1959-07-07

[Stage Direction]
Fifth report of standing committee on banking and commerce-Mr. Cathers.


Right Hon. J. G. Diefenbaker (Prime Minister):: Mr. Speaker, with the leave of the house I would like to say a word or two with regard to the events yesterday in Chicago. That city and the state of Illinois accorded to Her Majesty the Queen and Prince Philip a welcome which was certainly unequalled in my experience. It was one that typifies the relationship between the commonwealth and the United States in which Canada has a particular interest.
The warmth of the reception and the scope of the welcome accorded Her Majesty and the prince was an unforgettable experience and enduring evidence, I believe, not only of the esteem in which the Queen is held but also of that regard, important as it is, which the people of the United States showed yesterday they have for the necessity for and the preservation of unity in freedom as between the United States and the commonwealth.
I want to say one word more, if I may, of thanks and appreciation to the mayor of the city of Chicago and the governor of the state of Illinois and those associated with them for the outstanding arrangements which were made in order to make yesterday a day of historic significance.


Hon. L. B. Pearson (Leader of the Opposition):: Mr. Speaker, I once had the privilege of living in Chicago in the days when Big Bill Thompson was the mayor of that great city, and when I suspect a visit from the King or the Queen of England might not have been received so enthusiastically as yesterday's visit was. It is encouraging to learn from the Prime Minister that all the vigour and vitality of that great city was directed to giving the Queen of Canada and Prince Philip such a warm welcome. I am sure it was appreciated by the Queen and the prince, and that they had good cause to realize that Chicago is not only warm in its
welcome, but also that it is a city of art galleries and symphony orchestras as well as stockyards.


Mr. Hazen Argue (Assiniboia):: Mr. Speaker, the members of the C.C.F. group are very pleased at the tremendous tribute given to the Queen and Prince Philip by the people of the city of Chicago. We agree with the Prime Minister that it was a tribute to the person who occupies the position of Queen of Canada and to Prince Philip. It was also a tribute to the very good relations between Canada and the United States, and to the esteem that we feel is held for Canadians and for Canada in the great and friendly nation to the south.



BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE


Hon. E. D. Fulton (Minister of Justice):: should like to make a statement with respect to the government's proposals regarding Bill No. C-59, about which inquiries have been made from time to time by the Leader of the Opposition and others.
Bill C-59 was designed to accomplish two main purposes; first, to clarify and improve the law relating to combinations, mergers and monopolies; and second, to enact three provisions for the protection of small business and consumers against unfair practices, including misleading advertising.
Since the introduction of the bill we have received representations from businessmen and trade associations that the measure should be deferred until they have had an opportunity to study it more thoroughly and make representations with respect to the combines and merger provisions. In a matter of this kind it is of particular importance that all interests have every reasonable opportunity to make their submissions.
We have therefore decided that the proper course is to proceed with those parts of the bill which relate to the problems of small business, because we believe them to be urgent and because there have not been the requests for opportunities for further representations in this connection that there have been in connection with the other matter; and to defer until next session the provisions relating to combinations, mergers and monopolies and the other incidental provisions of the bill. The provisions we propose to

Business of the House
proceed with, if the house agrees, are the enactment of the three provisions relating particularly to small business, including the section on misleading advertising. It will also be necessary to introduce a fourth provision dealing with the situation in the fishing industry in British Columbia.
A statement of evidence has been submitted by the director under the combines act to the restrictive trade practices commission and to various fish packing companies, associations and individuals, alleging that certain agreements and activities relating to the supply of raw fish by the fishermen to the companies are illegal. As a result of the doubt thereby cast upon the legality of such agreements and activities the companies have declined to negotiate prices with the fishermen's union, as they have done in past years, and it appears that a strike may result which could lead to the loss of the salmon catch and perhaps other catches of fish.
There is a provision in the anti-combines legislation to the effect that nothing therein shall be construed to apply to combinations of workmen or employees for their own reasonable protection as such workmen or employees, and it will, I believe, be argued by the fishermen that they come within the protection of this provision. If, however, it should turn out, as a result of the inquiry, that the agreements dealt with therein are in whole or in part illegal, it may be that the report will disclose a situation with which we shall have to take steps to deal in a definitive manner, but it is not possible to do so now.
Meanwhile it is essential that all reasonable steps be taken to prevent the loss of the salmon and other catches, and I shall therefore propose a clause in the new bill to the effect that the anti-combines legislation shall not apply to arrangements between fishermen or associations of fishermen in British Columbia, and persons or associations of persons engaged in the buying or processing of fish in British Columbia, relating to the prices, remuneration or other conditions under which fish shall be caught and supplied, between the 1st day of January, 1959 and December 31, 1960. By the latter date it is hoped that the remaining steps in the inquiry will have been concluded and a report will have been made by the restrictive trade practices commission so that we may be able to assess what, if any, further action should be taken to dispose finally of the situation.
I have spoken to the Leader of the Opposition and to the leader of the C.C.F. party about this matter, and in accordance with those discussions, and for the reasons I have

outlined, I would request the unanimous consent of the house to drop the order for second reading of Bill C-59 in order that I may introduce a new bill containing only the three provisions in the present bill which I have mentioned and the new provision regarding the fishing situation in British Columbia.


Lester Bowles Pearson: Mr. Speaker, we are glad on our part to give the proposal the consent that is required. We think the decision of the government to withdraw Bill No. C-59 at this time is a wise one, in that it will give those organizations and persons particularly concerned in these important measures an opportunity to appear before a committee next year and make their views known.
It is clear from what the minister has said that the bill which he proposes to introduce, while more limited, is still very important. We still think on this side that that bill should be sent to a committee for the same purpose I have mentioned in connection with the larger one.


Mr. H. W. Herridge (Kootenay West):: Mr. Speaker, with a knowledge of all the circumstances, and particularly in view of the importance of this measure and its application to the province of British Columbia, we readily agree to the proposal to withdraw the bill as was suggested by the minister. This withdrawal will considerably shorten the session, because we had a number of well documented, well prepared and critical speeches to make on the bill. We think the withdrawal is a sensible measure in the light of all the circumstances. It will provide an opportunity for representations from various groups interested in and concerned about this problem, and will provide an opportunity for further consideration by the government.
We hope, as the leader of the official opposition said, that it will be possible to refer the bill to a committee at another session. With respect to the new amendment suggested by the minister in his closing remarks, we think under all the circumstances, and particularly as we come from British Columbia, that it is a most sensible arrangement.


Hon. J. W. Pickersgill (Bonavisia-Twillingate):: Mr. Speaker, I am rising on a point of order arising out of the repeated use by the hon. member for Kootenay West of the phrase "leader of the official opposition". There is no such person, Mr. Speaker. There is a Leader of the Opposition, known to the constitution.


Herbert Wilfred Herridge: Mr. Speaker, on the point of order, I was chastised by the leader of the official opposition the other day for making that kind of reference.


Lester Bowles Pearson: No, the hon. member was not. Mr. Speaker, my only comment on the point of order is that a rose by any other name would smell as sweet.


Mr. Speaker:: Is it the unanimous wish of the house that order No. 6 on today's order paper be discharged and that Bill No. C-59 be withdrawn?


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.
Order discharged and bill withdrawn.



CANADIAN BROADCASTING CORPORATION


Hon. J. M. Macdonnell (Acting Minister of National Revenue):: Mr. Speaker, in the unavoidable absence of the Minister of National Revenue he asked me to read this statement.
I am advised by the C.B.C. that Mr. R. L. Dunsmore, speaking for the C.B.C. board of directors, said today that the executive committee of the board had met in Montreal over the week end and had granted leave for a period of up to two months to the corporation's vice president, Mr. E. L. Bushnell.
Members of the committee who attended the special meeting were Mr. R. L. Dunsmore, Mrs. Kate Aitken and Mr. Raymond Dupuis. Other members of the executive committee are C.B.C. president Alphonse Ouimet and Mr. Bushnell. Mr. Bushnell, who has been acting president of the corporation for the past six months, is now on leave.
Mr. Dunsmore also announced an emergency measure taken by the executive committee in naming a management committee to carry on C.B.C. operations in the absence of the president and vice president. The corporation president, Alphonse Ouimet, who underwent surgery three weeks ago, is expected to return to his desk within the next two to four weeks.
The management committee, composed of senior head office officials, will be under the chairmanship of Colonel R. P. Landry, assistant to the president. Other members of the committee are Marcel Carter, controller of management, planning and personnel; Charles Jennings, controller of broadcasting; James P. Gilmore, controller of operations; Max Henderson, comptroller; W. G. Richardson, director of engineering; R. C. Fraser, director of public relations.



DOMINION-PROVINCIAL CONFERENCE REQUEST FOR REPORT ON PROGRESS OF CURRENT MEETINGS

[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Hazen Robert Argue: In the absence of the Minister of Finance I wonder
Inquiries of the Ministry whether I may ask the Prime Minister if he has anything to report on the progress of the federal-provincial conference, and if as yet any decision has been made as to whether a formal federal-provincial conference with all the premiers in attendance may be held later this year.


John George Diefenbaker: Mr. Speaker, as the house knows the Minister of Finance is unavoidably absent today attending the meeting that is taking place. I think the answer to this and other similar questions might well await his return.



PICTOU, N.S.-REQUEST FOR IMMEDIATE REPLACE- MENT OF FACILITIES DESTROYED

[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. H. Russell MacEwan (Pictou):: Mr. Speaker, I should like to direct a question to the Minister of Public Works. Is the minister aware of the disastrous fire which yesterday swept the waterfront at Pictou, Nova Scotia, and destroyed the main piers and freight sheds? If so, would the minister have his officials investigate the matter of replacing the structures and facilities, so important to the life and economy of this historic town, in the shortest possible time?


Hon. Howard C. Green (Minister of Public Works):: Mr. Speaker, I am very grateful to the hon. member for giving me notice of his question. An official of the Department of Public Works is already in Pictou, and we hope to get a report from him shortly.



INQUIRY AS TO REPORT ON ALLOCATION OF BOX CARS

[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. G. R. Muir (Lisgar):: Mr. Speaker, I should like to address a question to the Minister of Trade and Commerce, notice of which I have given him. Is the minister now prepared to make a statement arising out of the recommendations in the Bracken commission report on box car allocation?


Hon. Gordon Churchill (Minister of Trade and Commerce):: Mr. Speaker, I thank the hon. member for giving me notice of his question. I hope to make a statement in the house within the next few days, as I promised I would before the commencement of the new crop year, dealing with the recommendations of the Bracken inquiry into the box car situation. The announcement will advise the public generally of the arrangements for the distribution of box cars that will become operative at the commencement of the new crop year. It will indicate some change from

Inquiries of the Ministry the procedure that has been in effect for a number of years, and we will see during the course of the coming crop year how effective the new arrangements may be.
I will be prepared to receive representations from all concerned, if there are any suitable modifications required. The distribution of box cars for the movement of our western grain is a continuing problem, and we are ready and willing to do everything within reason to make it work as effectively as possible.


Hazen Robert Argue: Since the minister has given us a preview of the formal announcement, I wonder if he could say whether the main basis for the distribution of box cars will be on individual elevator purchases in a recent period at the marketing points, or whether it will be based on some elective form by which farmers themselves can indicate to which elevator or elevators they wish to deliver their grain.


Gordon Minto Churchill: Mr. Speaker, the announcement which I propose to make in the near future will give the answer to the hon. member's question.



INQUIRY AS TO DEFICIENCY PAYMENT

[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Lester Bowles Pearson: May I ask the Prime Minister whether the government proposes to take any action before the end of the session with regard to the recommendations as to a deficiency payment made by the second or supplementary delegation of western farmers who were in Ottawa a few weeks ago.


John George Diefenbaker: Mr. Speaker, some ten days ago the hon. gentleman asked me if I would make a statement as to the tenor of the legislation to be introduced, and whether there would be any additional legislation introduced over and above those to which reference has already been made. Before the termination of the session and at the earliest possible date a general indication in that regard will be given which will, of course, include the answer to the question just asked by the hon. gentleman.



REQUEST FOR INCREASED QUOTAS IN PEACE RIVER AREA

[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. G. W. Baldwin (Peace River):: Mr. Speaker, I should like to ask the Minister of Trade and Commerce if he would inquire to see if it is possible to increase the initial grain quotas in respect of the ensuing crop year at those delivery points in the Peace
[Mr Churchill.]

River area where severe crop losses were sustained during the last two years as a result of adverse weather conditions.


Gordon Minto Churchill: In reply to the hon. member, who drew this matter to my attention yesterday, may I say that I will communicate with the wheat board, draw it to their attention and ask for their sympathetic consideration of what is a problem of particular importance to the Peace River country. I think they will give the same consideration to this request that they gave this year to the request from the northeastern portion of Saskatchewan, where tough and damp grain had to be moved in somewhat of a hurry. This is a point well taken, and I will draw it to the attention of the board.



ST. LAWRENCE SEAWAY STATEMENT ON REPORTED U.S. LEGISLATION RESPECTING STUDY OF DE-ICING

[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Hon. George H. Hees (Minister of Transport):: Yesterday the hon. member for Assiniboia referred to a press report regarding a bill introduced in the United States Senate by Senator Wiley which would provide for a major study of de-icing on the St. Lawrence seaway.
I am advised that the St. Lawrence seaway authority has no information on this matter other than the press report referred to, and has not been approached.



SHIPPING


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
George Harris Hees: Mr. Speaker, yesterday the hon. member for Port Arthur inquired as to whether the department had a representative at the U.S. coastguard hearing into the collision between the Monrovia and the Royaltor.
I am advised that the department had a representative present at the hearing as an observer, and that in due course we will be receiving a copy of the proceedings.



INQUIRY FOR RETURNS


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Hon. Henri Courtemanche (Secretary of State):: Mr. Speaker, with reference to the inquiry of the hon. member for Bonavista-Twillingate concerning outstanding orders for returns, I have had a list prepared showing the outstanding orders. If it is agreeable

to the hon. gentleman I shall table it forthwith rather than take the time of the house to read it. These orders will be complied with as soon as the information reaches me from the various departments concerned.


John Whitney Pickersgill: I wonder whether the minister would be agreeable to having the list made an appendix to today's Hansard for the convenience of members.


Henri Courtemanche: I agree.


Mr. Speaker:: Is the house agreeable to the proposal that the list be made an appendix to today's Hansard?


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.
[For list referred to above, see appendix],



HEALTH INSURANCE


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. Maurice Bourgel (Levis):: I should like to direct a question to the Minister of National Health and Welfare. Now that the province of Quebec, through its minister of welfare, has signed an agreement under the 1956 federal Unemployment Assistance Act, can the minister inform the house if the Quebec government will soon be willing to share in the hospital insurance plan? If the minister has no information at the moment, is it his intention to take advantage of the presence in Ottawa of the premier of Quebec to work out something toward that end?


Hon. J. W. Monieith (Minister of National Health and Welfare):: Mr. Speaker, I think the hon. member's question might well be answered by the proverb that one swallow does not make a summer, but hope springs eternal and one swallow helps.



PRINCE EDWARD ISLAND


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Hon. Paul Martin (Essex East):: Mr. Speaker, may I ask the Minister of National Health and Welfare if he can give reasons why the federal government did not accept the proposal for participation in the hospital insurance program offered by the province of Prince Edward Island?


Jay Waldo Monteith: The hon. member seems to be very ill informed. The agreement has been decided upon between the province of Prince Edward Island and the federal government, and we propose to sign this agreement within a very few days.
Inquiries of the Ministry


Paul Joseph James Martin: Is the minister not aware of the fact that if I was uninformed, it was because of actions taken by the minister himself during the end of last week?



HEALTH AND WELFARE


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. Frank Howard (Skeena):: I should like to pose a question to the Minister of National Health and Welfare. Unfortunately I did not have the opportunity to send him notice but perhaps he can take this as notice. Will the minister advise the house what steps his department is taking or is able to take with respect to banning the use of polyethylene or thin plastic bags which are used extensively by dry cleaning firms and others, and which have caused the death by suffocation of more than 40 children in the United States and Canada?


Jay Waldo Monteith: I will look into the matter but I am not sure that my department has any jurisdiction in this regard. I certainly believe that the risks involved should be publicized as widely as possible. I also noticed in this morning's newspapers that tragedy had struck again in the Toronto area and, as I say, I shall certainly look into the matter.



MONTREAL


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Jay Waldo Monteith: Mr. Speaker, yesterday the hon. member for Kootenay West asked me a question relating to the establishment of an additional quarantine inspection point near Montreal being used jointly by Canadian and U.S. authorities. My department had felt this station was necessary to take care of all vessels bound for the seaway rather than at Montreal, and as a gesture of courtesy the U.S. staff were invited to occupy offices in the same building.
This offer was accepted, with agreement between my officers and those of the U.S. public health service that the anchorage off Longue Pointe would be used as a common inspection point for all vessels. Those vessels bound for United States ports after leaving the seaway would be examined and cleared by the United States staff, while those bound for Canadian ports would be cleared by Canadian staff. Thus all vessels would be assured of further passage through the seaway without delay for this purpose.

Inquiries of the Ministry
The only occasion when a Canadian citizen might receive an examination from a United States official would be if he happened to be a passenger or crew member of a vessel first calling at a U.S. port on leaving the seaway. In this case, of course, he would receive exactly the same treatment as though he were on a vessel proceeding direct to, say, the port of New York.
This practice of close co-operation between Canadian and United States quarantine staffs is an arrangement of long standing that has resulted in vastly increased convenience to all forms of cross-border traffic. It is similar to methods in the immigration and customs services-on cross-border trains, for example- and quite often entails operations of officers from locations in the neighbouring country rather than their own.
(Translation):


EXTERNAL AFFAIRS
[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. Samuel Boulanger (Drummond-Arfhabaska):: Mr. Speaker, I should like to direct a question to the Solicitor General. In view of the promises he made in 1957 and 1958 that an ambassador would be appointed to the Vatican, I wish to ask him if the government intends to appoint one before the end of this session?


Hon. Leon Balcer (Solicitor General):: Mr. Speaker, this a matter of general policy which is a responsibility of the cabinet.
(Text):



POST OFFICE DEPARTMENT


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
John Whitney Pickersgill: Mr. Speaker, I should like to ask the Postmaster General whether he is aware of the fact that the post office at Joe Batts Arm was struck by lightning. If so, can he advise the house whether any serious damage was done?


Hon. W. M. Hamilton (Postmaster General):: Mr. Speaker, I was not aware of that fact but undoubtedly the Minister of Public Works, who is responsible for that building, would be aware of it.


John Whitney Pickersgill: Has the Minister of Public Works any light on the subject?


Howard Charles Green: Mr. Speaker, I can only add that it is a great misfortune that the hon. member for Bonavista-Twillingate was not in the post office at the time.



AGRICULTURE


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Hazen Robert Argue: Mr. Speaker, I should like to direct a question to the Minister of Agriculture. My question is this. Can the minister say whether, following the policy he has announced to limit the support price of eggs and hogs to certain quantities per farm unit of production, he has determined whether it is necessary to introduce an amendment to the Agricultural Stabilization Act? Does the minister not feel that any limitation is in fact a reduction of the mandatory and legislative guarantees under the act?


Hon. D. S. Harkness (Minister of Agriculture):: In reply to the latter part of the question, Mr. Speaker, the answer is no. I have had a decision of the justice department that it is within the powers of the stabilization board and the government under the act as it stands to introduce the type of deficiency payment support price which I have indicated would be done in the case of hogs and eggs.


Hazen Robert Argue: I would ask the minister how he can withdraw a part of the mandatory provision of this act, which was passed by parliament, as he intends to do.


Mr. Speaker:: Order. It has not been the practice of the house to ask legal opinions at this time, or to engage in argument about legal interpretations.


Paul Joseph James Martin: Mr. Speaker, may I ask a supplementary question. Did I understand the Minister of Agriculture to say that he had consulted, the law officers of the crown with regard to the course he had taken? When I say "law officers of the crown" what I mean is this. Did he consult the Minister of Justice or the deputy minister of justice?


Douglas Scott Harkness: Yes, Mr. Speaker; as I said, I have a written opinion from the deputy minister of justice in regard to this matter.



MARITIME COAL PRODUCTION ASSISTANCE ACT


[Stage Direction]
The house resumed, from Monday, July 6, consideration in committee of Bill No. C-68, to amend the Maritime Coal Production Assistance Act and to authorize certain amendments to the agreement made under that act with Dominion Coal Company, Limited-Mr. Comtois-Mr. Sevigny in the chair.
Clauses 4 and 5 agreed to.

On clause 6-1958, c. 36.
(Translation):
Mr. Dumas:: Mr. Chairman, we favour the amendment to section 6 of Bill C-8 tending to relieve the company of the obligation to make refunds during or in respect of the period commencing on the 1st day of July, 1957 and ending on the 31st day of December, 1962. This means, in fact, that the company will have up to June 30, 1963.
May I simply say that we hope that the companies concerned will realize that parliament is being very generous with them and that they will of their own accord, do whatever is necessary to accelerate their mechanization program.
(Text):


[Stage Direction]
Clause agreed to.
Title agreed to.
Bill reported, read the third time and passed.


Douglas Scott Harkness: the second reading of Bill No. C-66, to provide for contributions and loans to the provinces in respect of crop insurance.
He said: When this bill was at the resolution stage, a good deal of the opposition comment on it was to the effect that it should be referred for study to a committee of the house or to a federal-provincial conference. Over a period of many years crop insurance has been studied by various governments, commissions, committees and other bodies of individuals. Nearly all these stressed the need for crop insurance, though few indicated the kind of program which should be implemented. A further study would not produce any greater practical results, in my opinion, and of course would certainly delay passage of this bill and make it impossible for the bill to be put through at this session of parliament.
Some question was raised by the hon. member for Essex East as to whether there was any necessity to put the bill through at this session. This matter of crop insurance has been hanging fire for some 20-odd years, and it is a fact that at least one province has indicated that it wants at the session of the provincial legislature which is now going on to put through a crop insurance bill. Therefore I think there is necessity and urgency to get this bill through this session.
Actually, Mr. Speaker, I think what is needed as far as crop insurance is concerned is some definite experience. There have been, as I have said, numerous studies, but 66968-9-354
Proposed Crop Insurance we in Canada have no actual experience as far as crop insurance is concerned. I think what is essential is a certain amount of experience in connection with the matter, and then a further study on the basis of that experience with perhaps subsequent changes in the plan as the result of the experience we obtain. But in the meantime I think it is essential to get the bill passed by the house, and an opportunity will be created to put actual schemes of insurance into effect.
Another criticism which was made by hon. members of the opposition and by some people outside the house is that the dominion government should pay a higher percentage of the premiums, a greater percentage of the cost of crop insurance. In that connection the hon. member for Essex East, according to a newspaper report in the Leader Post of June 30, had this to say:
On the premium shares, Mr. Martin did not see how the individual farmers could be expected to bear any more than 40 per cent of the premium cost.
Apparently he is taking the position that the dominion government and the provincial government should pay 60 per cent of the cost, I would like to compare that statement with the opinion of the most important Liberal newspaper in western Canada, the Winnipeg Free Press. They wrote an editorial in connection with crop insurance on July 2, and in this editorial they said:
There can be little quarrel with the idea of the senior government acting as a guarantor against the crop insurance fund of any province being broken by abnormally heavy drains.
They were talking about the loan provision in the bill, of course. The article goes on:
But the wisdom of the federal government being more involved financially is open to question. Certainly the payment of half of the administration costs and one-fifth of premium costs will be interpreted by many people as another government handout to the farmer.
The Winnipeg Free Press knows a great deal more about agriculture, I think, than the hon. member for Essex East, with all respect to him. In other words they think we are paying too much in the proposal we are putting forward of 50 per cent of the administration costs and 20 per cent of the premiums, rather than paying far too little, as the hon. member for Essex East and other hon. members have indicated.
In connection with the general question of the premium rate, we do not know what the premium rates will be in the various provinces. That is up to them to decide, and of course they will be quite variable from province to province and from one area of a province to another area of a province. The Saskatchewan royal commission which investigated crop insurance did make a considerable number of calculations, and for a

Proposed Crop Insurance coverage of 60 per cent, with indemnities paid on the basis of individual farmers, they indicated that the premium rate would be 7.3 per cent on the average yield in the low risk Regina area, 11 per cent in the medium risk Hanley-Davidson area, and 12.8 per cent in the high risk Swift Current-Shaunavon region.
I should point out that the dominion government will be paying 20 per cent of this premium cost under the provisions of this bill; but when you compare what will be the cost of this all-risk insurance to farmers with what it is presently costing them for hail insurance alone, it gives a very favourable picture. Hail insurance rates, of course, vary considerably from one area to another. As far as my own farming operations are concerned I pay 14 per cent; that is the premium rate as far as hail insurance is concerned. Other areas in Alberta go up, I believe, to as high as 16 per cent and go down, I think, to a low of 8 per cent. In any event, in the whole area around Calgary and quite a considerable area of Alberta the rates range anywhere from 10 to 16 per cent.
This scheme envisages premiums which are considerably less than farmers are paying at this time for hail insurance only, and this is insurance covering all risks. Certainly it is a little difficult for me to understand the complaints that the premiums are going to be too high. A very large number of farmers at the present time are paying hail insurance premiums which are considerably higher than these premiums to get coverage against one risk only, and they are not to my knowledge making too much complaint about it.


Hazen Robert Argue: Might I ask the minister a question at this point? Has he any figures which would show in any given year the percentage of farmers who in fact have hail insurance? Is it not a very small percentage?


Douglas Scott Harkness: I have not those figures,
Mr. Speaker. In some areas the number of farmers who take out hail insurance is quite high; in other areas it is quite low. Nevertheless, a considerable number of people do take out hail insurance. The Alberta hail insurance board, which is an emanation of the provincial government there, handles quite a big volume of hail insurance. So much for the matter of the possible size of the premiums, which as I say is only guesswork. Anything in connection with the size of the premiums is very largely guesswork. All we have to go on in that regard are the calculations made on the basis of what long term yields have been in various parts of various provinces.
Another criticism which was made, particularly by the hon. member for Kenora-Rainy


River as well as by the hon. member for Assiniboia, was that no province would be prepared to come into this scheme. The hon. member for Kenora-Rainy River said it was mere window dressing, that no province would come into it, and so on. Mr. Speaker, all I can say in that connection is that the province of Manitoba has already indicated that it will come into the scheme. In a news item in the Winnipeg Free Press of June 30 the following statement appears:
The Manitoba government will "definitely go ahead'' with its proposed crop insurance program now that the federal government's offer has been made public, Hon. Errick Willis, acting agriculture minister, said Tuesday.
At the same time Premier Duff Roblin said he had not yet examined the federal legislation and he did not know how the Ottawa proposals would "harmonize" with the provincial plan.
Mr. Willis said the government has still to examine the federal legislation but "from what I've seen in the paper it would appear to be satisfactory."
Mr. Speaker, that is an immediate refutation of the contention made by hon. members opposite that the provinces would not be prepared to go ahead with this plan.


Paul Joseph James Martin: Manitoba was
going ahead with it anyhow.


Douglas Scott Harkness: Yes, they had announced
that they would go ahead with the crop insurance plan. But every province has known ever since the start of this session that we were going to introduce a crop insurance plan, and they also knew there would be assistance as far as their own crop insurance plans were concerned from legislation which we would pass. Of course they made those statements that they were going to introduce crop insurance plans because they knew we were going to do so; it had been announced in the speech from the throne.


Hazen Robert Argue: Did the minister have any consultations with Mr. Willis or any other minister of the Manitoba government?


Douglas Scott Harkness: Yes, I have had some discussions with Hon. Errick Willis in connection with the whole matter of crop insurance.


Hazen Robert Argue: And he agreed with your plan?


Douglas Scott Harkness: I did not put the plan up in detail. As I said before, we had several discussions on the cost, the means of implementing it and so on.


Hazen Robert Argue: Did the minister have similar conversations with other ministers of provincial governments, for instance in Saskatchewan?


Douglas Scott Harkness: Not since the last dominion-provincial conference.


Hazen Robert Argue: No discussions on this program at all?


Douglas Scott Harkness: No. So much for that point. As a matter of fact I have a press release here in which the minister of agriculture for Prince Edward Island says he does not believe the island farmers would be interested in a federal crop insurance plan. He goes on to say, however, that if sufficient numbers show an interest in the scheme the provincial department will be willing to develop plans to meet the need.


Mr. Benidickson:: Was that within the last week?


Douglas Scott Harkness: Yes, it was in the Charlottetown Guardian of July 2, after this plan had been announced.
There is another point I should like to make. There has been a considerable amount of misrepresentation in connection with this crop insurance plan, and I refer particularly to an article which appeared in the Regina Leader Post of June 30 written by a Mr. Robert Moon, who is in the press gallery here. This article is headed "Prairie Farm Assistance Cancelled" and it begins:
Ottawa-Cancellation of the prairie farm assistance emerged as the surprise package in the new federal government crop insurance proposals announced Monday afternoon in the Commons.
This is, of course, completely incorrect. I am sure this article must have given a great deal of concern which should not have been given to farmers in western Canada, particularly in Saskatchewan. The Prairie Farm Assistance Act has not been cancelled, there is no intention of it being cancelled, and I made that abundantly clear when we were at the resolution stage. How anybody who listened to or read that debate could have written an article of this kind I find it difficult to understand.


Hazen Robert Argue: You just cancelled the benefits.


