1960-02-23

COMMITTEES OF THE HOUSE


[Stage Direction]
Mr. H. O. White (Middlesex East) presented the first report of the standing committee on external affairs, and moved that the report be concurred in.
Mr. Speaker:: Has the hon. member unanimous consent to make this motion?


Hon. Paul Martin (Essex East):: I am afraid that unanimous consent cannot be extended, as requested by the hon. member who has just proposed this motion. This matter arose in the external affairs committee this morning-


Mr. Churchill:: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker, if the hon. member is denying unanimous consent then he cannot debate the matter at this stage.


Mr. Speaker:: That is correct; if there is not unanimous consent the matter stands without debate.
Motion stands.



PRIVILEGES AND ELECTIONS


[Stage Direction]
Mr. Heath Macquarrie (Queens) presented the first report of the standing committee on privileges and elections, and moved that the report be concurred in.
Motion agreed to.


[Stage Direction]
Mr. A. R. Smith (Calgary South) presented the first report of the standing committee on estimates, and moved that the report be concurred in.
Motion agreed to.


[Stage Direction]
Mr. C. A. Calhers (York North) presented the first report of the standing committee on banking and commerce, and moved that the report be concurred in.
Mr. Speaker:: Has the hon. member unanimous consent to make this motion?


Mr. Chevrier:: No, Mr. Speaker, there is objection to this motion at this time.
Motion stands.



MISCELLANEOUS PRIVATE BILLS-CONCURRENCE IN FIRST REPORT OF STANDING COMMITTEE

[Stage Direction]
Mr. R. J. McCleave (Halifax) presented the first report of the standing committee on miscellaneous private bills, and moved that the report be concurred in.
Motion agreed to.


Hon. Howard C. Green (Secretary of State for External Affairs):: Mr. Speaker, I have a statement on pilotage on the great lakes. There have been extensive consultations for scone time now between the interested departments and agencies in Canada and the United States on the subject of pilotage on the great lakes and adjacent waters. Emerging from these consultations has been an agreed method of how this problem could be handled. This method requires legislative concurrence in the two countries. The legislation need not, indeed cannot, be identical because of the differing constitutional structures in our two countries. Matching or parallel legislation, however, can be devised to meet the situation.
Legislation aimed at regulating pilotage in United States waters of the great lakes and St. Lawrence river has been introduced into the United States congress. That legislation, I understand, is being considered by the appropriate committee of the United States Senate today. An exchange of aide memoires took place last week. These aide memoires outline the areas of agreement reached during the consultations and state the intentions of the Canadian government with respect to its legislative proposals.
With the permission of the house I should like to have this exchange of aide memoires printed in Hansard. In addition I should like to have a supplementary exchange of letters referring to administrative action printed at the same time.

Inquiries of the Ministry


Mr. Speaker:: Has the minister leave to have the documents mentioned by him printed as an appendix to today's Hansard?


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

On the orders of the day:


Lionel Chevrier: I wish to direct to the Secretary of State for External Affairs a question arising out of the statement he made concerning pilotage on the great lakes. Can he say if agreement has been reached on whether there will be restricted areas for pilotage on the great lakes, arising out of the correspondence which he has laid on the table?


Howard Charles Green: To be strictly truthful, Mr. Speaker, I was only reading this statement on behalf of the Minister of Transport (Mr. Hees), because a statement is being made this afternoon in Washington and we were obliged to give the information here today. Perhaps the hon. member for Laurier would not mind waiting until tomorrow, when he can ask that question of the Minister of Transport.


Lionel Chevrier: May I ask a supplementary question of the minister. Will legislation be brought in at this session concerning this matter?


Howard Charles Green: I understand that would be the plan.



CUSTOMS ACT


Hon. George C. Nowlan (Minister of National Revenue):: Mr. Speaker, I wish to advise the house that the governor in council has proclaimed paragraph (b) of subsection 7 of section 40A of the Customs Act as enacted by chapter 26 of the statutes of 1958, such proclamation to take effect as of today.



EXTERNAL AFFAIRS


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Hon. L. B. Pearson (Leader of the Opposition):: I should like to ask the Secretary of State for External Affairs whether he is in a position to report on the meetings of the five western members of the 10-member disarmament commission, which have been taking place in Washington and which I understand are now concluded.


Howard Charles Green: The meetings in preparation for the meeting of the full 10-member commission on March 15 have not yet been concluded. It is true that two or three of the heads of delegations have gone back to Europe to get instructions from their respective governments, but the work is still continuing. There is a great deal of detailed work in the nature of studies going on at the moment, and I am not in a position to make any further report.


Lester Bowles Pearson: May I ask, as a supplementary question, whether it is hoped that the five western members will reach an agreed position on this matter before the committee of ten meets.


Howard Charles Green: Well, I would hope there could be agreement reached. There is still about three weeks remaining, and we will see what progress can be made in that interval.


WEST GERMANY
[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. Hazen Argue (Assiniboia):: Will the Secretary of State for External Affairs comment on the disturbing report in this morning's Globe and Mail that Spain and West Germany have been working on an agreement to permit West German air force units to train at Spanish bases? Was there any discussion of this proposal among the NATO nations?


Howard Charles Green: I also saw that report, and we have not yet had any detailed information through our official channels. I know there has been no discussion whatever of this proposal in the NATO council.


Hazen Robert Argue: Does the minister care to say whether Canada is in opposition to this course being followed?


Howard Charles Green: Before we decide whether or not we are in opposition we should like to have a little further information.


Lester Bowles Pearson: I have a supplementary question. Does the minister not feel that this is a matter which should be decided at NATO?


Howard Charles Green: Certainly it would be extremely important to get the views of the NATO council on this question, and I would think the whole alliance would move together.


INQUIRY AS TO STEPS TO ACCELERATE
[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. Albert Horner (The Batilefords):: I wish to direct a question to the Minister of Trade and Commerce. In view of a statement appearing in today's Globe and Mail by Mr. Olaf Ripa, Swedish consul general in Canada, to the effect that his country could become more of an outlet for Canada's raw materials, can the minister state what steps are presently being taken to establish an accelerated trade in Sweden?


Gordon Minto Churchill: I have seen the article in question, Mr. Speaker. Our trade with Sweden is increasing, and I believe there are opportunities for Canadian exporters of materials and finished goods as well.
Canada's exports to Sweden in 1958 were about $11 million and in 1959 about $15 million, an increase of $4 million in the year. The main items sold were industrial materials such as non-ferrous metals, asbestos and chemicals. In addition we have sold manufactured items such as office machinery, power saws, auto parts, steel, canned meat and fish to Sweden.
We have an experienced trade commissioner stationed in Stockholm, and an assistant trade commissioner has been appointed to help him out. Canadian businessmen exhibited at the St. Erik's fair in Sweden in September of last year. I had the privilege of seeing that exhibit at the fair and met with the Swedish businessmen. There are opportunities there for Canadian exporters.



LABOUR CONDITIONS


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. H. J. Robichaud (Gloucester):: I wish to direct a question to the Minister of National Defence. My question is in connection with a telegram from the Cape Breton district command of the Canadian Legion against a lay-off of veterans at Point Edward naval base. Will the minister authorize an inquiry to ensure that veterans are not discriminated against in such lay-offs?


Hon. G. R. Pearkes (Minister of National Defence):: I am sure there is no necessity to institute such an inquiry. Veterans would not be discriminated against.


Hédard-J. Robichaud: I have a supplementary question. Will the minister advise the house
Inquiries of the Ministry whether he has received a telegram protesting against such lay-offs? Can the minister also advise the house whether he holds out any hope for improvement in the employment situation at the naval base in the foreseeable future?


George Randolph Pearkes: Those questions were answered last week, Mr. Speaker.


Hazen Robert Argue: I have a supplementary question. Does the minister care to comment on that part of the telegram which requests action to prevent the lay-offs of seven veterans with six or seven years' experience, who are due to be laid off on February 26?


George Randolph Pearkes: As I explained last week, Mr. Speaker, there are a number of casual employees whose work has come to an end, and, unfortunately, they have to be laid off because there is no more work for them to do. Arrangements have been made for another vessel to refit at the Point Edward naval base in the middle of March.


Hédard-J. Robichaud: May I ask a supplementary question. Can the minister advise the house if these veterans were given the option to continue work as labourers?


