: Can you name one of them? Can you name one who has gone across the border?


Paul Theodore Hellyer: If the hon. member wishes me to give him a list I can give him a list of hundreds.


J.-H.-Théogène Ricard: Let us have it now.


Paul Theodore Hellyer: I shall be pleased to provide it.


J.-H.-Théogène Ricard: Let us have it now.


Charles Edward Rea: Order.


Paul Theodore Hellyer: In addition, the cancellation of this project represented to many thousands of young Canadians the bursting of the bubble, the disintegration of their dreams and visions of a greater and growing Canada.


J.-H.-Théogène Ricard: You have not answered my question.


Paul Theodore Hellyer: They have lost faith in the destiny of this country.


J.-H.-Théogène Ricard: You have not yet answered me.


Paul Theodore Hellyer: I can mention one name for my hon. friend, that of Mr. Floyd-


J.-H.-Théogène Ricard: You said hundreds or thousands.


Paul Theodore Hellyer: But you just asked for one name.


J.-H.-Théogène Ricard: I asked for all of them.


Charles Edward Rea: Order. The hon. member for Trinity has the floor. If any hon. member wishes to ask a question, he should rise in his place and request permission of the hon. member who has the floor to do so.


Paul Theodore Hellyer: As I have said, the losses to this country have been most substantial and the greatest of these have been in the fact that people have gone from Canada and people have lost faith in this country. As my leader said earlier today, immigration has been slowed down as a result. As a matter of fact we now need a minister of emigration because half as many people have gone back to the United Kingdom as have come here-


James Stanley Speakman: Nonsense.


Mr. Graffley:: Stick to your text.


Paul Theodore Hellyer: Someone says, "Nonsense". That is a plain, unadulterated fact.


James Stanley Speakman: Canada will be the greatest country in the world.


Paul Theodore Hellyer: It will be in three years when we have another change in government.


J.-H.-Théogène Ricard: You will not be here to see it.


Paul Theodore Hellyer: After the cancellation was made and the dreams and hopes of thousands of people had been shattered, what happened? Following this, one would have thought the government would want to minimize its losses to the greatest possible extent.


James Stanley Speakman: The government had no losses.


Paul Theodore Hellyer: One would have thought the government would want to do everything possible to recover as much of the accumulated skills and knowledge from this project as could be recovered. Was that the case? Let us examine the facts.
At the time of the cancellation there were five aircraft airworthy, or almost airworthy, and a sixth which was to be the first aircraft equipped with Iroquois engines which could have been ready to fly within a matter of a few weeks. What has been the disposal of these aircraft? Were they offered to any of our allies to be made available for testing? This is something the minister should tell us. Did the Canadian government offer to give these planes to any of our NATO allies if they would use them for the accumulated benefit of the western alliance? Were any requests made that they should be made available? Did the Canadian government itself not consider the possibility of any use to which they could be put? What about the radar lines? Could they not have been used to test our radar defences? Could they not have been used in obtaining for us greater

knowledge of supersonic flight, metal fatigue and much other scientific information which would have been of great value to us not only in the military field but, later on, in industrial fields as well?
An issue of Aviation Studies published by the S.B.A.C. in England, last fall said of the Arrow:
Canada owes it to the free world to put into production the Arrow aircraft, the most advanced interceptor in the western world.
But it was not. The royal aeronautical establishment in Great Britain is the centre of design and development in the aircraft industry in Great Britain. It is similar to N.A.S.A. in the United States. We are told that shortly after the Arrow cancellation in February, when it became known that we had no use for the aircraft we had already built and successfully flown, the royal aeronautical establishment requested that these aircraft be made available to it for testing purposes. We would like the minister to tell us whether there was in fact a request that these planes be made available, and whether in fact the Canadian government offered to make them available to the royal aeronautical establishment.


George Randolph Pearkes: Do you want the answer now?


Paul Theodore Hellyer: Yes.


George Randolph Pearkes: Yes, they were, and they refused to take them.


Paul Theodore Hellyer: You offered to make them available to the royal aeronautical establishment at no cost?


George Randolph Pearkes: I say they were offered to the royal aeronautical association and they declined to accept them.


Paul Theodore Hellyer: What were the terms upon which they were offered?


George Randolph Pearkes: You had better ask the Minister of Defence Production that because, as you know, they are turned over to him for disposal.


Paul Theodore Hellyer: We will be pleased to ask him that when his estimates are before this house in a day or two. What was the ultimate disposal? You would think the Minister of National Defence would know. He is a member of the cabinet which would have to make the decision as to what would have been done with those things, and some of us can hardly believe that the ultimate disposal would have been decided upon if it had not been discussed by cabinet.
What happened? First of all, the production line was cut up with acetylene torches to make sure it could not possibly be revived.
Supply-National Defence Then, after repeated requests of the opposition that No. 6 be completed and test flown to see what its capabilities were, and after being turned down repeatedly we were told that No. 6, too, was cut up with acetylene torches and that a stench like death descended upon the whole Avro aircraft plant. Then, there were the five which were airworthy. We made the suggestion that some useful purpose be found for those; that they be used here in Canada for testing; that they be made available to one of our allies. What happened? Were they? No. They have been cut up, or are in the process of being cut up with the same acetylene torches, and are being cut up for scrap.
This, indeed is a shameful and a sorry thing for a great Canadian project. What a lack of imagination on the part of our government! What a lack of responsibility! First, to kill a great project and then to see that none of the accumulated benefit which was available was salvaged from it. It is little wonder that many thousands of Canadians have, since the date that the Avro Arrow was cancelled, decided that the government acted in haste and without due consideration for the consequences.
Now, we have the sorry thought of the CF-105 being replaced by other interceptors in Canada, either being flown by Canadians or by Americans. We were told at the time of the cancellation that our allies would not buy the Avro Arrow. We suspect the minister went to Washington and said, "You would not like to buy our Avro Arrows, would you?" When we were down there talking to them they laughed at us and said, "Would you expect us to buy a plane which had not been put into squadron service? Would you expect us to make available to our allies in Europe through mutual aid a plane which the Canadian government did not have enough confidence in to go ahead and produce?" There was no answer, no reply which I could give to their inquiry. Just as with the CF-100-we eventually had a market made available to us because it was a successful aircraft and it was available- now we have every confidence that if we had gone ahead with the production of the Avro Arrow we would have been able to sell it to some of our allies.


J.-H.-Théogène Ricard: To whom?


Paul Theodore Hellyer: To one of the NATO countries, in the same way as we made available the CF-100. The hon. member should read his ancient history and get up to date before he starts to make interjections in this house.


J.-H.-Théogène Ricard: Who?

Supply-National Defence


Paul Theodore Hellyer: When the Avro Arrow was cancelled Canada lost its leverage. Since then we have been the weak sister in the NORAD alliance with the United States. We have lost the leverage we had in dealing with them. I was told that if we had gone ahead with the production of the Avro Arrow there was a possibility, depending on what the Russians would have built by way of supersonic bombers, that had the United States been able to buy this aircraft off the shelf they might ultimately have ended up by recommending the discontinuance of the 108 project. I do not know whether this is so, but I doubt whether the minister or the government went into these things fully.