Douglas Scott Harkness: I have found in the past that Mr. Moon has had great difficulty in understanding much of this farm legislation, but I find it extraordinarily difficult to comprehend how he could have written an article of that kind in view of the fact that I made it perfectly clear that the Prairie Farm Assistance Act was being continued and that any farmer who wished to continue to receive the benefits of that act would be able to do so.
Those are a few points on which I thought I should comment. The need and desirability of crop insurance are indicated by the large number of representations which have been made. Representations for crop insurance have been made by provinces, farm organizations, and associations of rural municipalities. Nearly all of these called for crop insurance schemes involving federal-provincial cooperation.
66968-9-354J
Proposed Crop Insurance
Many members are familiar with the extreme variations in crop yields throughout the country and with the difficulties that crop failures impose on farmers, on communities and on the nation. Weather hazards including drought, excessive moisture, frost and hail have caused most of the damage. Other factors such as insects and disease have taken their toll. In looking at the yields of various crops across the country it is found that yields are frequently less than one haif of the long term average yield. Between 1921 and 1956 in Manitoba, seven of 14 crop districts have had wheat yields below 50 per cent of the average. One crop district had four such years. In Saskatchewan all crop districts have had wheat yields below 50 per cent of the average during this period, and one crop district had 10 such years. In Alberta 11 of the 16 crop districts have had wheat yields below 50 per cent of the long term average. One crop district had seven such years, another six and another five. The variation in oats and barley yields in the prairie provinces has been somewhat similar. In addition, many individual farmers have had crop failures when the average yield for the crop district has been high. Another indication of the frequency of crop failure in the prairie provinces is the number of awards made under the Prairie Farm Assistance Act. More than one million awards to farmers have been made since the program was started in 1939.
In British Columbia, although yield records for such a long period were not available, there have also been crop failures. The main crops experiencing failure were apples, cherries and peaches. In eastern Canada the variations in crop yields are less than in the prairie provinces but farmers occasionally experienced failures in crops such as tobacco, soybeans, sugar beets, apples and potatoes.
Crop failures are disastrous to farmers and their families because they find it difficult, if not impossible, to maintain a reasonable level of living until they are able to harvest the next crop. Also, farmers are not able to carry on their farming operations in an efficient manner if they have not the means to do so. Crop failures are felt in the community because business activity declines. Crop failures have their effect on the nation, too, since the demand for farm equipment and supplies declines with the resultant effect upon employment, business and trade. It is therefore considered to be in the interests of the nation as well as in the interests of farmers that crop insurance schemes be implemented.
The present insurance facilities are limited. The main program which provides assistance in the event of crop failures is the Prairie
5586	HOUSE OF
Proposed Crop Insurance Farm Assistance Act. Under this program payments of up to $2 per acre-$4 on one-half of the cultivated acreage-are made to farmers in areas of crop failure. The maximum payment to a farmer is $800. About one half of the funds paid to farmers has been collected from farmers in the form of a 1 per cent levy on sales of grain. Although recent amendments have greatly improved the kind of assistance available under the Prairie Farm Assistance Act, it does not meet the needs of a national and comprehensive [DOT]crop insurance program.
The Prairie Farm Assistance Act was designed for the prairie provinces and primarily for grain production. Its provisions would not be applicable to other crops in other parts of the country. Also, the limited amount of assistance available under that scheme, the fact that it does not deal with individual cases of crop failure, and the fact that it has certain other inequities mean that it does not have the advantages of crop insurance schemes even in the prairie provinces.
The other main kind of insurance available to some farmers is hail insurance. Hail insurance is generally available in the prairie provinces and in some other parts of the country. Hail insurance, however, does not cover the crop losses experienced by farmers from many other causes.
There are several reasons why the present bill is a measure to assist provinces in operating crop insurance programs. Most representations have requested that the crop insurance scheme be one involving both the federal and provincial governments. Farmers in all provinces probably do not want crop insurance at this time. This act would permit each province to decide whether or not crop insurance would be offered to farmers in their own province. Provincial governments are in a better position to establish the kind of scheme which is best suited to the particular conditions existing in their own provinces. There is a wide variety of crops grown in the country, a wide variety of farming methods and differences of viewpoint as to the kind of insurance schemes which would be most effective. Provincial governments would be in a better position to assess these and to implement the kind of program best suited to those conditions.
Some people, some organizations, and perhaps some provinces consider that a crop insurance scheme has to be compulsory in order to be most effective. The federal government has not the authority to impose compulsory crop insurance schemes on farmers. For these reasons the bill provides for assistance to provinces which undertake to implement crop insurance programs.
[Mr. Harkness.l

The question of the amount and kind of assistance has received careful consideration. It is considered that some assistance is necessary in order to make a crop insurance program available to farmers. Up to the present time no assistance has been available and no provincial government nor any other agency has offered a comprehensive crop insurance program. In the United States assistance has been available to the extent of administration costs. After 20 years of operation only about 27 per cent of eligible wheat producers carry crop insurance. In order to encourage a more rapid participation, a greater amount of assistance than is offered under the United States program is proposed in this bill.
Mention might be made of the Unemployment Insurance Act which provides incomes to workers whose source of income has been cut off through circumstances beyond their control. It is in the interests of the workers, the community and the nation that workers have this income in periods when their ordinary source of income is cut off. The federal government makes a contribution to this program by way of paying administration costs and part of the premiums. Similarly in farming, when crops are lost through no fault of the farmer, and his income is lost, it is desirable to have some means of providing farmers with a source of income. As in the case of unemployment insurance it is considered appropriate that there should be federal contributions to the program. It is estimated that the contributions for crop insurance outlined in this bill would be about the same proportion of the total expenditure under the program as in the case of the unemployment insurance program.
This bill follows the principle adopted in the case of hospital insurance, where the federal government makes contributions to the cost of hospital services and leaves the administration of the program to the various provinces. The provinces are free to adapt the program to their own circumstances and desires. They are free to make financial contributions to the program or to charge the insured all of the premium and administration costs not paid by the federal government. In the case of the hospital insurance program each of the provinces pays a different amount from its consolidated revenue fund into the program. They are free to do the same in the crop insurance program.
One of the points emphasized in many studies of crop insurance in Canada and in

representations on the matter is that provincial governments do not have the financial resources required to back an insurance scheme in case of a severe crop failure or a series of crop failures. This problem is solved in the present bill by the federal government providing loans to provinces to meet indemnity commitments. Provinces would be required to provide all the amounts needed up to $200,000. On any amounts above $200,000 the federal government would loan 75 per cent. It is not unreasonable to consider that provinces could meet these commitments.
This bill calls for an agreement to be signed between the federal government and a provincial government which enters the scheme. The agreement would set out the provisions of the crop insurance scheme to be implemented. Among other things it would limit the insurance coverage to 60 per cent of the average yield in the area. Although the limit of coverage in the United States crop insurance plan is 75 per cent, most insurance coverage is less than this. The Saskatchewan royal commission study on crop insurance stated:
Coverage at 100 per cent-or even 75 per cent- of the long term average yield was found to require premiums above this level-
Ten per cent of the average yield is the level to which reference is made. I continue:
-for the majority of farms. It can be concluded, therefore, that crop insurance offering a high level of coverage is too costly to most Saskatchewan farmers.
The agreement provides, too, that any insurance scheme put into effect will, in so far as is possible to determine, be actuarially sound. Nothing could damage the cause of insurance more than to find, after the scheme had been in effect for a number of years, that the premium rates were inadequate.
Regarding the duration of the agreement, as far as the federal government is concerned the agreement stands for at least ten years. After the expiration of five years the federal government could if it wished terminate the agreement with five years' notice. It is not possible to indicate at this time the details of how crop insurance will work, since there are different ways in which various provinces might implement a crop insurance program. It may be helpful to show how a crop insurance scheme might work, and I underline the word "might".
We will take a hypothetical example, that of Mr. John Smith, farmer, at Simpson, Saskatchewan. This is in the central part of the province. If we assume he is an average
Proposed Crop Insurance farmer in rural municipality No. 281, he will have about 265 acres of wheat.


William Moore Benidickson: I am not acquainted with that particular point. The minister will be well aware that the Saskatchewan royal commission indicated that there were three main areas in Saskatchewan, the high risk area, the medium risk area and the moderate or low risk area. In which area is this particular point?


Douglas Scott Harkness: This point would be in the medium to low risk area. It think it is fairly typical.
In the spring Mr. Smith decides to insure his wheat and signs a contract with the provincial crop insurance agency. The long term (1925 to 1956) average yield in the municipality is about 14 bushels per acre. I think the hon. member for Assiniboia will agree that this is fairly typical. He can insure 60 per cent of this, that is 8.4 bushels per acre. If in the past years, 1925-1956, the farmer had the same crop yield experience as the average for the municipality, he would have collected crop insurance payments in 8 out of the 32 years. The range in payments for crop failure would have been from $170 to about $1,750. He would collect the $1,750 in a year like 1937 when there was virtually a complete crop failure. In a year like 1949 he would have collected nearly $1,500. Over the whole period he would have collected $5,600 in payments and would have paid about $4,500 in premiums. The federal government would have paid $1,100 in premiums on his behalf. The total premiums would have amounted to nearly 5 per cent of the average yield.
However, since even in years in which the average yield for the municipality is more than 60 per cent (or 8.4 bushels per acre) of the long term average yield, some farmers would have less than 60 per cent and would therefore collect insurance. The premiums and indemnities will, therefore, greatly exceed any calculation based on the average for the municipality. The Saskatchewan royal commission estimated that the premiums in this area would be about 11 per cent of the average yield.


William Moore Benidickson: What does that represent?


Douglas Scott Harkness: Eleven per cent would be the premium rate.


William Moore Benidickson: But it is 60 per cent of the average yield?


Douglas Scott Harkness: Sixty per cent is the maximum coverage. That is the coverage the Saskatchewan royal commission was talking about in its calculations also. If provincial governments decided to pay part of the

Proposed Crop Insurance premium costs the farmers' share would be reduced accordingly. In this example it was assumed that the administrative costs of the program were shared equally by the provincial and federal governments. Under this bill the provinces may, if they wish, collect from insured farmers an amount sufficient to cover 50 per cent of administration costs; that is, those administration costs not paid by the federal government.
Taking a particular year for example, say 1960, this farmer would be insured up to 8.4 bushels per acre on his wheat. It may turn out that he would harvest a crop of only 3 bushels per acre. He would receive the difference between the insured amount of 8.4 bushels and the actual yield of 3 bushels, in other words 5.4 bushels per acre. That is what he would be paid for. On 265 acres this would amount to 1,431 bushels which, at a price of $1.25 per bushel, would amount to nearly $1,800. This, of course, is higher than the $1,750 mentioned previously for the crop failure year of 1937 because the price of wheat was lower in 1937.
It is evident, therefore, that a crop insurance plan of this kind will provide farmers with a stability of income which they have never had before. Because this stability is there in bad years, their living standards will not suffer so drastically as in the past, and their investment in the farm business will be protected. Also, with this security, credit facilities will be more readily available. All these things will work to the good of the farmer, his community and the nation as a whole.


William Moore Benidickson: Mr. Speaker, as the minister indicated, when he said he would be brief at the resolution stage, he has given some more elucidation and detail as to the possible effects of this legislation. Like the minister, before dealing with some of the remarks I previously had in mind to make this morning, I should like to deal with one or two of the statements the minister made before he picked up his text and gave us his formal statement.
I found that his first remarks were most disappointing. I think it is absolutely necessary that a new principle of federal participation of this kind should receive committee study. I hope that in the course of the debate we shall be able to persuade the minister to alter what seems to be a decision he has made in this respect.
On this point I want to remind the minister that when the present Prime Minister was in opposition, and the Prairie Farm Assistance Act was under debate in 1957, he had this to say as reported at page 1473 of Hansard:

The question of crop insurance is one that requires a great deal of investigation. If one reads the report of the Saskatchewan commission on rural questions and the report of the Manitoba royal commission one has some idea of the immensity of the problem and all the difficulties inherent in introducing in our country legislation analogous to that in the United States. While I realize

This is appropriate to the situation we are in at the moment. I continue to quote the Prime Minister:
While I realize that this parliament is now rapidly approaching its end and it is only a matter of a few weeks before it will cease to exist, even now the committee on agriculture might be convened in order to hear representations, consider recommendations and come to a general decision on this very important matter.
I think this is very appropriate to the circumstances that are before us at the present time. I shall have more to say on the matter later on.
I felt also, when in the informal, off the cuff remarks of the minister he referred to hail insurance, with the possibility of premiums related to indemnity of the scale of 10 per cent to 16 per cent, that it was scarcely a proper analogy with respect to what we have before us now, which is an all-risk proposition. Naturally the premiums with respect to an all-risk policy would be considerably different from insuring for hail alone.


Douglas Scott Harkness: They would be much higher.


William Moore Benidickson: We think that on an allrisk basis they certainly would be higher.


Douglas Scott Harkness: My point is that the
premiums will be lower than the present hail insurance.


Hazen Robert Argue: That is a wild statement, and it is possible to prove it false.


William Moore Benidickson: In addition to that, the minister was unable to tell us just what proportion of farmers was actually insured against hail. It is very small indeed, and that is the difficulty before us with respect to crop insurance. If crop insurance is to be on a voluntary basis-and the minister indicates that that is his intention-


Douglas Scott Harkness: Excuse me; it is entirely up to the provinces. The provinces can make it compulsory or they can have it voluntary.


William Moore Benidickson: In any event, if this is on a voluntary basis-and the minister did make reference at the resolution stage to this being a voluntary scheme-the number of people who would subscribe, if rates go beyond the 10 per cent that the minister quoted from the Saskatchewan commission, is very few indeed and perhaps nobody. As the Saskatchewan report says on page 98, no one would likely take crop insurance on a voluntary basis

if the premium rate in relation to indemnities which might be paid would be something over 10 per cent.
The minister also made reference to the proposal he has before us and compared it with the present crop insurance scheme in the United States. He did not tell the whole story. He indicated that this was a more generous scheme than that. Unlike the United States, this proposal contemplates a federal contribution of 20 per cent to the premium itself, but in the United States 100 per cent of the administrative costs which, in relation to premiums and indemnities is calculated to be 25 per cent, is paid by the United States federal government. They pay it all.


Douglas Scott Harkness: No, they do not.


William Moore Benidickson: Well, I shall certainly be able to quote to the minister from both the Manitoba royal commission and the Saskatchewan royal commission that that is so.


Douglas Scott Harkness: I recommend that the hon. member read the United States act.


William Moore Benidickson: As the minister says, we have had experts study this problem in western Canada on several occasions. The minister says their study was so thorough and adequate he does not think we as a parliamentary group should even have another look at it. These people felt that 100 per cent of the administrative costs were paid by the federal government of the United States.


Douglas Scott Harkness: That may have been the case when some of the studies the hon. member is referring to were made, but it is not the case now.


William Moore Benidickson: Well, the minister may be able to give me details as to what has happened since. As recently as 1956 we had a report of a royal commission. But in addition to that-and this is what I am concerned about in the minister's proposals-the United States government, while it wanted the plan to be self-supporting, as the minister indicates he wants this plan to be-actuarially sound, he says-did something that has not been done here, at least not in the bill, and I think it gives us all grave concern. That is the fact that no reserve fund is being established. Before the scheme was launched in the United States the federal government provided $100 million in capital. Eighty-two per cent of that capital has actually been used. On a long term basis it is quite possible, however sound the scheme may be, that one would have a situation in the early years where the premiums were not adequate to meet the liabilities under the insurance plan. So 82 per cent of $100 million had been contributed by the federal government in the United
Proposed Crop Insurance States up to the time covered in the report of the Saskatchewan royal commission, and nothing of that nature is provided here.
That is one of the things that I think discourage the provinces from embarking on this kind of risk. There is no question in any section of the house, I believe, about the desirability and need for a good, sound crop insurance scheme. I do not think the need has been worded in any better terms than in the opening phrases of the report of the Manitoba commission, made in 1955. With relation to the economic problem the commission said:
Risk and uncertainty characterize the farm economy. The relationship between farm prices and farm costs varies widely and, at the present time, the trend of these two factors would appear to be placing farmers in an increasingly disadvantageous position. ... A conjunction of low yields and low prices, such as occurred in the 30's, places an individual farmer in a position in which he is unable to contend with the physical and economic factors affecting his business.
I also think the farmers' union of Manitoba put the problem in excellent form. I quote from a report of their annual meeting in January, 1957, as follows:
The Manitoba farmers' union said that the cost-price squeeze on the average farmer, combined with the natural hazards of crop production such as frost, hail, drought and insects, make it imperative that a comprehensive crop insurance program be instituted without delay. The brief urged against establishing a preliminary insurance program in a test area-
Although that was the recommendation of the Saskatchewan commission.
-"because this would only delay for several years the ultimate objective." It said a test area would not be a proper guide unless it were big enough "and we respectfully suggest the whole province would not be too large."
I think that is important, too. The minister has not helped us very much, having regard to the debate we had at the resolution stage on June 29, by reporting to us anything concrete from the provinces. He indicated that there had been general discussion with the provinces at several conferences, but it seemed that this matter was certainly on the sidelines of the agendas of those conferences. He said he felt that it would be an affront to parliament if he had indicated to the provinces the broad terms he had in mind with respect to crop insurance prior to informing the house.
I certainly do not think that is a valid argument when the initiation of the scheme depends entirely upon provincial interest and eagerness, and it seems to me that to bring in a proposal which the minister says has not been discussed with the provinces, even though their backing is of the essence, makes this a very vague, indefinite and worrying proposition indeed.

Proposed Crop Insurance
I also noted quite a difference in the minister's evaluation of this bill as compared with another bill he introduced on the same day having to do with farm credit legislation. He described the latter as one of the most important bills ever to come before the Canadian parliament. He made no such statement with respect to this bill, and that impresses me with the suggestion we have advanced, that perhaps few if any of our provincial governments are likely to find this proposition adequate. When I use the word "adequate" I think that perhaps represents the difference between the policy of the government and that of the Liberal party which was announced at their national convention in January, 1958. The phrase, "adequate financial support from the federal government" was the key part of the Liberal resolution. It was indicated that the Liberal party did support a crop insurance scheme in co-operation with the provinces, and it was also advocated that P.F.A.A. be extended nationally. But the bill means nothing if its terms are not sufficiently attractive to bring in on a national basis not only a comprehensive scheme but most of the provinces of Canada, and I still have very grave doubts that the terms of the bill will be very encouraging to the provinces in this respect.
The minister indicated that there had already been some suggestion that even during this session the province of Manitoba might accept the proposition and introduce a bill. I have very grave doubts about that. I think that was a pretty quick reply. The provincial minister of agriculture actually admitted in the interview that he had not read the bill. But I base my suggestion that they will have a second look at the matter on some of the warnings that were given to the province by the provincial royal commission in 1955. I should like to read a few excerpts which I think will indicate to the house that no government would incur the kind of risks involved in crop insurance without a pretty thorough rather than a casual appreciation of what is involved. On page 76 of the Manitoba commission report I find the following:
A member of the Manitoba crop insurance commission interviewed the manager and other top executives of the F.C.I.C. in Washington, D.C., during the course of this investigation. It was found that these people were unanimous in the view that an area the size of Manitoba, which grows predominantly small grains, subject to similar hazards, would run grave risks in establishing a crop insurance program. They felt there would be a dangerous geographic and crop variety concentration of risks. "No one area can stand alone"-
Another person interviewed in the United States organization is quoted as saying:
In my judgment it would be foolhardy for Manitoba to set up a crop insurance program alone.

There should, theoretically, be some prospect of making it work if all of Canada was in it, but in a state or province there simply would not be enough spreading of risks.
In addition, in the conclusions of the Manitoba royal commission found on page 83 of their report we find the following:
It is not realistic to suppose that a crop insurance program started in a period of good crop years, and limited to Manitoba, would build up the needed reserves. Experience with the United States program has demonstrated that even in periods of high average yield, in small grains areas, heavy indemnity demands are made against the assets of a program. The constant drain against premium assets in an all-risk program successfully frustrates the building up of the enormous reserves in good years that would be required to carry a program over a period of low yield years.
Crop insurance modelled on the F.C.I.C. program (the only operating crop insurance program on the continent) instituted and underwritten by the farmers and government of the province of Manitoba, will not resolve the problem of the instability of farm income. In the event of a series of crop experiences such as have previously occurred in this province, there is no apparently available body of assets or resources substantial enough to maintain a crop insurance program, either voluntary or compulsory, in a solvent state.
I think the minister of agriculture in Manitoba and the provincial treasurer, who is himself the premier, will have a fairly good look at this report. This theme that no one province could go it alone, that it must be on a national basis spreading the risk, is very prominent in all the royal commission reports in the prairie provinces. The Alberta report in 1935 said this:
The Alberta committee said that financial obligations involved and the difficulties of putting a satisfactory crop insurance scheme into operation were subsequently considered too great for any one province to undertake, and, accordingly, the matter was left in abeyance.
In Saskatchewan we had on June 29 a statement as to the need for federal-provincial responsibility, and that the ultimate risk in their view would have to be on the part of the federal government. Even our federal authorities under Mr. Hanson made a report some time ago. He stressed the fact that crop insurance was not practical without a substantial federal responsibility.
I am greatly disappointed, as I said, that the minister-momentarily, I hope-has fixed his mind against the possibility of having this new and important bill investigated by a committee of this house. I point out to him that this legislation runs contrary to the recommendations that were made to the cabinet when they met the major farm organizations in February of this year. The interprovincial farm union on February 16, 1959 said:
We hope that farm organizations will be given an opportunity to study and make recommendations on any proposed plan before it reaches the floor of the house.

It has reached the house but I am sure they would still want an opportunity to make their views known. I suggest to the minister that a refusal to hear these farm organizations and get their views after the terms of the bill are made known is inconsistent with the practice we have followed when major matters of this kind are introduced. For instance, I contrast this procedure with what was done with respect to farm credit legislation. The minister will recall that when amendments were made to the Canadian Farm Loan Act in 1956 we had before us representatives of all the major farm organizations. They were before the parliamentary committee. That procedure was followed again even with respect to minor amendments in 1958. In addition to that, in the case of farm credit we have all had extensive and recent briefs from these organizations. However, that is not true with respect to the matter of crop insurance. The Canadian Federation of Agriculture also met the members of the government early this year, on February 12, and this is what they said:
We heartily approve and endorse the government's intention to introduce a national program oi crop insurance. We believe that an all-risk plan should be made available involving federal and provincial government, as well as producer, participation.
But this is the point.
We further request that in setting up such schemes farm organizations be consulted.
I think it would be an extremely perilous policy to force through this important bill without taking the opportunity of hearing not only these organizations but some of the experts in the provinces, because the provinces are the key to the implementation of anything resulting from this legislation.
I think the Minister of Agriculture has been reasonably fair and modest in outlining the hopes and expectations entertained for this legislation, but I am quite confident that we obtained from the minister of northern affairs on June 29 a fairly good idea of what is going to be said across the land with respect to this untried and unfamiliar legislation. As reported at page 5235 of Hansard the minister of northern affairs said this was another promise made to the people and another promise kept. If this is not something that is going to be accepted by a substantial number of provinces, it is certainly an empty gesture indeed. I think we should know whether or not the terms in the bill are adequate to bring in a substantial number of the people to whom the minister referred.
I want just to read some of the comments that we are going to hear frequently and not only from the minister of northern affairs who is fairly good at making exaggerated 66968-9-353
Proposed Crop Insurance statements. This is the kind of comment we are going to hear. I am quoting from page 5235 of Hansard:
All the way through this report-
He was referring to the Saskatchewan report.
-you sense a great need of people living in a drought area for help in the form of an insurance scheme to guard against some of the risk due to weather. Those people who know something about farming in the dry land areas of the United States and Canada know the great hardships that were suffered by the people in the 30's when there was no such thing as a crop insurance program to provide some help. As a group of people in Canada we were forced to accept relief from the rest of the people of this country. That relief was given in a very generous and Christian fashion but it did something to many of our people that some of us will never forget. That is why there are many in the house today, not the least of whom is the Prime Minister, who led a group of us who said that if we ever had anything to do with running the affairs of the country we would make a tremendous effort to set up some scheme whereby the farmers of western Canada and any other area that needed help could have it on a self-supporting basis so that men's feelings and integrity would be left whole. Therefore this crop insurance legislation is to some of us the fulfilment of a dream long before us.
He emphasized the need of people in drought areas. Mr. Speaker, all the evidence before the royal commissions indicated that these particular people would be excluded from any crop insurance scheme if it was to be actuarially sound, something which the Minister of Agriculture has been emphasizing. I should just like to establish that point by one or two quotations. Let us look at recommendation No. 28 of the Saskatchewan report. They say that in two out of the three areas in Saskatchewan it is not expected that 60 per cent insurance could be provided at premium rates which the farmers could afford to pay. Therefore they would continue to depend on P.F.A.A., the legislation which, from the remarks of the minister of northern affairs, on a relief basis he says this bill will eliminate.


Mr. Hamilton (Qu'Appelle):: The P.F.A.A. will still be there.


William Moore Benidickson: Of course the P.F.A.A. will still be there, but my point is this. From reading this eloquence of the minister of northern affairs-which I am sure is typical of the speeches he is making in Saskatchewan -one would judge that a majority of the farmers in Saskatchewan are going to find this legislation more attractive than the P.F.A.A. The report itself says-


Francis Alvin George Hamilton: That is the actual case. The majority of farmers in
Saskatchewan want this.

Proposed Crop Insurance


William Moore Benidickson: The minister made that point. He quoted from the public hearings referred to in the Saskatchewan report. I assume the minister knows that certainly when there were public hearings, farmers said they would like to have a scheme of crop insurance, and both commissions reported that no representations from farmers indicated that they had any appreciation of the ratio of possible premiums to the benefits they would expect to receive to make an act worth while. In both reports it is very clear indeed that while there was wishful thinking, those interviewed in the public hearings certainly confessed that they could not afford the rates which, if this scheme is to be actuarially sound, would have to be favoured.
I was pleased to read that with respect to insuring wheat alone the record and the experience in the United States had been encouraging. In the United States, according to page 94 of the Saskatchewan commission report, from 1948 through the disastrous wheat year of 1954 the wheat insurance program showed a modest deficit of $4.6 million. During this period nearly $82 million was paid to farmers in the form of wheat indemnities. Nearly all of this, $77 million, was contributed by wheat farmers in the form of premiums. In 1952 the average insured wheat farmer was afforded protection of $15.07 per acre at a cost of $1.25 an acre. This was an average premium cost of less than 7 per cent of coverage. But the point is, as the Minister of Agriculture himself said, that only about 27 per cent or 29 per cent of wheat growers in the United States actually are insured. In Saskatchewan one would judge from reading the commission's report that the premiums would likely be so high that certainly in two of the three major districts where they propose to have a pilot scheme they would find they would have to rely on P.F.A.A. rather than pay the rates which would be necessary if we were to have an actuarially sound system.
Page 16 of the Manitoba report makes reference to possible premiums:
Perhaps one of the most valuable contributions made by those attending the hearings was the indication, that they were able to give, as to how far they, as farmers, would be prepared to go in the payment of premiums to secure what they would consider adequate protection. Although most indicated their desire to have the program self-supporting, with the exception of administrative costs, it soon became evident to the commission that there was little realization of the over-all costs and hazards which would be inextricably bound into any crop insurance program, and that there was a widespread tendency to think in terms of premiums and coverage that would prove, over an extended period of time, to be precariously out of balance in terms of a workable program.


The Saskatchewan commission came to exactly the same conclusion.
I mentioned the other day that it seems from the United States experience that with a voluntary scheme coverage is not very impressive. The Manitoba report at page 41 indicates the scope of effective insurance that has developed down there; and as of 1954, the date indicated in the Manitoba report of 1955, it is said that only one third of a million of producers out of 5.3 million farmers in the United States were insured. In addition they reported that out of a farm crop value of $15 billion, only $400 million was insured. So even there, with a scheme which has been in effect for 20 years, we still have pretty small participation.
I have already made some reference to the claim of the Minister of Agriculture that this is a generous and likely to be an attractive scheme. I do not think that is the case. The commission certainly was very concerned about the ultimate responsibility, notwithstanding that in the end over a long period of time the scheme was supposed to be self-supporting. In the Manitoba report there is the indication that while crop insurance in the United States with respect to wheat was only available from 1939 on, they made a rough calculation, such as the minister did, going back to 1926 and said they had used what they thought a fairly safe premium rate, but when they analysed the likely results over a long period of time from 1926 to 1954 it indicated that in one state alone, the state of North Dakota, the loss would be $100 million. This is the thing which is frightening to the provinces, and I do not think the minister's proposals in this bill are adequate to induce these provinces to get into the scheme, desirable though we all agree it is.
My main point is this. The minister is making a contribution of 50 per cent to administrative expenses. Those are entirely borne by the federal government in the United States. The real contingent liability that he speaks of as being generous and onerous is a loan. If there is disaster the loan eventually has to be paid. In addition, the minister is unilaterally taking upon himself the decision as to what is or what is not actuarially sound. In other words he is in control of the premium rates, and he will not contribute unless he and his advisers are satisfied that over a long period of time it is likely to be actuarially sound.
If he has control of the soundness of the scheme I suggest, Mr. Speaker, that instead of a loan of 75 per cent the federal government, being in the driver's seat on rates, should not make a loan leaving this heavy contingent liability on the provinces to scare

them off acceptance of a scheme of this kind, but rather should assume this liability because they actually are the ones who decide the terms of payment by the producers. That is established, of course, in clause 5 of the bill, where the governor in council has full jurisdiction with respect to this matter of actuarial soundness.
If that is so I do not think the scheme will be very workable or very acceptable to the provinces if they are obliged to repay this substantial risk, without any proviso that it will only have to be paid back if there is some failure or some lack of wisdom on their part in setting up the matter. But the real essence is the actuarial soundness. If the minister is satisfied that it is actuarially sound on a long term basis, I say that it should not be a loan, it should be a guarantee. On that basis we might get the kind of national participation for which one would hope if a scheme of this kind is to be worth while.


Hazen Robert Argue: Mr. Speaker, I think the legislation before the house and the method by which it has been introduced can be very strongly and severely criticized. This legislation has been introduced, in the words of the Minister of Agriculture, without discussion with the provinces, without prior consultation and without agreeing to the request of certain provinces that this whole matter should be considered at a formal federal-provincial conference.


Douglas Scott Harkness: What provinces are those?


Hazen Robert Argue: Saskatchewan asked for it.


Douglas Scott Harkness: That is the only one.


Hazen Robert Argue: That is a very interesting comment from the Minister of Agriculture, because I have had on the order paper since June 1, I believe, a motion asking for the production of correspondence with the provinces with reference to the introduction of a crop insurance plan. The minister has failed to produce that correspondence in more than a month, yet in reference to a statement I have made, namely that at least one province has asked for this, he is giving us this bit by bit information which should have been included in the tabling of that return.


Douglas Scott Harkness: If the hon. member will permit, the minister of agriculture for Saskatchewan asked for this at the last dominion-provincial meeting we had, and he has asked for such conferences on every conceivable agricultural subject at every one of those meetings.


Hazen Robert Argue: And, of course, this has been asked by representatives of the farm organizations. The hon. member for Kenora-Rainy River stated a few moments ago, and read 66968-9-355J
Proposed Crop Insurance quotations in support of his statement, that such a study and such a meeting had been requested by the Canadian Federation of Agriculture and by other farm organizations. I have in my hand an excerpt from the Moose Jaw Times-Herald of July 6, which reads:
Saskatoon (CP)-The new crop insurance legislation introduced by agriculture minister Harkness should go to the agricultural committee of the commons, says A. P. Gleave, chairman of the interprovincial farm union council.
"I wrote Mr. Harkness twice asking him to refer the bill to the committee, because farm unions and other organizations should have an opportunity to present their views and any recommendations they may have regarding the new legislation," Mr. Gleave said today in a statement.
Although he has had no opportunity yet to study the bill, Mr. Gleave said it appears that under the new act the federal government may actually contribute less to the over-all costs of crop insurance than it did under the Prairie Farm Assistance Act.
"It is a mistake to rush so important a piece of legislation through the dying hours of the session of parliament," he added.
The Minister of Agriculture has told us that he has had this matter under study for two years-that officials in his department had been studying it for two years- and although the federal government's contribution by way of premiums constitutes only 20 per cent, and the amount of contributions by the provinces and/or the farmers is 80 per cent, the government fails to discuss its general proposals with the provinces.
I think this is an instance in which the federal government is apparently endeavouring to promote the worst kind of federal-provincial relations. I cannot express too strongly my feeling that the government has made a very serious and very grave mistake in the method by which it has introduced this legislation. The provincial treasurer of the province of Saskatchewan has called it, according to a statement in last night's Citizen, "one of the greatest insults ever inflicted on provincial governments by the federal government within my memory." There have been further comments by the provincial treasurer of Saskatchewan to which I shall make reference after the lunch hour.
Mr. Speaker, I understand that the federal-provincial conference is drawing to a close, that the provincial treasurers are likely to meet this fall, probably in October, and that it is anticipated that from this meeting there will flow a dominion-provincial conference with all the provincial premiers in attendance; a formal conference at an early date, perhaps during the present year. I would suggest that this measure should be stood over, that it should be made part of the agenda of the federal-provincial conference which I understand is slated for October or later this year.

Proposed Crop Insurance This legislation could then be brought out into the open, the views of the premiers and provincial treasurers could be obtained, and we could have a discussion by the governments concerned which must implement this legislation.
The treasurer of the province of Saskatchewan has called this the greatest insult to the provinces in his memory. That is very strong language, the strongest language I can remember since the Prime Minister was on this side of the house castigating the former administration for failing to take the provinces into consultation before announcing government policy.
May I call it one o'clock?
At one o'clock the house took recess.