George Randolph Pearkes: I do not know to which particular veterans the hon. gentleman is referring, but the work is finished. Some men were employed as carpenters, some men as riveters, some men as technicians and some men as labourers. The work is finished and there is no other vessel to put into that naval base until the middle of March.



IMMIGRATION


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. M. W. Martin (Timmins):: Mr. Speaker, I would like to direct a question to the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration, and I regret that I was unable to give her any longer notice than I did. Would the minister immediately look into the situation of Timmins gold mining operators recruiting immigrants who are gainfully employed overseas, in the face of the drastic unemployment of miners caused by the collapse at Elliot Lake?


Hon. Ellen L. Fairclough (Minister of Citizenship and Immigration):: If the hon.
member will give me what particulars he has I will be glad to have the matter investigated.


Mr. H. W. Herridge (Kootenay West):: Does the minister think it right for immigrants to be recruited overseas, who are presently employed, while we have unemployed miners in Canada?
1344	HOUSE OF
Inquiries of the Ministry


Murdo William Martin: Mr. Speaker, I have a supplementary question for the Minister of Mines and Technical Surveys. With respect to pending legislation as it pertains to the Emergency Gold Mining Assistance Act, would the minister also look into the implications of this recruiting of immigrants as it might affect his impending legislation?


Mr. Speaker:: I am not sure that these questions relate to the administrative responsibilities of the ministers concerned. Do I understand the hon. member to say that some private corporation is recruiting immigrants?


Murdo William Martin: Mr. Speaker, the information I have is that one mine alone is recruiting 400 immigrants overseas in the face of a situation where three or four thousand miners are being laid off at Elliot Lake.


Mr. Speaker:: If an individual is endeavouring to secure labour recruits in that way it is not a matter which is the responsibility of the administration, except so far as it concerns policy with respect to immigration.


Murdo William Martin: I wonder if the Minister of Labour might not think it is a matter very greatly affecting his responsibilities.


Mr. Speaker:: I think what I have just said applies to this question of the hon. member also.


Mr. G. J. Mcllrailh (Ottawa Wesl):: Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order arising out of the question directed to the Minister of Mines and Technical Surveys. The question was directed to the Emergency Gold Mining Assistance Act under which the public funds of the country are used in certain circumstances to pay the miners, and was limited in that way. That is, of course, a direct responsibility of the Minister of Mines and Technical Surveys.


Mr. Speaker:: That is quite true, but I did not see anything in the question which related to the administration of the Emergency Gold Mining Assistance Act. As I recall it the question related entirely to the activities of an individual who was endeavouring to obtain recruits outside of Canada for employment in mines.


Lester Bowles Pearson: Mr. Speaker, is it not appropriate to ask a question regarding the circumstances of the admission into this country of miners as immigrants, at a time when so many miners in this country are out of work?


Mr. Speaker:: I would agree that that would be an appropriate question if it were not purely hypothetical. If there is a specific question on that point, then of course I will admit it.


Mr. Arnold Peters (Timiskaming):: A supplementary question, Mr. Speaker. If this matter has been brought to the attention of the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration, does she not have the power to stop private companies from bringing immigrants into an industry that already has a surplus of labourers?


Ellen Louks Fairclough: Mr. Speaker, I believe I have already answered the question. I should have to look into the matter before giving any answer to the hon. member for Timiskaming, or the hon. member for Kootenay West.
(Translation):



CANADIAN BROADCASTING CORPORATION


Hon. E. D. Fulton (Minister of Justice):: Mr. Speaker, on February 16 last, the hon. member for Hochelaga (Mr. Eudes) put to me a question about certain remarks made by one of the C.B.C. guests during the program "Tribune libre" on February 15.
Since then I have looked into this guest's remarks and considering their nature and the person concerned, I do not think it is either advisable or necessary to comment upon them.
(Text):



CANADIAN CENTENNIAL


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. Guy Rouleau (Dollard):: Mr. Speaker, I would like to direct a question to the right hon. Prime Minister. Is the government planning a $12 million skating rink at Vancouver as a centennial project, and with a view to bringing the winter Olympics to Canada?


Right Hon. J. G. Diefenbaker (Prime Minister):: I have no knowledge of that, Mr. Speaker.



DEFENCE PRODUCTION


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Hon. Raymond O'Hurley (Minister of Defence Production):: Mr. Speaker, I undertook yesterday, in response to a question by the hon. member for Assiniboia (Mr. Argue), to report to the house about the legislation recently proposed in the United States congress concerning cargo aircraft. As I mentioned, the hon. member for Laurier (Mr. Chevrier) had raised a similar question with me.

Disparity of National Income to Farmers
For some time officials of my department have followed the legislation proposed by Senator Monroney on January 11, at which time it was referred to the Senate committee on interstate and foreign commerce. The basic purpose of the legislation proposed by the junior senator from Oklahoma would be to provide United States government guaranteed loans for the purchase of modern economical cargo aircraft by United States air carriers.
The proposed United States legislation about which my hon. friend has made inquiries is pending before a subcommittee of a standing committee of the United States Senate. No action beyond the subcommittee hearings has been taken.


Lionel Chevrier: Mr. Speaker, I should like to direct a question to the Prime Minister arising out of the reply by the Minister of Defence Production in connection with legislation now pending before congress. Will the Canadian government make representation to the appropriate authorities in the United States against this legislation?


John George Diefenbaker: Mr. Speaker, the government will give consideration to the matter.



ATOMIC ENERGY


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. D. M. Fisher (Port Arthur):: Mr. Speaker, I should like to direct a question to the Minister of Trade and Commerce. In view of the critical interest in the government's decision to establish a research centre at Whiteshell, Manitoba, can the minister state how many hardrock miners it is intended to employ at this establishment?


Mr. Speaker:: With all due deference to the hon. member for Port Arthur I would hardly think he could expect an answer off the cuff in response to that question. He might better put that inquiry on the order paper.


Gordon Minto Churchill: It is a very short answer, Mr. Speaker; none.



FAILURE TO PROVIDE FAIR SHARE OF NATIONAL INCOME TO FARMERS

[Stage Direction]
The house resumed, from Monday, February 22, consideration of the motion of Mr. Fleming (Eglinton) for committee of supply,
and the amendment thereto of Mr. Benidick-son, and the amendment to the amendment of Mr. Herridge.
Mr. H. J. Michaud (Kent, N.B.):: Mr. Speaker, at the adjournment of the house last evening I was speaking about the government's deficiency payments as applied to hogs and eggs. In my opening remarks last night I felt compelled to deny the allegations previously made by the hon. member for Cumberland (Mr. Coates) to the effect that the president of the Canadian Federation of Agriculture had indicated in a press conference on television last Tuesday that he was satisfied with the present system of deficiency payments. In support of my denial I should like at this time to put on record certain resolutions adopted at the last annual meeting of the Canadian Federation of Agriculture held in Toronto from January 26 to 28 last.
The first resolution with respect to eggs reads as follows:
Resolved that the Canadian government be asked to amend the Agricultural Stabilization Act (by removing eggs from mandatory support, or alternatively by lowering the permissible level of mandatory support) so that offer to purchase support prices (for them) may be set at a suitable level.
The second resolution relating to eggs reads:
Resolved that an emergency floor price at a (non-incentive level) be established for eggs under the deficiency payment policy to protect the industry from further chaotic conditions.
With respect to hogs the federation passed the following resolution:
Resolved that the Canadian government be asked to amend the Agricultural Stabilization Act by removing hogs from mandatory support, or alternatively by lowering the permissible level of mandatory support, so that offer to purchase support prices for them may be set at a suitable level.
A second resolution relating to this subject reads:
Resolved we strongly urge the federal government that some minimum offer to purchase support price on hogs be maintained in order to avoid a complete demoralization of the hog industry under the present deficiency payment policy.
I believe these resolutions clearly indicate the feeling of this important farm organization with regard to the present system of deficiency payments.
I should also like to refer at this time to certain remarks made in this house last night by the hon. member for Provencher (Mr. Jorgenson). The hon. member, in referring to our criticisms of the system of deficiency payments on hogs and eggs, seemed to indicate that we were referring to a limited segment of Canadian agriculture only, and he then
1346	HOUSE OF
Disparity of National Income to Farmers proceeded to speak at length on policies affecting the grain growing industry in the western provinces.
Let me emphasize once again, Mr. Speaker, what we representatives of agricultural areas of the eastern provinces have often mentioned in this house. We do not object to any measure designed to assist the grain growers of the western provinces. We recognize that collectively the grain growing industry is the most important segment of Canadian agriculture. Nevertheless, let it be clearly understood that farmers in the eastern provinces and particularly those in the maritime provinces have a vital interest in certain forms of farm production other than grain growing. Eggs and hog production come under this category. Indeed, these smaller farm units to which I refer are the very lifeblood of many farm enterprises in the eastern provinces, and it is for this reason that we as representatives of these areas are deeply concerned with the deficiency payments now applying to eggs and hogs.
We are told that the object of the present system is to discourage these large integrated corporations and commercialized enterprises. Personally I am deeply disturbed at this view, for I question who will have to quit first, the small operator with limited capital or the large operator with almost unlimited resources.
(Translation):