Mr. Bell (Carleion):: Who told the hon. gentleman that?


Paul Theodore Hellyer: I am not going to tell the hon. member my source of information.


J.-H.-Théogène Ricard: The hon. member cannot
prove it.


Paul Theodore Hellyer: He does not tell me his. What is more, I have no faith in his. Some of mine are most reliable.


Lionel Chevrier: Hear, hear.


Paul Theodore Hellyer: We lost our leverage; we became second-class citizens in NORAD when we cancelled this great project. Had we continued our leverage might have enabled us to swap either aircraft or engines with the British for atomic submarines; it might have permitted us to swap Iroquois engines with the French for mirage strike fighters; it might have permitted us to exchange Avro Arrows and/or their engines to the United States for missiles and ultimately anti-missile missiles which we may require; but in one fell swoop we lost our bargaining power, we lost what we had built up, namely the leverage to negotiate with our NATO allies and particularly with the United States.
In conclusion, Mr. Chairman, I think history will record that this was one of the worst decisions ever made by a Canadian government. Economically, they say, we could not afford the cost. The sum of $750 million is the figure that we are told we would have had to pay out.


J.-H.-Théogène Ricard: Is that the opinion of your party?


Paul Theodore Hellyer: In February of this year we had hundreds of thousands of people unemployed in this country. Under those conditions, if we had gone ahead with this project-


J.-H.-Théogène Ricard: Is that the opinion of your party?


Paul Theodore Hellyer: Under those conditions-


J.-H.-Théogène Ricard: Answer or desist.


Paul Theodore Hellyer: -if we had gone ahead with construction of the aircraft it would have generated in additional gross national product over the period of time in which it was in production at least twice that amount. If my hon. friend thinks he can contribute to the debate he should intervene with some sensible remarks after I am finished.


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


Frank Charles McGee: Now that he has resumed his seat will the hon. member permit a question? Did the hon. member happen to read the report of the estimates committee of last summer, of which his leader was a leading member, in connection with the decision to cancel the Arrow?


Paul Theodore Hellyer: Of course, Mr. Chairman.


Harold Edward Winch: I should like to ask a question of the Minister of National Defence because it deals with an explanation of policy which I know he will understand. I would be very appreciative if the Minister of National Defence would comment on this. In view of what he had to say this morning in his presentation about the fact that there will not be any defence against the intercontinental ballistic missile, for a number of years to come at any rate, and that there is still a danger and a possibility and the potentiality of an attack by manned bombers of a supersonic nature; in view of the fact he has announced that Canada, having no defence against the ICBM, is going to instal the Bomarc which, if proven, is only a defence against bombers; in view of the fact he has announced that we are going to buy fighter airplanes, to be made partly in Canada, for the re-equipment of our force in Europe; in view of the fact that everything he has said is based on a manned fighter project, then on what basis was the CF-105 cancelled, which was a manned fighter or interceptor? Would the minister be kind enough to tie all these statements together and make one sensible statement out of them?


George Randolph Pearkes: Yes, Mr. Chairman. A number of questions were raised during the debate this afternoon and perhaps I can answer them briefly. If further information is required I will be happy to give it when we have that information available and the officials are here with their books.
I must first of all express my appreciation to the Leader of the Opposition for the thoughtful and valuable contribution that he

made to the discussion. He opened his remarks by referring to the threat and amplified remarks I had made previously regarding the threat. In substance his remarks and mine were similar. We both agreed that for the immediate future the manned bomber was the main threat. We both agreed that it was a diminishing threat and that as the years went by the intercontinental ballistic missile would become more and more the primary threat. He painted, and I must agree with him, a terrifying picture of what might happen if this country were ever attacked with nuclear weapons, either missiles launched from submarines or fired from bombers. Peace, as he said, or words to this effect, is being maintained at the present time by the mutual fear of destruction.
We recognize, and I stated this morning, that at the present time there is no defence against a missile once that missile has been launched. Therefore we must do everything possible to prevent these missiles being launched. Until some more satisfactory arrangement can be made, the aim of the west is to retain a strong force of retaliation so that any would-be aggressor will recognize the fact that if he started a war his fate would be sealed in that our forces of retaliation as they are at the present time are adequate to bring about the total destruction of any would-be aggressor. I believe they have enough sense that they are not going to rush headlong into aggression.
These powers of retaliation have to be effective and Canada recognizes, as the Leader of the Opposition pointed out, that one of our main contributions as far as the air defence of this continent is concerned is that of the security of the forces of retaliation. We are providing that security in two ways; first, by maintaining and improving the warning system which was started a number of years ago and year by year has been strengthened and developed, an adequate warning system against any bombers that the would-be enemy might have at the present time. As I explained this morning, these warning systems are being developed so that shortly they will be able to track and locate missiles which are flying high in the atmosphere, thus giving warning to the forces of retaliation so that they may move from their air bases.
In addition, we are maintaining forces which will be capable of destroying bombers that may be sent in conjunction with any missile attack which is launched. We are providing that by two systems of defence, first, interceptors and the second line, if you like to call it that, being an interlocking chain of Bomarc batteries stretching across the continent from the Atlantic to the 66968-9-342
Supply-National Defence Pacific. The Leader of the Opposition suggested that the interceptors should be based as far north as it is possible for them to go so that they may engage hostile bombers in the unsettled part of northern Canada.


William Moore Benidickson: I hope not in Northern Ontario.


George Randolph Pearkes: That we would like to do, but the present interceptors have to be controlled, if they are to be really effective, by radar ground environment. A few years ago that was pushed as far north as it was considered practical to do so. The Pinetree line was established. Steps are being taken this year, as I announced this morning, to push some of these major radar stations farther north.
There has been talk about the projected United States air force interceptor, the 108. That will be, if it is finally developed, a very expensive aircraft equipped with its own radar installation and it will be able to operate farther north and independent of the ground radar establishments.
At the present time we have an adequate defence if you take into consideration that portion of the continental defence which is being provided by Canada as well as that portion which is being provided by the United States. It is an adequate defence against the threat of today. That defence will be improved steadily year by year and I believe it will keep pace with the threat that can be expected from Russian bombers for several years to come.
I repeat that the Bomarc and the interceptor are no defence against the missile. We shall have to wait several years yet before there is an adequate defence against the missile once it has been launched. Therefore, we must place the emphasis on the powers of retaliation, principally represented by the bombers of the strategic air command of the United States air force, and it is imperative that we make those bombers of the SAC command as secure as is possible.
The Leader of the Opposition spoke about the fear that we might be developing a fortress America complex as opposed to an Atlantic or NATO complex. This morning I gave some figures regarding the functional division of the estimates for this year. If you will refer to the remarks I made this morning you will see that 21 per cent of the funds requested in those estimates are to be devoted specifically to NATO defence, whereas for the defence of the Canadian-United States region, including all the army field forces in Canada, 23.8 per cent. Now, those figures were arrived at before the decision was reached to re-equip the air division, and as the re-equipment of the air