[Stage Direction]
AFTER RECESS

The house resumed at 2.30 p.m.
Hazen Robert Argue: Mr. Speaker, at one o'clock I was criticizing the government for not having a federal-provincial conference to deal with the whole question of crop insurance. To show how ridiculous has been the attitude of the government in failing to call such a conference, one needs only mention that there has been going on in this city for the last two days a federal-provincial conference at the provincial treasurers' level. This conference could easily have been extended to include ministers of agriculture. Those ministers of the various provinces could have come to Ottawa. The present conference could have been continued for some time longer in order to work out an agreed crop insurance scheme that would not have the defects of the present bill and that would have had the active and wholehearted co-operation of, I would think, at least the majority of the provinces because they had been consulted and their ideas sought.
This morning the Minister of Agriculture made some critical statements regarding Mr. Robert Moon of the press gallery. I notice that the minister quoted the Winnipeg Free Press. He said, "This is the best known Liberal newspaper in western Canada and I call it as my witness." He then made critical statements regarding a man in the press gallery who is the correspondent for two other well-known daily newspapers in western Canada that have been in the past and are today in general support of the Liberal party.
If one reads on in the article written by Mr. Robert Moon one finds some definition of how farmers under this bill will in fact become ineligible for prairie farm assistance.

Certainly the bombshell in this legislation is that any farmer who wishes to enrol in a crop insurance scheme automatically and by law has his right to obtain benefits under the Prairie Farm Assistance Act taken from him.


Douglas Scott Harkness: Would the hon. member permit a question? Is it not a fact that the Saskatchewan royal commission which dealt with crop insurance recommended that if a crop insurance scheme was put into effect, P.F.A.A. levies not be taken and P.F.A.A. payments not be made?


Hazen Robert Argue: That was based on the key recommendation of the commission, as I understand it, that a crop insurance scheme should in fact be a federal scheme in the main under which the federal government would accept the major responsibility. If the minister had brought in a measure that complied with the report of the royal commission of which he appears to be in such great support, he would have been accepting the major responsibility instead of endeavouring by this bill to unload the main financial responsibility on the provinces. Any argument as to the recommendations of the Saskatchewan royal commission falls to the ground as far as the minister's point of view is concerned because of the central fact that this government is not complying with the principal recommendation contained in that report.
I have referred to Mr. Robert Moon. Although I am not always in agreement with everything that is reported by him, I think in general Mr. Moon of the press gallery is a conscientious and accurate reporter. I have in my hand a report in the Saskatoon Star-Phoenix written by this gentleman, in which he makes reference to certain statements made by the provincial treasurer of Saskatchewan, Mr. C. M. Fines. Here is what is said in part:
During his presentation, Mr. Fines also made direct allusion to the recent federal crop insurance proposals when he said that too often the federal government when dealing with such programs had evolved them without consulting the provinces.
Mr. Fines' declarations on centralization were the strongest in this field by Saskatchewan in at least several years at federal-provincial fiscal meetings.
"To do this is to treat the provincial governments as though they were branch offices of the federal government," Mr. Fines said.
''There is a price which must be paid for effective federal-provincial relations and for the willing co-operation of the provincial governments in solving national problems; that price is to take the provinces into the confidence of the federal government even if to do so is to lose some of the political advantage which comes from unilateral action."
This is an example of the failure of the government to consult with the provinces.


Francis Alvin George Hamilton: Mr. Speaker,
may I ask the hon. gentleman a question. From what is he reading and from where did he get it?


Hazen Robert Argue: I notice the great interest of the Minister of Northern Affairs and National Resources. I am quoting from a press dispatch from the press gallery sent to the Saskatoon Star-Phoenix. While I have not checked with Mr. Fines as to whether or not he made these statements I would think, in spite of the great criticism of the Minister of Agriculture concerning this reporter, that the statements are in fact accurate and represent not only the opinion of Mr. Fines with respect to crop insurance but are an expression of a sound attitude toward federal-provincial relations.
There is another gentleman I should like to quote on the question of federal-provincial relations. I submit that is one of the key questions in the way the crop insurance measure has been handled; because if anything were designed by the federal government to impede federal-provincial relations, to put a gun to the head of the provinces and to act in an arbitrary, unilateral and highhanded manner, then this is indeed a classic example. I should like to quote from the Prime Minister in former days, from a statement he made in this house on July 24, 1956, as reported at page 6370 of Hansard:
I think it is fair to say that the attitude taken by the government at the last conference was an arbitrary one.
In that case there was a conference. I continue:
The government simply said, "These are the terms". No opportunity was given for amendment or for amelioration of any terms. The recipe for a division of taxation was as final as the laws of the Medes and Persians; and how similar that attitude was to the attitude of the government in this house, which is that power makes perfect anything they do. There was no opportunity for negotiation-
And how prophetic these words were in relation to this very bill.
-there was simply the attitude of a feudal lord bringing into being a modern feudalism and laying down the law to the vassals.
Well, this indeed is a very eloquent expression and description of precisely what this government has done and of its attitude in bringing in this legislation. There may have been clandestine discussions with the minister of agriculture of the province of Manitoba; but if the minister of agriculture of Manitoba was brought into some earlier discussions as far as crop insurance is concerned, then apparently he was the only one because there is no evidence that the government discussed
Proposed Crop Insurance these proposals, as it should have discussed them, with the provinces before presenting this detailed measure.
One of the great mistakes that is being made in this legislation is that the federal government has decided to pay only 20 per cent of the premium. In other words the federal government's financial obligation, apart from its share of the administration costs, is 20 per cent of the premium, while under prairie farm assistance legislation, which has been on the statute books of this country since 1939, the federal government's share in practice has been some 50 per cent.
The basis of the Prairie Farm Assistance Act is far different from the basis of this legislation. The Prairie Farm Assistance Act applies to three provinces. We in this group have advocated on many occasions that it should be extended to all provinces. It deals with specialized crop areas where crop failure is a hazard. We have advocated that its benefits should be extended to farmers in all provinces; but it is in fact an arrangement between the agricultural producers and the federal government, and without question it has worked for the benefit of the producers who have been allowed to benefit from it.
In the present legislation before the house the federal government, instead of providing for payment of anywhere near 50 per cent, is asking the provinces along with the producers to pay 80 per cent of the cost and the federal government to pay just 20 per cent.
This is not the whole story. Any provincial government coming into this scheme must bear in any given year, according to the legislation, the total losses that occur in that province. Although Saskatchewan is the agricultural province in western Canada, which has experienced the most widespread crop failures and has had paid to its producers the largest amounts, Saskatchewan has not been consulted in any way.
Let us look at the Prairie Farm Assistance Act report for the crop year 1957-58. Let us look back a few years. One finds that in 1954 payments were made to producers in the province of Saskatchewan totalling almost $22 million. If we had a crop insurance program that included the vast majority-which this one does not hope to do-of farmers within that province alone, if the amount of insurance went up to 60 per cent of the average yield then of course the provincial treasury of Saskatchewan could be called upon to pay perhaps $40 million or $50 million in benefits in a single year.
The federal government refuses to share the losses in any way, shape or form. All the federal government proposes to do in this
5596	HOUSE OF
Proposed Crop Insurance legislation is to provide loans to the provinces, and the loans that will be provided by the federal government would apparently carry an extremely high rate of interest. Therefore the federal government, instead of embarking upon an improved, far-reaching program to provide crop failure protection, or crop failure insurance, is endeavouring to transfer a part of the responsibility it has accepted in the past under prairie farm assistance to the provinces which are unable to accept it without risking their financial solvency, because of the great liability and the great charges that may occur under such a scheme.
This program, Mr. Speaker, is also wanting in that the plan is of little or no benefit to producers who suffer most from crop failure; it is of little or no benefit to producers who live in the high risk areas. As a matter of fact, under this program the government apparently has a desire to divide the farmers of Canada into two classes, namely those who live in high risk areas who cannot afford to come under the proposed scheme, and those who do not face the same type or the same degree of crop failure risks, farmers who operate the more productive land areas which can be covered by such a proposed plan.
How we have heard members opposite during the course of this session say they were interested in the small farmer; they were interested in the farmer with a low income; they were interested in the farmer whose production was not as high as that of some other farmers; they in fact were interested in the farmer who needed the greatest amount of consideration. Well, under this legislation farmers in areas facing the greatest degree of crop failure risk will not be able to obtain in any substantial measure whatever benefit or whatever protection may be provided.
On many occasions the minister has referred to the Saskatchewan royal commission report on crop insurance. If this legislation is designed according to the examples that are set forth in that royal commission report then it is going to create many of the problems that prairie farm assistance has been endeavouring to overcome for many years. For example, in the insurance proposal set forth it says there shall be a premium unit, there shall be crop delivery points, and that farmers within that area will pay the same premium. The Minister of Agriculture is sufficiently well acquainted with western Canada to know that from farm to farm productivity varies very substantially within an area where the farmers market their grain at a central delivery point; and to calculate premiums even on the basis of this type of


unit is less fair, I suggest, than the prairie farm assistance method of collecting 1 per cent of deliverable production as it goes to market.
I do not think that is as serious as the further provision in these examples having to do with an indemnity unit. If the minister wishes to correct my interpretation of these examples I will be very pleased if he will do so. But as I interpret the calculations in these examples the indemnity unit is the same area as the premium unit, and in order to ascertain the premium that would be required in this unit it is assumed that the indemnity is paid on the unit. We are all aware of the great criticism in the past when areas for payment under prairie farm assistance were substantially larger than they are now, and farmers complained that although they had a crop failure they were unable to get assistance while some of their neighbours who were in a unit where payment was made and who had a relatively good crop nevertheless obtained prairie farm assistance. If the indemnity unit is to be as it is set forth in these examples then payment will not be made on an individual basis at all.


Douglas Scott Harkness: I do not think the hon. member needs to go any further along that line. I think I made it quite clear that what is envisaged here is individual crop insurance, not on a unit basis nor an area basis.


Hazen Robert Argue: I understand that is the position of the minister, but I am referring to the examples set forth by the Saskatchewan royal commission on which their rates for premiums and indemnity are calculated and which have been used by the minister. What I am pointing out is that in these calculations they have not calculated payment on an individual basis but on an area basis. I accept the minister's statement, and may I say that I did not think differently; but I suggest this means that if in actual practice payments are made on an individual basis, then the premium required to meet such payments will be higher than the premium set forth in the examples given in the Saskatchewan royal commission report.
The legislation before the house is very loosely worded. Under this legislation the government can-indeed, I take it the government intends to do so-make agreements with the provinces that are not in any general standard form at all but probably will differ very much in important aspects. The minister said in the course of the debate that in setting up the unit which would be covered under this legislation the government would require 25 per cent of the farm units within an insured unit to be covered under the legislation. I have looked through the bill

and nowhere do I find any reference to the 25 per cent. Although this is a major factor and one which restricts the coverage of the legislation, I find no mention of the 25 per cent in the legislation itself.


William Moore Benidickson: Government by order in council.


Hazen Robert Argue: This is another case of the government bringing in an omnibus, loosely worded, inexact bill under which the cabinet can discriminate, change its mind and if it wishes ignore the very important statement made by the Minister of Agriculture, namely that 25 per cent of the producers in an area must take out crop insurance in order for the area itself to be covered.
There is no question but that for agricultural producers in most parts of Canada some method of crop failure protection, crop failure assistance, crop insurance, if you wish, is required. The minister has quite rightly said that there has been a great deal of interest in the subject over the years and that many royal commissions have studied the problem, but I suggest that under proper government practice it is elementary to discuss with the provincial governments that will be involved in this kind of legislation the type of legislation with respect to which they would like to co-operate with the federal government in order to bring about benefits to the farmers.
Instead, the government has taken an arbitrary, high-handed attitude. It has taken the position that was criticized so many times by the former leader of the opposition, Hon. George Drew, as a take it or leave it attitude. I suggest that by its arbitrary action the government is bringing federal-provincial relations to the lowest state in which they have been in many years.
According to the announcement of the Minister of Agriculture the government is prepared, based on an opinion from the Department of Justice, to ignore the very precise sections of the Agricultural Stabilization Act. I would say that the announcement by the Minister of Agriculture this morning is an open declaration by the government that it is prepared to break its own law, that it is prepared to take away from agricultural producers the support prices that have been guaranteed to them.


Douglas Scott Harkness: Mr. Speaker, on a point of order, the hon. member is not discussing crop insurance in any shape or form. He is talking about the price support measure.


Hazen Robert Argue: Mr. Speaker, I am putting this forward as another example of how the government has changed, how the Conservative party has changed over the years.
Proposed Crop Insurance


Mr. MacLean (Winnipeg North Centre):: And
how ridiculous you are.


Hazen Robert Argue: Just a little over two years ago when they were on this side of the house they were the champions of the rights of parliament, the champions of federal-provincial relations on a consultative and co-operative basis. Now the government has taken an arbitrary, dictatorial attitude which, even if it was not designed to do so, will certainly result in a worsening of federal-provincial relations; and in the statement made by the minister this morning the government has shown a callous disregard of the very law of this country.


Mr. W. H. Jorgenson (Provencher):: Mr. Speaker, after listening to the last two members who have spoken on this subject I have only one observation to make. Perhaps it is not original but I think it is appropriate. Forgive them, Mr. Speaker, for they know not what they say. I should like to deal with the subject of crop insurance for a change, and I am sure that hon. members here today would like to have an opportunity to discuss the bill now before the house rather than to ramble on discussing provincial issues and attempting to lay the foundation for a provincial election.
In order to put the whole matter in its proper perspective I want to read from the report of the dominion-provincial economic conference of 1950, which dealt with the subject and made some recommendations with respect to crop insurance. The report goes on in introducing the subject-and it is the introduction that I want to read-to say this:
The application of crop insurance as an income-maintenance device introduces many complex implications. It can be made comparable to social security, unemployment insurance or calamity insurance, (flood, fires, etc.) depending on the objectives of particular crop insurance programs. Furthermore, it can be a partial application of each of these types of program (in terms of the proportion of income insured). It may assume, in its various garbs, the status of a self-supporting or subsidized program and participation can be voluntary or compulsory. All of these choices depend on primary objectives adopted and on an over-all conception of the functions and uses of crop insurance.
In this study the major assumption adopted is that crop insurance is a self-liquidating type of insurance based on sound actuarial data. As such, crop insurance is related directly to production rather than considerations of welfare or security. It should be designed to treat individual operators facing similar risks in a similar fashion without subsidizing inefficiency or penalizing efficiency. Welfare payments, where necessary, should be dealt with outside the scheme of crop insurance and should be treated as a social security scheme rather than related primarily to productivity.
Crop insurance has been a fairly lively issue in Canada for approximately two decades and particularly so in western Canada. Considerable

Proposed Crop Insurance effort has been spent from time to time in presenting arguments pro and con various proposals. In many cases crop insurance has been overemphasized as a solution to the very fundamental problem of instability in agriculture. It is essential that this too be seen in its proper perspective. Taken by itself, crop insurance is merely a device to take a portion of production which has taken place unevenly over a period of years and to return that part or premium in such a fashion that the producers' annual yields approach a figure which represents a long-term average annual production or some percentage of that production. It is necessary, therefore, that the average production represent a suitable level of income for the individual farmer. Unfortunately, there are many instances throughout Canada where even the guarantee of an annual production approximating a long-term average will not, in all cases, result in a satisfactory return. Paradoxically, these areas need insurance most but are least able to afford the premium rate necessary to pay for a proper level of insurance. Areas other than these have not as great a need for insurance but can, nevertheless, use it to advantage since it offers them cheap protection. These observations seem to indicate that a concerted attack on more fundamental factors will have to be made before crop insurance can be successfully applied in those areas which need stability most.
I might say that this report, as I stated before, was drawn up in 1950. Since this government has come to office it has dealt with those aspects of instability that it has been necessary to deal with in order to complement a crop insurance program and to ensure the success of crop insurance.
One of the main criticisms that have been levelled at the P.F.A.A. over the years has been the fact that some farmers who have made contributions to the scheme since 1939 have been unsuccessful in collecting indemnities or payments when they have suffered crop failures. In suggesting that we should continue with an expanded program of P.F.A.A., as the hon. member for As-siniboia has done, what is he actually contemplating? It seems to me that what he is saying is this, and I am sure he would not make an effort to sell this type of insurance to a householder or to a person interested in life insurance. What it actually means is that it is a type of insurance policy that says you will not collect a nickel's worth of insurance when your house burns down unless 18 of the houses on the same street burn down at the same time; or that your wife will not collect a nickel's worth of insurance when you die unless 18 of your neighbours die the same year. I am sure that he or anyone else would have difficulty in attempting to sell that type of insurance to a home owner or to a person who is interested in life insurance.
I have no criticism of the purpose of P.F.A.A. when it was first brought into being. It was enacted to deal with a situation that existed in the thirties, namely that of drought. In dealing with that particular situation,

where invariably you would have a wide area affected, it could conceivably cover most of the farmers in the areas stricken. However, the situation that has existed, particularly in the province of Manitoba, has been one of local failure where there has not been an opportunity for a farmer suffering local crop losses to participate in benefits or to receive payments under P.F.A.A.


William Moore Benidickson: Individual payments.


Warner Herbert Jorgenson: As a result they have been unable to receive any payments under P.F.A.A. These are the people who during the year 1954, when the Manitoba crop insurance commission were travelling throughout the province holding hearings and receiving briefs from farmers and farm organizations, made representations to the commission. I might say that of the 45 briefs that were presented-and not all of them were written -24 favoured a system of crop insurance, 5 were opposed to it and 8 gave qualified support. I think this is an indication of the interest in crop insurance in the province of Manitoba.
I also want to say that at page 14 of the report, in the second paragraph, this is stated:
It was evident, however, that farmers were anxious to stand on their own feet and to pay for their own protection. They were fearful of extensive indemnity claims in the first few years of any crop insurance program that might be adopted, and the feeling was that if a plan was safely launched and a reserve built up, barring a succession of crop disasters, crop insurance should function successfully in Manitoba.


William Moore Benidickson: Would the hon. member read the third paragraph on that page?


Warner Herbert Jorgenson: The third paragraph deals with the premiums that were suggested. It deals with questions raised by the commission as to what premium rates farmers might be prepared to pay under an insurance program. I do not intend to read it or to do other than to say that the farmers who made representation at that time, as indicated by the report, perhaps were not too fully aware themselves of what the premiums would be.
I think that is uderstandable. I do not think there is any criticism there. I recall that at that time I presented a brief myself and this question was asked me; and I shall state quite frankly that I was unable to say what I thought the premium rate in my own area would be. However, I think this is beside the point. What this bill is doing -and I think this is the important thing and that the point has been missed-or what this government is doing is providing an opportunity for a provincial government to draw up a program of crop insurance

suited to the particular needs of that province, and permitting the farmers in the area to make some contribution to the development of that program.
It has been stated by most of the commissions or bodies that have been studying this particular subject that one province attempting to go into a crop insurance program by itself would in all probability find itself in difficulties if it had a succession of failures in the early part of the program. Therefore the recommendations of the Manitoba commission, the Saskatchewan commission and of many of the reports that have been drawn up have been to the effect that the federal government must participate in this program. On no occasion has any of these commissions suggested that the federal government has to be in complete control of the development of the entire program.
What we are doing is simply providing financial assistance to the provinces in the event that they have crop failures in the initial stages of their program. In addition to this the government is paying 50 per cent of the administrative costs. The federal government is doing, in addition, something that has been suggested by no commission in connection with this program, in that the government is going to pay 20 per cent of the premiums of the farmers.
This is quite important. This suggestion has been criticized by the hon. member for Assiniboia. I have not been in this house too long, but those of us who have been here during the last two years know full well that it would not matter if the government paid 250 per cent of the premiums, the hon. member would still find something about which to complain.
I might say that I was in Manitoba just two weeks ago, and my attention has been called to the fact that the press gallery noted my absence on one particular night. At that time, in my particular part of the province, only 10 per cent of the land had been seeded because of flood conditions. The farmers arranged a series of meetings for me to attend, and at each of those meetings there was a considerable amount of interest in crop insurance. Although I was unable to give them details of the program at that time, I told them a crop insurance bill was being introduced and that it would be passed at this session.
They are anxious to have this bill put through this house. They are anxious that the provincial government in Manitoba develop a crop insurance program for that province so that next year, if the same situation exists in my constituency, they can be covered by a comprehensive crop insurance
Proposed Crop Insurance program. I did not find, amongst those farmers the attitude that was expressed by the hon. member for Assiniboia, that they are afraid to pay the premium rates. As indicated in this report of the Manitoba commission, the farmers are anxious to stand on their own feet. All they are looking for is an opportunity to take out a crop insurance policy so they can be protected from the hazards with which they are confronted from time to time.
Although we all know these things are not always perfect, I am satisfied that the bill is acceptable to the province of Manitoba. I am satisfied that as a result of this legislation we will have crop insurance in the province next year. I take a great deal of pleasure in participating, just briefly, in this debate. I should like to congratulate the minister upon bringing this measure forward and upon having the courage, despite all the procrastination that has occurred in connection with crop insurance over the years, to introduce a measure providing an opportunity for the provinces to develop programs suitable to the needs of their farmers. (Translation) :


Samuel Boulanger: Mr. Speaker, on the introduction of this bill, I feel it is my duty to make certain remarks and ask the Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Harkness), certain information which might throw additional light on a governmental project that will have fortunate or unfortunate consequences, both for the farmer and for the taxpayer.
First, I must say that we favour xne principle of crop insurance legislation, because the idea originated with the Liberal party, at its convention held in January 1958. The measure is the logical consequence of a farm policy cleverly planned when the fate of Canadian agriculture was in the hands of the Eight Hon. James Gardiner. Second, we favour that legislation, which we shall be called upon to approve, because we wish to protect the farmer against certain losses which he might incur on account of floods, hail or any other natural causes which could involve losses for him.
What is the scope of that legislation? It is very difficult to imagine it at this stage, because major changes to it might be introduced. So far, the statements made by the right hon. Prime Minister (Mr. Diefenbaker) look much more like election promises than statements of policy.
In fact, if we compare the statements made by the Prime Minister last year with the principle of the bill, we note that there is

Proposed Crop Insurance some confusion. The Prime Minister stated farmers in eastern Canada. Yet, eastern
in the house on August 30 last, as recorded on page 4346 of Hansard:
-the government is studying the problem in consultation with the provinces, and hopes, as a result of this study of this very complex and difficult problem, to introduce at the next session of parliament, legislation in co-operation with the provinces which are prepared to join, to provide for a comprehensive crop insurance program. It has been one of the demands of farmers in general throughout the years that something be done to protect them within reason against the uncertainties to which agriculture is subjected.
A little later, that is on September 6, 1958, when, naturally, the session was drawing to a close, and the right hon. Prime Minister wanted to leave a good impression on the minds of the farmers, he stated:
When the next session arrives we intend to introduce a measure for which the farmers have asked from the earliest days in western Canada, something which has also been requested by farmers in other parts of Canada, an insurance plan to bring about the assurance of at least a modicum of income, that degree of income which will not cost the farmer too much to assure himself of, and through which during the dark days of drought the farmer may be assured of at least a fair and reasonable rate of return. That is one of the things that came about under the Prairie Farm Assistance Act. That met the situation in the western provinces to a degree. That legislation was placed on the statute books as a result of the initiative of the Right Hon. J. G. Gardiner. It has been expanded, it has served a successful purpose and has been beneficial. Farmers generally are today asking for something further in that direction and it is because they are asking for that we intend to provide the opportunity at the next session of parliament of taking this further step.
If we compare the Prime Minister's statement with the contents of this bill, it is easy to infer that government policy with regard to crop insurance is not well defined.
As indicated in the explanatory note:
The purpose of this bill is to authorize contributions and loans out of the consolidated revenue fund in respect of the operation of provincial schemes for crop insurance.
In short, the result of that legislation will be that provinces, and the farmers who will wish to avail themselves of that program, will both share a burden which will be the consequence of a government having but a single purpose, that of shelving its election promises.
In the statement made this morning by the Minister of Agriculture, and in the one made recently by the Minister of Northern Affairs and National Resources (Mr. Hamilton), reference was made to western farmers' problems, and examples were given about wheat producers in western Canada. However, no reference was made to problems facing

farmers, like those in western Canada, are expecting much from this legislation. They will be disappointed if it is not properly amended. The main points of the bill may be summed up as follows:
1.	The federal government will pay half the administration costs of the act.
2.	The federal government will pay 20 per cent of premiums paid by farmers.
3.	The federal government will pay 75 per cent of the amount required for promised indemnities, minus $200,000.
Another point which it is important to emphasize under the circumstances, is that provinces are free to accept or reject the plan.
According to what the Minister of Agriculture said, quite a few provinces are not expected to share in this plan.
I want to quote the words of the Minister of Agriculture in this house, on July 22, 1958, which can be found on page 2537 of the official record. Answering a question asked by the hon. member for Essex East (Mr. Martin), who, as everybody knows, is very familiar with agriculture, the minister said at the time:
The hon. gentleman will recall that approximately two months ago a meeting was held in Ottawa of all provincial ministers of agriculture. One of the matters discussed at that meeting was the question of crop insurance. I might say that the result of that meeting has been to complicate the situation because a number of provinces expressed no interest whatever in a system of crop insurance. I might point out that some provinces were interested, others were lukewarm and others displayed no interest at all.
But what it means, as I think the hon. member is aware, is that in order to introduce an acceptable system of crop insurance it makes it very difficult to find a scheme which would be applicable in the various provinces to ensure that no province would have a complaint because too much money was being expended in another province, and so on. There is no doubt but that the extreme variability of climatic conditions across Canada makes the matter of a general dominionwide crop insurance scheme an extraordinarily difficult problem to solve. However, as I say, we are working on it in the department and I hope that in the near future we can introduce legislation in respect of a crop insurance scheme.
We recognize, as does the Minister of Agriculture, that a law in respect of crop insurance will be difficult to apply in the provinces where there is mixed farming and weather conditions are varied. Mr. Speaker, if this principle is good for western wheat producers, it should likewise be so for farmers in eastern Canada.

On previous occasions I have given in this house instances of losses suffered by eastern farmers. I might give fresh examples of losses very recently experienced in the neighbourhood of Quebec and Victoriaville. Two weeks ago, in the counties of Megantic, Compton and Arthabaska there were floods which destroyed part of the farmers' crops.
As some of my fellow members suggested when this legislation was discussed at the resolution stage, the bill implies so many things and contains so many riddles that we seriously doubt whether the provinces will accept it. As a matter of fact, the minister himself realizes the extent of his difficulties. That is why we urged that the matter, which everybody considers very serious, be submitted to the standing committee on agriculture and colonization.
Regardless of the study and recommendations which the committee would have been able to make after having heard the opinions of the various provinces, farmers' unions, or specialists in this field, the Minister of Agriculture chose to draw up the bill privately and to submit it to this house under an ingenious camouflage.
Indeed there are so many reservations in this bill that it might have been planned in such a way as to be unacceptable to the provinces, except the prairie provinces.
How many times did we not point out to the Minister of Agriculture that in several amendments to our agricultural statutes, the eastern provinces were being deliberately disregarded.
For instance, I am thinking of last year's amendments to the Prairie Farm Assistance Act.
At the time, I pleaded in favour of eastern farmers, I stated that just like farmers in other provinces, they were exposed to losses resulting from "the uncertainties to which .agriculture is subjected", to use the very words of the Prime Minister.
Even if the government is able to run the *country without the province of Quebec, as was stated by the Minister of Commerce (Mr. Churchill) and by the Minister of Northern Affairs and National Resources, Quebec farmers are placing their hopes and their trust on the fairness and understanding of the Minister of Agriculture, if not on his wisdom.
We would have been pleased to hear the minister comment on the opinions expressed by the provinces in connection with this bill. The only thing he saw fit to say is contained in a reply he made to the hon. member for
Proposed Crop Insurance Assiniboia (Mr. Argue) who had asked whether or not the provinces had been informed of his proposal.
The Minister of Agriculture's reply was evasive. He did not give the reply we would have expected. We know quite well that the provinces had not been informed of the costs they would have to bear under this scheme.
In view of the minister's attitude, there is little doubt that the federal government proposes to infringe upon the jurisdiction of the provinces by making them carry a burden that is too heavy for some of them.
The Minister of Agriculture also explained that a farmer who avails himself of this legislation will not qualify for help under the P.F.A.A. I cannot say what will be the reaction of western farmers when they are informed of the details of this legislation, but if I were one of them, I would be inclined to believe that the minister is trying to muddle up the situation by having two protection schemes, one more beneficial than the other, in a particular area, or vice versa.
In some cases, it will be in the farmer's interest to avail himself of the protection provided under the P.F.A.A., knowing that the premium will cost him only 1 per cent of the value of his crop, whereas under this act, the cost is much higher. And as the minister indicated this morning, the premium may possibly run from 7 to 16 per cent.
Of course, it is too soon to say-
(Text):


Douglas Scott Harkness: Mr. Speaker, I do not think the hon. member would wish to have on the record something I did not say and which is not correct. I did not say anything about the fact that the premiums might vary between 7 and 16 per cent. Those were the figures I used when talking about hail insurance premiums. Those figures have nothing to do with what the premiums may be under this plan.
(Translation):


Samuel Boulanger: This morning, the minister made comparisons purporting to show that insurance rates paid by western farmers to protect themselves against certain risks could vary from 8 to 16 per cent in the case of damages due to hail.
I presume that the Minister of Agriculture was satisfied to quote those figures, knowing that, by making comparisons, he meant that the crop insurance under study, at the rate of 8 to 16 per cent, would not be exaggerated. That is how we have understood his statement, Mr. Speaker.