Hervé J. Michaud: Mr. Speaker, when we consider that agriculture is the keystone of this country's economy, I think we of the Liberal party are right in asking this government to give greater attention to the serious eeconomic problem, which the Canadian farmer has to face these days.
I would now like to quote-
(Text):


Mr. Speaker:: Perhaps the hon. member would pause for a moment while the French translation gets into operation.
(Translation):


Hervé J. Michaud: I shall now quote a few excerpts from the speech made in Victoria-ville by the chairman of the U.C.C. (Catholic farmers' union), Mr. Jean Baptiste Lemoyne, on December 20, 1959. The hon. member for Beauce (Mr. Racine) has already referred to that document, but I think a record of such great significance bears repeating as often as possible.
After stating that farmers were walking in the fog towards the unknown, Mr. Lemoyne asked a few questions, and I quote:
Are we heading towards farm integration? Are we going to have a policy that will allow small farmers to survive? Is the family farm unit going to survive?


Our farming industry, he said, is still in a period of readjustment, and even today we wonder what is meant by an economically viable farm. Tomorrow's agriculture will be what those who guide its course will make it, i.e. we, the farmers, or those who process farm commodities, or those who control the marketing of food products. That is the great challenge we farmers have to face at this time.
It is obvious, he said, that the dislocations that have taken place in the farming industry started with the 1939 war. Because of the shortage of manpower, men had to be replaced by machines. The farmer was encouraged to produce more. Then too, he was shown modern methods of production. So it was that, one day, although we had barely noticed it, the farm industry had become completely transformed.
As for the government's deficiency payments program, that new policy seems to promote the multiplication of farm productions at a time when the trend is more or less mitigated specialization. There are many reasons why farmers should specialize: to cut down their investment in buildings, machinery and farm buildings and make better use of farm labour.
Mr. Lemoyne then pleads in favour of family farms, stating that in future the agricultural class will be either well organized and prosperous, or unorganized and hard up.
He said that the agricultural class needs leaders to ensure efficient and dynamic leadership within farm associations and other groups, such as cooperatives, etc.
The human factor with which we are now concerned should be given priority over economic and technical factors.
Can we accept a purely economic answer to the agricultural problem, disregarding the human values and social balance, represented by the farmer, who owns his property?
Could we find in an individual who is a member of a co-operative or collective farm, or in a labourer working for a large agricultural business, that innate prudence, that balance, that wisdom, that practical sense which have made the farmer known as a factor of balance and stability in our modem society.
It seems that on the family farm adapted to the needs of the time the farmer should be able to achieve the efficiency that can be expected from agricultural enterprise. All this depends primarily on the value of men who are cut out to be farmers and on the professional standards they will develop. The farmer is justified in demanding that the state provide research programs that would help determine the clashing forces and trends about which those who are responsible for leadership in agriculture are utterly in the dark.
This research should give special attention to the social problem of the farmer. We are already lagging behind in this respect, but better late than never. Acceptance of the fact that the answer to the farm problem is industrialization or "collectivization" of agriculture would be a public confession of our inability to take the lead and to act together on a professional level. If we really want to, we can preserve our type of family farm and enjoy a thriving agriculture.

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to associate myself with those remarks that show such wisdom and forethought. I do not hesitate to draw the government's attention to this document, in which it could seek answers to the serious and complicated problems that face agriculture today.
(Text):


Hazen Robert Argue: Mr. Speaker, I feel it was most appropriate for the hon. member for Kenora-Rainy River (Mr. Benidickson). to have proposed a want of confidence motion having to do with support prices for agricultural commodities. I know, as he says, that in drafting a motion it would be difficult to state the No. 1 emergency problem facing the country. We have already succeeded in having a general debate concerning the unemployment situation. That being so, and recognizing the emergency agricultural situation, I think it was most appropriate that this amendment should be moved.
I would suggest that the hon. member for Kenora-Rainy River has lifted the terms of his amendment from the preamble to Bill No. 237, to revise the stabilization of the prices of agricultural commodities, as passed by the House of Commons on January 25, 1958. In other words we in the opposition are in what I consider a very regrettable position, in that we are now able, with justification, to throw the terms of the government's own legislation into their teeth because they have failed to carry forward the terms of a statute which they themselves introduced and parliament subsequently passed.
The hon. member for Kootenay West (Mr. Herridge) moved a subamendment asking that for hogs and eggs, support prices should be paid on various grades, and that consideration should be given to the question of deficiency payments on western grain.
I suggest that the government today is in trouble in many areas in this country. The government is in trouble so far as unemployment is concerned; the government is in trouble so far as agricultural prices are concerned. It is in trouble in some of its legislation with the government of the province of Manitoba, a Conservative government. It is in trouble with respect to another action with the government of the province of Ontario, so much so that a Conservative member of the Ontario legislature is reported to have threatened to resign if this government does not alter its course. And well this government might be in trouble, because it held up to the people of this country the promise of reform legislation, better days ahead, a correction of the errors of 22 years of Liberal administration.
Disparity of National Income to Farmers
Nowhere have people been more disappointed with the government than in the field of agriculture. Farmers had expected that this government meant what it promised; that when the Prime Minister, in the election campaigns, pointed out that he had on two separate occasions moved motions asking for parity prices for agriculture commodities he meant, as he said, to bring about this parity relationship.
Agricultural producers are tolerant people. They are patient people. They waited for the government to act. The government acted by presenting Bill No. 237, and from the terms of the bill and the statements of the Minister of Agriculture and the Prime Minister agricultural producers expected that conditions would be better as a result of this legislation.
The government had not been returned to office with its tremendous majority a full year when organized agriculture became so disappointed with the government's failure to live up to its election commitments that a very large mass delegation was organized to come to Ottawa to ask for consideration of the grain farmers' problem.
It would not be fair to lay the entire blame for this situation at the doorstep of the government. As a matter of fact, when the delegation came to Ottawa and presented their brief on March 10 last year they pointed out on page 4 of the brief that the situation they were seeking to have corrected had been developing for many years. They said this:
In 1947 the farm price of wheat was at the reasonably satisfactory level of $1.63 per bushel. A decline occurred in the next few years, but this did not become too serious until 1953 when it dropped to $1.32. By the end of the marketing period for the 1956 crop, the price was down to $1.24.
That period was under the Liberal administration. On page 5 they went on to say:
During the same period that this decline in prices has occurred, farm costs have risen at a steady rate. The index of costs of goods and services used by farmers shows a rise in the period from 1947 to 1957 of 51.2 per cent. A further rise of 3.4 per cent above the 1947 level has occurred in 1958.
In other words, under Liberal administration from 1947 to 1957 there had been a drop in the price of wheat of 21 per cent and an increase in costs of 51 per cent. The delegation pointed out in their brief that in the following year, the first year of the present government's administration, there had been a further rise of 3.4 per cent in farm costs.
The delegation presented their brief on March 10. They were promised continuing consideration. The Prime Minister made a long speech to the delegation following their presentation, and he left them with the impression that action would be taken. But