Supply-National Defence division will cost several hundreds of millions of dollars, you will see that there is not very much need to fear we are adopting a fortress America complex as opposed to supporting our NATO allies.
As I mentioned, the 23.8 per cent which is included for the defence of Canada and the United States regions, includes all the costs connected with the army field forces here in Canada. They consist of three brigade groups, as shown in the white paper; one stationed in eastern Canada, one in central Canada and one in western Canada. These troops are available for any purpose for which they may be required. They are trained to replace and rotate with the brigade group which is now in Europe. They are field forces and are trained as such. If there were a need for them to be sent on any mission to support the United Nations, they are available for that or any other purpose which may be required in connection with defence.
In so far as making these forces airborne is concerned, at present that is beyond the capabilities of our resources. We are strengthening our air transport command, as has been indicated clearly in the white paper. We are going ahead with 12 aircraft of the CC-106 type, some of which will be completed this year. There is a provision made in these estimates for an expenditure of $48 million, as shown in the white paper. There is also, as explained in the white paper, provision for $13 million for the medium transport, the 109, of which 10 are being built this year. In addition to that, although its major role will be that of search and rescue, the new Albatross aircraft also has considerable troop carrying capacity. We should be able to move one battalion, with its equipment, in the very near future.
When it comes to a question of moving a brigade group of approximately 5,000 or more men, with all their equipment, that would run into perhaps 200 aeroplanes and we have not got them at the present time. However, there is no indication that the United Nations are anxious to go ahead and establish a United Nations police force. As hon. members will recall, the Prime Minister himself several years ago, when he was on the other side of this chamber, advocated the formation of a United Nations police force. He has repeated that statement several times since. We are prepared to go ahead and make our contribution to a United Nations police force if and when the United Nations requests us to do so.
There has been a good deal of talk about the Bomarc. The United States is going ahead with Bomarc installations. As I have said, there will be a general interlocking of Bomarc

stations along the Canadian-United States border. There has been talk about the discussions that have been going on in the United States before some of their senate and congressional committees regarding the relative values of the Bomarc and the Nike-Ajax and Nike-Hercules. I do not wish to comment on these discussions. The situation in the United States is different from that which exists here. We do not have the same policies of development carried out by one service or another. Our development policy follows different lines, and so we escape a certain degree of interservice rivalry which exists.
Never at any time did the administration in the United States consider the replacement of the Nike-Hercules or Nike-Ajax with the Bomarc or vice versa. Each system is complementary to the other. As I described this morning, the Bomarcs are for area defence, sometimes referred to as perimeter defence, whereas the Nike-Hercules is a defence for a point.
Questions were asked about NATO forces. Are our NATO forces balanced forces? This is the aim and idea of SHAPE, to try to have the forces which are in the air or on the ground in Europe as balanced NATO forces. This is one reason why General Norstad recommended to the Canadian government a change in the role of the Canadian air division, because the national air forces are beginning to play their part in Europe, thus relieving the Canadians of that particular air defence role. He suggested that it might soon be time to re-equip some of the squadrons-those which are now armed- with the F-86 and he would like to see Canada providing a strike-reconnaissance element.


William Moore Benidickson: On that point, Mr. Chairman, may I ask this question. Would the minister say that General Norstad first made his recommendation on his visit to Canada recently?


George Randolph Pearkes: No. Those things were discussed in December but no firm decision was reached at that time.
The Leader of the Opposition asked for some comment with regard to the state of the provision of the forces by the different nations and whether they came up to their requirements. He knows perfectly well that the national requirements were set out in the secret paper which is referred to as MC-70. Canada is living up to her agreed commitments. One of the requirements of that paper was that in due course the Canadian air division should be re-armed. We are living up to that commitment. As I announced today, the decision has now been taken.

The hon. member for Trinity was suggesting that this decision could have been reached last December. It would have been a different decision from the one which was reached and announced today if a decision had been reached in December and Canada would not have obtained anything like the deal that she has obtained today. As I said in my remarks, it is sometimes better to be a little bit cautious and not to be in too much of a hurry when you are spending hundreds of millions of dollars of other peoples' money, in this case the taxpayers' money.
Questions were asked about tests which had been carried out with the Bomarc. Tests are being carried out all the time with the Bomarc and with other missiles but those tests are being carried out by an ally of ours, not by Canada. Canada is kept fully advised of the results of those tests but the information naturally is sent as classified information. Although there may be newspaper speculation as to the result of some of these tests, I do not feel that I can be called upon to break the confidence of an ally by stating publicly in this chamber the result of those tests. I have said-and I repeat-that to the best of my knowledge the scheduled development of the Bomarc B is proceeding up to date.
The hon. member for Vancouver East spoke about nuclear power and rather suggested that Canada should not employ nuclear weapons. Of course it is government policy that Canadian troops should be armed as efficiently and as effectively as are troops with which they are co-operating. I do not think the average Canadian would wish to see his country's troops sent into action interiorly equipped.
On February 20 of this year, during the debate which took place at that time, the Prime Minister announced that as far as our troops in Europe were concerned and as far as our air force and troops in Canada were concerned, we were entering into a series of negotiations with the United States in order to arrange the details of the storing of and equipping our forces with nuclear weapons as and when they would be available and as and when we would have the weapons to launch them. By the time we get the Bomarc and by the time we get the Lacrosse over to the brigade and by the time we get the new aircraft for the air division, I am confident that these programs will be completed. Progress is being made with them and as soon as negotiations are completed an announcement will be made and it will be made in this house if the house is sitting at that time.
Remarks were made by the hon. member for Trinity in connection with another matter.
66968-9-342i
Supply-National Defence I must point out that he was hardly fair when he stated that General Norstad was not allowed to speak or to have a press conference. General Norstad held two meetings of a public character, one in Montreal and one in Toronto. He was here in Ottawa for a very short time because he had to leave that same night and go to Oslo in Europe. He was rather crowded for time, but he gave up his time in order to consult with the government and give his advice which was invaluable to the government in reaching a decision with regard to this re-arming and re-equipping of the air division.
As for General Partridge, may I say this. General Partridge has been here several times and at no time have any orders been issued by me or by anybody else that he was not to see the press. If there were not opportunities to do so, that cannot be helped. However, I do not remember-and I may be corrected in this respect-that either General Partridge or the press asked for a press conference when he was here last.
No instructions have been issued to the chiefs of staff to say that they must not hold press conferences. There are definite orders -and the same orders have been in effect for years and years-as to how officers will conduct themselves and as to the type of information that they can give in press interviews. Generally it is necessary for them to get clearance from a superior officer or, in the case of chiefs of staff, they usually get clearance from me when they give press interviews or make statements to the press.
The Leader of the Opposition referred to the mix in offensive weapons. There is also a mix in defensive weapons. That is why there are various types of defensive weapons.
The Leader of the Opposition referred to a speech which I am reported to have made in Winnipeg a few weeks ago in which I said we had not yet decided on the Bomarc. What I did say was that if the United States stopped developing the Bomarc we would not proceed with the development on our own, which of course is a perfectly reasonable statement to make because we are not developing it and therefore could not go on developing it.
Mr. Chairman, I think that has cleared up most of the questions which have been asked to date.