Proposed Crop Insurance
Under the plan provided in the bill, the federal government provides for the payment of contributions and the grants of loans to provinces that set up their own crop insurance scheme. It is the same standard formula that is used when it is a question of distributing the economic and social responsibilities between provincial and federal governments. That method-one that is often referred to-is considered a socializing one in certain quarters. Besides, it requires, on the part of the governments, continuous supervision together with considerable expense and, furthermore, it interferes with farmers' freedom.
Would it not be wiser to try to find a new formula which would eliminate all those drawbacks?
Mr. Speaker, having given this matter a great deal of thought, the idea occurred to me of submitting an altogether personal plan that I would ask the minister to kindly take into consideration.
That plan is to have a crop insurance scheme managed by an organization that would represent a majority of the farmers of a province, whenever the province concerned would not feel it would be advantageous to follow that federal policy for reasons of autonomy or other reasons. In the province of Quebec we have important organizations which represent farm people quite well, just as there are such organizations in other provinces. One such organization which has acquired a great experience in the field of insurance and actuarial science, while constantly keeping in touch with farm people, is the "Assurance-Vie Desjardins".
This company has only ten years experience, yet it already has close to half a billion dollars of insurance in force.
Other organizations doing a good job of representing the agricultural class are: La Cooperative Federee, in the economic field, and the Union des Cultivateurs Catholiques, in the professional field.
Both organizations have several years of experience in the insurance field, and I have no doubt that if the government came up with a definite proposal, they would consider it.
The administration of a crop insurance scheme could not be more secure than in the hands of those organizations, because, better than any other organization, they are familiar with the needs of their members and they already have a trained staff and experience in various types of risks.
The minister will object that the government cannot invest funds in a service without having control over expenditures. I recognize that. However, would it not be possible, after having the matter thoroughly investigated by economists, trained actuaries and

the interested parties, to find a satisfactory formula? I for one am convinced it could be done.
Over the years, successive governments have yielded to popular pressure for the provision of various social and economic security services.
Nowadays, workers, farmers and manufacturers cannot do a thing without looking to the government for guidance or remedial action.
Farmers, in the past, have always been able to look after their own responsibilities, and I see no reason why we should not trust them to do the same in the matter of crop insurance.
We regret, however, that the minister has not seen fit to introduce this legislation earlier, so as to enable members, farm organizations, experts in this field, and also the provinces, to give it a thorough study and put forward some fair and considered suggestions.
We had every tool at our disposal to consider and draft this bill; the minister, however, has not seen fit to use them. As a result of the bitter reaction from western farm organizations particularly, the minister is apparently feeling twinges of remorse. I therefore urge him, before this develops into something chronic, to refer the bill back to the committee on agriculture and colonization.
(Text):


Mr. J. S. Speakman (Wetaskiwin):: Mr. Speaker, I should like to make a few remarks on second reading of this bill because of the criticism which has been levelled by members of both the Liberal party and the C.C.F. group. I have looked over this bill very carefully, coming as I do from a constituency which is solely agricultural, and in my opinion this is a good bill. It is not a perfect bill but it is a good one because it gives to the provinces a definite plan around which they may work out what the explanatory notes to the bill describe as "provincial schemes for crop insurance".
The hon. member for Kenora-Rainy River (Mr. Benidickson) referred us to the resolution passed at the convention of the Liberal party held in January, 1958. I should like to suggest that not only the farmers of Canada but all Canadians rejected promises after 22 years of complacency and inaction. He also referred to the inability of the farmers to pay the high premiums. How can we tell how high the premiums will be until the provincial schemes are worked out?
Both the hon. member for Kenora-Rainy River and the hon. member for Assiniboia (Mr. Argue) suggested that this bill should go to a committee for study. I should like to

suggest that this bill be put through and then studied because we will certainly be able to give it far more effective study if it is passed and the provinces have an opportunity to work out their own schemes around the biU.
The hon. member for Assiniboia was very critical in his remarks today as he was a year ago when this government amended the Prairie Farm Assistance Act. He said the amendments were totally inadequate. The amendments to the Prairie Farm Assistance Act reduced the size of the plot from 18 to 12 sections in any given township. Once the provinces have adopted it this crop insurance program will make compensation on an individual basis.
The hon. member for Assiniboia made lengthy reference to the fact that the province of Saskatchewan was not prepared to adopt this bill. The hon. member for Pro-vencher (Mr. Jorgenson) told us that the government of Manitoba is prepared to adopt it. I should like to quote from the Edmonton Journal of July 2, an article entitled "Province Prepared for Crop Insurance". It states in part:
The Alberta government already has legislative authority to participate in the federal-provincial crop insurance scheme outlined earlier this week by federal agriculture minister Douglas Harkness. Earlier this year the legislature passed a bill authorizing the province to enter into any farm insurance scheme introduced by the federal government. At the time agriculture minister L. C. Halmrast said the province wanted to be prepared to take advantage of the promised federal program.
The bill passed by this year's session of the legislature gives the Alberta minister of agriculture three-fold authority to enter into agreements with the federal government.
I would suggest, Mr. Speaker, that the government of the province of Alberta is prepared to accept this scheme, judging by what this article tells us.
Since I am referring to articles in the Edmonton Journal, Mr. Speaker, I should like to refer to some remarks made by the hon. member for Assiniboia during his visit to Alberta last month. The headline in the Edmonton Journal of June 13 reads:
Argue Raps Federal Tories; Terms
Them "Irresponsible"
The article goes on to say:
Mr. Argue rapped the 47 western Conservative members in the house. "We always wanted a large block to represent the west, now we have it all right-47 blocks, all in row".
He forgot to mention that there are 48 members. I presume the other member that he forgot to mention was the blockhead.


Mr. Reynold Rapp (Humboldi-Melforl):: Mr. Speaker, in rising to take part in this debate I should like to make a few remarks about
Proposed Crop Insurance the crop insurance plan. This is legislation that has been sought for a long time by farm organizations, by authorities on agriculture and by farmers. It is insurance against the loss of a crop. Here I would like to indicate how it will affect my district. My district of Humboldt-Melfort is one of the districts in which yields are much higher than they are in other districts of my province; consequently, we were never able to get prairie farm assistance, although we had many crop losses from such things as rust, hail, frost and floods. I know the farmers in my district will be very much pleased that finally we have legislation under which they can insure their crops against such hazards. This is not compulsory legislation, and therefore the people who benefit from the Prairie Farm Assistance Act can still receive benefits from the Prairie Farm Assistance Act.
This is new legislation, and as time goes on no doubt it may be found that new amendments will have to be introduced, or there may have to be other additions to the legislation. Nevertheless, it is legislation that will be beneficial not only to the ones who live in the southern districts of Saskatchewan where the yields are very low and who can benefit year after year from the Prairie Farm Assistance Act but it will finally give assistance to the people who are in districts where the production on a bushel basis is much higher than it is in other districts. I will endorse this legislation.


Herbert Wilfred Herridge: Mr. Speaker, I shall be the soul of brevity but I think somebody from British Columbia should speak on behalf of this group. I notice members opposite are beginning to check their watches. They will find that, as usual, I tell the truth.
Before proceeding with my few remarks I do want to compliment the hon. member for Drummond-Arthabaska (Mr. Boulanger) on what I thought was a very constructive speech in connection with this bill and to support his plea for every consideration and justice to the farmers of Quebec. It just so happens that I represent a similar type of farmer, farmers who are engaged in a similar type of mixed farming, and the fruit farmers who are carrying on in many cases under similar conditions. Therefore, I can well understand his approach to this question and I support his remarks and his plea to the minister in this respect.
I have read a good deal about crop insurance. I realize that it is a very complicated and difficult problem. This is illustrated by the fact that it has been considered by federal and provincial governments and by farm organizations over a good many years. It is

Proposed Crop Insurance because of the complications of crop insurance and the difficulties that I can well understand that action was delayed from year to year. However, I do want to make five points. I am not going to be repetitious.
First of all, I want to inform the house that crop insurance has been a plank in the C.C.F. agriculture program for many years. As a matter of fact, it is plank No. 3 at the present time. It reads as follows:
A system of crop insurance to protect farmers against crop failure due to conditions beyond their control.
This is supported by the C.C.F., and on that account we support the principle of crop insurance. I am very sorry that in legislation of this type which for its successful administration requires, in my opinion, the closest co-operation between the federal and provincial governments, the Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Harkness) has not had consultations with the ministers of agriculture of the provinces or representatives of those provinces. I think that is essential before there can be sucess in the administration of any legislation of this type. In my opinion the whole success of this legislation is founded on successful dominion-provincial co-operation in this very important matter.
I want also to protest the late introduction of the bill. This legislation was mentioned in the throne speech. I believe it would have been far better if this legislation had been introduced earlier in the session. To introduce it in the dying days of the session, in my opinion, is not good enough. I think this is a sound criticism and the minister knows that my criticisms are usually quite sound. If it had been presented earlier in the session and then sent to a committee-we are very sorry that the bill is not being sent to the agriculture committee-the members of the house could have studied the bill and given it further consideration and the representatives of farm organizations could have appeared before the committee and expressed their views of this very complicated and difficult piece of legislation.
Before the bill was finally drafted and presented to this house there should have been the closest consultation between the representatives of the various provinces and the national farm organizations in Canada. Therefore, Mr. Speaker, we are very sorry that it is not the intention of the minister to have this bill referred to the agriculture committee of the house.
In conclusion, I simply want to ask the minister, to plead with him, in view of the great importance of this legislation and of
[Mr. Herridge.l
its peculiar nature which requires co-operation from all those interested in its administration, through governments, through producer organizations to farmers themselves, to refer this bill to the agriculture committee and give the farmers' organizations of Canada an opportunity to appear before the committee and express their views, to make suggestions, and so on.
I think it is only fair to realize that this is experimental legislation. With the best of intentions, with all the consultation among the provinces and the farmers' organizations and the understanding of the farmers themselves, it at best can only be experimental legislation. Experience will no doubt indicate that there must be amendments, adjustments and improvements. On that account, we say that this is one bill that should have been presented to the provinces concerned. It should have been brought to this house at an earlier date; it should have been sent to the agriculture committee so as to ensure as far as humanly possible co-operation from all people interested, with a view to making it a success to the advantage of the farmers of Canada.


Francis Alvin George Hamilton: Mr. Speaker, on the second reading of this bill which provides for a very important part of our national agricultural policy for Canada I think I should put before the house some of the behind the scenes issues that are being fought here. I am not going to deal with the details of the particular clauses of the bill and discuss their pros and cons. It has been my hope over the past year or so that when the bill was presented to the house we would consider it soberly and with the idea that we are moving into a field that is brand new to any government in Canada. This has not been the case. We were suddenly confronted with the violent position taken by the leader of the C.C.F. party in the house that the bill was bad for Canada and particularly for western Canada.
The house cannot understand the significance of this speech unless we look at a little of the background of the whole situation respecting crop insurance in so far as it affects us in the province of Saskatchewan. Before I embark on that particular part of my remarks I should like to say that I am not going to talk a great deal about the Liberal position. We recognize their situation in the house in that they do not have many members from the farm areas, particularly from western Canada, who know of the long fight we have had for crop insurance. Their attitude is typical. The suggestion I got from them was that we should be very cautious and should approach this matter very carefully.

We can understand this attitude. Back in 1919 the Liberals proposed a health insurance scheme. We finally put it into effect in 1959. That is a period of 40 years.


William Moore Benidickson: Nonsense.


Francis Alvin George Hamilton: The Liberals took a very cautious attitude in that regard and now the suggestion is that we are going a little too fast with crop insurance. The Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Harkness) quoted the Winnipeg Free Press today and I should like to quote this comment with regard to the contribution of the federal government which appeared in an editorial in the issue of July 2:
Certainly the payment of half of the administration costs and one-fifth of premium costs will be interpreted by many people as another government hand-out to the farmer.
So the Liberal position, as I understand it, is that we are going too fast in meeting the problems of agriculture and that we are giving a handout to the farmers of western Canada and farmers generally throughout Canada.


William Moore Benidickson: Nonsense. You just will not disclose what your partners think about it.


Francis Alvin George Hamilton: This attitude of the Liberal party indicates that we are moving too fast. They would like to take 40 years to carry out the job as they have done in the past.


Paul Joseph James Martin: No, no.


Francis Alvin George Hamilton: On the other hand, by contrast the government has recognized the need of agriculture in all parts of Canada. We have acted immediately because I think to have brought in as much agricultural legislation within two years as we have indicates the urgency that we consider this matter has. We realize that the crop insurance bill is new legislation but, Mr. Speaker, why criticize the legislation until it has been given a chance?
All this legislation involves is permission for the government to make agreements with the provinces whereby they can consider the individual needs of their particular parts of Canada and provide an actuarially sound crop insurance scheme in order to try to remove the effect of the ups and downs of the weather for farmers in every part of Canada. No position of criticism can be taken today that cannot be called irresponsible because not one agreement has been worked out. We want the bill passed so that those provinces that want to institute crop insurance to give some stability of income to their farmers will have a chance to propose
Proposed Crop Insurance their schemes and then we can work out a co-operative agreement between us.
The province of Manitoba has already indicated its willingness to propose a scheme and to enter into an agreement with us on a co-operative crop insurance program. I would suggest, in line with what the hon. member for Kootenay West (Mr. Herridge) has said, that there is a need to look at the bill on the basis of the needs of agriculture. I would suggest to him with equal seriousness that such legislation has been looked at, examined and discussed by farm organizations and political parties for at least 25 years to my knowledge. Proposals have been put forward and debated but the fact is that very few organizations have had the facts and figures on which to base a crop insurance scheme.
The only experience we have to go on is that with the spring wheat crop insurance scheme in the United States, the figures in the Manitoba crop insurance report and the figures from P.F.A.A. experience over a period of 20 years. On the basis of this experience we are confident that we can put forward an actuarially sound program that the farmers will support because they do not want relief but simply the chance to help themselves.
In the preliminary periods of the study of crop insurance most of the reports that were issued were pessimistic because they did not have the basic information which we think we now have on which to base a crop insurance plan.


William Moore Benidickson: Where did that come from?


Francis Alvin George Hamilton: So you can
understand why the early reports took a pessimistic attitude. The latest study we have is volume 9 of the report of the royal commission on agriculture and rural life in Saskatchewan.


William Moore Benidickson: We have all quoted that.


Francis Alvin George Hamilton: This royal
commission was appointed in 1952. It consisted of five people picked from the province of Saskatchewan who the C.C.F. government thought were capable of understanding the complexities of the problem and of issuing a report for the guidance of the province of Saskatchewan which has a C.C.F. government. The royal commission was established because the situation was such particularly in Saskatchewan that there had to be some form of coherent program put before governments on which they could act.
In our membership in this house, just as in the membership of the Saskatchewan legislature, you would not expect to find
5606	HOUSE OF
Proposed Crop Insurance people with the experience and the time to deal with this complex question and propose constructive programs. The royal commission has published its report in 14 volumes and it has been a matter of considerable interest to me why these reports were never quoted either in the legislature of Saskatchewan, whose taxpayers paid over half a million dollars to get them, or by the C.C.F. members in the House of Commons at Ottawa in the 1957 and 1958 sessions or in the present session. The first time I heard a member of the C.C.F. party quote these reports was in this debate.
As I read the speech of the hon. member for Assiniboia (Mr. Argue) he definitely left the impression in the house that the bill before us now is contrary to the recommendations of this report. That feeling which he left in the house, and which is also noted by any person who reads his first speech, is contrary to the facts. The only way in which we have differed from the recommendations in the report is that, first of all, we have gone further than the report recommends in the sense that we have offered to any province a scheme whereby they can bring their farmers into a crop insurance program and, second, we have not asked that the scheme be compulsory as the report recommends.
As I said in my remarks on the resolution, to those of us who have gone through the galling experience of nine years of drought where 80 per cent to 90 per cent of our people were forced to their knees and compelled to take relief, this is the type of thing we thought was a practical approach to one of the problems facing agriculture in a drought area. We therefore pledged ourselves that if we ever reached the position where we could do something about it we would bring in some form of crop insurance in order to give the farmers some opportunity to pay an insurance premium so they would not be ruined by these years of poor crops or in the case of some other catastrophy.
Therefore when I hear in this house the suggestion that it is wrong for me to speak of these things, my mind goes back to the day when the freight cars pulled up to our small towns in Saskatchewan and brought us tons of dried codfish. At that time the farmers lined up to the doors of those boxcars to take those big flat things we had never seen before. We were told, "This is to feed yourselves with." I well recall that in our district we heard that there was a farmer about 60 miles away who came from New Brunswick and who knew how to cook these things. We thought they were snowshoes. This farmer made a big reputation for himself simply by giving the advice that before


you eat the things, you boil them or soak them in water for twenty-four hours. I remember a carload of apples coming in from Ontario and I remember clothing being distributed.
It is bad enough when sometimes a calamity hits a community by way of fire or earthquake and a few thousand people receive help through the generosity of their neighbours and their fellow citizens. But when a whole area of a country feels this not just for one year but year after year for seven or eight years, you can understand the feeling with which we approach this bill. Now what happens? I think I can say with some proof that over the years in Saskatchewan every political party has supported the idea of crop insurance. I can say with complete accuracy that in the debate in the legislature in Regina this February on the speech from the throne C.C.F. speakers supported crop insurance and Liberal speakers supported crop insurance. I have clippings here to demonstrate the truth of what I say. This one is dated February 17 and is from the Moose Jaw Times-Herald. It is a Canadian Press dispatch:
A.L.S. Brown (CCF-Bengough) told the Saskatchewan legislature Monday this province Is willing to take part in a crop insurance policy with the federal government.
And so on right down the line. Later on in another debate there were 16 speakers spoke. This is the whip of the Liberal party speaking and this is a quotation from the Star-Phoenix of February 27, 1959. It reads as follows:
He favoured crop insurance, to help contend the "natural hazards," and some form of farm credit to aid young farmers get started.
Here is a legislator from Saskatchewan representing a rural riding, the whip of the Liberal party, joining with the C.C.F. speaker, Mr. Brown, one of the most experienced members the C.C.F. have in the legislature, calling for crop insurance and help for young farmers. That is exactly what this government is doing. It is trying to meet the farmers' needs all across Canada, something which is supported by political parties of every stripe in Canada, yet we meet this sort of attack that we get from the hon. member for Assiniboia.
Naturally enough, I was suspicious of what was going on. I wondered about this contradictory position. I knew that all these members of the royal commission supported crop insurance and they still do. I knew that Mr. Nollet, minister of agriculture in Saskatchewan, had expressed support for crop insurance a few months ago. I knew that Mr. Brown, C.C.F. member for Bengough, had

been willing to co-operate. I have seen the resolution passed by associations over the years and right up to this very last year. Then all of a sudden we get this doom talk by the hon. member for Assiniboia. I have therefore been putting two and two together. We heard the Minister of Agriculture say today some harsh words about a reporter in the press gallery for having written a story that went all across Saskatchewan in three papers, I understand, dealing with this matter of crop insurance. This report which is dated June 30, 1959 from the Regina Leader-Post on the front page bears the heading "Prairie Farm Assistance Cancelled". Sometimes we blame these headlines on the headline writers who are different people from the men who write the stories. But the opening paragraph clears away that little matter. This is what the opening paragraph says:
The cancellation of prairie farm assistance emerged as a surprise package in the new federal government crop insurance proposals announced Monday afternoon in the commons.
The Minister of Agriculture has made it absolutely clear that this is completely false. Yet the hon. member for Assiniboia stands up in the house and says that this reporter is not only conscientious but is accurate. Reading on in this story a little further, I read this:
In the debate C.C.F. house leader Hazen Argue heaped praise on the P.F.A. legislation and on its Commons instigator, former agriculture minister Gardiner.
I have read through that speech twice and I have not been able to find that the hon. member for Assiniboia mentioned Mr. Gardiner. Where did Moon get hold of this doom? There must have been collaboration outside of this house that is not recorded in Hansard. I asked the hon. member today to quote what he is reading from. I saw him reading from the transcript of one of these pieces of paper that roll through the linotype machine that transmits a message across the country and he says, "I obtained this from the press gallery". It is my conviction that if you are reading it at the very moment the thing is not printed yet. But the hon. member for Assiniboia reads these accurate reports to the house.
Why this alliance between gloom and doom? He praises Mr. Gardiner. All you have to do is praise Mr. Gardiner and then you are put on a high pedestal in the Leader-Post in Regina. Mr. Gardiner is a fairly doughty little man and he does not need much protection from the hon. member for Assiniboia. Why this sudden lovemaking between these two people? I will leave that matter to your imagination, Mr. Speaker. I can go on and read through these clippings and point out
Proposed Crop Insurance the inaccuracies. I would suggest to the hon. member for Assiniboia that if Moon is as accurate as he claims, let him print this fact. I say in this house that this royal commission report is repudiated in effect by the hon. member for Assiniboia in his remarks in this house.


Hazen Robert Argue: It is repudiated by this government.


Francis Alvin George Hamilton: I say flatly that the royal commission report is accepted by this government with these two differences. One is that we did not bring in the compulsory feature and the second is that we went farther than the royal commission report recommended. They wanted just to have three experimental units to start with. There is nothing to stop the Saskatchewan government from making an agreement with regard to these three experimental units. We simply made it possible to do it all over the province all at once. I should like to suggest that if the reporter is conscientious and accurate in reporting what goes on in this house let him tell the people of Saskatchewan why the C.C.F. are really opposed to crop insurance, why they supported it back in February and oppose it in July. I will suggest to you the reason, Mr. Speaker. It is the same reason that gripped them a year ago February. When we brought in the farm stabilization act they saw their death knell being rung. They see the end of the C.C.F. party in the west because this is going to be the first step in removing the causes of friction between the government and the farmers. The C.C.F. would have nothing left about which to howl.
They called the farm price stabilization bill every name of which they could think in this house and get away with. The remarks of the former hon. member for Springfield, Mr. Schulz, still ring in my ears. I took those same remarks made by Mr. Schulz and read them to farm audiences across the prairies during the last election. The result was that Mr. Schulz, -and his extreme remarks, are no longer in the house. I am suggesting that the real fear of the C.C.F. at this moment over the very fine start that we have made in this very complex problem of crop insurance is that they see us removing another great fear of the farmer of these sudden catastrophes that hit him. The result is that they have one less thing for which they can hammer the federal government and by which the provincial government of Saskatchewan hopes to avoid its responsibilities.
Let Mr. Moon tell the people of Saskatchewan that is the real reason for the C.C.F. party's change of opinion at this time. It is not because the people of Saskatchewan do

Proposed Crop Insurance not want crop insurance, it is because the C.C.F. are afraid if we put in crop insurance the C.C.F. government will be caught short. They know that if this bill goes into effect before this parliament closes the Saskatchewan legislature will have to act. There is only another year before that provincial government must meet the people and they do not want to have to enact something that will remove grievances the farmer has because they want these grievances with which to pound the head and shoulders of the federal government. I would suggest to the hon. member for Assiniboia, as I have suggested before, that his exaggerations in this house have ruined his effect on the house as a serious member. If he supported crop insurance in the past, he should not turn his back on ten or fifteen years of espousing the thing in order to save a provincial party. He should think of the farmers of this country first. The C.C.F. party knows that the next piece of legislation to come forward is equally potent medicine in helping to cure the ills that beset the farmers.
As I read these clippings that have come into my hands within the last few days, and as I hear the provincial treasurer of Saskatchewan calling this bill an insult to the government of Saskatchewan, I wonder what precipitated this somersault. Mr. Fines' reputation is unassailable. He has been in office 15 years and he has shown a surplus of $12 million or $15 million every year. He has steadily reduced the debt of Saskatchewan until it is now in the neighbourhood of $20 million. Every time the C.C.F. members talk about something to help the people of Saskatchewan he says, "Oh, no; before I leave this office I want Saskatchewan to be absolutely clear of debt." Has this government ever let a few dollars of debt stop it from doing what was necessary, either in the way of old age pensions or something for the workingman or the farmer? We see our duty and we do it. We ask the people of Canada to support us in this type of legislative action which gets at the real problems with which the people of this country are faced. Mr. Fines has a good reputation, and yet he tells the C.C.F. members, you will have to hold off until we get all these debts cleared off before we do anything.
If I were in the provincial government of Saskatchewan and I knew the majority of the people had expressed their desire for crop insurance I would be prepared to let the debt remain for another year in order to give the people some security so that they could sleep at night without worrying what might happen if a disaster from weather hit them. I have said enough here, Mr. Speaker, to make it clear that this opposition to the
[Mr. Hamilton (Qu'Appelle) .1

bill is opposition born of desperation in attempting to enable the C.C.F. government to avoid putting in crop insurance legislation. On that ground, I would suggest that hon. members here should not play any part in delaying this bill in any way just to save a political party some embarrassment. You can have all the committees you like but you cannot do a more thorough job than has been done in all these reports, and particularly this one which represents a four-year study. Every time there has been a meeting before, the lack of adequate figures has always been a pressing problem. This report does make an attempt to give us the figures, and with the figures we have collected from other places I think we have a chance of making this crop insurance plan succeed. If it does succeed, then those who are members of the house at this time may say, we did help the farmers move toward a position of self-help from which they can attain reasonable equality with the rest of Canada. Every one of us should be proud to be here and support such a bill.


Paul Joseph James Martin: Mr. Speaker, there were some observations in the speech to which we have just listened which I think merit some comment from those of us who sit in the official opposition. Of course, the quarrel between the minister of northern affairs and the hon. member for Assiniboia (Mr. Argue) which has obviously taken on heat today, interesting as it is, is one that can only be resolved by those two gentlemen. I would not want in any way to add to the nature of this dispute; I would not want to add to its intensity, although I admit it is a very interesting controversy. I repeat, it is one which can properly be resolved only by these two gentlemen.
But in the course of his remarks the minister did make one or two observations which I think marred his political endeavour today. I think what he has said, and I say this in a kindly way to the minister, was largely in the nature of a political diatribe which did not add very much to the information of this house. It was a rather acrimonious and vigorous defence of the administration, and from that point of view of course the minister's participation is understandable. He said that the attitude of those of us sitting in the official opposition, while not one of opposition to the measure was one that could hardly be regarded as full support. We were suggesting caution; we were suggesting care; and the consequences of our advice were that the measure would be delayed unnecessarily. Of course, the hon. gentleman must accept responsibility, along with his colleagues, for the introduction of this measure at this late stage of the session.

There is an obligation on the part of the opposition to give careful attention to all matters put forward by the government, and we would not be doing our duty if we did not examine this bill with all of the thoroughness we could possibly command. It was for this reason we suggested it would be advisable for the minister to agree to send this bill to a committee so that it could be carefully studied, so that there would be an opportunity given to the Canadian Federation of Agriculture, to the interprovincial farm union and to the provincial governments themselves to indicate to the committee their feelings in the matter. The provincial governments could indicate how much participation could be expected by provincial governments. We could learn the view of the various farm organizations. Certainly, this is not an unreasonable proposal. If the government decides that that is not the kind of thorough investigation they want, well then there is of course nothing that we on this side can do.
The government has a huge majority, and if it wishes to take a particular course there is nothing that can be done, but surely the Minister of Northern Affairs and National Resources (Mr. Hamilton) does not expect us to fail in the performance of our obligations as we see them. One of these is to point out that one of the weaknesses of this measure is that it is not receiving the kind of hearing that a measure of this sort should receive. This is a measure which depends for its success on the attitude taken by the provinces. Since there is not going to be any feature of compulsion about the measure, it will depend solely for its success on the co-operation and the support which it will receive from farmers from one end of Canada to the other. The minister, when he spoke, spoke only of the prairie provinces; he keeps forgetting that there are farmers in other parts of Canada, too, and they should have the advantage of this or any other similar legislation.
Whatever weaknesses in this measure become apparent later on will probably prompt suggestions that those weaknesses could have been eliminated if a proper study which we propose had been accepted by the government. The minister of northern affairs said it was not necessary to have any further discussions on this matter. I think he said that the federation of agriculture-and if I am wrong in this the hon. gentleman will correct me-had already given an indication of its position with regard to this measure. If that is so, I wish the minister could have given us more particulars. It would be interesting to know whether or not the federation of agriculture has carefully considered the provisions of this bill. It will be interesting
Proposed Crop Insurance to know whether the minister had acquainted the council of the federation, not with all the details but with the broad terms of this legislation. We do know that the interprovincial farm union, in a statement I saw the other day in the newspapers, has expressed some concern over this particular measure. I do not want to call that a condemnation of the bill, but certainly it would be desirable and helpful if, in committee, we were able to interrogate members of the interprovincial farm union not because they would oppose the principle of the bill, and not because we oppose the principle of the bill, but because the principle behind this bill, being sound, deserves to be incorporated in legislation which would be the most effective possible. The answers to the questions we keep putting to the minister-questions about the attitude of the provinces-do not convince us that this bill, good as it is in its present form, will satisfy the expectations which have been raised.
The minister of northern affairs said that this government was not like the Liberal government, it did not wait 22 years to bring in crop insurance, and it did not wait all the time the Liberal government did before bringing in hospital insurance. Of course, that struck a personal note and that is one of the reasons which brought me to my feet. I will tell the minister the differences between Liberal governments and Conservative governments. The present Prime Minister (Mr. Diefenbaker) said that his government would bring in a comprehensive scheme of crop insurance. We do not have before us a bill which represents a comprehensive scheme of crop insurance. The undertaking and assurance given by the Prime Minister in this matter certainly has not been met by this bill. When we proposed a system of hospital insurance, it did take some time. It took some time because we could not possibly proceed with it unless we had the co-operation of the provinces, and we did not propose to put on the statute books of this parliament a measure of that nature unless we knew we would have the support of a sufficient number of provinces who would come into the scheme. Prior to the introduction of that measure, unlike the present administration in regard to the bill now before us, we did have conferences with the provinces, we did talk this question over with them, and we did reconcile our differences. Finally, we were able to bring forward an act which has won the support of eight, and possibly nine, of the provincial governments.
Moreover, the minister of northern affairs was a little confused. He began to say that they had brought in not only crop insurance

Proposed Crop Insurance but hospital insurance, forgetting, of course, that the hospital insurance act, which had been preceded by consultations with provincial and voluntary bodies, was placed on the statute books by a Liberal government at a time when the Right Hon. Louis St. Laurent was prime minister of this country. It seems to be necessary to remind some hon. gentlemen of that fact, and apparently it is necessary to remind the minister of northern affairs with regard to what really took place. I suggest to him that if he looks on the hospital insurance measure as one which occasions a comparison between the techniques of the two governments he might well have observed the superior technique employed in the matter of the hospital insurance program.
That bill was, as I say, preceded by conferences with the provinces, conferences with hospital associations, with medical bodies and so on whereas, according to the words of the Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Harkness), this particular bill has been preceded by no consultation whatsoever either with the provinces or with the various farm organizations. It is true that about a year ago the minister had a meeting with the provincial ministers of agriculture to discuss crop insurance, as he said, in a very general way, but the particular proposals embodied in this bill were, according to his own admission, never discussed with any provincial government or farm organization. Despite that, this government persists in denying parliament the normal process of investigation and assessment, namely referring this matter to the committee on agriculture.
The minister of northern affairs in his very interesting discourse this afternoon spoke of the body which was set up in Saskatchewan in 1952, the royal commission on agriculture and rural life. He said that no one had referred at all during the course of the debate to the report made by that body. The hon. member for Kenora-Rainy River (Mr. Benidickson), who was the first to speak for us in this group, did refer to that report, and in fairness to the hon. member for Assiniboia I may say that I well remember that he did so as well. Of course, all the way through this debate, this report which I have in my hand was referred to by hon. members, and why the minister of northern affairs who spoke of this as the most monumental study of its kind in Canada should yet have refrained from referring to some of its very definite recommendations is very difficult to understand.
This bill does not come forward in full conformity with the assurances given by the Prime Minister. This bill is not a generous bill. This bill deserves support because it


establishes the principle of crop insurance. But I say to hon. gentlemen opposite that if they really want to live up to their election promises, if they really want to do something that is going to have the most efficient results, they should unhesitatingly have taken the provinces into their confidence. I suggest to the Minister of Agriculture that when we come back to parliament it will be interesting to find out whether any more than one province will have taken advantage of this measure. I ask the Minister of Agriculture now: will the province of Ontario take advantage of it? Will the three western provinces, other than Manitoba take advantage of it? Will British Columbia, or will the maritime provinces, or will the province of Quebec take advantage of it? I ask the Minister of Agriculture a second time in this debate, is there any indication that he can give us as to the likelihood of their acceding to the proposition embodied in this bill?
We were told this morning that the province of Manitoba is going to come in but the Minister of Agriculture admitted in answer to a question put to him by me that the province of Manitoba had indicated last December its intention of introducing a scheme of crop insurance whether or not the federal government brought in such a scheme. It cannot be argued that the establishment of a crop insurance scheme in the province of Manitoba has been made possible because of the initiative taken by this government. That, to use the words of the Minister of Agriculture himself, is simply not the case.
It is true that Mr. Willis did say the other day that although he had not seen the bill he was happy that it had been introduced. It cannot be argued from those words that the government of which he is a member was in any way influenced by the initiative of this government. I ask the Minister of Agriculture, having in mind the limited character of this measure where the federal government is going to pay only 50 per cent of the cost of the administration unlike the greater financial responsibility assumed by governments in the United States with regard to such a measure and having in mind that the federal government is going to pay only 20 per cent of the premiums, is it unfair to suggest that one of the reasons why this government in the dying days of this session has brought forward this legislation is that it would be embarrassing for the government and for some of its ministers in particular going out to western Canada in the face of their promises for a broad crop insurance scheme to find that the only government in Canada that had brought forward such a measure was the province of Manitoba?