Disparity of National Income to Farmers no action was taken, and so the delegation that presented a brief to the government on March 10 of last year had to interview the government once again on January 30 of this year, coming cap in hand and pointing out that they had been given the brush-off, that their brief had not been dealt with and that no decision had been made.
They pointed out something more. They pointed out in their second presentation that since March 10, 1958 there had been a further 4.1 per cent increase in the farm cost index, according to preliminary figures, and a 2.4 per cent increase in the price of wheat on the farm, so the net position has worsened in the last 11 months. In other words, according to preliminary figures the cost index in relation to 1947 is estimated at 159.2 per cent and the price of wheat is 80.9 per cent of what it was in 1947. After having organized this very large delegation; after having presented a comprehensive, well-documented brief to the government, and after having waited almost 11 months, the farmers report that in that intervening period their costs have risen by 4.1 per cent while the price of wheat has gone up by just 2.4 per cent.
The Prime Minister has not yet replied. He has not made a decision on the basis of that second request. But the delegation twisted the Prime Minister's arm. They said they wanted an early answer. They stated in their brief:
We therefore respectfully request the earliest possible decision of the government on this very urgent question, and if it happens that you are not prepared to give us your answer immediately, perhaps you would be prepared to advise us as to what date we may expect a reply.
It is a rather unheard of thing for a delegation meeting the Prime Minister to put before him a very positive request to make up his mind and, if he would not then, at least to give the delegation a date by which a decision would be made. After the delegation interviewed the Prime Minister he said that an answer would be given within 30 days. If an answer is given within 30 days it will be almost exactly 12 months from the time the delegation first arrived in Ottawa and presented its case to the government.
This delegation came from the prairies. It represented the people of the prairies who did more than their share in supporting and electing this government. This delegation represents the people of Saskatchewan, the people of Alberta and Manitoba who supported the Prime Minister, the Minister of Agriculture, the Minister of Northern Affairs and National Resources, the Minister of Trade and Commerce. After having shown such

great confidence in the government they have nevertheless been given a slap in the face by a government that has refused for almost a full year even to have the courtesy to give them a full reply to their excellent brief.
Since the committee representing the original farm delegation and the people of the prairies presented their brief to the government, the interprovincial farm union council also presented a brief on February 7, and in their brief they point out how conditions have been worsening under the present administration. I quote from page 3:
The disparity between farm prices and costs in Canada is continuing to widen. The October, 1959, national index for prices of farm products stood at 235.9 and represented a decline of 6.1 points from the 1958 annual average of 242. The composite national index for commodities and services used by farmers, exclusive of living component, for August, 1959, stood at 272, up 14.5 points from the 1958 national average of 257.5. The November, 1959 issue of The Current Review predicts that the trend toward increased farm costs is expected to continue into 1960 while farm income will remain stable or decline, resulting in declines for both realized farm net income and farm net income in I960.
In other words, since the prices stabilization act was passed conditions for the agricultural producers of this country have worsened. Their costs have gone up, and this index shows that the price-cost squeeze is even worse now than it was a year ago.
Agricultural producers expected this government to act. They had a lot of confidence in Bill No. 237. Spokesmen and candidates supporting the government party went back and forth across this country saying, "You asked us to provide adequate support prices for agricultural products, and we have done so". They said, "We have placed absolute floors under nine key commodities. Not only have we placed absolute floors under these key commodities, but we are placing these floors on a precise formula. This is your guarantee. This is your Magna Carta. This will enable you to farm and plan your production with a degree of certainty you have never had before". Those were fine words, and much was expected.
But, Mr. Speaker, the administration and interpretation of the act has destroyed the promises contained in those fine sounding words. The government has decided against providing floor prices by means of an offer to buy a product at the floor price. The government, instead, is following a policy of allowing the market to take its course, of attempting to determine national averages for a period in advance or set them for a period in advance and then using the deficiency payment technique to pay producers certain sums of money if they do not get

Disparity of National Income to Farmers
that average price in the market. The government has decided to limit the amount of production on which such deficiency payments can be made.
I have checked the debates on this legislation and I have checked the speeches that were made by members of the government prior to the 1958 election. I can find no instance where these spokesmen said that the 80 per cent of the base price would apply to only a portion of the production of Canadian farms. No mention at all was made during the debate of any limit. One can look through the bill, and there is no mention of the 80 per cent being paid only on a limited quantity of agricultural products. I have in my hand a copy of the bill as passed by the House of Commons, and on page 2, paragraph (e) of subclause 1 of clause 1 I find this:
"prescribed price" means,
(i) in relation to a named commodity, 80 per cent of the base price thereof, or such higher percentage of the base price thereof as the governor in council prescribes-
Producers were led to believe that the 80 per cent would apply to the nine agricultural commodities, and were never informed that it would apply to only a certain quantity from each farm. I protested this provision last year; not because there should not be perhaps some limitation, but I felt that the government itself was breaking the law as passed by parliament by placing limitations on the price supports as provided in the act.
There are other sections of this act, I suggest, Mr. Speaker, that are not being fulfilled by the government. In other words the government is flouting a law of this parliament and is failing to implement what is legally required by law. Clause 8 of the bill, now section 8 of the act, reads as follows:
In each year the board shall establish the base price for each agricultural commodity, or the grade, quality, variety, class, type or form thereof, the price of which is to be stabilized under this act.
I point out that there is no suggestion that there shall be a limit on the quantity. There may be differences as to the grade, quality, variety, class, type or form thereof, but no mention is made of limitation on quantity. Subsection 2 of the same section read's as follows:
The base price of an agricultural commodity shall be the average price at representative markets as determined by the board for the 10 years immediately preceding the year in which the base price is established.
I repeat, Mr. Speaker:
The base price of an agricultural commodity shall be the average price at representative markets as determined by the board for the 10 years-
This section of the act has not been fulfilled. There is no guaranteed base price at representative market points. Instead, the government have taken what they call a national average which does not take into account the variations in market prices over the 10-year period at representative marketing points. The government's failure to fulfill this part of the act is one of the main reasons they are running into such great criticism in the country. This means that under this act people who are away from the main marketing centres will get much less for their products than had they been guaranteed 80 per cent of the base price at representative markets.
The government has not provided a floor price, a minimum price even, on the best grades which it alleges it is supporting under this act. The national average of 33 cents a dozen for grade A large eggs is declared to be the price for the purpose of calculating deficiency payments over a three-month period. It is possible, and it will certainly happen, that a very large quantity of the eggs that are sold at less than 80 per cent of the base price will have no deficiency payments made on them whatever; because if the price goes above the national average, then to the extent that the price goes above the national average in those three months it destroys the chances of a farmer who is receiving less than the national average.
I submit, Mr. Speaker, that the government is denying payments under this act that they are required by law to make. I suggest that the government, in fact, is stealing money that legitimately belongs to the producers under the terms of this legislation.


Paul Joseph James Martin: And has not used all the money that has been made available.


Hazen Robert Argue: Pardon?


Mr. Speaker:: I would hope that the hon. member would reconsider his use of the word "stealing". I believe that "depriving" is all right, but stealing has a significance beyond that.


Mr. Harkness:: I submit that it is rather difficult for this government to steal from itself.


Hazen Robert Argue: Apparently, according to that interjection, the minister does not believe the farmer is entitled to anything under the act.


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh.


Hazen Robert Argue: If you suggest, Mr. Speaker, that it is beyond the rules of debate to say that the government are stealing from the agricultural producers, I am quite willing to withdraw that expression and say that the government are depriving the agricultural

Disparity of National Income to Farmers producers of moneys that, in my opinion, they are required by law to give the producers. The government are breaking their own law. The government are breaking the terms of this statute which was passed by the House of Commons in good faith and in clear terms. The act says that the government will provide support prices at 80 per cent of the base price at representative marketing points. This has not been done, and this is not being done. This act as it is being interpreted by the government has been made a phony act apparently because the government's promises have been phony, and the legislation is part and parcel of the window dressing that has taken place by a phony government as far as its promises are concerned or as far as the implementing of this statute is concerned.
The government has said that this support will be limited to certain grades. Because the government is limiting this to certain grades-grade A large eggs, shall we say, for example-and because the government has failed to provide minimum prices but instead lets the market take its course, this means a low price for grade A large eggs, depressed prices for grade A medium eggs which have no semblance of support whatsoever and depressed prices for grade B eggs; and in fact deprives the producers of grade A medium eggs and grade B eggs of support that should have flowed from the fulfillment of this act. The government is depressing the market by its action. It is destroying hundreds of egg producers in this country, and it is discriminating as between regions.


Mr. Lambert:: Even the most inefficient?