Lester Bowles Pearson: Mr. Chairman, I would like to thank the minister for having answered so many of the questions which have been addressed to him, if I can thank him on my own behalf. He has, however, in his reply to these questions raised some additional questions in my own mind. I should also point out that there are I think some detailed questions

Supply-National Defence which were addressed to the minister which he has not dealt with; but I assume there are a great many of these questions of detail concerning the separate services which can be dealt with when we come to the items in the estimates. For instance, Mr. Chairman, we would want to ask a great many questions about the re-equipment of the air division, or part of the air division, in Europe, questions of detail, not so much questions of general policy, and perhaps this may not be the time to ask those questions. As a matter of fact, I think we would like a little time to ponder over the minister's announcement with regard to the re-equipment of this division before we would be in a good position to ask some of the questions we would like to ask.
The minister mentioned one point on which I should like to say a few words. He did not in answering this point deal with what I thought was a very fundamental question going right to the roots of the continental defence policy, namely the validity of this whole concept of Canadian participation in continental air defence as part of a joint United States-Canada effort. At the moment I am not arguing one way or the other whether the partnership, the alliance, or whatever you wish to call it, should devote such a high proportion of its resources to this kind of continental air defence or whether it would not be better to fall back on the deterrent and the protection of the deterrent as the basic concept of defence.
But let us assume that this concept will be carried out by the United States; that is, the spending of great sums of money on the interception of bombers and missiles which may be launched in an attack on this continent, not in the hope-because there is no hope- that they will all be prevented from reaching the continent and dropping their bombs, but in the hope that a high proportion of them presumably can be knocked out of the air as far north as possible. If we assume that this is going to continue to be a major aspect of North American defence-I suggest it is no longer a major aspect of the United Kingdom's defence-is it desirable, and I ask this as a question, that Canada should devote such a large share of its defence expenditure to participation in this North American effort which is, and in the nature of things must be, primarily under the control of the United States?
The minister aroused my curiosity this morning in one part of his statement to which he has not referred tonight, and which I mentioned in my own statement, when he said that in the effort to carry interception as far north as possible United States squadrons may soon be operating off Canadian bases.


William Moore Benidickson: Entirely.


Lester Bowles Pearson: Not entirely.


William Moore Benidickson: No, I am wrong.


Lester Bowles Pearson: There will be United States squadrons presumably operating off Canadian bases. So that means that a new stage in this combined continental defence has been reached where we do not have, as we have had up to the present, a Canadian sector of NORAD with Canadian squadrons operating in Canada and United States squadrons operating in the United States, because up to the present, I take it, there have been no United States interceptor squadrons operating in Canada under NORAD.


George Randolph Pearkes: Oh yes. A United States
squadron in Labrador is operating under the air defence command of Canada. There have been United States aircraft frequently coming and exercising from Canadian stations. The Canadian sector, as I have pointed out in the past, was only that comprising the area which would be covered by interceptors from the North Bay, St. Hubert and Bagotsville stations.


Lester Bowles Pearson: I appreciate what the minister has said. There have been, of course, United States squadrons operating from leased bases in Labrador and Newfoundland, and there have been United States planes operating by agreement in exercises over Canada. But the minister has taken this development one stage further, and he visualizes the time when more modern United States interceptors than any we have now will be pushed further north to operate off Canadian bases as part of the North American continental air command.


George Randolph Pearkes: That is provided for in the NORAD agreement whereby squadrons from either country may operate on the other side of the international boundary on a temporary basis.


Lester Bowles Pearson: Yes, I appreciate that too, Mr. Chairman. What I am trying to get at is this. If this development proceeds in the way I suggest it will proceed from what the minister has said, we will then have in this country nine, I think the figure is, squadrons of CF-lOO's taking their place in this continental air command, squadrons which will be equipped with airplanes which will be less modern in a year or two because they must be considered obsolete even now, for many purposes at least, and we will have Canadian squadrons equipped with these planes operating with United States squadrons in Canada as a part of NORAD. I ask the minister if the government has considered the desirability- I put this forward merely as a question-of

withdrawing from that particular participation in that kind of continental defence, and of using our resources to give the R.C.A.F. other jobs, other tasks, other assignments which will be effective and perhaps will be more Canadian?
The minister stated a few moments ago that it was not possible-I think he said it was beyond our resources-at the present time to make one brigade group in this country air transportable, or mobile in that sense, because it would require 200 planes. I ask the minister whether the government has considered the desirability of diverting our air effort from the kind of continental air defence I have been talking about to an air effort which would make Canadian brigade groups completely air transportable with Canadian planes?
I would also like to ask the minister what will be the functions of the CF-100 squadrons which will remain as part of the air division in Europe, as part of NATO air forces, and which will presumably not take on the new role which is being assigned to the present F-86 squadrons? Perhaps the minister would like to deal with that now.


George Randolph Pearkes: Yes. They will carry out, as I said this morning, the role they have been carrying out in the past. General Norstad still feels there is a requirement for this particular type of long distance reconnaissance interceptor and he would like to keep the CF-100's for that purpose for the time being.


Lester Bowles Pearson: I take it then that the government is satisfied that the CF-100 is capable of doing this type of work, that there is no necessity for replacing it and that that will be a function of the air division separate from the function of the other squadron?


George Randolph Pearkes: That is correct. I cannot agree with the statement made a moment ago by the Leader of the Opposition to the effect that the CF-100 is obsolete because it still has a very useful function to carry out.


Lester Bowles Pearson: I agree that it may be serving a most useful function in certain respects. When I say that it is obsolete I call the minister's attention as justification for that remark to the comment that the Prime Minister made on February 23, which I quoted this morning, when he said that regardless of the advice of the chiefs of staff and their view on this aircraft-that is the CF-105-it would be to all intents and purposes obsolete by the time it became available for squadron service. If the Prime Minister was justified in referring to the CF-105 as obsolete before it would become available for squadron service, that is what I mean when I say that obviously the CF-100 in doing the work the
Supply-National Defence CF-105 was meant to do could hardly be considered as other than obsolete at the present time. There may be other duties it could perform effectively, but as a high level interceptor alongside modern United States interceptors, surely the minister will agree that the CF-100 is obsolete for that particular use against modern supersonic bombers.


George Randolph Pearkes: I think the Leader of the Opposition is confusing the threat of today and the threat that was anticipated by the time that the CF-105 would have been available. As I have said on many occasions and as I repeated this morning, we consider that the bomber threat is diminishing and the missile threat is increasing. At the present time the CF-100 is an effective aircraft against the type of bomber attack which we may anticipate at the present time and for the next year or two from now as coming against Canada.