James Stanley Speakman: What about Alberta?


Paul Joseph James Martin: My hon. friend says, "What about Alberta?"


Some hon. Members:: What about it?


Paul Joseph James Martin: My hon. friend asked the question.


James Stanley Speakman: They have already legislated for it.


Paul Joseph James Martin: But I am talking about this measure and whether or not this particular bill is responsible for provincial action. I say that whatever evidence we have before us clearly indicates that there are not going to be very many provincial participants and that the province of Manitoba has brought in its scheme entirely without regard to any possible action taken by this government.
There are some features of this measure which the Minister of Northern Affairs and National Resources (Mr. Hamilton) overlooked. I think that on reflection he would agree that crop insurance would probably not be feasible in areas of exceptionally high risk, and yet is that not a very important consideration that should be noted? As a matter of fact this observation will be found at page 102 of the very report to which the Minister of Northern Affairs and National Resources directed our attention. He did not mention that when he spoke of the report as a complete endorsement of this bill.
This report is not a complete endorsement of this bill. This report is a clear indication of the inadequacies of this measure. At page 98 of the report I find this conclusion, No. 49:
Group indemnity insurance offering relatively low coverage Is the only type practical for the majority of farms in intermediate and high risk areas.
The Minister of Northern Affairs and National Resources did not tell us that. When the commissioners talk of the only type of practical relief in high risk areas, let it not be forgotten that what they undoubtedly had in mind was what the minister of agriculture in the St. Laurent government brought to this country and to western Canada, P.F.A.A. The Minister of Northern Affairs and National Resources complained about the tribute paid by the hon. member for Assiniboia to the former minister of agriculture in the last Liberal government. What about the tribute paid to Mr. Gardiner by the present Prime Minister? That tribute was put on Hansard the other day by the present Prime Minister. In those words the Prime Minister acknowledged that it was due to the initiative taken by Mr. Gardiner that we have P.F.A.A. and that is the very kind of assistance which at page 98 of the report the commissioners said they thought had to be borne in mind.
Proposed Crop Insurance
The Minister of Northern Affairs and National Resources gave us the impression that what he wants to do is to woo the farmers of Saskatchewan in particular with less federal support as provided for in this bill than is now provided for under P.F.A.A. We must not forget that the minister told us that a farmer could not have the benefits both of this measure and of P.F.A.A. The only conclusion we can draw from the words of the Minister of Northern Affairs and National Resources is that this is a very clever political scheme to give to the farmers less than they are now getting under legislation introduced by a Liberal government and characterized by the letters P.F.A.A.
One will find at page 17 of this report, the conclusions of which were made public in 1956, I believe, the commission having been established in 1952, that the commissioners go on to point out:
Particularly high risk areas present problems beyond the scope of crop insurance as such, and relief for these areas probably requires a separate and distinct government program.
That, of course, is P.F.A.A. At page 90 of the report there is another reference that the Minister of Northern Affairs and National Resources seemingly overlooked and which I feel deserves to be put on Hansard right after his speech. The commissioners go on to point out at page 90:
Some failed to give sufficient consideration to excluding submarginal farms and those farms in the areas of highest risk from participation in a crop insurance program.
Why did the minister of northern affairs fail to cite this particular reference? Surely a crop insurance scheme to be effective must help not those who do not need it but those who in the light of experience are likely to require that kind of assistance more than any other group. They will be excluded under this bill and they are the people by whom help in this particular is most needed.
And so one could go on referring to other passages in this report which clearly indicate that one can be in support of crop insurance without accepting in every particular a measure that does not satisfy all of the recommendations made in a study so profound as that made by the royal commissioners on agriculture and rural life in the province of Saskatchewan.


Douglas Scott Harkness: It goes beyond that.


Paul Joseph James Martin: The Minister of Agriculture says that it goes beyond. That is argument by assertion. It is nothing else. The minister has not indicated that to be so in anything he has said nor has anyone else on the other side of the chamber indicated that that is the case.
5612	HOUSE OF
Proposed Crop Insurance


Douglas Scott Harkness: The Minister of Northern Affairs and National Resources indicated that and quoted the passages.


Paul Joseph James Martin: I listened to the hon. gentleman and I must say the passages he quoted certainly were not the kind of passages which reveal the type of understanding of the problem which I thought he as one coming from the province of Saskatchewan would have. It should not be for a lawyer from Ontario to have to point out to so knowledgeable an hon. gentleman as the minister of northern affairs some of the weaknesses which attended his presentation today.


Gordon Minto Churchill: Why do you presume to speak on it, then?


Douglas Scott Harkness: Everybody will take your representations at their true value, all right.


Paul Joseph James Martin: I am sure that is the case, as the Minister of Agriculture is finding out by the criticism which this bill is receiving from one end of Canada to the other, criticism which is now mounting almost as high as the criticism against the government's amendments to the Unemployment Insurance Act which indicated how unpopular that particular measure was.


Some hon. Members:: Order.


Paul Joseph James Martin: Mr. Speaker, the hon. member for Kenora-Rainy River, who led off for us in this matter, did not speak with any political design, as the minister for northern affairs suggested. He spoke of the inadequate coverage, the inadequate features of this particular measure. He said that it seemed designed to satisfy in principle, if not in fact, the assurances given by this government during the course of the election. He said that it was not designed, however, by this government to encourage wide provincial acceptance and participation. Now, is that an unfair argument to make once again?
The value of this bill will he only in the fact that it will be supported by at least a substantial number of the provinces of Canada. We know of only one province which has given any indication of some satisfaction with this measure. What about the province of Ontario, the largest province of Canada? What about the province of Quebec, the second largest province of our country? There are more farmers in these provinces than in all of the other provinces of Canada. While one does not want to deny to a minority group of provinces their rights, one has the right to ask the Minister of Agriculture whether this measure is going to be accepted by governments representing a large proportion of the farming community. There is


not a word from the minister. Why? Because he has never consulted the provincial governments.
Today we have in the city six provincial premiers. I do not know whether the Minister of Agriculture enjoyed social intercourse with those gentlemen last night when the government of Canada properly entertained them, but if he did I wonder whether he ascertained from the premier of Quebec his intentions with regard to this measure? It is true that the premier of Ontario was not there but his provincial treasurer was there and I think he knows something about Ontario agriculture. Is it the intention of the province of Ontario to participate in this scheme? The premier of British Columbia was there. Is it the intention of the province of British Columbia to participate in this particular proposal? If the answer to these questions is in the negative; if the answer is that we do not know, that surely is not sufficient. Surely the federal government at this time, with regard to a measure that seeks to provide, in the language of the Prime Minister, a comprehensive scheme of insurance, should have designed it with full knowledge of the attitude of the provinces because theoretically they are going to be called upon to bear a greater burden than the federal government.


Douglas Scott Harkness: No.


Paul Joseph James Martin: The minister says "no". The federal government is going to pay 20 per cent of the premium. Who is going to pay the other 20 per cent?


An hon. Member:: Who repays the loan?


Paul Joseph James Martin: Who repays the loan? Is it the government or is it the people? What percentage of the premium is going to be paid by whom, by the provincial government? Is the province of Manitoba going to pay 40 per cent?


Mr. Bigg:: Is the government not the people?


Paul Joseph James Martin: I will say this, some governments do not represent the people and I believe that this government increasingly does not represent the people. We should have had from the minister some indication as to how the remaining portion of the premium was going to be borne.


Douglas Scott Harkness: You have had that.


Paul Joseph James Martin: In what proportions?


Douglas Scott Harkness: I have told you repeatedly it is up to each individual province.


Paul Joseph James Martin: That is no answer. That is the answer the minister gives. He brings this forward and says it is a great

measure; it is going to give insurance to the farmers who will have suffered losses of crops because of damage for one reason or another. Yes, we are going to pay 20 per cent and the other 80 per cent, he says in effect, is going to be paid by someone, the province or the farmer. But does my hon. friend think seriously that any farmer is going to participate in a scheme if the provinces do not bear a greater proportion of the cost than 20 per cent? The Minister of Agriculture is in the unfortunate position in piloting this measure of not being able to give to this house one single bit of information as to the share which any province is prepared to bear.


Douglas Scott Harkness: I wonder whether the hon. member would let me answer the question he just posed as to whether I think any single farmer is going to participate in this scheme. As a farmer I would be delighted to enter into a scheme of this kind, as would every one of my neighbours I think in the entire area of western Alberta in which I live.


Paul Joseph James Martin: I thank the minister for saying that. I would think that what my hon. friend's fellow farmers will do is this. I am sure they will want to participate in this scheme if they can be told whether it is going to be economically possible for them to do so.


Warner Herbert Jorgenson: Will the hon. member
permit a question?


Paul Joseph James Martin: Let me finish this. If the province is going to bear finally, say, not more than 20 per cent, I would be very surprised if my hon. friend himself would participate in such a scheme and it would be very interesting to ascertain next session whether the farmers in the particular unit in the province that my hon. friend mentioned will subscribe as readily to this scheme if the province is not prepared to bear a greater premium burden than is now being assumed by the federal government.


Warner Herbert Jorgenson: Will the hon. member indicate just what percentage of the premiums the hail insurance companies pay for the farmers and what percentage of the premiums the government pays on the life insurance and the fire insurance policies?


Lester Bowles Pearson: That is a fine parallel.


Mr. Marlin (Essex Easl):: What my hon. friend forgets is that the government in presenting this measure has said that it is something better than the contractual arrangement between the private insurance companies and the insured. The Minister of Agriculture compared this with unemployment insurance. This
Proposed Crop Insurance is what he compared it with. Unemployment insurance is quite different from private insurance. In unemployment insurance there are two contributors and in addition the state.


Frederick Johnstone (Jack) Bigg: It is not insurance.


Murdo William Martin: My hon. friend says it is not insurance. He is contradicting the Minister of Agriculture who said this scheme would be proceeded with on an actuarial basis. All I can say to my hon. friend from Manitoba is this. He is a farmer. He lives in Manitoba and, as a farmer, he knows full well that no farmer is going to assume the obligation of paying premiums which he cannot afford economically to bear. The only way he can determine that is by knowing what is going to be the contribution made by the federal and the provincial governments. When he ascertains that, then he will be in a position to determine whether or not it is a scheme to which he should become obligated.
Because the minister has not given us this information, because he has refused to set up a committee to which the provinces could come and make representations, because we are denied the opportunity of discussing this measure clause by clause in committee with farm organizations, we are in the position where we will support a bill the full measure of which cannot be properly assessed in the absence of this kind of additional study and those additional representations. The minister is asking for a blank cheque; he is pursuing a policy and a technique characteristic of all Tory governments.


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh.


Paul Joseph James Martin: A blank cheque with no indication that this measure will do the job intended. All he can say in support of the measure is that this is a valuable bill because it recognizes the principle of crop insurance. I say to the minister that that is one good argument. The bill is valid for that reason in that it is a recognition of the principle of crop insurance, but when you come to the House of Commons with a bill it ought to be possible to make that bill the best possible measure that can be conceived. That has not been done because the government has brought forward this enabling proposal without consulting the provinces and the farmers concerned, and on that account the minister cannot help but leave with the membership of this house and with the people of this country the impression that the real reason for bringing forward this particular bill at this particular time and in this manner is that the initiative taken by the province of Manitoba has forced the government to do some window dressing.

Proposed Crop Insurance (Translation):


Mr. Jean-Paul Racine (Beauce):: Mr. Speaker, we listened with great attention, a lew minutes ago, to the Minister of Northern Affairs and National Resources (Mr. Hamilton). He said, among other things, that the Liberals were accusing the government of acting too hastily. I would like him to shed those illusions, for we do not propose to do so. We never accused the government of acting too hastily, but rather of failing to act at all. However, in the present case, we are accusing this government of proceeding somewhat haphazardly.
The minister asked us what was the basis for our criticism of a legislation not yet tried out. On many occasions, during this session, we have realized that the opposition's constructive criticism has made possible certain improvements of the legislation which had been introduced. Moreover, I think it is our responsibility to advance the arguments of those we represent here.
Legislation has now been submitted which tends to establish a crop insurance scheme, and the minister stated that the federal government undertakes to pay 50 per cent of the administration costs, 20 per cent of the amount of premiums asked, and to loan the provinces 75 per cent of the sum required for indemnity exceeding $200,000. Therefore, the provinces will have to bear the burden of 50 per cent of administration costs, or else the farmers bear it.
The Minister of Northern Affairs and National Resources, who rose in support of his colleague, the Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Harkness), dealt only with the problems of the west. I presume that he failed to dwell on the issues facing the eastern provinces because a colleague, that is one of the four ministers from the province of Quebec, might speak on behalf of eastern or Quebec farmers.
As can be seen on page 5230 of the official record of this House of Commons for June 29, 1959, the Minister of Agriculture stated:
As one would expect, the provinces which displayed most interest in it were the three prairie provinces which were all interested in a system of crop insurance and in instituting such a system at the earliest possible time.
We may remember that these provinces have benefited in the past under the P.F.A.A. and that, since 1939, farmers have received, under that legislation, $204 million in the form of deficiency payments half of which had been underwritten by Canadian taxpayers. Therefore, the P.F.A.A. forced all taxpayers to contribute part of the assistance given to the prairie farmers. Now, under this act, which does not apply in a province like

Quebec where mixed farming is practised, taxpayers, as I say, will be called upon to subscribe to legislation that will not solve their problems in any way.
I would not like it to be said that I am taking a negative attitude towards western farmers; rather it should be considered a positive one with regard to eastern farmers, and more particularly those of the province of Quebec.
I was pleased a few moments ago, to hear the hon. member for Kootenay West (Mr. Herridge), support the remarks of my colleague, the hon. member for Drummond-Arthabaska (Mr. Boulanger), especially when he said that this act should apply not only to a single area, but throughout the country. I wonder if this act is viewed with favour in the eastern provinces. We have heard members discussing the matter, and there have been many quotations from western papers, but none from eastern papers, as far as I know. Are we to conclude that this bill is not eliciting as much interest in the eastern parts of the country as was expected by the government? Are we to conclude, having heard only from the hon. member for Joliette-L'Assomption-Montcalm (Mr. Pigeon), that other members from the province of Quebec feel that this act would be of very little help, and that it requires our farmers to pay contributions to a plan which cannot settle their problem and will be of no help to them.
The opposition has mentioned repeatedly that this bill on crop insurance should have been referred to a committee. That, it seems to me, would have been the logical procedure in the circumstances, because then the government and the minister would have had the opportunity of consulting farm organizations, such as the U.C.C., the Cooperative Federee, the Interprovincial Farm Union or the National Federation of Agriculture.
The result is that this bill has been introduced without the provinces having been consulted, as the minister himself admits, though the provinces are expected to bear an additional burden. I recall that, just a few weeks ago, while visiting my constituency, the Minister of Defence Production (Mr. O'Hurley) stated that the present government does not favour centralization and that its aim is to hand back to the provinces the rights to which they are entitled.
(Text):


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: I regret to interrupt the hon. member but it being five o'clock

the house will now proceed to the consideration of private and public bills, the former having precedence, pursuant to section 3 of standing order 15.



DOMINION-PROVINCIAL CONFERENCE STATEMENT ON CONCLUSION OF MEETINGS

Hon. Donald M. Fleming (Minister of Finance):: Mr. Speaker, I wonder if I might have leave of the house to revert to motions for the purpose of making a brief statement on the dominion-provincial conference of the Ministers' of Finance and provincial treasurers which has been held in Ottawa yesterday and today.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: Has the minister leave to revert to motions?


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


Paul Joseph James Martin: Mr. Speaker, before the Minister of Finance does that, I presume this will not preclude an opportunity for the Leader of the Opposition to comment if he wishes to do so. I do not know whether or not he wishes to do so. It may depend on what the Minister of Finance says.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: Is it the pleasure of the house that the Leader of the Opposition be permitted to make a statement?


Hazen Robert Argue: And a representative of this group, Mr. Speaker.


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh.


Hazen Robert Argue: I think a very proper point has been raised. I am very much in favour of giving the Minister of Finance unanimous consent to revert to motions but if we revert to motions then we revert to motions within the regular practice of this house.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: It is also quite usual for the leader of the C.C.F. party to be permitted to express his views. Is it the pleasure of the house that the Leader of the Opposition and the Leader of the C.C.F. party be permitted to comment?


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


Donald Methuen Fleming: Mr. Speaker, the report will be very brief. The meeting assembled yesterday and concluded its meeting this afternoon. The conclusions of the conference have been inscribed in a communique that is being issued this afternoon. With the leave of the house I should like to table a copy of the communique.


Paul Joseph James Martin: Read it out.


Hazen Robert Argue: Can the Minister of Finance say whether or not a further meeting similar to this one is scheduled for October or some 66968-9-356
Federal-Provincial Relations date in the fall and whether it is expected that it will be a meeting preliminary to a full-fledged federal-provincial conference on financial questions?


Lester Bowles Pearson: Mr. Speaker, I cannot imagine that a communique from this conference will be very long. Instead of tabling it perhaps the minister might read it so that members can decide whether it is worthy of any comment.


Donald Methuen Fleming: Mr. Speaker, the communique is a lengthy one. I am sure that the Leader of the Opposition (Mr. Pearson) would like to have the opportunity of perusing it before making any extended comment on it.
In reply to the question I may say that the committee of ministers of finance and provincial treasurers has agreed to hold its next meeting in Ottawa on October 15 and 16.
As to the other questions, it was regarded by the committee of ministers that they were engaged on a work that was a necessary foundation to any plenary dominion-provincial conference that might be held whenever it might be called.


Hazen Robert Argue: May I ask the minister whether he agreed to such a plenary conference at a later date?


Donald Methuen Fleming: No. This conference was not called to deal with that question.


Lester Bowles Pearson: May I ask the minister
whether there was not on the part of various provincial representatives a request for a plenary session and is the government not going to accede to that request in any way?


Donald Methuen Fleming: A number of the provincial ministers did request that a plenary dominion-provincial conference should be held before the end of 1959.


Lester Bowles Pearson: May I ask what was the reaction of the government to that request?


Donald Methuen Fleming: It is a little premature yet to deal with that question. A request was made for a conference before the end of 1959. Naturally that is a matter that will have to receive consideration in the light of this expression of opinion on the part of the representatives of a number of the provinces.


Paul Joseph James Martin: What about the government's promises?


Hazen Robert Argue: Did the Minister of Finance at this conference express general willingness that such a plenary conference should be held before the end of this year?

Federal-Provincial Relations


Donald Methuen Fleming: No, the Minister of Finance did not say whether such a conference should be held or should not be held. He simply indicated that this present conference was called for the purpose of discussing subjects to be referred to the federal-provincial continuing committee on fiscal and economic questions. So far as a plenary conference is concerned, it was recognized that that will be a matter for decision by the government.


Lester Bowles Pearson: May I ask the minister
whether the provincial representatives expressed disappointment at this continuation of a study group instead of action by the federal government?


Donald Methuen Fleming: No. There was on the whole every evidence of full co-operation in the proposal that the committee has endorsed, namely the reference to the continuing committee of a number of important subjects for study and for report back to this committee of ministers.


Hazen Robert Argue: May I ask whether or not the optimistic attitude and the feeling of good will at the conference was not based largely on a belief that a plenary conference would in fact be held in 1959?


Donald Methuen Fleming: There certainly was an atmosphere of great good will at this conference. I think that the harmony which has prevailed is best illustrated in the decisions that were taken in line with the proposal originally made by the federal government that these questions in their full breadth, as will be seen by the communique, should be referred to the continuing committee for study and report back to this committee of ministers.


John Whitney Pickersgill: I wonder whether the minister would agree to having the communique, if the house agrees, made an appendix to Hansard so that it would be there for our convenience?


Donald Methuen Fleming: I am entirely agreeable to that suggestion.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: Is it agreed that the communique referred to shall appear as an appendix to Hansard? Agreed.


Paul Joseph James Martin: May I ask the
minister if I am not correct in saying that yesterday at least three of the provincial premiers took a strong position and called upon the government to convene what has been popularly referred to as a full-fledged conference at the earliest possible moment and that among those premiers were Premier Roblin of Manitoba, Premier Bennett of British Columbia, the premier of Quebec and the provincial treasurer of the province of

Ontario, and that in reply the Minister of Finance is said to have observed that he was not in a position to express any views as he had no authority to commit the government?


Donald Methuen Fleming: When the hon. gentleman used the expression "earliest possible moment" he is quite wrong. Therefore the answer to his question must be no. As to the observations of the Minister of Finance on the occasion in question, I think I have already indicated those in my reply to an earlier question.


Lester Bowles Pearson: Is it a fact that the federal mountain has laboured and brought forth a study?


Donald Methuen Fleming: Mr. Speaker, it is a fact that a very successful conference has been held; that it has resulted in decisions being taken completely in line with the proposals that the federal government made in inviting the provinces to send representatives to this meeting; and that the conference has proceeded happily and harmoniously and can be regarded, I think, by all who are aware of the facts as a highly successful conference.



PRIVATE BILLS


[Stage Direction]
Bill SD-350, for the relief of Juanita Patricia Hamilton Long.-Mr. McCleave.
Bill SD-351, for the relief of Benjamin Gordon Davidson.-Mr. McCleave.
Bill SD-352, for the relief of Margaret Isabella MacKellar Thomas.-Mr. McCleave.
Bill SD-353, for the relief of Philip Joseph Kelly.-Mr. McCleave.

Mr. Palleii:: Mr. Speaker, now that the divorce bills have been disposed of I believe the mood of the house is such that we might revert to the business that was interrupted at five o'clock.


John Whitney Pickersgill: I think that procedure would be agreeable to us.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: Is it the pleasure of the house that the business under public bills be suspended for this sitting?


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: The house will now resume the business which was interrupted at five o'clock.



CROP INSURANCE


[Stage Direction]
The house resumed consideration of the motion of Mr. Harkness for the second reading of Bill No. C-66, to provide for contributions and loans to the provinces in respect of crop insurance.
(Translation):
Jean-Paul Racine: Mr. Speaker, when I was interrupted, I was quoting from a statement made by the Minister of Defence Production (Mr. O'Hurley), three weeks ago, in my constituency, as reported in the newspaper L'Eclaireur:
We are not centralizers and our intention is to hand back to the provinces those rights which are theirs.
Now, I wonder whether, under this bill, the government intends to hand back to the provinces their taxation rights, or whether the intention is not merely to have them shoulder a new burden, in view of the proportion of administrative costs for which they will be responsible. It is a very slight proportion, in my opinion, which the federal government is yielding under this bill.
On the other hand, I wonder how the government can introduce such a bill which, to all intents and purposes, commits the provinces without prior consultation with them.
This afternoon, I heard the hon. member for Assiniboia (Mr. Argue) quote a statement made by the provincial treasurer of Saskatchewan in which, according to the Leader-Post of June 30, 1959, he is reported as having said:
(Text):
"This is one of the greatest insults ever inflicted upon provincial governments by the federal government within my memory," he told the Leader-Post.
(Translation):
Now, if the provincial treasurer of Saskatchewan considers the bill as an insult, we are the more justified in thinking that the Quebec government, after considering it, will describe it as a double affront. 1 am wondering whether Quebec farmers will benefit from that legislation, as they expect they will, in spite of the inadequate consideration it was given.
On the one hand, supposing the province should not participate in the crop-insurance program, farmers will have no recourse in case of crop failure. On the other hand, western farmers will be able to choose between the Prairie Farm Assistance Act and that new crop insurance legislation, if it is endorsed by the western provinces. Now, as was said by previous speakers, I believe 66968-9-356J
Proposed Crop Insurance that this crop insurance legislation should have been given closer study, after consultation with provincial representatives and various farm associations. All of them, necessarily would have offered some solutions to the problems which the Minister of Agriculture was bound to face in devising this legislation. In my opinion, if crops are to be protected, the provinces or the taxpayers themselves should not be expected to shoulder the burden of this legislation.
1 do hope the minister will give all due consideration to what I said about Quebec farmers in particular, and not only about Quebec farmers, but also about farmers in the maritimes, in Newfoundland and in Ontario.
I ask the minister whether it would not be possible to amend the bill so that those provinces and farmers who are most interested may not have to pay a wholly prohibitive premium.
(Text):


Mr. Arnold Peters (Timiskaming):: Mr. Speaker, a great deal has been said by the minister of northern affairs about the situation in Saskatchewan in so far as this bill is concerned. I do not come from that province and therefore I am not going to discuss the particular matters he raises, but it seems odd to me that he should have been so particularly interested in this bill. It would seem odd also that this bill should have been introduced in the last days of this session when the committees have finished their work and there is no opportunity of examining the bill which, in our opinion, is not nearly as important to the people of the west as the minister of northern affairs seems to think it is. However, I think the bill warranted discussion by the various farm organizations and some consideration by the committee on agriculture.
I believe, too, that although this particular report to which he referred came out of the province of Saskatchewan, and may have been a satisfactory survey of the situation in that province, it does not give the national picture. I believe there are many aspects of crop insurance that are not going to receive consideration. This plan was referred to by the Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Harkness) as a crop insurance program that he could accept. I am not familiar with the farming operations in which the minister is engaged, but I am told that he raises hogs. It may be all very well for him to insure the number of hogs that he has on his farm under this crop insurance plan, but I wonder if the minister is not bringing things down to a level to which they probably should not be brought. This reminds me of that story, which I think we heard once before,

Proposed Crop Insurance concerning the time the minister became interested on a personal basis in the planting of potatoes. This was during the time he was an officer in the army.
It appears that the people in the maritimes know how to plant potatoes and grow them because, in discussing the matter the other day, I was told they never have crop failures in the maritimes. However, I understand when the Minister of Agriculture had something to do with the planting of potatoes he did not allow the boys from Nova Scotia or New Brunswick to plant them because he knew how to plant them, and he planted them so deep they never came up. It would appear to me, therefore, although I am told the maritime potato growers would not apply for this type of insurance because they never have a crop failure, the minister could probably arrange it.
A great deal has been said about this measure following the pattern of unemployment insurance. It has been all very well to tell the farmers of western Canada that the workers have been getting something for nothing for a long time under unemployment insurance, but there are a great many differences between this plan for agriculture and the unemployment insurance plan for workers. Let us examine just what both plans do. In the case of unemployment insurance, the fund was established by the federal government. Each time the federal government added new classes to the unemployment insurance scheme they have always put some money into the fund and not made it necessary for the workers who were unemployed to go to their provincial governments to borrow the money, up to a maximum of 75 per cent, as is the case under the crop insurance scheme. The government put in some money which the workers were going to be able to draw against when the payments established an actuarially sound scheme. If crop insurance were going to be operated in the same manner as unemployment insurance then some money from the treasury would have to be put into the crop insurance scheme.
Second, it would not be a provincial scheme, it would be a federal scheme. It would be a scheme which would apply to everybody who was engaged in the production of the particular crops that were brought under the crop insurance scheme. Unemployment insurance is not a voluntary scheme on a regional basis, it is a compulsory scheme. If you work in a particular industry you are brought under the scheme and so if you were a farmer and grew a particular crop then you would automatically have to belong to that scheme.

This brings us again to the Prairie Farm Assistance Act. This is a compulsory insurance scheme affecting one or two particular crops. It has been satisfactory to the west. It is not entirely a subsidy because, as the minister of northern affairs has pointed out, some of the provinces have more or less been able to carry the cost of their own schemes. Between 1939 and 1957 in the province of Manitoba the total paid out to farmers was almost $14 million, and they paid in, with their 1 per cent contribution, $16 million, leaving them a credit in the fund. Saskatchewan, on the other hand, paid out more than the contributions which were received. For the $60 million which the farmers paid in, they received almost $140 million in benefits. Now it would be surprising to me if the people of Saskatchewan were to be very interested in changing the form of compulsory crop insurance they have now for one which does not appear to be as advantageous, one which is obviously going to give them 20 per cent, whereas this plan is giving them more than they have put into the scheme. The province of Alberta has received $50 million and paid in $30 million, so it would seem as if the province of Alberta, also, has been getting an advantage.
The minister may argue that this is one of the reasons why there should be a new scheme. If this is the case, why not extend the Prairie Farm Assistance Act on a national basis and apply it to a number of other crops? It has been argued in this house on innumerable occasions in the past that this could be done with very little difficulty, and probably the premium for Canada would not have to be much higher than it is already. As I said before, producers in the maritimes tell us they never have crop failures. Similarly, in the Niagara area there is very seldom a crop failure in more than one or two commodities, and we must bear in mind the wide range of fruits, vegetables and other products which are grown in this region. In my own area, if we have a very dry year and the hay is not too good, it is very likely we will have a bumper crop of grain, because weather conditions never maintain for such a length of time that we have more than a failure or partial failure of more than one crop in a year; it would be unusual to find so much rain that it would result in a crop failure in coarse grain.
As I say, I think this act could be extended. It is a compulsory act, and one which is already in existence. It is a provision which guarantees to farmers that they will have a sum of money in the event of crop failure, and the provinces do not need to borrow in order to meet their liabilities in the event of such a failure. If we look down

the list and note the demands which have been made under this scheme we will find that there have been some years when the drain has been tremendous. Let us take, for example, the year 1954, and suppose that the scheme now proposed had been in existence. Payments in Manitoba would have amounted to something over $5 million, and in the province of Saskatchewan, to $21 million. In the province of Saskatchewan, in 1953, it was only $1 million as against $21 million in the following year, and in Manitoba it was $5 million in 1954 as compared with only $619,000 in 1953. So that if we had put this scheme into effect in a year in which there was a large number of people taking it and there happened to be a need for crop insurance, then the province, or the municipalities, or whoever were going to pay the 20 per cent, would be in financial difficulties for a number of years to come.
It does not say in this particular bill whether hogs, chickens, specialized game birds or anything else are to be included. I think that depends entirely on what the provincial governments put into their interpretation of the word "crops". This bill says that a crop is an agricultural crop declared to be a crop for the purpose of the act. I assume this would depend on the regulations enacted by the provinces, and I see no reason why the Minister of Agriculture, if he wished, could not guarantee or insure himself against having less than 12 pigs in a litter, or 15. Thus I see that the bill could offer some particular attraction in the hon. gentleman's own area.
These problems could well be discussed. I am not saying that this is not a good thing. I think that if we are going to extend crop insurance it could probably be worked in a way in which we could also have guaranteed production insurance. This would come in very handy at home, where they would like to be able to guarantee five cans of milk where they only have four cans now, or else to guarantee the four that they are getting at present. I am sure my brother would be very happy to participate in a scheme of this type, though I think he would also want it to be extended so as to guarantee the sale of his milk in case everyone else started to produce the guaranteed amount.
In Ontario we have another problem which I think is quite important. We have experienced a great deal of difficulty in the last two years in southern Ontario with regard to fruits and vegetables, and I am sure that hon. members from all parts of the country have received deputations and letters from various producers, particularly tomato producers, cherry producers, peach producers and other fruit growers in the Niagara peninsula. One
Proposed Crop Insurance of the problems that they will have, and which I can foresee, is that if they insure, say, a crop of tomatoes, and the crop has an estimated value of $100 an acre, then I would assume that the farmer would insure it at that value of $100 an acre. If the farmer gets a bumper crop and he has to meet the payment, and if he finds that his cost of production of that acre of tomatoes runs over $50, and the canners are only offering him $20, I fail to see where he is going to get the money to meet his commitment. Obviously, if he had a bad crop he would be in a better financial position because the amount paid to him consequent upon crop failure would presumably be enough to pay the premium. Many of the producers are not able to market their crops when they have a bumper crop and they tell me that sometimes it is more advantageous for them to leave the products on the trees or on the vines than it is to harvest them. So they are going to be hard pressed about coming into any insurance scheme. The minister is looking at this question from the point of view of eventually eliminating P.F.A.A. The present plan would not offer to Ontario with its many diversified crops the type of crop insurance we had been led to believe this government would implement.
What is being offered under this plan has been suggested by a number of provinces. I was told last fall that this type of insurance was going to be introduced in Manitoba whether or not the federal government participated. I assume they are going to pay their percentage of the cost and have already decided what the premium to the producer is going to be. This plan leaves many questions unanswered and many problems farmers will be faced with unsolved.
The honest way for the government to have handled this would have been to introduce the bill and then refer it either at this session or another session to a committee of this house so that farm organizations and commodity groups insuring under the plan could have had an opportunity to make representations. Failing to do this, the minister is only offering window dressing for political reasons.
I think it is safe to say that some of the provinces will take advantage of the bill if only on an experimental basis. Crop insurance should be applicable to everyone in the country. Rates should be low an easily carried by all farmers. Such a scheme could only be introduced following much more extended study than has been given to the matter. This I suggest could only be done if the government allowed the measure to go to a committee so that interested organiza* tions would have an opportunity to make specific recommendations on crop insurance.