Hazen Robert Argue: Hurting the most inefficient, definitely; hurting the efficient, hurting the inefficient, hurting every single producer of eggs in Canada.
That is what this legislation is doing. This is what it has done. One does not have to take my word for it. Perhaps the hon. gentleman opposite would be more impressed by the words of Hon. George Hutton, the minister of agriculture in the government of the province of Manitoba, a Conservative government. He was so greatly disturbed about the government's egg program that, in the Manitoba legislature, he read a letter he had sent to the federal Minister of Agriculture -a Conservative colleague if you will-outlining his fears about this act. From the Winnipeg Free Press of February 16, page 1, I read as follows:
The provincial Conservative government has warned the federal Conservative government that it views "with very great alarm" the effect of federal government's policy on deficiency payment for eggs. A provincial protest on the egg policy was read to the legislature Monday night by Hon. George Hutton.

He was reading from a letter he had sent to the federal minister.
The letter began:	"The Manitoba government
views with very great alarm the effect of the deficiency payment policy in respect to eggs implemented by your agriculture stabilization board a few weeks ago."
The policy placed Manitoba farmers in "an untenable position" and made them face an intolerable situation," Mr. Hutton said.
That is strong language.
He said that Manitoba was a surplus producing area in eggs. Producers were a thousand miles away from deficiency areas. There was regularly a 3 to 4 cent difference between Winnipeg and Montreal quotations on grade A large.
There is much more that follows, Mr. Speaker, but it is all in the same vein, pointing out the disturbing aspects of this policy.


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


Hazen Robert Argue: February 16, 1960.


Douglas Scott Harkness: May I ask the hon. member whether my reply to that latter is there and Mr. Hutton's subsequent letter? If so, I think he should read them.


Hazen Robert Argue: Oh, this is a case of the
government failing to produce the correspondence in response to a question that was asked in this very house a day or two ago. The minister has the correspondence. He can produce it if he cares to do so. I have not the correspondence and I have not seen it, and I have not seen the answer.


Douglas Scott Harkness: I should think it would be
right in the paper there. I think it was all produced in the Manitoba house.


Hazen Robert Argue: The minister can produce it
and well he might, because I cannot remember when any minister of agriculture on former occasions in this house has been given such a dressing down by a provincial minister of agriculture, no matter what the political complexion of the government, much less by a minister of the same political persuasion as the federal minister of agriculture.
Here then is the situation, Mr. Speaker. Egg prices are depressed. Producers have been receiving for grade B eggs 10 cents or 12 cents a dozen and for grade A medium eggs, 11 cents or 12 cents a dozen. They will not recover anything. Only the people who have eggs that have been graded A stand to get a deficiency payment. The parliamentary secretary said they were entitled to a deficiency payment at the end of the first three months' period of three quarters of a cent a dozen, but he said it was too small an amount to pay the producers. I do not see in this act anything
FEBRUARY 23, I960	1351
Disparity of National Income to Farmers
which says that if there is a payment due, the producers are not entitled to it. If they are entitled to three quarters of a cent per dozen, I think they should be paid.


Mr. Cardiff:: They will get it.


Hazen Robert Argue: But they have been refused.


Douglas Scott Harkness: They are entitled to it at
the end of the year, and they will get everything to which they are entitled.


Hazen Robert Argue: We are glad to hear that. We
thought they were going to get paid at the end of three months. We thought that was the government's purpose. Now they say, "We will pay them at the end of the year"! We shall wait and see what happens. We hope this is not another instance of the government's evading its own legislation.


Lewis Elston Cardiff: They will be paid at the end of March.


Hazen Robert Argue: I had said, when this legislation was under discussion in the house originally, that there was no intention that this support price would not be paid, that there were basic minimums below which prices would not be allowed to fall; because at page 2188 of Hansard of December 11, 1957 the Minister of Agriculture himself made this statement:
In addition to the flexible guaranteed prices which may be applied to any agricultural commodity and which will be the ones in general use, the legislation provides for that sense of security which farmers have asked for and which we believe they are entitled to by providing assured floor prices-
I direct attention to the words "floor prices".
-for certain key commodities.
There is no floor price on eggs and there is no floor price on hogs. This is done by writing into the legislation a provision that those commodities must be supported under any circumstances at 80 per cent of the base price. It is not expected that these will be the guaranteed prices in effect. The guaranteed prices will be higher in most cases. But this provision is written into the legislation so the farmer will be absolutely assured that no matter how prices may slide, he will at the very least receive 80 per cent of the base price.
That statement is not being followed. Floor prices do not exist. By failing to provide base prices at representative marketing points and by failing to provide floor prices the government is denying agricultural producers part of the money to which they are entitled, in my opinion, under this act for the grades that are supported, to say nothing of the
further sums of money of which they are deprived for grades that are not supported.
This legislation, as it has been interpreted and as it is being implemented, is damaging the agricultural industry. It is a great disappointment to the agricultural producers and, in my submission, the government itself is failing to fulfil the law as set forth in this act.
The Minister of Agriculture says the reason he is providing a system of deficiency payments is that production will be reduced. That was no part of the discussion of the former legislation. The legislation which was formerly discussed was placed before the house, according to the minister, to guarantee floor prices, support prices. Now he deliberately says that the purpose of this policy is to reduce production, to force farmers to curtail the production they have been providing in the last one-year period.
We have a surplus today of some agricultural products but I do not think, in terms of the needs of the people of Canada or in terms of the needs of the people of the world, that we should view these surpluses with alarm, or that we should take precipitate action to damage the production of agricultural producers or to bring the prices of agricultural commodities to the lowest price since the thirties.
We should be taking action in international trade to see that surplus food products reach people who are hungry and who need surplus food. The Russians are today boasting that by 1965 their agricultural production will exceed that of the United States. If the Soviet union's production exceeds that of the United States, does anybody here think they will say there is a tremendous surplus and they are going to curtail production? No; they will continue their economic offensive to undermine Canadian markets, Canadian agriculture and the democratic form of government. I suggest to the minister that the issue of maintaining agricultural production transcends the needs of Canada itself, because food production and greater food production is essential to the survival of the democratic form of government in the world.
I listened to the hon. member for Medicine Hat (Mr. Brunsden) yesterday with a good deal of interest. I disagree with most of what he said. He talked about hogs and eggs being in and out products. I think we are facing today an in and out government. It came in very quickly and apparently very easily, and if it does not alter this and other policies it will be defeated just as quickly as it was elected.
1352	HOUSE OF COMMONS
Disparity of National Income to Farmers


Douglas Scott Harkness: Mr. Speaker, I was unable to be here yesterday, as I had to attend a large and important agricultural function in Alberta in honour of the last year's world wheat king, a young man named Douglas Mackintosh, who won the world wheat championship at the age of 18, a very notable achievement.
The fact that it was fairly well advertised that I was going to be at this affair yesterday had, I hope, no significance with regard to the timing of this particular motion. It certainly was a disappointment to me that I was not here for the discussion yesterday, and it was rather difficult as far as this particular function was concerned, because I had to leave practically as soon as it had started in order to get a plane to be back here today. As a result of sitting up all night in the plane without much sleep I am not at my brightest today; but in view of the criticisms I have been able to read so far I do not have to be at my brightest in order to answer them.
Mr. Speaker, I would like to read again the amendment moved by the hon. member for Kenora-Rainy River (Mr. Benidickson), because the amendment is in practically the same terms as those contained in the preamble to the stabilization act. It is as follows:
This house is of the opinion that the government should give immediate consideration to the implementation of agricultural policies designed for the purpose of stabilizing the prices of agricultural commodities in order to assist the industry of agriculture to realize fair returns for its labour and investment, and to maintain a fair relationship between prices received by farmers and the costs of the goods and services that they buy, thus to provide farmers with a fair share of the national income.
Mr. Speaker, I submit that this is an amendment which constitutes a sort of trick motion. We as a government have been exerting every effort to do, and actually doing, what the motion says we should consider doing. I think I can establish later in my remarks that we have had considerable success in moving toward the goal set out in the preamble to the Agricultural Stabilization Act which is recited again in this motion. All the numerous policies we have initiated, all the great volume of agricultural legislation we have introduced into this house, have been directed toward the very end set out in this motion, which is also set out, as I say, in the preamble to the stabilization act.
I would ask, Your Honour and hon. members of this house, and any person in the country, to compare what we have actually done as a government in the last two and three quarter years, approximately now, to assist agriculture with the almost complete inactivity of the Liberal government in this