Lester Bowles Pearson: With great respect I do not think I am confusing the threat at all. I know perfectly well that the bomber threat will decrease or is likely to give way to the missile threat as the main threat. I know too that the bomber threat, while it may be reduced in the sense that development of bombers may not be proceeding in the Soviet union as it would have proceeded if the missile developments had not occurred, but I also know from the evidence I have read from the congressional committees, by air force people in the United States is that the quality of the Russian bomber fleet is continually being improved. If the minister was correct when he said a year ago that the CF-100 could successfully engage only the majority of the bombers that might be expected to attack this continent-if the CF-100 could only do that a year ago, not knock down but engage the majority of bombers- surely the CF-100, magnificent as it has beer and useful as it may be now for certain purposes, is not the kind of airplane on which we on this continent or indeed Europe should be relying for high level interceptor work. No doubt that is why the two Bomarc squadrons are being introduced into our air defence.
The minister has corrected me in my reference to his remarks in Winnipeg. I gave him textually the press quotation and I am glad to have the correction because obviously if the United States decides not to go ahead with the development of the Bomarc it would be folly for Canada to do that on its own. That is self-evident. The very fact that the minister has to make that kind of statement, that if the United States decides not to go ahead with the Bomarc we will not be able

Supply-National Defence to go ahead on our own, must give one cause to hesitate about the final effectiveness and acceptability of this weapon.
I gave some information about Bomarc tests this morning. The minister said tonight that these tests are classified and he could not confirm or deny what I said about these tests which caused some anxiety about the effectiveness of the weapon. As I understand it the tests have not been very successful. I must say, however, that the information I got was from the reports of the congressional committee. They are public documents. I had no other information. Everything I said was taken from congressional committee reports which have been made available to members of congress and to the general public. There is certainly nothing classified about that kind of information.
A few moments ago the minister dealt with the very important question of the equipping of Canadian forces with nuclear weapons, something about which I asked him some questions earlier in the day. I repeat what General Norstad had to say about this, "Our defence plans are based on the nuclear weapons." The minister commenting on that and on what I said stated that he was sure that the Canadian people would not wish their troops to be sent into action with inferior weapons. I have no doubt that he is quite right in that but I suggest to him that the Canadian people also would not wish their troops to be sent into action with weapons under the control of another government.
The minister has said-and I want to be fair to him on this matter-that negotiations are now under way. As I took down what he said, the purpose of these negotiations with the United States is to make arrangements for the storing and equipping of nuclear weapons for Canadian forces. The minister at page 7 of his annual report had something to say about this:
While ownership and custody of nuclear weapons required for Canadian defence forces will remain with the United States, their use from Canadian territory or in Canadian air space will depend on conditions previously agreed to by the Canadian government.
Ownership and custody will remain with the United States. Has there been a change since that report was written or is it a fact that the negotiations which are now under way are merely for the storing and equipping of nuclear weapons for Canadian forces and will not affect in any way the control over those weapons by the United States?


George Randolph Pearkes: If the hon. gentleman wishes me to answer that point now, I would say that since these negotiations have not been completed it is impossible to give the details to the committee. The practice which has

been followed in such other countries as now have nuclear weapons stored by the United States within their boundaries is that the United States retains custody of those weapons until they are released for operation to the country itself. The country then has a veto; the country need not use them. They are avaliable and once they have been, as it were, handed over to the occupying country or the user country, then they are employed under the direction of the government of that country.


Harold Edward Winch: Would the United States hand them over if the country would not agree to using them? Otherwise there would be no sense to it.


Lester Bowles Pearson: I do not know of anything more important than this particular question. I think we should try to get it absolutely clear. I understand from the white paper that there is no question that the ownership and custody of nulcear weapons required for Canadian defence forces remains in the hands of the United States. The minister has now said that the agreement which it is hoped to negotiate will provide for those weapons which are available to be handed over to Canadian forces at a time and under circumstances agreeable to the Canadian government which may desire to use them at that time. I do not know whether that is an accurate description of the situation, but it seems to me to be a very confused situation indeed.
I ask the minister, if the decision is to use nuclear tactical weapons,-and I am not quarrelling with that decision at the moment-why should we not follow it to its logical conclusion and have the United States government, in the event that an agreement for this can be reached, turn those weapons over for storing, for use by and under the control of the Canadian military authorities. This will require an amendment to congressional legislation. I know, however, that that change has been made in the interests of one country, namely the United Kingdom, and I think there will be no other satisfactory way of dealing with this matter-if the decision is to use tactical atomic weapons-than to have those weapons brought under the complete control of the Canadian government if the Canadian government wishes to allocate them to Canadian forces.
I asked the minister this morning-and he referred to it this evening-some questions about the document, "Minimum Force Needs from 1958 to 1963". I know, of course, this is a top secret document and I naturally do not expect him to tell the committee the details of the implementation of this five-year program; but I had hoped that he would be

able to tell us what are Canada's commitments under this five-year program which was agreed to, I believe, in December, 1957. I am more interested in finding that out now than I was an hour ago because the minister said a few moments ago that one of the Canadian commitments in this document was to re-equip the Canadian air division in Europe. I think that is what the minister said. I remind him that this particular program was agreed to in December, 1957. Are we to understand from what the minister has said that in 1957 a decision was taken by his government to re-equip part of the Canadian air division in Europe? If that decision was taken at that time, has it been made known to the Canadian public since that time, because I have no recollection of any such decision having been made public?


William Moore Benidickson: That is the question I raised.


Lester Bowles Pearson: If it was made public and if it was a commitment formally undertaken by the Canadian government in December, 1957, why was it not possible to let the Canadian parliament and the Canadian people know about such an important commitment as the re-equipment of the Canadian air division? If, in fact, that decision was taken in December, 1957, why has it taken from December, 1957 until July, 1959, to implement it?


George Randolph Pearkes: Because it was a five-year program. The hon. gentleman realizes that it was a five-year program. This was not all to be done at the time that the MC-70 was first drawn up.


Lester Bowles Pearson: Yes, I realize that. I am commenting on what the minister has said. The decision to re-equip the Canadian air division was made as a commitment when this five-year program was drawn up in December, 1957. I ask the minister whether there are any other commitments in that document which we have not heard about yet? That, Mr. Chairman, I think for the moment exhausts the questions and no doubt exhausts the minister in listening to my questions.


Paul Theodore Hellyer: Mr. Chairman, can the minister not give us any additional information with reference to the Bomarc at all? I think we all appreciate the fact that much of the information regarding it is classified. There has been so much expression of opinion about it in the press; there have been so many questions raised about its low-level capability, about its subject to jamming, about its other deficiencies, that I would like the minister to give us some assurance on these things individually even if he cannot give specific detailed information.
Supply-National Defence


George Randolph Pearkes: I think the best assurance I can give the hon. gentleman is that the United States are adopting this as their area defence weapon. As I have said before, they are going ahead with the construction of Bomarc stations across the northern part of the United States. Now unless their administration had confidence in it they would not be going ahead and doing that. From the information I have received, I have stated in the house previously I believe this is the best weapon for our Canadian defence as a ground to air missile.