Proposed Crop Insurance


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: I must tell the house that if the minister speaks at this time he will close the debate.


Douglas Scott Harkness: Mr. Speaker, I feel that I should comment briefly on some of the statements and criticisms which have been made today with respect to this bill. The hon. member for Kenora-Rainy River (Mr. Benidickson) and the hon. member for Essex East (Mr. Martin) following the same line did a great deal of talking about more study being required before the scheme is put into effect. As I indicated previously, studies of this subject have been conducted for over 20 years. The result of all that study has not been a single, definite, practical plan of crop insurance being brought forward and proposed by anyone prior to the introduction of the present bill.
What hon. gentlemen opposite are saying in effect is that the matter has been studied but now there should be another year of study; it should not be finished up at this session of parliament; the bill should not go through; there should be at least a further year's study in connection with the matter; we should bring in all the farm organizations and conduct a further extensive study in connection with the matter.
All I can say is that for over 20 years the Liberals delayed in bringing a scheme into operation. Now that we have brought in a farm insurance scheme they want to impose a further year's delay or more as far as passage of the bill is concerned.
The hon. member for Kenora-Rainy River brought up the matter of the United States plan. Without definitely saying so I believe he left the impression that the payments made by the federal government in that country were at least as great if not greater than those proposed in this bill. This is simply not the case as I have already indicated when I spoke at the resolution stage. Under the United States crop insurance plan the administration costs are what the federal government pays and if there is any surplus of premiums over the indemnities paid then some of the premium money can be taken in order to pay the administration costs. That has been done in the past few years. As a matter of fact United States law provides a maximum of $1,500,000 a year which can be taken out of the money paid in as premiums in order to pay administration costs. When the plan was first introduced and they suffered considerable losses some of the original capital of the corporation which was used to administer this was used to pay indemnities. At the present time they are getting a surplus and that has been particularly true during the last few years.


The hon. member for Kenora-Rainy River stated that no provision is made in this bill to cover heavy losses if such are experienced under the scheme. As a matter of fact that is what this loan provision is for, so that if heavy losses are experienced in a particular province the financial stability of the province will not be disturbed, due to the fact that we are prepared to loan the province up to 75 per cent of the amount of the losses. That is the whole reason for the loan provision.
The hon. gentleman went on to say that I said that the farm credit bill was one of the most important bills to be introduced in parliament but that I did not say this wih respect to the crop insurance bill. I think it is quite clear that the farm credit bill is a more important bill than the crop insurance one. The farm credit bill goes to the very root of many of our farm problems. It is the type of reform which is necessary if we are to have economic farm units over a large part of this country. Of course, the necessity for improved farm credit exists in every part of the country. The need for farm credit is universal whereas crop insurance needs vary from province to province as I indicated at the resolution stage.
The hon. member for Assiniboia (Mr. Argue) suggested that the measure should be put over until the next session. I am not surprised at his attitude and in fact I expected him to take that line because he indicated clearly at the resolution stage that he does not really want crop insurance at all. What he wants is a big federal government handout of some kind, but he does not want crop insurance.


Hazen Robert Argue: I never said that at any time.


Douglas Scott Harkness: The whole tenor of the hon. member's speech on the resolution stage was opposition to crop insurance.


Hazen Robert Argue: Nonsense and more nonsense. I even voted for the resolution.


Douglas Scott Harkness: The hon. member cited
reason after reason and argument after argument as to why crop insurance would not be any good, and why it would not be applicable and so on. He and his friends from Saskatchewan do not want crop insurance now. The Minister of Northern Affairs and National Resources indicated quite clearly in his remarks why they do not want it at this time. They have done a complete about face in regard to the matter.
There was quite a bit of talk on the part of the hon. member for Assiniboia and others concerning the recommendations of the Saskatchewan royal commission. The hon. member for Essex East (Mr. Martin) said

I was making argument by assertion. I would like to call another witness in support of what is intended in this bill. I would like to call as a witness Mr. E. N. Davis, who is a very strong Liberal, I understand-


Hazen Robert Argue: That is right.


Douglas Scott Harkness: -and who is an editorial writer on the Regina Leader-Post. The hon. member for Assiniboia confirms that that is the case.
It just happens that in today's Globe and Mail there is a guest article by Mr. Davis and it is headed:
C.C.F. Criticism Hits Its Own Commission
This is all in connection with crop insurance, of course. After speaking about the general provisions of the bill, which is now before the house and about the royal commission on crop insurance in Saskatchewan, the article goes on:
The commission boiled down its view on this into 29 recommendations. A study of these shows that one of its basic ideas was that a crop insurance scheme should be "self-liquidating". Elsewhere it defines "self-liquidating", as actuarial soundness in that premiums paid by the farmers are sufficient to pay all claims and administration costs.
I wish the hon. member for Essex East would pay attention to this.


Paul Joseph James Martin: I read it this
morning.


Douglas Scott Harkness: I continue:
The body of the report notes a strong advocacy in submissions to the commission for government subsidization. This the commission did not accept in framing its recommendations.
We have heard quite a considerable amount about subsidization. Actually this C.C.F. government-appointed royal commission in Saskatchewan that studied the matter did not recommend any subsidization at all; quite the contrary to what the hon. member for Assiniboia had to say when he said that the commission was recommending a heavily federally subsidized scheme. They did not recommend anything of the kind.


Hazen Robert Argue: Read section 40, page 97 of the report.


Douglas Scott Harkness: You have made your speech. Just try to sit quietly for a few minutes.


Hazen Robert Argue: You should quote the report.


Douglas Scott Harkness: I am quoting this for a purpose because, as you say, this is by a strong Liberal and he works for a strong Liberal paper. I thought the Liberal party should have the advantage of this.


Hazen Robert Argue: It is in the Globe and Mail.


Douglas Scott Harkness: He is certainly not a prejudiced witness for me.
Proposed Crop Insurance


Hazen Robert Argue: What paper?


Douglas Scott Harkness: I think I have already said that.


Paul Joseph James Martin: It is always good to quote a Liberal.


Douglas Scott Harkness: I continue with the article:
The dominion government's scheme envisages the payment of 20 per cent of the crop insurance premiums out of the treasury. This is being condemned by C.C.F. spokesmen as niggardly.
And it is being condemned by the hon. member for Essex East as niggardly, too.


Murdo William Martin: On a point of order,-


Douglas Scott Harkness: This is not in here.


Murdo William Martin: Mr. Davis knows me too well to make an assertion that would be so barren of any justification.


Douglas Scott Harkness: The hon. member has made his own statement here that this is not nearly enough.


Murdo William Martin: That is right.


Douglas Scott Harkness: And that we should pay a much bigger percentage of the premium; therefore, he is doing exactly the same as Mr. Davis says the C.C.F. is doing, namely saying that it is niggardly.


Murdo William Martin: The hon. member is wrong. He did not follow my careful argument.


Douglas Scott Harkness: The article goes on:
This is being condemned by C.C.F. spokesmen as niggardly. But it is much more generous than the plan proposed by the C.C.F. Saskatchewan government's own commission. In such criticism of the federal proposal, the C.C.F. is in effect condemning its own royal commission and the soundness of its views-and the value received for the half-million dollars the taxpayers spent on it.
That is what the C.C.F. is doing; that is what the hon. member for Assiniboia and others are doing. As Mr. Davis suggests, they are just condemning their own commission and all the money that was spent on it and the personnel who were on it, of course. The article goes on:
C.C.F. critics also condemn as niggardly the proposed coverage under the federal scheme, 60 per cent of the long-term average yield. This is precisely the recommendation of the Saskatchewan commission. It declared crop insurance offering a higher level of coverage would be too costly to the farmers in premiums.
Critics of the federal plan have raised howls of derision over the proposal that farmers covered by crop insurance no longer would qualify for P.F.A.A. aid. Recommendation No. 20 of the Saskatchewan commission proposes "that areas which qualify for crop insurance be excluded from P.F.A.A. coverage and levies". Again, the proposed federal scheme follows the recommendations of the Saskatchewan commission.

Proposed Crop Insurance
In the proposed payment by Ottawa of 50 per cent of the crop insurance administration costs, Ottawa is being more generous than the commission's plan.
And so on. I think that is sufficient to refute most of what hon. members opposite have said about the administration costs, contributions being made by the federal government not being sufficient, and so on and so forth.


Murdo William Martin: I wish you paid as much attention to your own royal commissions as you do to Saskatchewan's.


Douglas Scott Harkness: If I had made these statements myself the hon. member for Essex East would have said, "These are only allegations on your part", but I know he cannot say that about his friend Mr. Davis.


Murdo William Martin: These are allegations on Mr. Davis' part.


Douglas Scott Harkness: I think Mr. Davis cites chapter and verse to show that these statements are correct, which the hon. member for Essex East certainly did not do in connection with crop insurance when he was speaking on the matter.


Murdo William Martin: Mr. Davis is an excellent gentleman.


Douglas Scott Harkness: Just as on the resolution stage, the hon. member for Assiniboia devoted a good deal of his time and his remarks to a comparison with prairie farm assistance. Once more I should like to point out to him that prairie farm assistance is not an insurance scheme. Naturally, since it is not an insurance scheme and since payments are not made on an individual basis, the ratio of administration costs to the indemnities paid out is going to be smaller than on a true insurance scheme, and any comparison between prairie farm assistance and a true insurance scheme, such as the one proposed in this bill, is just not a valid comparison, and all that it does is to serve to confuse the issue.
The hon. member for Assiniboia also repeated two or three times that the dominion government is asking the provinces and the farmers to pay 80 per cent of the cost. That is not correct and he knows it is not correct. We are paying 80 per cent of the premium cost-


Hazen Robert Argue: How much?


Douglas Scott Harkness: I am sorry, 20 per cent of the premium cost and the other 80 per cent of the premium cost the provinces can pay any part or all as they wish, or they do not have to pay any if they do not want to. But, in addition, we are also paying 50 per cent of the administration cost. The result is that 
we shall be paying approximately 25 per cent of the total cost of this scheme and not 20 per cent as the hon. member for Assiniboia kept repeating.
The hon. member for Assiniboia went into considerable detail in talking about arbitrary action on the part of the dominion government. As far as this scheme is concerned, there is nothing arbitrary in the world about this legislation or about the way it is being brought in. As a matter of fact, the legislation is extremely generous, as I think a very large number of people will realize, and it provides for very large contributions of federal funds which will be made available to assist provinces in putting insurance schemes into effect. If anyone can say it is arbitrary on the part of the dominion government to say to all provinces, "if you want to put in an insurance scheme we will contribute 25 per cent of the cost of your putting that scheme into operation" I think the hon. member for Assiniboia and the hon. member for Essex East will have a very difficult time in trying to sell that contention to the people of this country.


Paul Joseph James Martin: May I ask a
question?


Douglas Scott Harkness: I would like to get this through before six o'clock and I should like to carry on.


Paul Joseph James Martin: I had a very good question.


Douglas Scott Harkness: The hon. member for Pro-vencher (Mr. Jorgenson) made an exceptionally good speech in connection with this matter. He indicated that he was a farmer and that he understood the thing, which most of the people speaking on the bill have not done. They have not had the farm background in order to understand the scheme as the hon. member for Provencher has.
The hon. member for Drummond-Artha-baska (Mr. Boulanger) made quite a point that the scheme should apply to the east just as much as to the west. It does. That is one of the purposes of the scheme. Members of the C.C.F. have been arguing that we should extend P.F.A.A. payments to the whole country. That is just not a possibility. P.F.A.A. is based on collecting a levy on grain which is handled through the wheat board. You cannot very well make a levy on apples, cherries, peaches and things of that sort. It just would not work. It is not practical.


Samuel Boulanger: Why not?


Douglas Scott Harkness: Those who say that we should extend P.F.A.A. to the rest of the country indicate that they really have no

knowledge of the problems involved and of what an insurance scheme should be.


William Moore Benidickson: Oh, these other crops are marketed through important agencies.


Douglas Scott Harkness: One of the basic things in favour of the bill is that it does and can apply to every province.


William Moore Benidickson: But will not.


Douglas Scott Harkness: In each particular province the province itself can lay down the details of the scheme and make them such as will apply to agriculture in that province. That is one of the reasons why it is essential that we have a scheme of this sort with considerable flexibility so that it can meet the widely differing agricultural conditions that we have in different parts of the country.
The hon. member for Drummond-Artha-baska said that the eastern provinces had been ignored in other agricultural matters. That is quite true but the people who ignored them were the Liberal government who were in power for the previous 22 years.


Mr.   Bcmlanger@: Last year they were
ignored.


Douglas Scott Harkness: That is a criticism of the party to which he belongs. The measures we have brought in have not ignored the eastern provinces. As a matter of fact, one of the chief complaints I run into from western Canada is that we have given far too much to eastern Canada and not enough to western Canada.


Samuel Boulanger: Under the Prairie Farm Assistance Act you ignored the farmers of the east last year.


Douglas Scott Harkness: This measure is one which applies to all parts of the country in the same way that our other agricultural measures have.
The hon. member for Kootenay West (Mr. Herridge) made quite a temperate speech on which I should like to compliment him. He says that the C.C.F. supports crop insurance. My only comment on that is that he should tell that to the hon. member for Assiniboia because he does not seem to understand it.


Hazen Robert Argue: Wrong again.


Douglas Scott Harkness: The hon. member for Kootenay West said that this was experimental legislation and he took that as a reason why there should be a lot more study of it. However, as I have said, there has been all kinds of study. What is needed now is to get the scheme or schemes into operation so that we can see how the legislation will work out in practice. That is why I think it is essential to get the bill through, thus 66968-9-357
Proposed Crop Insurance providing an opportunity for schemes to be put into operation and for the experimental work which is needed to be done.
The hon. member for Essex East delivered himself of many words and much sound but in what he said there was not much relationship to crop insurance and to the problems under discussion.


Paul Joseph James Martin: I was following the Minister of Northern Affairs and National Resources (Mr. Hamilton).


Douglas Scott Harkness: He stated that the bill is not a generous measure.


Paul Joseph James Martin: I repeat that.


Douglas Scott Harkness: This morning I quoted a Winnipeg Free Press editorial, and the Free Press does not agree with him. They think it is too generous.


William Moore Benidickson: No, they did not say that.


Douglas Scott Harkness: They think it is too generous.


William Moore Benidickson: They did not say that.


Douglas Scott Harkness: The premier of Manitoba does not agree with him, and he will find there will be all kinds of people who will not agree with him.


Paul Joseph James Martin: The premier of Manitoba does not agree with this government on a lot of things.


Douglas Scott Harkness: As I said a few moments ago, the great majority of people in the country will say that it is an extremely generous bill, as it is. The hon. member for Essex East made a great point of asking the rhetorical question time after time, "What provinces will enter? We know of only one so far." And so on. I might point out that at the resolution stage he made exactly the same sort of statement but at that time he said that no province would enter. He has conveniently forgotten that now and says that only one will enter because in the meantime Manitoba has said that it will.


Paul Joseph James Martin: They announced that last December.


Douglas Scott Harkness: His judgment on this matter at the resolution stage when he said that no provinces would enter is just as sound as his present judgment when he says that no other provinces will enter. In other words, he just does not know what he is talking about.


Paul Joseph James Martin: That is a powerful argument.


William Moore Benidickson: If they enter they ignore their royal commission.


Douglas Scott Harkness: I do not think that the hon. member for Essex East understands that this
5624	HOUSE OF
Proposed Crop Insurance is an insurance scheme, subsidized, it is true. What he apparently is arguing for is much the same thing as the hon. member for Assiniboia is arguing for, that we should give a great big handout of some kind and of a very generalized nature but not an insurance scheme.


Paul Joseph James Martin: When did I say that?


Douglas Scott Harkness: That is the tenor of all your remarks and statements.


Paul Joseph James Martin: On a point of
order, Mr. Speaker-


Douglas Scott Harkness: I think I have the floor and the hon. member is merely trying to interrupt.


Mr. Speaker:: If there is a point of order I must hear the hon. member.


Paul Joseph James Martin: In raising my point of order I would simply observe that the minister would not have these interruptions if he would carry out and observe the decencies of debate, but since he is not I would remind him that he cannot point to anything I said that would justify his last statement. The minister is obviously irritated because we insist on eliciting from him facts which he does not want to give the house.


Douglas Scott Harkness: Mr. Speaker-


Mr. Speaker:: Order. It is scarcely a point of order. It is a matter of correction which I think would be more properly made after the minister has finished his speech.


Douglas Scott Harkness: I was just going to point out that this is the same type of alleged or phony point of order that the hon. member constantly gets on his feet to raise, thus interrupting and delaying the proceedings of the house. He is accusing me of not carrying on the debate in the proper form. He interrupts with phony points of order of this sort and destroys proper debate in the house more than anybody else.


Paul Joseph James Martin: Mr. Speaker-


Hazen Robert Argue: Like two schoolboys.


Murdo William Martin: -the hon. member has said that I raise phony points of order. I suggest to you that the adjective "phony" in this context is unparliamentary, unworthy of the Minister of Agriculture and should be withdrawn.


Douglas Scott Harkness: Well-


Murdo William Martin: Let the Speaker decide. You are not the Speaker.


Douglas Scott Harkness: Mr. Speaker, I see that you give the attention to that remark which it deserves, complete silence.


Murdo William Martin: If my hon. friend is going to take this line he will find that others can take it too.


Douglas Scott Harkness: Mr. Speaker-


Murdo William Martin: I am speaking to a point of order.


Douglas Scott Harkness: Have I not got the floor, Mr. Speaker? I think you ruled that this was not a point of order.


Mr. Speaker:: The hon. member for Essex East has taken offence at the word "phony", and I leave it to the minister who has the floor to take that into consideration because it has given offence to the hon. member.


Douglas Scott Harkness: Mr. Speaker-


Murdo William Martin: Mr. Speaker, on the point of order-


Hazen Robert Argue: You are both out of order. It is past six o'clock.


Mr. Speaker:: Order. The hon. member has made his point of order and I should like to give the minister the chance to withdraw the statement if he feels so inclined.


Douglas Scott Harkness: I have no idea what should be withdrawn. This is the first time I have heard that the word "phony" is not parliamentary. If you find it is not parliamentary I will withdraw it of course, but to my knowledge it is not unparliamentary. Actually, as somebody sitting to the rear of me has said, it is very appropriate in this case.


Murdo William Martin: Mr. Speaker-


Mr. Speaker:: Order. I did not say it was unparliamentary. I simply drew attention to the fact that it was offensive to the hon. member. I see it is six o'clock and probably a very good time to adjourn.
At six o'clock the house took recess.


[Stage Direction]
AFTER RECESS

The house resumed at 8 p.m.
Douglas Scott Harkness: Mr. Speaker, before the dinner recess I had been replying to some of the comments and criticisms made by some hon. members opposite in their speeches on second reading of the crop insurance bill. I had practically completed that matter and there is just one other thing about which I think I should say something.
I think the hon. member for Timiskaming (Mr. Peters) indicated either that he had not read the bill or, if he had read it, that he did not understand it because he was talking about insurance for pigs, game cocks and

various other types of livestock. I think it is understood by probably every other member of the house that the crop insurance bill is designed to apply to crops that are grown from the ground. There has never been any intention of insuring livestock, machinery used on the farm or anything else along that line.
The hon. member for Timiskaming says that the bill might be all right for the minister and others who raise hogs, that it might be satisfactory to them to insure their hogs and so on. I want to correct any impression which anyone may have that there was any intention at any time to insure livestock. This is a crop insurance scheme. In other words, it insures crops which grow from the ground -whether it is barley or any other types of crop of that kind-but does not insure what are ordinarily classed together as livestock and chattels.
I think I should at the same time comment on the story which he told in connection with my alleged potato planting activities during the war in England, a story which has been repeated here at least once or twice previously and in very incorrect form. As hon. members know, in 1941, I think it was, there was an army order to all units in England that they were to grow as much of their own food as they could and were to use any land that was not in use for agricultural purposes adjacent to where they were billeted. In pursuance of that order we were given a little bit of heath which happened to be a bit of a dip and therefore was not covered with bushes and so on, and we were told to put in some garden.
I looked it over and decided that perhaps the only thing that could be planted on it was potatoes. Of course the boys in the battery were not very anxious to go to work planting potatoes so they raised all sorts of complaints such as that we had no equipment, no machinery or anything else and that therefore we could not put in this potato crop. I therefore went out to the nearest farm and borrowed a plow, and in planting these potatoes I followed the system which I had seen employed back in 1910 and 1911 by settlers who were coming into western Canada at that time and moving on to homesteads where there was nothing but sod. In other words, it was a matter of plowing a furrow, dropping the potatoes along it and turning the next furrow over them. You do not get a very good potato crop but you get something. We produced quite a few potatoes in spite of the scoffing or the objections, we will say, of some of the men in the battery who were not at all anxious to go into this type of activity.
66968-9-357J
Proposed. Crop Insurance
To sum up, the criticisms which have been made of this bill really revolve around two contentions which have been made by opposition members. The first of these is that the bill should be referred to a committee of the house or to a dominion-provincial conference for further study. I have pointed out, as hon. members know, that at this stage of the session-and I think everybody here is agreed that we would probably be able to complete this session in some two weeks' time or a little less-what this demand amounts to is a demand or a request that we do not proceed with the bill.


William Moore Benidickson: No. I quoted the Prime Minister as saying in 1957 that should be done.


Douglas Scott Harkness: Hon. members know that there is just not time to refer this bill to either a committee or a conference, to carry on the type of study they have been talking about and to get the bill through at this session. In other words, it is really a demand to drop the bill and that, of course, is something that we are not prepared to do.
I have pointed out also, that further study would not likely accomplish any practical purpose. The matter of crop insurance, as has been said here many times, has been under study for approximately 20 years. What we require at the present time is not further study; what we require is actual experience. That experience can be secured only by the passage of the bill and the consequent setting up of an insurance scheme or schemes in various provinces. On the basis of the experience secured and as a result of it, then I think perhaps a further study of the experience secured would be well worth while; and I would hope that a study might well be carried on at that time along the lines which had been suggested. However, I do not think that any good practical purpose would be served by attempting to make any further study at the present time.


John Whitney Pickersgill: Unlike federal-provincial relations.


An hon. Member:: More Liberal procrastination.


Douglas Scott Harkness: The second general criticism which was made was that the bill does not provide enough in the way of dominion government assistance. All I can do is to repeat again that the bill provides more assistance, as far as the dominion treasury is concerned, than does the United States crop insurance bill; it provides more assistance than was recommended by the Saskatchewan royal commission which studied cron insurance'

Division
and it provides more assistance than the Winnipeg Free Press editorialists at least think should be provided.
I am quite sure, Mr. Speaker, that most people who examine the bill and give any study to it will feel quite certain that the bill is a practical means of dealing with the crop insurance program. It provides assistance on the part of the dominion government on very generous terms indeed. I am quite sure that some of the crop insurance schemes set up under it by the provinces- of which I at least am confident there will be quite a number-will be successful in removing the instability which has been a curse to farmers, particularly in some parts of this country, ever since farming has been carried on in those areas.


William Moore Benidickson: Mr. Speaker, the minister referred to a number of the provinces which he thought would likely subscribe to this bill. Will he indicate his expectations in this respect?


Douglas Scott Harkness: As I have indicated to the hon. member and others previously, I am not one who is given to the art of prophecy. At the resolution stage the hon. member said he was quite sure no province would come into this scheme. Since then Manitoba has indicated that it is coming in. I am quite confident that in the course of time probably every province in this country, with the possible exception of Newfoundland, will have put into effect a scheme of crop insurance.


Mr. Speaker:: Is the house ready for the question?


Some hon. Members:: Question.


Hazen Robert Argue: I was delighted just a moment ago to be able, in the most effective way possible, to demonstrate once again to the Minister of Agriculture and the minister for northern affairs that they are entirely wrong in their interpretation of the attitude of the members of the C.C.F. group. But so many things which hon. gentlemen opposite have

said in recent days have proven to be wrong that this is scarcely any longer an event.


Francis Alvin George Hamilton: You certainly scrambled through the brambles.


Hazen Robert Argue: The hon. gentleman, with the fussy mind that he has, would know more about that than anyone else. However, on this clause I should like to ask the Minister of Agriculture what further study is being given by the officials in his department to the details of the kind of crop insurance plan which they would hope to be able to work out with the provinces. I should like to know from the minister, with his officials in front of him, whether or not any officials in his department will be carrying out further studies within the next few months and whether there will be further general discussions as to how crop insurance schemes may be worked out with the provinces. I am wondering whether, even at this late date, there will be any general conference with the provinces to discuss the type of insurance agreements which may be signed under this act.


Douglas Scott Harkness: The general provisions as far as any schemes to be put into effect are concerned are to be found in clauses 5 and 6. Within the ambit of those clauses we shall enter into an agreement with any province which wishes to put a scheme of crop insurance into effect. Such agreements will have the details spelled out in them according to the type or types of crops a province may wish to insure.


Hazen Robert Argue: There is no contemplation, I take it, of any general discussion with the provinces as far as working out agreements are concerned. All I really want to know from the minister is whether the kind of federal-provincial conference that we have been advocating to discuss crop insurance will now be held in the light of the principles outlined in the bill as it now stands or as it will be passed by parliament, details only to be worked out.


Douglas Scott Harkness: There is nothing of that kind in contemplation, but if a majority of the provinces were to indicate to me that they would like to have a conference of that kind I would be quite glad to have a conference with them. But I see no great need for that. I think the main thing is to work out particular agreements with particular provinces. However as I say, if there is any demand on the part of the majority of the provinces for a conference such as this I would be glad to hold such a conference. We have received no such requests.


Hazen Robert Argue: Mr. Chairman, I appreciate the statement the minister has now made. It
Proposed Crop Insurance represents a substantial retreat from the position he took before, namely to oppose the holding of a federal-provincial conference on this question. It would have been much more satisfactory and more in keeping with good federal-provincial relations to have had the conference before the general division of financial responsibility was set out in this bill but the minister's retreat is at least of some value. He has retreated from his former position. It is an advance in his thinking which has led him to make this strategic retreat. But even at this late date I think such a conference is necessary.
For the past two days in this city a federal-provincial conference has been held. I am not going to endeavour to discuss the general subject of federal-provincial relations on this bill but I believe I would be very much in order in pointing out to the committee an item in the press communique issued following the conference which has an important bearing on this type of legislation. I refer to item No. 5 in the subjects listed for further consideration by the continuing committee. This list follows the announcement that a further conference will be held in mid-October. The fifth subject listed for consideration by the continuing committee at that time is as follows:
Conditional grants and shared-cost programs. Their motivation and place in the scheme of intergovernmental financial relations. Possible means of co-ordination and simplification. Consideration of specific areas of co-operation.
I believe that item is an important one. Even though the government did not have the courtesy to call the provinces into conference before this legislation was handed to them I nevertheless hope that at the forthcoming conference or at a special conference this subject can be pursued and problems can be discussed in relation to the crop insurance legislation which will then be on the statute books.
I do not wish at this juncture to reiterate the criticisms I have made of this legislation but I must say we feel it is not in keeping with the central recommendation of the Saskatchewan royal commission, namely that the cost of crop insurance must be borne in the main by the federal government with that government accepting the major responsibility, and that the cost to farmers should not be excessive.
I thank the minister for leaving open the door for a conference this fall on the question of crop insurance. The conference would have been much more valuable before the government presented this legislation as a fait accompli. The argument advanced by the minister concerning why the bill could not be referred to the standing committee on

Proposed Crop Insurance agriculture at this stage of the session is not at all valid. The legislation could well have been referred to the committee. We could have had witnesses before that committee within 48 hours. We could have given detailed and comprehensive study to the bill. One thing stood in the way, namely the government's fear of the kind of criticism that would be made by some provinces at least and certainly by farm organizations who have been very critical of the legislation and of the fact that it was not sent to a committee.


Douglas Scott Harkness: Mr. Chairman, I feel I should make clear immediately that any so-called retreat about which the hon. member was talking exists only in his imagination. There has been no retreat or change in my position in regard to this matter. This government has always stood ready to meet representatives from the provinces to discuss any matter they wanted to discuss when a majority indicated they wished to have a meeting of that kind. That has been the situation with regard to any matter and it remains the situation. If the majority of the provinces want to hold a meeting to discuss this bill on crop insurance generally I am quite prepared to meet with them but I have received no demands for such a meeting on part of the provinces. The hon. member for Assini-boia is trying to twist what I call our general position of willingness to meet with the provinces into a change in attitude. There has been no change whatever.


Hazen Robert Argue: The change has been that the minister now says that he and the federal government stand ready to meet the provinces if a majority wish such a meeting on the question of crop insurance. That offer was never made, or certainly never made in public, prior to the statement the minister has just now made. As a matter of fact every time there has been a suggestion that this proposed legislation should be placed before a federal-provincial conference the minister has refused by saying: What good can a conference accomplish because we have had all kinds of commissions and studies and we do not need any more conferences; what we need is legislation. This is a changed attitude on the part of the minister.


William Moore Benidickson: Mr. Chairman, we are now in detailed examination of the clauses of the bill. There is not too much difference between any quarter of the committee concerning a desire to have crop insurance if it can be made operative on a feasible basis.
There was some glee on the part of the government as to the previous discussion concerning the fact that the bill passed second reading without dissent. I spoke earlier about this and said that it was a tragedy that

an important matter of this kind announced in the speech from the throne on January 15 was not unveiled in detail to the Canadian public until June 29 and I continue to hold that view.
As much as I would like to see encouragement for crop insurance I also continue to hold the view that there would be no additional delay in any practical way if we were able to have committee discussions where we could get the views of the provinces and the farm organizations. I do not want to be repetitive at this late stage of the session but I hold that view very strongly.
If I were a betting man I would say to my hon. friend the Minister of Agriculture that I bet he will not get from any of the ten provinces in Canada within the next 12 months a bill that institutes anything. The speech from the throne said that this government was going to institute a program of crop insurance. I suggest that, even with respect to the province of Manitoba it is most unlikely that we shall have anything effective there. It might be different if we had taken more time to examine and improve the bill.
In Saskatchewan, as the minister knows, the commission went only so far as to suggest that they have a pilot scheme. This afternoon I quoted the views of the Manitoba farm union organization saying that that was not adequate and I hope that is not what is in the mind of the minister or in the mind of the minister of agriculture for Manitoba. If anything is to be done on a hasty basis, then it should not be just a token pilot scheme but something with something tangible in it.
The principle of this bill has been approved, as the recent vote showed, by all groups in the house; but those on this side of the house continue to think that I was not very far wrong when I said, after reading the resolution, that this was a rather empty gesture, and the escape hatches were such that it was not likely in the near future to be taken advantage of by very many provincial governments.
Then, on June 29, and all day today we challenged the Minister of Agriculture to indicate to us any element of evidence which would give him confidence that any of the 10 provinces, beyond the one province cited, was likely to do something as a result of this legislation. He admitted provinces were not consulted; they did not know the salient features of the bill, so the provinces start from here. Therefore, under these circumstances there is no reason whatsoever for this parliament to be deprived of an opportunity to investigate all the aspects of this new area of federal participation in a citizens' program.