regard during the last 10 years it was in office. All that is necessary to demonstrate the really completely impossible position of the Liberal party as far as agriculture is concerned is to look at that record, and that is all I ask anybody to do. There is complete proof in that record of the efforts we have since made to attain the goal set forth in the preamble to the Agricultural Stabilization Act.
In considering agricultural matters at the present time the most important fact we have to keep in mind is that the great technological revolution in agriculture has been going on now for some very considerable length of time. It has been in operation for at least the last 40 years, but it has greatly speeded up during the last 20 years. It has created entirely new conditions which require new thinking, new approaches and new policies if the new situations which have arisen as a result of this technological revolution are to be met successfully, or if there is to be any hope of meeting them successfully. We have recognized that this is the situation, and we have demonstrated it by the numerous new policies we have put into effect and which we think have a very good chance of solving the agricultural problems which have existed in this country now for many years past.
The Liberal party, on the contrary, still seem to be living in the past. They appear to think that what was good enough 15 years ago is good enough today. They refused, Mr. Speaker, to put into effect an adequate price support program. They refused improved credit facilities which were urgently needed. They refused to put into effect crop insurance. They refused to put into effect cash advances on farm-stored grain. They refused to give any financial assistance in respect to crops which were snowed under in the years 1951 and 1952. They refused so many things that it would take me the rest of the 40 minutes I am allowed in order to list them.
In other words, particularly during the last 10 years they were in office they refused practically everything as far as agriculture was concerned. Now they attack this present government because we have initiated new policies which are adapted to the realities of the situation which actually exists at the present time.
The technological revolution in agriculture to which I have referred has had two great effects. It has caused a very large drop in the number of farmers and a great increase in the amount of production. From those two facts, of course, have flowed extremely important results from the marketing point

of view, the production point of view, the social point of view and from every point of view that affects agriculture and in all the ways that this industry affects the economy as a whole.
From 1941 to 1958 the number of farmers in Canada has been reduced from 677,000 to 555,000, a reduction of 17 per cent. The figures I have given represent merely the reduction in the number of farms in Canada. The reduction in the farm labour force has been very much greater. During the period when this large reduction in the number of farms and in the farm labour force was taking place there was a marked increase in the volume of production. I am not referring to the dollar value of production which of course has increased tremendously. The volume of production increased from 1941 to 1958 by 27 per cent. I think even more important than that, this production could have been increased by more than that if there had been any reasonable possibility of the farmers marketing that production.
I believe we must recognize that this outstanding fact has created a completely new situation in agriculture and particularly as far as marketing is concerned.
I do wish that the hon. member for Essex East (Mr. Martin) and the hon. member for Kenora-Rainy River (Mr. Benidickson), to whose remarks in this debate I am about to refer, would continue their conversation out behind the curtain. The hon. member for Kenora-Rainy River directed a great deal of his speech to the hog and egg situation. The basic fact in the hog and egg situation which seems to have completely escaped the hon. gentleman is that the technological revolution has made it possible to produce almost unlimited quantities of eggs, poultry meat and hogs. The only limit on the production of these commodities at the present time is the amount of cereal grains available in Canada for feeding poultry and hogs. We all know that we have a very large volume of cereal grains available. If the prices of eggs and hogs were up materially, within two years we could be producing in Canada probably three times our present egg production and probably twice as many hogs without any difficulty at all. In other words, the possibilities of production of these particular commodities on a factory line basis of production particularly are almost unlimited.
At the present time as far as egg production is concerned a man does not even have to have a farm because it is not essentially a farming operation but is a factory operation. A man may have an acre or two of land and a three or four storey building and he can have thousands of hens laying eggs in his egg factory. That is what it is, in
Disparity of National Income to Farmers essence. The feed is taken in mechanically, the eggs are collected mechanically and so forth. This is not a farming operation in the real sense of the word.
This type of factory production is also going on extensively as far as poultry meat is concerned. It was also starting in hog production. It was quite evident that under those circumstances it would be completely impossible to market an almost unlimited production such as was possible with these new methods. The production was not even being accomplished by farmers but was to a large extent operated by people who were not farmers and who had other occupations. They could see that there was money in this type of operation and so they financed and set up operations of that nature. It was these people who were largely responsible for the surplus production of eggs and hogs. As long as the government stood ready to purchase every pound of pork and every egg produced it was quite evident that this situation which started as far back as 1954 and increased year by year would continue to increase more rapidly until an impasse was created.
It was quite apparent, therefore, that the system of support by means of purchase had to be changed. There was no alternative to that at all. The existing system was completely unrealistic. It was completely contrary to the tenor of the Agricultural Stabilization Act to have the government pay out the taxpayers' money for the support of people who were essentially not farmers at all and who as a result of their factory-type production were driving many average farmers out of production. That is the basic reason why it is no longer possible to continue support by means of purchase a method which hon. members opposite by their arguments seem to insist we should continue to employ. Such a method is no longer possible in relation to these two products or any other commodities where surpluses can develop once operators institute factory-line methods of production.
The purpose of the Agricultural Stabilization Act, of course, is to give stability of income to the average farmer. In spite of statements to the contrary which have been made by some hon. gentlemen opposite the act has served its purpose in relation to the products which receive support under the legislation. As far as hogs and eggs are concerned, 85 per cent of the egg producers are fully protected on all of their production of grade A large eggs-


Hazen Robert Argue: That is not true.


Douglas Scott Harkness: There is no use in hon. members opposite saying that is not true because it is demonstrably true. The figures indicate
1354	HOUSE OF COMMONS
Disparity of National Income to Farmers it is true. All one has to do in order to convince himself of the truth of that is look at the figures. The Canadian Federation of Agriculture will recognize that it is true. The farm union people will recognize that it is true. All responsible farm leaders will recognize that it is true. The complaint is that the other 15 per cent, the big producers, are not protected and that lower grades are not eligible for these deficiency payments. I shall deal with those points later on.
All of the production of grade A large eggs of 85 per cent of the egg producers in Canada is fully protected by the deficiency payment method of support and 90 per cent of the hog producers of Canada are fully supported by the quota of 100 grade A and B hogs on which deficiency payments are paid.


Mr. Boulanger:: No, 45 per cent.


Douglas Scott Harkness: The hon. gentleman can produce figures of his own in an effort to prove anything he says. I am talking about the figures which we secured from the dominion bureau of statistics and which are available to anyone who requests them. These are the only figures to which any credence can be given. I give no credence to the figures produced by the hon. member for Essex East or the hon. member for Drummond-Artha-baska (Mr. Boulanger).


Paul Joseph James Martin: Would the minister give us the reference where he got those figures?


Douglas Scott Harkness: If the hon. member applies to the dominion bureau of statistics and asks them for the break-down of egg producers during the past ten years the bureau will give the figures to him.


Paul Joseph James Martin: Under the rules of the house the minister should have produced them.


Douglas Scott Harkness: Hon. members opposite do not like to hear the facts stated and therefore they constantly try to distort them by these interjections. The only method of price support which I have heard of which anybody has devised in order to give this support to the great majority of the producers of these commodities and provide stability of price, at the same time discouraging the large factory-type of operator from extending his operations and incidentally forcing the average farmer out of business, in this type of support through deficiency payments on a limited amount of production.
I do not think there is any other way in which you can accomplish what have to be the two prime essentials as far as price support is concerned, namely, to give the basic support of income stability to the average

farmer and at the same time not produce a surplus which is absolutely impossible to market or to deal with. This method is definitely doing this.
I was quite convinced when we put this method into operation that it would produce the effect that we had in mind of giving the necessary support to the great bulk of our producers and at the same time bring production back into line with available markets. The indications of the past few months show quite clearly that that is being accomplished. The estimates of the production of eggs in 1960 are down considerably; hatchings are down and I think everybody in the egg business admits that production in the latter half of this year-perhaps even before that-will be in line with what can be marketed and, therefore, there will be a good price.
The basic purpose of price supports of any kind is to produce as good a price as possible for the farmer. The basic purpose of the deficiency payment method of support for hogs and eggs is to produce eventually, and as soon as possible, a reasonably good high price at which farmers can make money and maintain a reasonable standard of living. The deficiency payment methods for both eggs and hogs, I think every indication shows, are accomplishing that purpose. As I say, everybody in the egg business at the present time will admit that in the latter part of this year egg prices are going to be quite good. The same thing is true to a lesser extent, because the production cycle is longer and it takes longer to make the correction, as far as hogs are concerned. The estimate of the production of hogs for the year 1960 is down considerably. It is estimated to be down about 17 per cent to 20 per cent from what it was in 1959. If this is correct it means we are going to have good hog prices in the latter part of the year. This, of course, could be affected by the level of prices in the United States now that there is no longer an embargo on hogs coming in from that country.
As far as eggs are concerned, the figures show very clearly that the situation is improving already. Hon. members opposite were talking about the terrible price of eggs; they were down, and so forth;-


Paul Joseph James Martin: Down 30 per cent.