Paul Theodore Hellyer: I wonder whether the minister would tell us if we are to have two squadrons, as was the original impression given this house, or whether it is true, as we later understood it to be, that we are to get two half squadrons?


George Randolph Pearkes: There will be two Bomarc squadrons and they will be equipped with 30 missiles in the first instance. Then, when they have been completed, decision will be made according to the threat and according to the requirements as to whether that number should be increased.


Paul Theodore Hellyer: I should like to pose another problem with respect to the Bomarc chain which has been raised by a number of people. Perhaps the minister can set our fears at rest in this regard. Is the Bomarc chain not something like a series of fixed gun emplacements in that they are not mobile, they are fixed, and consequently they are able to deal only with attacking bombers coming within their particular range?
The minister knows that the United States is proposing that its bombers carry, in addition to their other armament, ground-to-air missiles. They will carry live ground-to-air missiles and also drones as a replacement for what they used to call ducks. In the event of an attack on Canada from a formation of Russian bombers coming toward our populated areas and in the event that the Russians released from their attacking force air-to-ground drones at intervals of some several minutes apart, is it not a fact that the Bomarcs would have to be fired because we would not know whether they were drones or live and we could not afford to take a chance, and once 30 drones had been shot in the same direction at the same squadron area all of the Bomarcs would be exhausted, there would be nothing more and there would be a completely open corridor for the entire Russian bomber formation to fly through and beyond which they could deploy in the direction of their various targets?

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George Randolph Pearkes: In answer to the first question, of course the Bomarcs are fired from a fixed station. They are not mobile. The stations as designed will be interlocking so that the whole of the air space will be covered.
With regard to the second question, because there is possibility of that form of attack which the hon. gentleman was describing, it is one reason why interceptors are being retained in the armament for the defence of the North American continent.


Paul Theodore Hellyer: And particularly the reason why interceptors should be used as far north of the Bomarc line as possible in order to intercept bombers as far away from our populated areas as can be achieved and also to get them before they release their ground-to-air guided missiles; is that correct?


George Randolph Pearkes: We would like the interception to take place as far away from populated centres as is possible.


Paul Theodore Hellyer: I should like to ask another question with reference to interceptors. The minister has told us that an agreement is being worked out with the United States whereby they will have the use of our bases. We will presume that there is an attack and there has been positive identification, which of course also presents a very difficult problem because it is sometimes difficult to determine what the identity of an aircraft is from the radar screens. But once there is positive identification is it not the plan that United States squadrons would not engage the enemy except from their own bases at the outset and that they would return for refueling to Canadian bases? Does that not present the problem which I raised earlier today, that in fact most of the fighting, most of the destruction and most of the fall-out would not take place until the attacking bomber force was within two or three hundred miles of the Canadian border and over our most populated areas? Would it not seem more logical, if Canada is going to make these bases available to United States interceptors, that the initial contact should be made at a more northerly point in order that the greater percentage of the destruction and fall-out will be over our sparsely populated areas?


George Randolph Pearkes: The hon. member is describing a plan of attack. I do not know where he has obtained his information that United States interceptors must engage the bombers from United States bases first of all.


Lester Bowles Pearson: On that point, I now have the reference which the minister made to this matter this morning, and could I ask

him to explain exactly what he had in mind in his statement when he said:
We are maintaining nine squadrons of CF-100 all-weather interceptors and are making arrangements so that United States interceptors can operate in Canadian air space, and consideration is being given to providing facilities so that United States aircraft may be able to operate from Canadian air fields.
In those remarks did he have in mind some arrangement going beyond the present NORAD agreement?


George Randolph Pearkes: Not going beyond the present NORAD agreement but to make the present NORAD agreement workable so that United States interceptors could have facilities for refueling and other facilities that might be required at Canadian airports.


Paul Theodore Hellyer: This afternoon I mentioned the British operation Sunbeam and asked if the minister could give us any information about it. Does he have anything he can tell the house?


George Randolph Pearkes: No, Mr. Chairman, I have no information that I can give the house on that exercise.


Lionel Chevrier: May I ask the minister the site of the second Bomarc station?


George Randolph Pearkes: It is going to be located in northern Quebec in the Mont Laurier area.


Lionel Chevrier: Without breaching any secrets, is the minister in a position to give any more detailed information as to the site? As the minister remembers, many months ago it was announced that it would be in the Mont Laurier area and now the same answer is being given to the question. It has been made quite clear where the Bomarc station is going to be in Ontario. I wondered whether the minister could not give a more definite answer to the question in so far as the Quebec location is concerned.


George Randolph Pearkes: I have not announced before that it is going to be in the Mont Laurier area. I know that newspaper correspondents have done so. I think that should be sufficient. It is not a very wide area and until further development has taken place I should not think it is necessary to pinpoint every defensive installation we have.


Lionel Chevrier: I would not want the minister to do so if he does not think he should. If he simply said that he thought it should not be done I would be quite happy to accept that. But the point I make is that the Ontario location has been pinpointed.


George Randolph Pearkes: I said today, in the North Bay area.


Lester Bowles Pearson: The minister knows, of
course, that the exact location of this Bomarc base has appeared in reports out of Washington, in newspapers, some congressional reports and in magazines.


Chesley William Carter: Mr. Chairman, I should like to bring a matter to the attention of the minister at this time which is rather different from the subject we have been discussing up till now. It concerns not only the Minister of National Defence but also the Minister of National Health and Welfare. The problem I want to bring to the minister's attention is the loss of family allowances by service people on overseas duty. Some time ago I put a question on the order paper which was answered on May 13. The answer as found on page 3638 of Hansard shows that a leading aircraftsman with five children loses $1,584 during his tour of duty and against that he receives by way of income tax saving only $16.
I think the people of Canada want the children of servicemen overseas to get the same benefits as those who remain in Canada, and this is quite a substantial loss in family income. The higher up we go the smaller is the gap. A wing commander with five children, for example, loses $1,584 but he saves $998 in income tax so that this regulation which prevents the payment of family allowances for the children of overseas troops falls hardest on the little man; the lower the rank the greater the loss in income. I should like the minister to bring this matter to the attention of his colleagues and have something done about it.


Lester Bowles Pearson: Mr. Chairman, I would not like the minister to think that we are not interested in the observations he made about civil defence or that we do not desire to make some comments on that matter, but I take it that it will be discussed on the estimates of the Department of National Health and Welfare. I am in some doubt about this because there seem to be three ministers now responsible for civil defence, the Minister of National Health and Welfare, the Minister of National Defence and the Prime Minister. I assume that the discussion of this important matter will take place on the estimates of the Department of National Health and Welfare.


George Randolph Pearkes: Other than the actual role or part which the army will play.