As I remember it, the last time that we had a parliamentary committee considering crop insurance was in 1939, and much has happened since that time. The minister spoke about Manitoba. He has had a week from June 29 until today to receive from many quarters friendly counsel and opinions about his bill. He has not indicated to us in any way whether anybody other than the minister of agriculture of Manitoba has paid attention to this bill.


William Arnold Peters: Mr. Chairman, I think the people of Canada will be interested to know that now this bill has reached this stage the truth of the matter comes out. The people of Canada are going to be offered the opportunity of making representations on this bill, but they also will be well advised of the fact that they have not been allowed to make their representations when they would have done the most good, namely on the principle of the bill. They are asked to make their representations only on the details of the bill.


[Stage Direction]
Clause agreed to.
On clause 2-Definitions.
William Arnold Peters: Mr. Chairman, I notice in the Canadian Parliamentary Guide that the minister at one time was a school teacher. I also understand that he disagrees with my definition of what could come under this clause, which refers to "crop". His officials may sneer and laugh. This is their right, but I suggest they should have given more consideration to this and then the minister might have had a little better bill. It says in the Oxford dictionary that crop includes quite a number of things. Hon. members may laugh at my reference to the dictionary but in so far as some of them are concerned they could further their education by taking a look at a dictionary. As a matter of fact, in so far as some of them are concerned, there are a lot of things that could be a help to their education, and not only in this regard. There are a number of definitions of the word "crop". I suggest that if hon. members read the definitions they will find that among other things it includes the produce of cultivated plants, especially cereals. Then, it refers to the season's total yield of cereals, and among other things we find "the entire hide of an animal tanned". There are quite a number of other things, Mr. Chairman.
I suggest that this legislation could conceivably cover any conceivable crop that is declared under this act by the regulations to be a crop. I suggest that the minister is wrong and that he should certainly know
Proposed Crop Insurance these things because of his educational background. He should know that crops are made up of quite a number of things and could include quite a number of things. If the regulations were so designed, I am quite sure they could cover any type of agricultural produce, including pigs, chickens and crops of lots of other things that are produced agriculturally. I am suggesting that this may not be a bad thing, Mr. Chairman, that there may be a time when we will want to include all the agricultural crops under this insurance scheme, particularly if it works out as well and as advantageously as the minister has suggested.
I suggest that this definition gives considerable latitude to the minister, and unless he is willing to amend the bill now he is going to have to accept the fact that the regulations could be so designed as to cover almost any agricultural crop. I think there are a number of people in the agricultural field who hope that it will go so far as to cover the products of bees in the production of honey.


Douglas Scott Harkness: I think I should just say
that the hon. member is very much out of place in attacking officials of this department and making remarks about them which are in no way justified. I deplore attacks of that kind by the hon. member, as someone said behind me at the time he was making the attack, on people who are in no position to defend themselves.
In addition to this, the hon. member, of course, on speaking on second reading indicated, as I said, that he either had not read the bill or did not understand the bill. He was talking about pigs being insured, and things of that kind. Every other member of the house, I am certain, and every farmer in the country knows and has known that crop insurance was intended for crops which are grown, not for livestock and things of that kind. The hon. member now is just trying to cover up a serious error he made.


Mr. Fisher:: I wonder whether the minister has ever heard of the broadcasting committee, where every day we get attacks by Conservative members on officials?


The Deputy Chairman:: Order.


Mr. McMillan:: Mr. Chairman, I should like to ask the minister a question on "crop". If the peach growers of the Niagara district wanted to insure themselves under this legislation I understand that Ontario would need to be a participating province, and I think the minister said at the resolution stage that 25 per cent of the peach growers would need to enter the scheme. Is that right?

Proposed Crop Insurance


Douglas Scott Harkness: Mr. Chairman, certainly peaches or any other fruit can be brought under the crop insurance scheme if the province wishes to do so and enters into an agreement with us to cover a crop of that kind. As to the matter of the 25 per cent which I mentioned, we have not written that into the act for the very reason that we want to leave a little flexibility. According to the regulations under which we propose to operate we think that we will place the minimum at 25 per cent. In some cases it may be 25 per cent of the number of producers and in other cases 25 per cent of the acreage covered. I think you can see that you might run into difficulty if you said 25 per cent of the producers or if you said 25 per cent of the acreage. Consequently we want to leave it a bit flexible so that we can vary our agreements with the different provinces to some slight extent in order to make the scheme practical.


William Hector McMillan: Would it be the onus of the province to set the premium risk on each crop or would the federal government do that?


Douglas Scott Harkness: It is provided in the legislation that the premium rate must be established on the basis of what the long term average yield is in the particular area covered for that particular type of crop.


William Moore Benidickson: To be decided by your department.


Douglas Scott Harkness: No, it is provided that this will be arrived at by statistical means. Of course we have statistical information mostly in the bureau of statistics which comes under my colleague, the Minister of Trade and Commerce. The hon. member for Kenora-Rainy River knows that there are very extensive statistics as far as grain crops are concerned, and it is quite easy to determine what the long term average is for grain crops. For some of the other crops the statistics are not nearly as complete and we would have to come to an agreement with the province as to what period of years would be taken to determine what the long term average was on the basis of the statistics that were available.


William Moore Benidickson: I could ask perhaps ten questions of a similar nature, but when one looks at clause 2, subclause (g) he sees that there is reference to establishing a scheme of insurance with the provinces. I still think it is pertinent to ask the minister to inform his colleagues in the House of Commons from what provinces he expects ready acceptance of the terms of the bill. I think he should also tell us whether he expects acceptance to take place within one year, five years or never.


Douglas Scott Harkness: Mr. Chairman, this is really direct repetition. We have had this same thing time after time at the resolution stage, on second reading and again now in committee of the whole. I have said on every occasion that I am not engaging in prophecy in regard to these matters. We have never had legislation of this type in Canada before and therefore to ask me to say what provinces are going to come in, when they are going to come in and so forth is simply not a reasonable question.


William Moore Benidickson: I would only comment that if the shoe were on the other foot and there were some assurance as a result of past negotiations and intimate contact I am sure the minister would be the first one to come forward and assert in the house that he was sure that so and so and so and so would agree. This emphasizes the fact that here we have a bill without any indication that it will appeal to one, two or a majority of the provinces.


William Arnold Peters: Before this clause carries I should like to refer to what the minister has said about my comment with respect to his officials. I know the opinion of the minister in this regard and I can only assume that my comment was considered to be hilarious or it would not have produced the expression it did. I am not the least bit impressed with the ability of ministers who have to depend on advisers to give them information when they should have it themselves if they are top of the department they are handling. That is my personal opinion and I am entitled to it. I understand that in Great Britain there are no advisers on the floor of the house there. A minister there learns about his department and is then able to conduct his own affairs. I resent the idea of officials passing opinions on something that I think is right when I say it. If it is not correct, then it is certainly the right of any member including the minister, to say so. Officials should not presume to pass this type of comment.


Douglas Scott Harkness: May I just say that the hon. member has no business making these remarks. Any remarks he has made in connection with officials passing information which he apparently thought was directed against himself are entirely the product of his own imagination. There were no remarks made of any kind along that line and therefore the hon. member is speaking on the basis of a completely false assumption.


Hazen Robert Argue: Mr. Chairman, on a point of order, the minister's tirade is completely out of order and completely uncalled for. It is

not the prerogative of the minister to say what any member of parliament can utter in this house.


Gordon Minto Churchill: He can object to it.


Hazen Robert Argue: If any minister or any member of the house disagrees with a statement made by any hon. member it is his prerogative to rise on a point of order and to raise the question with the chair. This the minister failed to do and it is the minister himself who is transgressing the rules of the house.


Douglas Scott Harkness: Mr. Chairman, on the point of order, I should just like to point out that, of course, while there is no point of order to begin with, it is quite evident that the hon. member for Timiskaming made a false assumption and on that basis he attacked the officials here. As I say, he had no right to do so.


Mr. Regier:: He has a right.


[Stage Direction]
Clause agreed to.
Clause 3 agreed to.
On clause 4-Contributions.
(Translation):
Samuel Boulanger: Mr. Chairman, the second paragraph of section 4 reads as follows:
The loans that may be made to a province under an agreement shall not exceed in any year 75 per cent of the amount by which the indemnities required to be paid under, etc.-
I wish the Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Harkness) would tell me what the rate of interest will be on loans granted to the provinces.
(Text):


Douglas Scott Harkness: Any time it becomes necessary for the dominion government to make a loan to a province to meet indemnities the interest rate would be the cost of money to the federal government plus the usual small service charge. I think it is generally one-eighth of one per cent or something like that.


Hazen Robert Argue: I have a suggestion to make to the minister and I make it with great deference and in the hope that he will consider it. I appreciate that the statement he has now made is an important one and I appreciate that as far as the minister himself is concerned he has every desire and every intention of fulfilling that statement. But I think the bill would be in much better form, and I am certain that the provinces would wish this to be done, if in setting forth that loans may be made to the provinces the interest rate were spelled out or the formula that will be used in establishing the interest rate. I think that kind of general clause is in other legislation and in my opinion it is more businesslike to have it spelled out. At the time that a province may need money
Proposed Crop Insurance under this clause, if such a time comes, the present minister may not be the minister of agriculture. I am not wishing to say that he will not be in the government at that time. He may have what we call a promotion. There may be a new minister, and certainly no statement in Hansard is equal to a provision in the law. I would suggest that the minister have this clause stand, that he seek any advice he wishes about the draftsmanship of it, and that he give consideration to spelling out a formula that will be used in the setting of interest rates on loans that may be made to the provinces to cover conditions set forth in this bill.


Joseph Pierre Albert Sévigny: Shall clause 4 carry?


Some hon. Members:: Carried.


Hazen Robert Argue: I would appreciate a statement from the minister.


Douglas Scott Harkness: I do not think there is any necessity for doing that. The hon. member knows that there will be no need for any loans for at least well over a year in any event. This is a matter which will be covered also in the agreement with the province. This would constitute part of the agreement with the province, indicating what the rate of interest would be and so on and the question of the rate of interest would be determined.


Hazen Robert Argue: These would be a number of agreements. The minister is now saying it will be spelled out in the agreement and presumably every agreement would have the same interest rate. But that does not necessarily follow. I think this is a rather slipshod method of draftsmanship which leaves such an important provision to decision at some later date when it could be spelled out in the law itself.


Joseph Pierre Albert Sévigny: Shall clause 4 carry?


Hazen Robert Argue: Clause 4 reads in part as follows:
4. (1) The contribution payable to a province under an agreement shall be paid in respect of each year and shall be the total of
(a)	fifty per cent of the expenses incurred by the province in that year in the administration of the insurance scheme; and
(b)	if the province has by the agreement undertaken to pay a share of the premiums, the lesser of
(i)	the amount required to reimburse the province for the share of the premiums paid by it in that year, or
(ii)	twenty per cent of the premiums paid in respect of policies of insurance in that year.
The minister has said many times that a province will not be required to pay any premiums whatsoever. I think I understand what the clause means but it does require, in the initial stages at any rate, the provinces

Proposed Crop Insurance to pay a share of the premiums. On the surface this provision seems very much at variance with the statement the minister made so many times during the debate, namely that a province would not be required -if it did not wish to do so-to make any contribution towards premiums. The minister can now stand up and say, if he thinks it proper to do so, that this is merely a bookkeeping arrangement, that the province will pay initially and that at some later date the federal government will reimburse the province. Then I should like to know what the length of the period will be from the time the province pays this money into the fund until the federal government reimburses the province.
Would it not be much better and would it not be more accurate in the context of the statement by the minister, to provide that the federal contribution shall be paid directly to the fund and directly to the provincial corporation or agency that is operating the crop insurance and not by this law require the province, at least in the initial stages, to pay a share of the premiums?


Douglas Scott Harkness: Mr. Chairman, I must say that when the draft of this bill came back to us and I saw this particular clause about which the hon. member has been talking I was alarmed that the draftsmen had not carried into effect the intention which we had in mind as far as the bill was concerned. But they explained to me that this was the particular drafting device which they found it necessary to employ because each scheme will be a provincially administered scheme; and therefore the proper legal way of handling it was for the province to pay into the fund. In other words, if they are running the fund themselves as a branch of government in the province they would make a proper bookkeeping entry and then call upon us for the cash to meet the 20 per cent of the premiums cost or the 50 per cent of the administration costs. Otherwise if they had a crown corporation running it, they would hypothecate that amount to the corporation and then ask us to put up that amount; and the time which would elapse between the two would be quite short, I understand.


Hazen Robert Argue: Can the minister say how long "quite short" would be?


Douglas Scott Harkness: No.


Hazen Robert Argue: Would it be some months?


Douglas Scott Harkness: No. They tell me the transfer of funds would be quite rapid.


Hazen Robert Argue: I appreciate the explanation the minister has given but I think it would be much better to have in this clause such other


words as "or provincial agency or crown corporation or such other authority as may be providing crop insurance within the province". As the matter now stands, it will be possible-and maybe this is the reason it is here and maybe it is not-for members or for other people to say, "Yes; look at the position of the federal government. The province pays something into the fund but we reimburse them".
The intention of the clause was to get a magic contribution out of the provinces. In the light of the minister's statement to the house on second reading I think that he was quite right in being disturbed at the draftsmanship of this clause. I think this kind of draftsmanship is open to misrepresentation and to misunderstanding. Surely the legal people in the Department of Justice, the legal officers who are available to the minister, can do a better job of drafting this clause than to draft it in such a way to offend or to raise questions in the mind of the minister when he initially read it; and I think the minister is perfectly right in his reaction.


Douglas Scott Harkness: Mr. Chairman, I explained how this matter came about. All I can say is that neither the hon. member nor I are lawyers. I think we are obliged to accept the opinion of the justice department and the justice officials, who are experts in this matter of drafting and spend all their time on it, when they say that this is the correct way to have the thing drafted in order to carry this intent into effect.


Hazen Robert Argue: The Minister of Agriculture has much greater faith than I in the wisdom of the officials to whom he refers. Yesterday we had not only an instance of the officials in the Department of Justice drafting certain clauses in a bill but of the Minister of Justice himself piloting the measure through the house, and we will all agree that the Minister of Justice is himself a very eminent lawyer. However, you would hardly recognize some of the clauses after parliament itself had improved on what was very slipshod phraseology when the bill was first introduced in the house. All I do at this time on this clause is to protest what the government is doing to the provinces that come under this legislation.
It is recognized by everyone who knows anything about agricultural conditions in Canada that Saskatchewan is not only a major agricultural province but that it is the province of greatest risk. It is the province where there are the greatest number of crop failures. Under the Prairie Farm Assistance Act experience shows that crop failures in Saskatchewan have resulted in payments being made to producers in one

year, namely in 1954, as high as almost $22 million. It is Saskatchewan where the great crop losses can take place.
It is Saskatchewan, the Saskatchewan government, the Saskatchewan treasury that the minister is asking by this measure to underwrite the losses. Let no one be misled into thinking that the 20 per cent that the federal government agrees to pay of the premiums means 20 per cent of the losses, because the losses can pile up initially into tremendous losses running into tens of millions of dollars. It will not bankrupt the provincial treasury, initially at any rate, because the federal government will lend the province the money; but it is the province that under this legislation is required to pay and to take up the losses. This legislation is no gift; it is legislation that individuals in high risk areas in Saskatchewan can comply with and can use only at very high cost.
I think the people of Saskatchewan will resent what is in fact discrimination directed against that province because ours is the high risk province, just in the same way as the legislation under the Prairie Farm Assistance Act is directed to help in a substantial way the producers in Saskatchewan who are in a high risk area. This also applies, but not to the same degree, of course, to the province of Alberta. This is one of the clauses in this legislation which will be up for public debate. It is one of the clauses which I think is inadequate and that I shall be glad to debate on any occasion with the Minister of Northern Affairs and National Resources and the Minister of Agriculture.
They can dress up this legislation in any way they wish. They can make far-reaching statements that this is going to take care of the incomes of agricultural producers so that they will not have an experience like they had in the thirties, and they can make other statements which mean very little. But the fact is that the people of Saskatchewan, the farmers through individual payments and/or the provincial treasury have to pay a very high cost to use this legislation, and I hesitate not at all in saying that the principles followed in prairie farm assistance have much more to commend them than the inadequate principles in this bill which we hope in the days ahead, after so much criticism on our part, will be improved.


William Moore Benidickson: Mr. Chairman, I regard this particular clause as the key and hub of everything we have been talking about, particularly with respect to our expected partners, the provinces. I think that we have to look at this very carefully indeed, and I am quite satisfied that the minister should look again upon his requirement of the provinces with respect to loans advanced by
Proposed Crop Insurance Canada. The minister says in this bill that the loans shall be repayable upon terms that the cabinet at Ottawa unilaterally decides. I do not think that that is going to encourage any provincial government that has any caution at all to go very far toward doing the kind of thing that on all sides of the house we want to see done, namely to establish crop insurance. I think, as I explained earlier, that inasmuch as the federal cabinet is in charge of the actuarial soundness of any scheme in any province they should under those circumstances agree that when loans are made, if the terms of payment of those loans are in accord with what they laid down, they should continue to be the primary lender and retain the primary responsibility. On the contrary, under this bill they can just demand and ask for payment at any time without adequate appreciation of the provincial final liability in this respect.
That I think is of the essence. I do not oppose the thought that it is desirable in a widespread country like ours to have provincial administration in matters of this kind; but, as I said earlier, in every royal commission report that I have looked at the conclusion is that the long term, ultimate liabilities are beyond what a provincial royal commission would advise a provincial government to assume. The commissions say that there is the desirability of having this kind of insurance, but they also say that the diversification must be wider than within one province. However, I find elsewhere in this bill an arbitrary clause which enables the federal government to dictate the terms of these loans, the clause providing the 75-25 per cent proportion. It is not subject to mutual agreement; the loans are settled by the federal organization. I would say that if I were in the provincial sphere I would be very hesitant indeed to undertake the risks which are explained in some of the royal commission reports on crop insurance which I have read.
I think that the minister should look again at this particular clause. I suggest to him that if at the initial stage he and his advisers are in complete charge of determining what is actuarially sound in so far as crop insurance is concerned, it is not right to present a bill and say, "We will loan the provinces 75 per cent of a loss after a bad year", when the provinces have had nothing to do with respect to the assessment of the rates and have not the resources for taking care of emergencies such as many of us remember. Under these circumstances I think that this clause, probably more than anything else in the bill, is likely to be responsible for the failure on the part of sensible provincial

Proposed Crop Insurance administrators to take advantage of this worthy proposal that we should have a national crop insurance scheme.
Mr. Chairman, I am very serious about this. The minister has emphasized the long term aspect. I think he will agree with me that in examining some of the points which have come to light from experience of the only known crop insurance scheme that we have on this continent, namely in the United States, he will find that they have had some difficulty because their rates and their organization are based on too short a term of experience.
The minister seemed to agree with me when he began to talk about the experience from, say 1926 up to the present time, but in western Canada, fortunately, we have very complete and helpful information about crop records in every category going back as far as that date. So if the minister insists that his scheme must be approved by him as actuarially sound, I say that is not much of an encouragement for the provinces. If he then says: I assume no ultimate contingent liability; I only promise after the end of one crop year to lend you 25 per cent of your indemnities that exceed your premiums received beyond $200,000 and so on, I do not think that is consistent. If the minister is in the driver's seat with respect to actuarial soundness I think he must also, if he wants this to be national in scope, stand behind the scheme as an actuarial scheme which he has approved on a long term basis without profit to the producer, since the producer is averaging over a long period of time. But what is proposed in this bill is that the provinces, with slender resources, must undertake repayment of losses which might occur should the federal government's actuarial calculations prove to be wrong, and I think that will deter a great number of the provinces from entering this scheme.


[Stage Direction]
Clause agreed to.
On clause 5-Contents of agreement. (Translation):
Samuel Boulanger: Mr. Chairman, I would like to ask the minister a question with regard to paragraph (f) (i) of section 5, subsection (1), which says:
The province will establish a reserve fund for the payment of indemnities.
Could the minister tell me on what basis the provinces will establish the amount, or the percentage of the reserve fund?
(Text):


Douglas Scott Harkness: These two subclauses have to be read together, and if you do that you see that the provinces will agree to establish a reserve fund for the payment of indemnities, and:

(ii) that all premium receipts will be used only for the payment of indemnities under policies of insurance and not more than 50 per cent of the administration expenses referred to in paragraph (c).
That is to say, the agreement will provide that money received in the form of premiums will be used for only three purposes: to pay not more than half of the administration costs which the dominion government does not pay; for the payment of indemnities; and, third, for the setting up of a reserve fund. This provision will insure that the money collected in the form of premiums cannot be used by a province as a contribution, say, to consolidated revenue or for general purposes. The premium money collected must be used for the payment of indemnities, for administrative expenses that we do not pay, and to set up a reserve fund with what is left over.


Reynold Rapp: On clause 5 may I ask whether, if a farmer lives in an area of a province to which the insurance scheme extends, he can insure only part of his crop if he wishes to do so, or must he insure the crop in its entirety? I should be glad if the minister would explain this.


Douglas Scott Harkness: I think he can insure only part of his crop in the same way as he can with regard to hail at the present time. But, of course, he would only collect on that part of the crop which is insured.
I must make it clear that if he had insured part of this crop he would not be eligible to collect P.F.A.A. benefits, because otherwise you would have the situation where there would be difficulty in deciding on what part he would get P.F.A.A. benefits and what part he would not.


Hazen Robert Argue: If part of his land was in a township which was under crop insurance and he had land in some other township where he could not obtain crop insurance, is he automatically taken out of P.F.A.A. in the township where it is impossible for him to obtain coverage, so that in some instances, in theory at any rate, it would be possible for a farmer to have both, but if all cultivable land was in an insured unit, if he insured one part he could no longer obtain P.F.A.A.


Douglas Scott Harkness: That is correct.


William Moore Benidickson: The Minister of Agriculture and I are fairly good friends and I imagine we have both given about the same measure of attention to the Saskatchewan royal commission. In a debate which took place a week ago there was argument back and forth about the question of eliminating from P.F.A.A. land that would be under a crop insurance scheme. I personally was not sure

in reading that report that the recommendation did not apply only to the proposed pilot scheme in Saskatchewan. What is the minister's opinion?


Douglas Scott Harkness: My opinion was that the commission recommended that land which was under a scheme of crop insurance should not also be under P.F.A.A.


William Moore Benidickson: It was so closely related to the recommendation that a start should be made in Saskatchewan on a pilot scheme only that I felt that the admonition that P.F.A.A. should not apply under that section, probably applied only-


Douglas Scott Harkness: That was another recommendation, the recommendation that there should be a pilot scheme and I do not think it had anything to do with the recommendation about P.F.A.A.


Hazen Robert Argue: I had fully expected that the provision to which the minister referred on June 29 as reported on page 5225 of Hansard would have been spelled out in this clause. The minister seemed quite definite on that occasion. He said that what he had in mind at the present time was 25 per cent of the farmers or of the acreage in whatever the insurance unit was. I do not suppose I have to read it. The minister used the figure 25 per cent on two or three other occasions in the same paragraph.
If the minister still has it in mind that 25 per cent of the acreage covered by the plan is necessary before a unit township or municipality may enter the scheme, I am wondering why this has not been spelled out in the bill itself. If the minister had used some range of figures, then I could understand that this might be something which could be worked out with the provinces, but his illustration seemed to be very definite. He said there must be at least 25 per cent willing to enter a crop insurance program, and then that particular unit would come into the scheme.


Douglas Scott Harkness: As I said earlier, we did not want to have anything in the bill which was completely hard and fast, in case it might not prove to be workable. We wanted to have sufficient flexibility so that when we entered into an agreement with the province, if the province was able to demonstrate, say, that an actuarially sound scheme could be worked out with 20 per cent of the producers because, for instance, they might have 50 per cent of the production although they might not have the acreage, we would be in a position to make an agreement on those lines. Whereas if you specifically spell out 25 per cent of the producers then you are completely bound. You might put a province in a difficult spot which there is no need of doing.
Proposed Crop Insurance I mentioned 25 per cent because that is the figure we have in mind on the basis of the studies which have been made as to what is more or less the minimum percentage of the producers or acreage or production, as the case might be, which it is necessary to have in order to have a sufficient spread in the risk to have an actuarially sound scheme.


[Stage Direction]
Clause agreed to.
Clauses 6 to 8 inclusive, agreed to.
On clause 9-Application of act.
Hazen Robert Argue: Mr. Chairman, this is the joker in the bill. This is the clause I termed as a bombshell. This is the clause highlighted in the press report by Mr. Robert Moon. This is the clause that makes the legislation unpalatable for many producers in western Canada. As I said earlier today this divides the people of the prairies into two classes of farmers, as it were. One group consists of farmers in high risk areas whose premiums under a crop insurance scheme will be exorbitant and who will not benefit from this bill. With this clause in effect we feel there has been a retreat by the federal government from the position that has been taken in the past. Under prairie farm assistance the federal government's contribution has been roughly 50 per cent. But under this clause P.F.A.A. will be removed whenever a crop insurance plan comes into effect. I think it would have been much better to have incorporated this provision in any crop insurance scheme that might be entered into. This is something the producers will resent, namely that if they come under a crop insurance plan at all they must forego what in fact has been limited but very valuable protection.


George Robson Muir: Mr. Chairman, I should like to make a few comments at this stage and am prompted in so doing by having listened to some of the weird statements we have heard today from hon. members opposite. I think that most farmers will agree that the Prairie Farm Assistance Act should be continued in conjunction with any crop insurance scheme developed on an actuarial basis. It will be necessary to continue the P.F.A.A. for the benefit of those areas subject to prolonged drought or what might better be described as low average yield areas.
However, large sections of the prairies, because of small crop loss areas, seldom if ever are able to qualify for payments under P.F.A.A. In that connection I was interested in the remarks of the hon. member for As-siniboia as reported at page 5230 of Hansard for June 29, where he is reported as having said:
As far as the prairie provinces are concerned, particularly in the light of the clause in the bill

Proposed Crop Insurance which says that if a producer wishes to obtain benefits under this measure he can no longer obtain benefits under the Prairie Farm Assistance Act, this bill beyond question is a retrograde step.
At page 5228 of Hansard of the same day the hon. gentleman is reported as having made the following statement:
One of the most important things to recommend
the Prairie Farm Assistance Act in the three prairie provinces which it covers and in the section of British Columbia which it also covers is that within this area every single producer is protected. It covers everyone in the grain producing area. Everyone who is covered in that area and who sells grain pays a small levy of 1 per cent. This means that not only is everybody covered but that, to make a general statement, there may be a few exceptions, such as people who raise livestock only and feed all their grain-everybody contributes by a 1 per cent levy on the grain that is marketed.


Hazen Robert Argue: Will the hon. member tell me from what page he is now quoting and from what part of the page?


George Robson Muir: Page 5228, Mr. Chairman. It is true that all farmers are covered by the 1 per cent levy but it certainly has not been proven to be true that they are are all necessarily protected from crop loss of any kind. The payments made since the inception of the P.F.A.A. program do not give an accurate picture of the crop coverage received.
As an example, Manitoba farmers received roughly $14 million, and paid out $16 million under the 1 per cent levy. At the same time many of them had recurring grievous losses in that period and received nothing. I might add that the people who sustained these losses were still paying the 1 per cent levy. The reason for this inaccurate picture, of course, is that where crop losses did occur in the better farming areas crop damage was spotty and the crop loss areas scattered and small which prevented them from qualifying under the terms of the Prairie Farm Assistance Act.
Conversely, high risk areas such as submarginal and relatively poor crop land were able to qualify year after year. It is necessary that certain areas require crop assistance rather than crop insurance because of the high risk factor but it is certainly not in the best interests of agriculture that the assistance be provided to a large extent by other farmers who have little hope of collecting for their own crop loss out of a fund they have been helping to provide.
Many farmers resent having to pay the 1 per cent levy with very little hope of ever recovering anything. Even though recent amendments to the act did help to correct the situation, to some extent that situation still does exist. Most farmers in large areas in the west will welcome the opportunity

to get over-all crop loss coverage and be relieved of the payments under P.F.A.A. and hail insurance. This will assist them in paying for the more complete crop coverage which they will receive under a comprehensive crop insurance scheme.
(Translation):


Samuel Boulanger: I do not know whether the government of the province of Quebec will accept this crop insurance scheme, but we may conclude from the attitude of hon. members from Quebec this afternoon, that it is very doubtful that Quebec farmers will be allowed to benefit by this legislation. I would like to ask the minister-


Mr. Ricard:: We are all in favour.


Samuel Boulanger: Has the hon. member for St. Hyacinthe-Bagot something to say to this?


J.-H.-Théogène Ricard: You try to take credit for everything.


Mr. Pigeon:: Don't ask a casket-maker any questions. It isn't worth while.


J.-H.-Théogène Ricard: You spoke against the bill, and you voted for it.


Samuel Boulanger: Will maple syrup producers be able to benefit from this legislation. On several occasions we spoke of wheat producers but nobody mentioned the maple sugar producers in the province of Quebec.
(Text):


Douglas Scott Harkness: Mr. Chairman, I should like to point out that questions of this kind on this clause are completely out of order. This deals with the Prairie Farm Assistance Act payments; but as to whether maple sugar producers can take advantage of the act or not, that would depend entirely on the scheme set up in a particular province. If a province wishes to bring maple sugar production under the act, it is a crop and I see no particular reason why it should not be covered.


William Moore Benidickson: I understood the minister to make reference to the application of this bill to the prairies. This is a national bill. I think in his concluding words he said that it was up to the province, but there is no thought that this is designed strictly for the prairies.


Douglas Scott Harkness: None whatever. I have pointed out time after time that this scheme was specifically drawn up so that it would be applicable to any part of Canada.


Mr. Nasserden:: Would the minister explain this. I am not sure what "insured crop" refers to, whether it refers to a crop that is insured up to 25 per cent by the people who decide to insure their crops or whether it refers to the individual farmer concerned.


Douglas Scott Harkness: This applies to the individual farmer. The insurance will be written on an individual basis, just the same as life insurance is, or any other type of ordinary insurance. What clause 1 states is that a farmer who has entered into an insurance scheme will then not be required to pay into the Prairie Farm Assistance Act and he will not be eligible for payments thereunder.


Edward Nasserden: It does not appear to read that way. It seems to me that it might be interpreted otherwise if someone wished to interpret it otherwise at some time or other.


Douglas Scott Harkness: Mr. Chairman, I think it is quite clear. It reads:
The cultivated land of a farmer in any area to which an insurance scheme extends is not eligible for assistance under the Prairie Farm Assistance Act if an insured crop is grown by the farmer on any part thereof.
In other words, when the farmer has entered into the insurance scheme he has his crop insured, and then he is not eligible for assistance under the Prairie Farm Assistance Act on that land.