Douglas Scott Harkness: -egg markets were in chaos, and so on. This is not true.


Mr. Benidickson:: The minister's parliamentary secretary yesterday said it was so.


Douglas Scott Harkness: The egg prices are in very good relationship to one another. The price of eggs has been steadily rising during the
FEBRUARY 23, I960	1355
past two or three weeks. Here are the figures for egg prices which I should like to draw to the attention of the house. For the week ended February 16: Vancouver 28 cents; Edmonton, 25 cents. The low point was on January 13, 14 cents. They were up to 25 cents on February 16.
The hon. member for Edmonton West (Mr. Lambert) has just handed me a clipping from the Edmonton Journal of February 19. It is an advertisement which reads:
Attention: Producers
Effective immediately we are paying the following prices: grade A large size, per dozen 30 cents; grade A medium size, 28 cents.


Hazen Robert Argue: What company is this?


Douglas Scott Harkness: South Edmonton Produce Company. In other words, egg prices already are up materially from those low points which it was quite natural they were going to reach when we put in this new type of support, and there was a big over-production of eggs. The whole purpose of the deficiency payment method of support is to allow the market to correct itself in this way, but at the same time to protect the great majority of the producers. To go on with these prices-February 16: Calgary 27 cents; Regina 26 cents; Melville, 20 cents; Winnipeg, 20 cents; London, 27 cents; Quebec city, 23 cents and 24 cents; Halifax, 29 cents; Charlottetown, 25 cents. These are all up from the lowest range, from 14 cents to 21 cents, at these various places-


Hazen Robert Argue: Grade A large?


Douglas Scott Harkness: -sometime in January. Yes, these are grade A large. These figures demonstrate quite conclusively that the prices of eggs have already begun to improve and the reason is that the basic benefit of the deficiency payment method of support has already begun to make itself felt in the trade.


Hazen Robert Argue: You have never paid anything yet.


Douglas Scott Harkness: In fact, the very notice of deficiency payments going into effect had a very beneficial effect itself. It caused a very considerable number of those large producers to cut down their production.
The same thing is true as far as hogs are concerned. Hon. members opposite were saying that hog prices and egg prices were in complete chaos. That is not true. The hog market has been relatively stable ever since the deficiency payment method of support went in. Here are hog prices from that time by weeks, starting January 9, on the Toronto market, $23.65, which was the support price under the method by purchase. Then, the next week, $23.90, up a little; next, $23.65; $21.31; $23.37; $22.68. For the week ended
Disparity of National Income to Farmers February 20 the price was $21.50, and on Monday, February 22, yesterday, $21.50. The price in Winnipeg for the same days ranged down from $21.50, $21.31, $20.25 to $18.95, $19.29, $19.33, $19.25 and $19. In other words, the margin between these prices is less than it was under the method of purchase by support, and the prices have been relatively stable. There has not been any chaos in the hog market such as the opposition have been indicating.
I should also like to point out that yesterday the price in Chicago, live weight, for their best quality pigs, corresponding to our A as closely as they have anything that corresponds to it, was $14.30, which is the equivalent of $19 dressed weight. The difference between that and the Toronto price is 2J cents a pound, or $2.50 a hundred, whichever way you want to express it. Again I think this bears out the contention that I have made for some time, namely that we should be able to maintain a price of just slightly more than $2 a hundred higher for our hogs on the Toronto market than for United States hogs on the Chicago market and that I think will continue to be the relationship.
These few facts I think show quite clearly, Mr. Speaker, that these wild claims which have been made by hon. members opposite with regard to chaos in the egg and hog markets and to sharp depression in these industries, and so forth, are just not correct. They are figments of the hon. members' imaginations to a large extent. It is true that there were very low prices for eggs for a period, and those prices have begun to improve. As I have said, 85 per cent of the producers on the average will receive the support price for their eggs during that period.


Samuel Boulanger: Certainly not.


Hazen Robert Argue: A lot of the small ones will not get any.


Douglas Scott Harkness: Mr. Speaker, the assertions that hon. members opposite make, which are entirely incorrect, have no bearing on the matter at all. It is very easy-


Hazen Robert Argue: There is no support for grade B.


Douglas Scott Harkness: -for a small boy to say, "My dad can lick your dad", but that does not mean he can.


Hazen Robert Argue: You could not grow potatoes during the war.


Douglas Scott Harkness: Hon. members opposite are in that position. They are in the position of the small boy who is making assertions with absolutely nothing behind them.
1356	HOUSE OF
Disparity of National Income to Farmers


Hazen Robert Argue: What did the hon. member for Rosthem (Mr. Nasserden) say?


Mr. Speaker:: Order. Hon. members who are sitting on my left forget that the microphones catch all their interruptions as well as the voice of the speaker.


Douglas Scott Harkness: The general position is that by means of the stabilization act we in Canada have maintained better prices for most agricultural products than have been maintained in any other country in the world. I should like to point out particularly that during the last half of 1959, which was a period of falling prices for a large number of these commodities, we have maintained better prices in Canada, considerably better in many cases, than existed in the United States.
In that connection I should like to compare prices in Canada and the United States for some of the main commodities. Let us take good steers. In the last quarter of 1959 the price in Canada was $24.55 a hundred and in the United States the price was $23.74. Even for steers we had a higher price than the United States. This, of course, was the reason why some United States slaughter cattle came on the Toronto market. Our price was higher. For hogs on a dressed weight basis the price in Canada was $23.67 and in the United States $16.43, a difference of more than $7 a hundred in our favour comparing prices in Canada and the United States. Butter was 64 cents a pound in Canada and 60 cents a pound in the United States.


William Moore Benidickson: On an offer to purchase system.


Hazen Robert Argue: What about wheat?


Samuel Boulanger: Yes, what about wheat?


Douglas Scott Harkness: Hon. members do not like to hear these figures. They do not like to hear the truth as to this matter. All they like to do is to make unsubstantiated assertions that everything is terrible, everything is black in the agricultural picture, and these assertions just cannot be supported by statistics or figures of any kind. I come now to cheese. The price in Canada was 35 cents and in the United States 32 cents. To deal with eggs, about which there has been so much complaint, in Canada the price was 42 cents and in the United States 30 cents.


Hazen Robert Argue: Twenty five cents in Canada.


William Moore Benidickson: Your parliamentary
secretary said 16 cents yesterday.


Hazen Robert Argue: The farmers never got that price.


Mr. Speaker:: Order.


Douglas Scott Harkness: These are wholesale prices for agricultural products at main markets in the United States and Canada and therefore they give the best comparison one can get between prices in the two countries. I also have comparisons for a considerable number of other countries but I have not the time to put them on the record. As I say, the situation is that in 1959 as a result of the operations of the stabilization act we were able to maintain better prices for most agricultural commodities in Canada than prevailed in the United States and better than prevailed in any other agricultural country.


William Moore Benidickson: On the offer to purchase system.


Hazen Robert Argue: I wonder whether I might ask the minister a question?


Douglas Scott Harkness: I should like to finish; I would be glad to answer questions then. Taking the income position of Canadian farmers compared with United States farmers, we find that the Canadian farmer has been in a better position than his counterpart in the United States. This is the situation. A Globe and Mail news report from Washington dated December 27 states:
Farm product prices lost further ground. Income from farming declined a sharp 15 per cent from 1958.
Note that last year income from farming in the United States declined 15 per cent from the previous year. How much did it decline in this country? It declined .4 per cent; income in this country only declined four tenths of one per cent. That is cash income we are talking about. Then there is a Winnipeg Free Press dispatch from Washington dated December 31 stating as follows:
An agriculture department farm price report showed Wednesday that further setbacks in meat animals, milk, cotton and tobacco contributed to a decline of nearly 1 per cent in farm prices from the November level and 7 per cent below a year ago.
In other words, Mr. Speaker, in comparison with the United States and other countries we in Canada have really done remarkably well in maintaining farm prices, and the reason we have done so well is essentially the stabilization act. By that means we have kept prices up to a much better level than they would have been otherwise.
I think I should perhaps devote a few minutes now to comments on some of the statements made by hon. members opposite in the debate yesterday and today. I must say that since arriving back shortly before noon I have not had time to read all of yesterday's Hansard and to get a speech ready for the house today but I have read the speech

of the hon. member for Kenora-Rainy River and I will comment on some of the statements he made. He started out by making some comments with regard to farmers' cash income and tried to establish that it was well down from what it had been. As found at the top of page 1298, he said:
-this income was less in 1959 than in 1958.