William Moore Benidickson: Mr. Chairman, the committee would expect me to ask a question or two about economy and extravagance, particularly because the minister will recall our discussion in December, 1957 when he first came before the house with his estimates. At 66968-9-343
Supply-National Defence that time he was the only minister, I think, who claimed that after taking office he was able to report to the house that he had reduced expenses and had fulfilled the election promises of the government that waste and extravagance had been reversed by the new administration. As I recall it he had a certain figure which I am not going to quote at the moment, but the minister may know it better than I and that figure, as I recall very clearly, represented primarily a claimed reduction in waste and extravagance in the matter of travelling expenses. I wonder if the minister would just explain to us-I think I know the answer-but I want him to explain to the committee that this was the only item out of these millions and millions of dollars of national defence expenditures that he could put at the top of the mast as the place where he, being in charge of the department, had reversed things and found it possible to reduce expenses and first for travelling and removal expenses.
If one looks at the summary of standard objects of expenditure for this year for the minister's department and compares them with last year he will find that there is a very substantial increase in the expenses of the defence department for travel and removal. I can give the figures. Last year the amount of the estimates was $37.2 million and this year the requirement is $44.3 million. I know, if all the members of the public do not know, that the reason is there is a different pattern with respect to the rotation of troops going from this country over to Europe and homeward.
What I want to point out to the committee is that when the rotation was in favour of the minister he claimed this was something in favour of the new administration in achieving economy. But this year when we have this $7 million rise in expenditures he gives the true facts and the true facts are that under the pattern of rotation of troops a greater amount of money has to be spent for moving troops back and forth between this country and Europe than in another year. This is incidental, but it is typical of the type of information we were given in December, 1957. Then we raised questions as to what evidence of waste and extravagance the minister had found and corrected. Perhaps he would have some further information on that point to give us before this item is passed tonight.
I shall pass from that item now. I was concerned to hear the minister make his reference to security and confidence with respect to defence administration in general. I think when he made a reference of that kind he was replying to what had been said

Supply-National Defence this afternoon when certain items were quoted from the United States congressional records of a committee inquiring extensively into defence activities down south. I got the impression from our newspapers that, some of us, have the feeling that some of the information that was given in public at these committee inquiries in the United States was as much a surprise to the officialdom of this country as it was to the general public here. I should like the minister to comment upon that.
Personally, I really feel that we have assumed the role of me-tooism so much lately with respect to the United States in recent times that that challenge and criticism may be very well founded. I should like the minister to assure this committee, not that anything that was said there was a surprise to him personally but was a new piece of information as compared to the information that might have been give to this country by the United States in an official capacity.
I was curious also this morning when the minister indicated the choice of the government, announced only today-again there were a lot of ifs and provisos-of the Lockheed plane, the F-104G. Again I emphasize the provisos and back doors that were left open by the minister, but he indicated that that plane was, I think, a similar plane to the one chosen previously by the West German government. Does the minister recall-I have not got the information here-when the West German government made that decision? In other words, our criticism is that this government has been very dilatory in making decisions of this kind. I recall, too, that one has to be very careful in criticizing the minister or the government in connection with matters of this kind. This morning the minister said that statements with respect to the obsolescence of equipment we have been buying hitherto have been very unhelpful to him and to the government, and to the cause of freedom and traitorous to our position vis-avis those we believe might be the potential enemy.
This, of course, is a serious statement and one that we must respect, as I do. On the other hand I must at all times recognize that it is one that can be used in a democratic parliament by one on the government side improperly to protect himself from criticism for delay with respect to taking decisions that might have been taken. I wonder if the minister would tell us about the negotiations with West Germany for our equipment manufactured in Canada, and was he aware at the time when the West German government had decided to take the advanced F-104?


Would he give us some indication of the time lapse in between the decision of that government and the decision announced only this morning? With respect to this equipment, the minister indicated that as to the details, as to information respecting production, quantities and the time element on availability of this particular NATO aircraft, we would have to ask the Minister of Defence Production. Fortunately, we understand his estimates will follow very shortly upon those of the minister of defence, and perhaps we can get that information fairly soon.
However, I believe he recognizes that throughout the country there is a recognition that more than a year ago it was known that our F-86 squadrons would either have to rely on the early delivery of our Arrow aircraft for perhaps a different role than was assigned to them, or they would have to have assigned to them aircraft that the minister tells us now the government has decided to assign to them. Regardless of that, however, I say that there was a poor synchronization with respect to those decisions.
Rightly or wrongly I continue to think, as I have thought ever since last fall, that most of these decisions were delayed-and there has been a resulting continuous delay in decision-because so many senior members of the cabinet were not here in Canada at the time when these serious matters had to be decided upon. I do not blame the minister. He was attending to his responsibilities of course. But at a critical time with respect to decisions in the defence department there was an absence on the part of senior members of the cabinet whose decisions would be necessary in matters of this kind. Other governments-and I think particularly of the West German government-were able to reach a decision with respect to their role in NATO and this government has only now reached its decision.


George Randolph Pearkes: I am speaking now entirely from memory, but I think the West German government reached a decision about three weeks ago; it was very recently that they did so. The fact that the West German government had accepted this particular aircraft or, shall I say, the fact that another NATO government had accepted this particular aircraft influenced the decision that Canada reached because of the obvious advantages of having similar aircraft used by various NATO countries. We have been talking about the standardization of equipment. This is a case where partial standariza-tion is being accepted. We have come to the conclusion that this is the best aircraft for our purposes.

I am not quite certain whether I understood the hon. member correctly. If he indicated that there was any thought of the Arrow ever having been used by the air division I want to assure him-


William Moore Benidickson: In NATO.


George Randolph Pearkes: -that was never contemplated; never to my knowledge.


William Moore Benidickson: Certainly many military commentators of great intelligence have thought that as this was a very advanced aircraft it might very well have a role to play in NATO complementary to the role it would play in North America.


George Randolph Pearkes: The difficulty would have been that there was no ground environment in Europe-nor is there today ground environment-which could have made the operation of the CF-105 effective. As I say, it was never contemplated that it would be used there.


William Moore Benidickson: I only say that there was speculation and comment from people who have more knowledge of the possibilities in this area than I have in that respect.


George Randolph Pearkes: Really, I do not know how much knowledge the hon. member has on the subject.


William Moore Benidickson: I would not say any more than the Leader of the Opposition said this afternoon, namely that I played only a very modest and obscure part in the air force and recent war effort.
However, I want also to interrogate the minister a little bit further on the matter of this MC-70 of December, 1957 because I think it is relevant to our examination of the expenditures before us and the decision that was announced this morning. I have a feeling that we are very much in the rumble seat now with respect to decisions that are made in the United States. Was it in December 1957 or was it in April recently when General Norstad came to see us, that it was obvious to this government that the role of the Canadian air force in Europe required a change from the F-86 to this new fighter aircraft with a ground role under which they would not only, as the minister said, find their target but destroy it?


George Randolph Pearkes: When General Norstad was here he explained in detail the type of role that he would like to give as an assignment to the squadrons of the air division presently armed with the F-86. Prior to that time there had been discussion for some time as to two or three different types of role. General Norstad was here and he made a definite recommendation. It was impossible until he 66968-9-343J
Supply-National Defence had come here for us to have decided which aircraft should be used, until the actual role had been defined. I think that is fairly obvious. The type of aircraft having then been decided upon, there are several different aircraft of that type. These all had to be evaluated, and a decision has just been reached recently that this aircraft was the one which would suit our requirements better than any of the others. I announced it almost immediately the decision had been made.