[Stage Direction]
Clause agreed to.
Clause 10 agreed to.
On clause 11-Commencement. (Translation):
Samuel Boulanger: Mr. Chairman, could the minister tell us when this act will come into force?
(Text):


Douglas Scott Harkness: Mr. Chairman, it first of all, of course, has to go to the other place to receive approval there. Then it has to receive the approval of the Governor General. How long this will take I do not know. Then, following that, when we have the entire regulations drawn up, the act will be proclaimed; it will go into force at that time. We intend to proclaim it quite rapidly.


William Moore Benidickson: Notwithstanding the fact this federal-provincial partnership proposition has not been preceded by a conference such as we had on hospital insurance, and so on, the minister is going to do his best to make the law effective and then talk to the provinces afterward. Is that so?


Douglas Scott Harkness: Mr. Chairman, as I said, we will proclaim the act as soon as we find it possible to do so and we will then be in the position to enter into an agreement with any province which wishes to enter into an agreement. As was said here several times, Manitoba has already indicated that it wants to enter into an agreement.


[Stage Direction]
Clause agreed to.
Title agreed to.
Bill reported.
7,	1959	5637
Proposed Long Term Credit to Farmers AGRICULTURE


Douglas Scott Harkness: the second reading of Bill No. C-67, to provide for the extension of long term mortgage credit to farmers.
He said: Mr. Speaker, when this bill was at the resolution stage I indicated most of the main provisions in it, and thus I will not delay discussion of the detailed provisions by further extended remarks at this time.
As was stated then, this bill, along with the amendments to other farm credit legislation, gives a basis for a federal farm credit system which can be developed as a service for the benefit of Canadian agriculture in the years to come. In general, the approach of the government has been to enter the field of farm credit to ensure that family farm operations and those who work their own land or operate their own farms may be able to obtain sufficient credit to cope with what might be termed a rapidly moving commercial agricultural development. In 1921, for example, there were 3,500,000 horses on farms in Canada. Today there are fewer than one million. Their place has been taken, and a great deal more power made available, by tractors. Expenditure on machinery and equipment has greatly expanded all along the line, all of which has required much bigger expenditures as far as farmers are concerned. Livestock operations on farms in Canada have also been increased, with the exception of sheep and lambs. Since the 1920's total farm operating expenses, including depreciation, have about doubled.
It is not possible to refer to Canadian agriculture as other than commercial agriculture. However, there are segments of the agricultural economy where there is a lag in developing economic units. Further, this changeover has meant a greatly reduced labour force in farming, accompanied by a very substantial increase in production per man year. In order that the best personnel, that is those who are likely to continue to increase this production per man year, may be retained on farms, it is the aim of the government to make sure that they have this opportunity in so far as capital required is concerned. This bill makes it possible, through the package deal, for younger, energetic farmers, who may qualify, to make quicker progress in establishment than otherwise might be the case and thus will encourage them to take up farming as their permanent occupation.
5638	HOUSE OF
Proposed Long Term Credit to Farmers
In providing additional farm mortgage credit opportunity there would appear to be little difference between the action proposed in this bill and recommendations made by the two major national agricultural organizations. These organizations have recommended a co-ordinated credit system; they have recommended higher loan values both in dollars and in relation to the equity of the borrower; they have recommended more flexible repayment; they have recommended a system of supervised credit for younger farmers and many other general features, most of which are included within the scope of the proposed farm credit act.
The farm organizations recommended the extension of the total term of loans for a 40-year period from the present 30-year period. As I indicated in the house at the resolution stage, it was felt better to increase the age limit to 45, and that this would give more possibilities of benefit than the extension of the term of the mortgage for an extra 10 years. This is one of the few recommendations of the farm organizations which we have not followed.
While the interprovincial farm union council brief is not specific on interest rate, the Canadian Federation of Agriculture suggests that the government might subsidize the interest rates on loans by the amount of the administration costs. The interprovincial farm union brief in an introductory paragraph states that if the government's attitude toward farm credit would give consideration to the various services that only governments can provide effectively, "most of the farm credit could be provided on as sound and self-supporting a basis as any other commercial credit". Later in their brief they indicate that they wish to have low interest rates for special cases. It may be unfair to suggest that this means that they are asking for subsidized rates.
The government believes, and we hope rightly, that by including the new package deal to provide farmers with the opportunity of operating an economic establishment, this type of farm unit will be able to pay for the full cost of borrowed money. As I stated at the time the resolution was discussed, and I can again assure you, there will be no unnecessary expenditures either for money borrowed or for administration costs.
A calculation by officials of the Veterans Land Act, arising out of a survey which was made among 5,000 veterans on the basis that they would be established on economic farm units, indicates that additional credit would earn 24 per cent after deducting $10 per day


for additional labour. This percentage varied by area and by province but the range was from 12 to 30 per cent.
To a limited extent the government does subsidize the corporation by providing up to $8 million of interest free capital. It has also provided that the reserves of the present Canadian farm loan board will be available to the new corporation without interest cost. Any subsidy beyond this would tend to interfere with provincial and private schemes, including those of a great many co-operatives who are now making agricultural loans.


William Moore Benidickson: And provinces.


Douglas Scott Harkness: And provinces too. The fact that all lending agencies, including the federal agency, are operating their service at approximately cost will give the farmer the opportunity to select the agency of his choice, based on the service and the flexibility of such service.
CTranslation):


Samuel Boulanger: Mr. Speaker, it gives me a certain satisfaction to speak of matters pertaining to agriculture and perhaps more so when we are dealing with a bill regarding farm loans.
We would have thought that, on the thirtieth anniversary of the coming into force of the Canadian Farm Loan Act, the Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Harkness), in one of those flights of oratory we have come to expect from him, would have spoken highly of that legislation and referred to the benefits farmers have received under the act. Instead of this we have seen the minister sign its death warrant.


Louis-Joseph Pigeon: Don't drag in the caskets you manufacture.


Samuel Boulanger: Let me tell the hon. member for Joliette-L'Assomption-Montcalm (Mr. Pigeon) that I won't need any casket to bury the law your Minister of Agriculture has just killed.


Mr. Tremblay:: Have it cremated.
(Text):


William Moore Benidickson: Is Quebec to come into this too? No.
(Translation):


Samuel Boulanger: Just the same people in general are firmly convinced that many farmers were saved from bankruptcy by this legislation. Others have been able to improve their farms which later became economic and self-liquidating units.
In the past, the Canadian farm loan program has always reached the objectives it had set for itself. Whenever changing conditions, farming methods and new needs so

required, the government never delayed in introducing amendments designed to satisfy the agricultural population.
If any criticism can be directed against that measure, it is perhaps for the fact that we have been too prone to provide loans for the betterment of the marginal and even submarginal farm units instead of limiting the loans to farms likely to improve.
These last few years and particularly nowadays, the development of agriculture has changed so much that we will have to change our ideas as far as farm credit is concerned. It will be necessary to provide credit for the very specific purpose of helping the farmer's family to produce more efficiently and profitably in order to secure an income of at least $3,000 for a family of 4 or 5 people.
The new concept that we must have of a modern farm credit system is indicated by the rapid development that we witnessed as a result of new farm production methods and of new market requirements.
For the past 20 years, farm capital has increased by 30 per cent. In the opinion of nearly two thirds of the "Farm Forums" it is necessary today to invest more than $20,000 in order to make a good start in agriculture.
The nature of capital investment also has changed, thus following the general trend.
According to professor William E. Hal-levand, of the department of agricultural economy at Macdonald College, in the province of Quebec, the real estate value, per farm, has increased by 15 per cent, the livestock value by a little more than 30 per cent and the equipment and power value by approximately 94 per cent.
The most noticeable changes have taken place in western Canada as far as equipmenl is concerned, and in eastern Canada as regards livestock improvement.
As a result, it is getting more and more difficult for anyone who wants to engage in agriculture and especially for the young farmer, to settle down on a farm.
Many other reasons would motivate a change. They are:
The decrease in number of capital farms in agriculture. The decrease of cultivated areas particularly in eastern Canada on the fringe of larger cities. The increase of mechanization and the extension of the farming surface. A reduction of farm labour. The growing importance attached to production credit, as compared to land purchase credit.
All those reasons may lead us to foresee the need of more generous funds for each family unit.
The provinces where agriculture is the main industry recognized that need and recently passed a new legislation, or modified existing legislation in this respect.
7.	1959	5639
Proposed Long Term Credit to Farmers (Text):
May I call it ten o'clock?


Douglas Scott Harkness: Mr. Speaker, I had thought that probably hon. members might be willing, by unanimous consent, to continue with this debate for some time and perhaps expedite the passage of the bill.


John Whitney Pickersgill: I think that perhaps my hon. friend would not mind going on.


William Arnold Peters: Mr. Speaker, we agree for the purpose of second reading.


Douglas Scott Harkness: I appreciate that very much.


William Moore Benidickson: Not the clauses of the bill.


John Whitney Pickersgill: No, second reading. (Translation):


Samuel Boulanger: In the western provinces, the farm loan act was recently amended. Thus in Manitoba-and I shall be brief- they have modified the act to allow loans up to $25 thousand, repayable on a 30-year term, to be based on up to 65 per cent of the farm's assessed value. The interest rate will be
5	2 per cent on regular loans, and 4 per cent on loans to young farmers. Administration will be by an agricultural credit board to be set up by the province. As security for such loans, farmers may use their land and cattle.
On March 31, 1959, a farm loan act was enacted in Saskatchewan to cover family farms. This act provides for maximum loans of $25,000, repayable on a 30-year term, equal to 80 per cent of the assessed value of the farmer's land and assets. Interest will be
6	J per cent, of which one-half of one per cent will be used to insure the life of the farmer. The loans will be supervised by the CoOperative Trust Company, an organization independent of the government.
Alberta has also passed an act, in 1957, to provide for land purchases and for enlarging farm holdings. Loans are allowed up to a maximum of $10,000, on a 20-year term, with interest at 5 per cent, one-half of one per cent of which is for insurance on the farmer's life. The interest rate is therefore 4J per cent, plus one-half of one per cent for insurance.
The western provinces have realized the need to amend their farm credit legislation, and the Liberals have also realized, even before the Conservatives, that amendments to Canada's farm loan act were needed. Indeed it might be said that the amendments now being introduced by the government are
5640	HOUSE OF
Proposed Long Term Credit to Farmers the result of pressures we have been exerting in the past two years, in conjunction with farm organizations throughout the country.
Thus I had the honour to introduce, early in this session, a resolution calling upon the government to establish an agricultural and fisheries expansion bank. That proposal was supported without reservations by the 16 members who took part in the discussion.
The member for Gaspe (Mr. English) made a number of points, insisting on the need to provide credit for eastern Canada's fishermen. I wonder what he will say about the bill that has just been placed before us, in which there is not even any mention of fishermen.
In my suggestion, I urged that all government services in the fields of farm credit, research, youth establishment, rural construction, etc., be co-ordinated under a single agency.
That farm bank project was worked out by my chief following recommendations made by the farmers themselves in the light of studies carried out by various farm organizations across the country.
Mr. Speaker, the proposed bill in its present wording is designed to achieve the following purposes: first, to raise the maximum loan from $15,000 to $20,000, which amount will be repayable within thirty years; second, to make it possible for a farmer who has reached 21 years of age but has not reached the age of 45 to borrow an amount not exceeding $27,500 upon the security of mortgages on farm lands, buildings and livestock. True, the whole will be subject to supervision at the borrower's expense on the part of the new corporation; but such supervision will cease when the amount of the loan is reduced to 65 per cent of the value of the lands used as a security for the loan, or to $20,000 whichever is the lesser.
That is the aim to be achieved in the attempt to have this bill adopted. No mention is made of the rate of interest except that it will be determined by the corporation. No mention is made of the supervising fee except that it will be fixed annually by the corporation.
All arguments put forward by the minister in support of his bill do not agree with the representations made by farm organizations, or with the requirements of modern agriculture, and particularly of agriculture in the province of Quebec.
If we consider the benefits that the Quebec farmers will derive from it, I can see only slight ones: the increase of the maximum


loans from $15,000 to $20,000 and the increase in the amount of maximum loans from 65 to 75 per cent of the appraisal value of the land and farm buildings. Those are the only two advantages-
(Text):


William Moore Benidickson: A subsidized non-commercial interest charge.


Samuel Boulanger: I was talking about a 65 per cent or 75 per cent rate.
(Translation):
Those are, Mr. Speaker, the only two advantages that the farmers of the province of Quebec who will want to come under this act will get from it.
The advantage of obtaining a loan up to $20,000 will be useful only to a small number of farmers, because the average loan in the country is about $6,000; in fact, of the 150 loans approved last year in the province of Quebec, 2 only have been made to the amount of $15,000.
I have here the figures about the loans made in certain fiscal years. In 1956-57, while an amount of $700,000 was provided for 139 loans, 10 of those loans were for $10,000 or over, and 2 for $15,000. In 1957-58, of 122 loans, 13 were to the amount of $10,000 or over, and 4 to the amount of $15,000. In 1958-59, of the 139 loans made, 17 were for amounts of $10,000 or over, and 2 to the amount of $15,000. If we study the figures for the first quarter of 1959, we see that 61 loans had been approved, 13 of them for amounts of $10,000 and 4 for an amount of $15,000.
As for particular or special loans provided for in part 3 of the new act, for farmers in the age group 21 to 45, up to an amount of $27,500, I doubt if the farmers of the province of Quebec could take advantage of that plan, because we have in the civil code of the province of Quebec a section which reads as follows:
Any farmer may pledge, as security for a loan which he contracts, for a term not exceeding eighteen months, all his livestock and farm produce, present and future while at the same time retaining them in his possession. The borrower shall have, towards the creditor, the obligations of a depository, without having any recourse against him for the cost of custody and conservation.
That means that our farmers cannot offer their livestock as security for a period exceeding eighteen months.
There is also another interesting section in the civil code of the province of Quebec, that is section 1548, which says:
The right of redemption cannot be stipulated for a term exceeding 10 years. If it be stipulated for a longer term, it is reduced to the term of 10 years.	.

This means that a farmer can mortgage his property by a redemption contract for a term not exceeding 10 years. Then, as I said earlier, I doubt very much that the farmers of the province of Quebec could take advantage of this legislation. I am not a lawyer, I have no knowledge of the law-


Mr. Asselin:: That is quite obvious.


Samuel Boulanger: Those are elementary arguments and I am convinced that the lawyers could take the floor after I sit down and explain the bill.
Will the scholars opposite finally take the floor to explain the provisions of this bill? I would ask Quebec members especially to explain what they understand in this bill.


William Moore Benidickson: Duplication.


Samuel Boulanger: To all intents and purposes, Quebec farmers will derive little benefit from that legislation.
Besides, what could have they expected from a Conservative government, whose agricultural program is made up of mere promises? What can they also expect from fifty Conservative members from the province of Quebec, whose arguments in support of labour are in the form of compliments for ministers, and commendations about bills, even before anything is known about the contents of those bills. That is what happened when a statement was made about loan insurance and farm credit. The minister was lauded, the bill was endorsed without any of those members knowing what was in the bill. That is the attitude of our Conservative members from the province of Quebec, who claim to be saving the farm and labour classes.


Martial Asselin: Go and tell that to Quebec farmers.


Samuel Boulanger: Does the hon. member want to ask me a question?


Martial Asselin: I am asking whether the hon. member is in favour of this legislation or whether he is opposed to it. If so, let him explain himself clearly, because nobody has understood anything yet.


Samuel Boulanger: I understand that the hon. member-


Martial Asselin: You don't understand.


Samuel Boulanger: I know that the member who just rose is not very familiar with agriculture. If we hear cries from the other side of this house, they are cries of distress which come-
7, 1959	5641
Proposed Long Term Credit to Farmers


Some hon. Members:: Ah! Ah!


Samuel Boulanger: -from the cellars of the Union Nationale of the province of Quebec.
In a few moments we shall probably see the member who is the greatest Duplessis enthusiast among the duplessists in this house rise and sing the praises of the Quebec Farm Loan Board and of the Union Nationale. I am not mentioning this to criticize the principle, because I believe that the principle of the Quebec Farm Loan Board is good. I believe this to be good farm legislation. Experts-


Some hon. Members:: Hear! Hear!


Samuel Boulanger: I thank hon. members for their applause. I hope they will still applaud when I have finished explaining my views. I think this is good farm legislation. As a matter of fact, experts in the matter recognize it to be good farm legislation though they think it should have been modified some time ago and that it was diverted from the object for which it had been created.


Some hon. Members:: Order!


Samuel Boulanger: I want to speak about it simply to prove to the Canadian people that it is being used as the most infamous instrument we can imagine in a democratic country-


Some hon. Members:: Order!


Samuel Boulanger: -namely to serve the political aims of a Union Nationale government.


Some hon. Members:: Order!
(Text):


Mr. Speaker:: Order. If any hon. member wishes to raise a point of order there is a proper way of doing it, and it is not by interrupting the hon. member who has the floor.


J.-H.-Théogène Ricard: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker, the hon. member was not in order just now. He was speaking of provincial farm loans and we are dealing with federal loans.


John Whitney Pickersgill: On the point of order raised by the hon. gentleman, Mr. Speaker, it surely has never been considered that in asking parliament to establish any form of lending agency one should not take account of other ways of securing loans, and that is all my hon. friend is doing. It seems to me that the so-called point of order of the hon. gentleman is an attempt to restrict debate and freedom of speech in this house.


J.-H.-Théogène Ricard: Mr. Speaker, as the hon. member for Drummond-Arthabaska (Mr. Boulanger) was saying, he was going to deal with the provincial farm loan. This is not just for establishing his cause; he wants to deal with this matter, so he is out of order.
5642	HOUSE OF
Proposed Long Term Credit to Farmers


William Moore Benidickson: On the point of order, Mr. Speaker, I think the hon. member was simply taking a quick-


Mr. Speaker:: Order. I think it is unnecessary to labour the point of order. I wish the hon. member would continue with his address.
(Translation):


Samuel Boulanger: Thank you, Mr. Speaker, for your ruling. I knew I could deal with the matter because, in similar circumstances, at the beginning of a session, I rose on a point of order, and my point of order was not sustained. It is absolutely the same situation today. I am speaking about the Quebec farm loan, but Union nationale members do not want to hear anything about it.


An hon. Member:: There is no Union
nationale member here.


Maurice Bourget: They have all been elected by the Union nationale.


An hon. Member:: No, by the people.


Maurice Bourget: Thanks to Union Nationale funds.


An hon. Member:: No, by the people.


Maurice Bourget: We will see about it at the next election.


Samuel Boulanger: The report published by the Quebec Farm Loan Board shows that on March 31 last, 56,803 loans totalling $165,991,695 have been granted since the fall of 1936.
That is more loans than were granted by the government of Canada, from 1929 to March 31, 1959. Out of 575,015 farms in operation in Canada in 1956, 54,624 farmers were granted a loan under the federal farm loan act, that is 10 per cent, whereas in the province of Quebec, loans were granted to 56,803 farmers, out of a total of 120,000, i.e., more than 50 per cent. We can tell about the agricultural and political situation of a province when more than 50 per cent of its farmers are indebted to their government, or rather I should say to the Union nationale.
The hon. member for Joliette-L'Assomption-Montcalm (Mr. Pigeon), during the debate on the motion I introduced at the beginning of the session, asking for the setting up of a fisheries expansion and agricultural bank, made some remarks.
(Text):


Mr. Speaker:: Order. I think the hon. member is getting a long way from the bill under discussion. If he wants to discuss his earlier speech on fisheries loans it seems to me he


will have a pretty hard time relating it to anything relevant tonight. I allowed him to discuss the credit situation of the farmers in Quebec, but he must keep to this bill. (Translation):


Samuel Boulanger: Mr. Speaker, when I introduced my motion for the establishment of an agricultural development bank, under the form of a resolution if you prefer, the hon. member for Joliette-L'Assomption-Montcalm gave the history of the provincial farm credit. At that time I raised a point of order and you gave the following ruling:
It seems to me that it is relevant to a discussion of what steps might be taken here to expand agricultural credit to know what other credit facilities are available to farmers and to draw comparisons between the proposed policy and existing legislation. I would think it was relevant.
Therefore in the circumstances, I suggest that if I establish a comparison between this bill and the farm credit act of the province of Quebec, I am not out of order.
The member for Joliette-L'Assomption-Montcalm, in his argument, compared the provincial farm loan with the federal loan and said:
First, the interest rate on farm loans should be lowered within reach of the farmers, because in my estimation, the present rate is too high.
We will study the bill. We are anxious to know the views of the minister about the interest rate that farmers will have to pay under the new act. It is suggested to charge 5 per cent or about 5 per cent-the rate that the government pays for its money [DOT]

plus the cost of supervision and insurance on the life of the farmer. We suggest that the interest rate will increase to 6J and even 7 per cent. I have made the calculation, Mr. Chairman, and I can assert that the interest will not be 5 per cent as it is now under the present act. Then, I hope that, at the proper time, the member for Joliette-L'Assomption-Montcalm will be able to introduce an amendment or, at least, to rise in defence of the farmers of the province of Quebec.
Mr. Speaker, for several years now, the largest farm organizations have presented briefs to the government all asking for improvements which are generally identical.
Does the member for Roberval (Mr. Tremblay) want to ask a question?


Léonard-David Sweezey Tremblay: No. He puts questions to responsible people.


Samuel Boulanger: If I am not responsible, at least be content to listen to me or let me make my speech in peace.

That is how the international council of farming unions came to recommend the establishment of a federal agency under the Department of Agriculture instead of under the Department of Finance. I find that this has been done, and I commend the Minister of Finance (Mr. Fleming) for transferring administration of that agency service to the Department of Agriculture. Such an agency would include a loan supervision service, along the same lines as under the Veterans' Land Act. This suggestion has also been put forward by the Canadian Federation of Agriculture, which favours a farm credit supervision service. This means that the services of an expert on agricultural matters will be available to borrowers so long as their debt has not been refunded in the proportion of 25 per cent of total assets. Only then will supervision stop.
Both organizations call for a reduction in interest rates. The international congress of agricultural unions suggests that interest should be between 3 and 3i per cent. On the other hand, the Canadian Federation of Agriculture urges that interest rates be equal to government loan costs, plus a fee to provide for a reserve, but suggests that administration be the government's responsibility.
Two other points on which there is general agreement are an increase in maximum amounts to be loaned by the government, and the percentage assessment on property. The maximum amount should be $20,000, and the Canadian Federation of Agriculture recommends an assessment rate of 80 per cent for loans up to $8,000, dropping gradually to 65 per cent for loans between $16,000 and $20,000.
All loans granted based on a 70 to 80 percent assessment should be under the supervision of government experts. Such are the main features of the improvements that should be made to this bill.
Mr. Speaker, in rising to state my views on this bill, my purpose was to show the good and particularly the bad features that will be included in this act if it is passed in its present form.
The purposes we are trying to achieve in considering this legislation are serious enough to warrant proper time to consider it.
It would have been wise to introduce this legislation at the beginning of the session, so that we could have considered it more fully and thus have had more time to consult experts and all farm associations across the country.
This most important bill, which may involve serious consequences-
7, 1959	5643
Proposed Long Term Credit to Farmers


Mr. Speaker:: Order. I regret to interrupt the hon. member but his time has expired.
(Text):


William Arnold Peters: We wish to endorse this bill and to give it our support. In doing so we should like to mention not only the good things that are in it but a number of the things which we consider are not satisfactory.
In recent years, in my own area, the old Canadian farm loan board has been reluctant to make loans to farmers. The valuations which they have placed on farm property and the amount they were prepared to lend on cultivated land have been exceedingly low and, in consequence, it was almost impossible for a farmer to borrow sufficient money to enable him to establish himself in the light of present day conditions in agriculture. However, there are, in my opinion complications with regard to extending long term credit, and I think the experience of the work of the officials of the Department of Veterans Affairs in relation to the Veterans' Land Act is something which we cannot overlook. Indeed, we should give close consideration to it when we are considering any type of farm credit.
The Veterans' Land Act, in extending credit, made provision for careful supervision, and it seems to me that when we extend long term credit to farmers we could do those farmers no greater disservice than to supply them with a large amount of money, with the consequent necessity of heavy repayments over a long term at considerable rates of interest, unless we supply also a measure of guidance where necessary. It is evident, of course, that the money can only be paid off if the loan which has been advanced is used advantageously. I believe it is generally agreed among farm organizations that farm loans have not served this end. I was surprised to observe the number of loans made to farmers which have been put in the courts for foreclosure during the last few months. In some instances farmers had borowed $2,500 five or six years ago. Their farms are now being foreclosed upon. Although the farmers made some payments and attempted to pay the interest they are still required to pay amounts of over $3,000.
With respect to supervision, I feel it should not be by agreement but by compulsion. No loan should be given to a farmer unless some supervision can be given so that the loan can be repaid on the terms agreed to by the vendor and the borrower and the farmer can maintain his standard of living on the farm when making these payments. It would not be advantageous for a farmer to obtain a loan that would not directly increase his
5644	HOUSE OF
Proposed Long Term Credit to Farmers productivity so that his income would be increased by an amount that would make it possible to repay the loan and maintain if not increase his standard of living.
Several other things should be in the bill. One is the provision of a definite interest rate. Interest rates in Canada have been rapidly increasing. Because of government policy we are now in the position where the government pays interest rates of 5i per cent on one year borrowings. The interest rate should be set at a reasonable level of 5 per cent or less to be of assistance to the farmer. We should bear in mind the experience we have had under the Veterans' Land Act. If it is left open as it appears to be in the bill it will be found that interest rates of 6 to 61 per cent on long term borrowings will obtain and these will not be advantageous to the farmer. A farmer would consider himself well off if he were to make a 5 per cent profit on his investment of $30,000 or $40,000.
There is one other major defect in this bill and I refer to insurance. We have just discussed the crop insurance bill which took into consideration crop failures. We must include a clause to make it possible for a mortgagor in borrowing money from the federal government not to have to make any payment on the principal of his loan if the area-not just his farm but the area in which he lives-is declared to be a disaster area or a depressed area or one where the crop fell below a certain percentage. This would not be expensive insurance. There have been requests from many sources for consideration of a similar provision with respect to mortgages on houses. It has been requested that when an area is in a depressed state because of unemployment the people holding mortgages should be exempted from payments on principal. This could also apply to credit for farmers.
Once a farmer falls behind in his payments and the interest begins to compound it is almost impossible for him to catch up on his double payments regardless of how well' he may do next year.
We should also extend sickness insurance to this bill. Few farmers are covered by sickness and accident insurance. When a farmer falls ill and cannot do his work the mortgage payments build up. I know of a case where a farmer took ill for two years. The farm ran down during that period and his payments had not been made. Pressure was being exerted on him by the machinery companies and by the Canadian farm loan board. One would not expect the board to have pressed him. When he was finally able to work he reached the conclusion that he could not recoup his losses and so the farm


was sold. He simply could not see his way clear to ever catching up on the payments.
If the government can give no consideration to mortgage insurance for sickness and crop failure I urge it to give consideration to assisting the farmer to carry on under a life insurance policy to cover the full extent of the loan, even if this is done at the expense of the mortgagor. This should not be a surprising suggestion and it would not be an expensive type of insurance. If I go to Household Finance Company to borrow money to buy an automobile the company will insure the loan. If I die owing the money even the Household Finance Company with all its faults will arrange it so that the family can own the automobile and not have to make payments on it. I see no reason why this government cannot at least put into the legislation a compulsory feature of having life insurance on the mortgagor so that when the breadwinner of the family dies the mortgage is covered.
This matter is very important Mr. Speaker, because there are hundreds of thousands of farmers in Canada who have had mortgages on their farms all their lives and when they die they will be leaving their families with mortgages that they have been struggling all their lives to pay off. I think we can do no less than assure that when they die, if at no other time, they will leave to their families farms without mortgages.


William Moore Benidickson: Mr. Speaker, I realize this is a very improper time to rise but I assure the house that I will not impose upon them. I want to be called if I am longer than about two minutes. This subject is something that I spoke about when the Veterans' Land Act amendments were up. Afterwards, I heard from indirect sources that I had spoken rather wildly when I suggested that the same volume of loans outstanding under the Veterans' Land Act could be taken care of by the same civil service staff as is contemplated would be required by the new program. I just want to give one or two instances to the house. The Veterans' Land Act had 3,000-plus fewer borrowers last year than the year before. They added only 260. Everybody can appreciate that they need a fairly constant staff in the supervisory work that we know they do very well.
The minister has introduced a new feature,, in connection with general farm loans, of a supervisory character. I notice that the bill contains a reference to the utilization of the Veterans' Land Act people, but I hope it is not just a form that is put in there, because I am satisfied that while the Veterans' Land Act loans outstanding at the moment come

to about $200 million, because of our widespread geography they are, shall we say, under-employed, and I am satisfied that they could take on within a year or two at least an extra amount of new borrowings of $100 million and give the appraisal, the inspection, the counsel and the advice needed. I hope the minister will assure us that co-operation will exist.
In January we were told that we would have a centralized farm credit organization. That, apparently, has not developed but I hope the minister will assure us later that we are not going to have another empire set-up under his department in connection with part III of this bill.
I want to commend the minister on the basic terms of this new legislation. I think they are very appropriate. On the other hand, we must remember that even under the former regime, from 1952 to 1956, the maximum amount of loans went up from $5 000 to $15,000 and the maximum appraisal value went up from 50 per cent to 65 per cent.
In so far as the interest rate is concerned, I agree with the last speaker that it is not very conclusive in the bill as to what the interest rate will be, although the minister indicated this was going to be a self-supporting scheme, as the Canadian farm loan scheme has been in the past. It is to the credit of the former scheme that it has never incurred a loss to the taxpayers of this country. In the banking and commerce committee last year the Minister of Finance (Mr. Fleming) paid tribute to that. He indicated that a reduction in interest rates of even one per cent would put the Canadian farm loan board into a deficit position. The profit they showed last year was equivalent to a reduction in the interest rate of only one-tenth of 1 per cent. I objected last year, not to the stabilization of the interest rate under the direction of the Minister of Finance; I simply said it was in contravention of the statutes passed by parliament. I understand that under the new bill the board again is the organization that
Business of the House
must decide what the interest rate should be for the foreseeable future.


Mr. Speaker:: Before I put the question I want to clear my conscience with the hon. member for Drummond-Arthabaska (Mr. Boulanger) by expressing my regrets for cutting him off. I said he had used 40 minutes. I quite overlooked the fact that he was in the important position of a member replying to a minister moving a government order and really had unlimited time.
I understand that the house does not wish to continue into the committee stage. We might go into committee and report immediately.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to, bill read second time and the house went into committee thereon, Mr. Thomas in the chair.
On clause 1-Short title.
Progress reported.

John Whitney Pickersgill: Can the hon. gentleman who is leading the house indicate what business will be taken up tomorrow and, as far as possible, what the estimates will be for the rest of the week.


Douglas Scott Harkness: Mr. Speaker, tomorrow we will start with third reading of the crop insurance bill and then go into consideration of estimates. The estimates which will be considered on Wednesday are in this order: defence production; veterans affairs; and then northern affairs. For Thursday, we will start with the estimates of external affairs; and if any of the ones which have been given for Wednesday are not completed they will then be completed after external affairs estimates have been finished with; and if there are none of those, or when they are completed, we will then go on with trade and commerce. On Friday and Saturday we will continue with those and with mines and technical surveys, followed by fisheries.
At 10.53 p.m. the house adjourned, without question put, pursuant to standing order.

Questions