William Moore Benidickson: The minister indicated that it was still a most nebulous state of affairs, even before he came to this committee, in that he said there were provisos still unsettled as to price and the opportunity for manufacture in Canada.


George Randolph Pearkes: I think when the estimates of the Minister of Defence Production come before the committee he will be able to give the hon. member much more detail about that matter. It is his department that does the purchasing. Naturally, until the final paper has been signed, I would have to put in some provisos.


William Moore Benidickson: We are advancing under the calendar rather far into 1959. Under the normal timetable I think by about September most departments put themselves in a position to indicate to treasury board what their requirements would be for the next fiscal year which I admit starts only on April 1 following. Having regard to the possibility, or the probability I think we can say, of going ahead with this decision announced by the Minister of National Defence that the NATO squadrons that now have the F-86 will be equipped with this new aircraft, surely it is possible of translating the cost into the national budget for defence of next year. Has the minister some indication of what it means in extra cost for next year that would not probably be reduced by some other expenditure that would not be required?


George Randolph Pearkes: Of course, we are examining the next year's estimates now. We take into consideration not only next year but the estimates for the next five years. We are hoping that we shall be able to provide for the re-equipment of these squadrons within an estimate of about the same order of magnitude as the present one.


Paul Theodore Hellyer: Can the minister tell us whether the F-104 which has been chosen to re-equip the air division has any other role than as a strike aircraft?


George Randolph Pearkes: No, that is its main role.


Paul Theodore Hellyer: That is its main role?


George Randolph Pearkes: Yes; a strike and reconnaissance role.

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Paul Theodore Hellyer: Could it under any circumstances be used to re-equip any of the Canadian interceptor squadrons presently under NATO command if the government were to decide that was something it should propose to do?


George Randolph Pearkes: Re-equip any of the other squadrons? That is to say, the four squadrons-


Paul Theodore Hellyer: No, I am talking about the nine squadrons under NORAD, if its capability would be such as to make it a reasonable fighter-interceptor as well.


George Randolph Pearkes: I do not think the F-104G could be developed into an interceptor. The requirements are so different. It is a question of high speed at low altitude for strike reconnaissance aircraft, whereas an interceptor wants high speed at a high altitude.


Paul Theodore Hellyer: Would the minister contemplate any other possibility by which Canada might now, or within the foreseeable future, re-equip any of the nine squadrons stationed in Canada?


George Randolph Pearkes: There is no provision made in these estimates for such a contingency.


Paul Theodore Hellyer: There is no provision made in the estimates, but I know how the minister feels, that it is a requirement which should in due course be met, and I also know how he feels about the aircraft industry in Canada; not that it should be just fed contracts for work which is not necessary, but that it should be given essential work and phased in such a way as to keep it operating at the greatest possible efficiency.
May I refer to the minister's own remarks on page 5220 of Hansard for June 20, 1956 where he is reported as saying:
Of course no warning line is of any value unless it can be backed up by interceptors, and while the white paper would indicate that there are some 21 squadrons available for the defence of Canada, the minister painted a more realistic picture of that force this afternoon when he pointed out that at the present time there are only nine regular squadrons which are equipped with a plane which is efficient for its role at the present time, namely the CF-100.
Then with respect to the aircraft industry in Canada we have a statement from the hon. member for Brandon-Souris where at page 5267 of Hansard for June 21, 1956, he is reported as saying:
This leads me to make just a brief comment on the importance of the air industry to Canada. Canada is a natural country for the development of a strong air industry. We are a young nation and we are on the verge of tremendous development, particularly in the northern regions. In similar manner air power is just in its infancy. We are on the threshold of tremendous achievements in the air.


Then the present Minister of National Defence is quoted at page 5220 of Hansard for June 20 of 1956 as follows:
I am not in favour of discontinuing the airplane production industry here. I think it is something we have to develop and maintain. In those periods of changeover from one type of equipment to a more modern type there is always the danger of equipment being turned out which before it leaves the assembly line is obsolescent, and I am afraid that is the case at the present time with the CF-lOO's which will be turned out. No doubt the CF-100 Mark V, with its greater power, would be of value to combat any enemy bombers coming to this country in the near future, but its period of usefulness must be rapidly passing. The CF-105 will no doubt bridge that period until the time the guided missile is ready and available.
I have frequently wondered whether we have not rather limited the airplane production industry in asking them to develop a limited number of a type of plane. As has been indicated, there is a great shortage and there is a great need for more transport planes. I believe that the A. V. Roe Company, which has been making the CF-lOO's, did start a jet transport plane industry which was cancelled at the time of the Korean war.
Further on he says:
Whether or not it is possible for Canada to dispose of any of these 100's which must be surplus now I do not know, but it would seem desirable to do so.
As the minister knows, subsequently disposal was made in co-operation between Canada and the United States, and planes were made available under mutual aid to one of our NATO allies, Belgium, and it was an exchange which I believe proved to be to the benefit of all participating countries.
My questions are these. Does the minister still feel as fondly toward the aircraft industry as he did in 1956? Second, if he feels that the CF-100 was practically obsolescent in 1956, how does he square his statement, both earlier this session and today, that it is still a useful aircraft and that it is not yet obsolete and should not yet be removed from squadron service?


George Randolph Pearkes: Obsolescence of aircraft depends upon the purpose for which it is to be used. The CF-100 was designed as a defence against certain Russian bombers. Now we have no knowledge that the Russians have procured any faster bombers than they had in those years. Therefore the CF-100 is still an effective aircraft.


Paul Theodore Hellyer: It is almost ten o'clock, Mr. Chairman, but before we call it ten o'clock I would like to say to the minister that I did not mean to be unfair in the statement I made earlier about the two generals who had been here and who, according to my information, had not been encouraged to hold press conferences. If I was wrong in my contention I apologize. The allegations that I made were based on information supplied to

me by members of the working press, and I accepted the information given to me at face value; but I accept the minister's feelings on the matter.


George Randolph Pearkes: Thank you.
Progress reported.



BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE

Lionel Chevrier: I presume we will go on with the consideration or these estimates tomorrow. Will the house leader indicate what we will do on Saturday, and also as far as he can into the course of next week?


Howard Charles Green: Yes, Mr. Speaker. Tomorrow we shall continue with the defence estimates
Business of the House and then take those of the Department of Defence Production. Should they be finished before Saturday evening we will go on with the estimates of trade and commerce. On Monday we intend to start with item No. 1 on today's order paper, an act to amend the Criminal Code; then item No. 7, an act to amend Prisons and Reformatories Act. Then we will take item No. 11, amendments to the Maritime Coal Production Assistance Act; then item No. 9, dealing with crop insurance; and then item No. 10, dealing with farm credit.


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