Samuel Boulanger: That is true.


Douglas Scott Harkness: Nobody ever said it was not true. The big point is that it is true only to the extent of four tenths of one per cent whereas in the United States it is 15 per cent less.


William Moore Benidickson: You told the Canadian Federation of Agriculture it was up.


Douglas Scott Harkness: Nobody has ever said anything else. I told the Canadian Federation of Agriculture that for the first nine months of the year it was up. I told them it was up about 2 per cent and it was, but in the last part of the year, as the news dispatches from Washington indicated farm prices were falling and falling rapidly in most countries. However, we managed to keep ours up fairly well, but the result for the year was that farm cash income was just slightly less this year than the year before. The hon. member for Kenora-Rainy River, following that same line, stated a little later as found on page 1302:
I have indicated that since the government assumed office the position of the agricultural community has not improved but that actually the cost-price spread has widened and made the position of farmers worse.
The hon. member for Assiniboia (Mr. Argue) made the same sort of statement this afternoon. That is demonstrably an incorrect statement. I nailed that completely to the mast when I spoke in the throne speech debate in reply to what the Leader of the Opposition (Mr. Pearson) had said, and at that time I put figures on the record to show that that statement is completely incorrect. I am not going to take the time to put all that on the record again. It is there already. But the bureau of statistics reports in connection with this matter are quite clear. They show that farm cash income in 1959 was up over 7.75 per cent compared with farm cash income in 1957 when the hon. member's party was in power and that the cost of goods and services which farmers have to buy went up 4.7 per cent. On the basis of these figures from the bureau of statistics there is no question that the position of farmers is considerably better now than it was when the hon. member's party was in power.


Paul Joseph James Martin: Nonsense.
Disparity of National Income to Farmers


Douglas Scott Harkness: There is no question about that fact at all.


Paul Joseph James Martin: We will see about that.


Douglas Scott Harkness: Mr. Speaker, the farmers of the country know that. Hon. members opposite cannot fool the farmers of the country on that point. They know they are better off and have been better off since the policies of this government began to take effect in 1958 than they were for several years prior to that time. As shown by this compilation of farm cash income, the actual fact is that farm cash income in 1958 was the highest for any year on record except 1952 and 1952 was only very slightly higher. However, they say that it was less. As I say, Mr. Speaker, I do not think I should take the time of the house to prove again what has been proved so conclusively before, that that statement and similar statements by the hon. member for Assiniboia are demonstrably not correct.
The next thing upon which I should like to comment is at page 1298 of Hansard, where the hon. member for Kenora-Rainy River said:
In the first place, it was said that the bill would bring, for the first time, forward prices. I think when we consider the predicament of the egg and hog producers today we certainly realize that they have no means of knowing what their forward prices are going to be with respect to those products.
They know exactly what their minimum price is going to be, and that is all any support price has ever told them. They know they are going to get the same minimum price they would have got had the system by purchase been continued. This covers the great bulk of producers, the 85 per cent of egg producers and' 90 per cent of hog producers. There is full forward pricing so far as these products are concerned, and any statement along the line that forward pricing has disappeared is just not correct.
The next point is that prices have not been set in relation to costs, as part of the preamble to the stabilization act says they should be. At the bottom of page 1298 of Hansard the hon. member makes statements along this line:
It was indicated that there were two prices, of course, but in the main the farmer would find that he was getting not the guaranteed price but instead a price that had relation to his cost of production, something relating to his costs in connection with the cost-price squeeze.
I wonder what the producers of eggs and hogs have to say with respect to the pricing that has recently been established in that area.
Then the hon. member followed that later on page 1299, with this statement:
We are not getting a price related to the cost of production. On the contrary, we are getting simply the mandatory or emergency price.
1358	HOUSE OF
Disparity of National Income to Farmers
This, again, is demonstrably incorrect. I have here a compilation of the commodities which were under support during 1959. It shows the commodity, the base price, the effective price and the percentage of the base price which has been set as the support price. I will just indicate the fact that in so far as most of these commodities are concerned the price set was not the minimum of 80 per cent, but was well above it so far as most of the commodities were concerned. Of course, the people producing these commodities knew what they were going to get. They knew what the prices were. Referring again to hogs and eggs, the producers of these commodities know what their support price is, and what they are going to get, as do the producers of a considerable number of other commodities which are under the deficiency payment method of support. We could cite, for example, wool, sugar beets, soybeans-all the producers of these commodities know what prices they are going to get.


Paul Joseph James Martin: No, they do not.


Douglas Scott Harkness: They know the minimum price they are going to get.


Paul Joseph James Martin: They do not, because of the average, and that they cannot know.


Douglas Scott Harkness: In the same way, the hog and egg people know what they are going to get. They are delighted to get these payments. There are no complaints from them. In fact, it is just the reverse. I have a great big file of letters of commendation from these people who have received these deficiency payments on wool, sugar beets, soybeans and so forth. Their position is exactly the same as that of the hog and egg people from this point of view. If they sell at a low price, it is too bad. They have to sell at the highest price they can get because they get a deficiency payment which is the difference between the average price received and the set support price. In the case of wool, the support price is 60 cents. We paid a deficiency payment of 21 cents a pound, I think it was, last year. In fact, we are just paying it now. A wool producer who sold his wool at 45 cents a pound got more than the 60 cents, whereas a producer who sold for 30 cents a pound received 51 cents. It was up to him to get the best price possible. There are no complaints from the wool producers. They are delighted with the system, and so will the egg and hog people be delighted when they begin to get payments.


Mr. Hellyer:: Then you can pull the wool over their eyes, too.


Douglas Scott Harkness: The hon. member for Trinity (Mr. Hellyer) does not need any wool pulled over his eyes; they are blind, in any event.
Coming back to the prices which were actually paid, I might cite butter as an example. These are percentages of the base price, that is of the 10-year average price, which have been received for butter, 107 per cent; cheese, 103 per cent; eggs, 85 per cent, and eggs are still at 85 per cent; hogs, up to September 30, 84.5 per cent, and from September 30 onward, 80 per cent; steers, of course there has been no need for support but they are under mandatory support of 80 per cent; lambs, 80 per cent; honey, 104 per cent; milk for manufacture, 103 per cent; soybeans, 87 per cent; sunflower seed, 87 per cent; sugar beets, 93 per cent; tomatoes, 110 per cent-


Samuel Boulanger: And skim milk?


Douglas Scott Harkness: Skim milk is not under support. We removed the support from under skim milk because it created an impossible situation.
The hon. member then went on to say that not only was there not forward pricing but there was retroactive pricing. He does not know what he is talking about when he says that because the price is set at a certain level and, as I have just indicated, it is true forward pricing. I do not believe there is any argument on that point.
He went on next to quote a statement from a resolution by the Canadian Federation of Agriculture. This is at page 1300 of Hansard and is in these terms:
That the Canadian government he asked to amend the Agricultural Stabilization Act by removing hogs and eggs from mandatory support-*
That is, remove them altogether.
-or alternatively by lowering the permissible level of mandatory support, so that offer to purchase support prices for them may be set at a suitable level.
I would ask the hon. member for Kenora-Rainy River to ask the members of the farm union and their officials if they agree with that. He should ask any average farmer in this country if he supports that stand. This is the argument of the big producers. They want a support level. They do not care how low it is because they believe, so long as they have a guaranteed price, they can readily weather out any storm and then they will be in a position to put the small farmer out of business by their factory-type method of operation. The hon. member is merely arguing for the big operators when he is arguing along the line that there should be support by the purchase method.


William Moore Benidickson: I told you what the
interprovincial farm union said about it.


Douglas Scott Harkness: Support by the purchase
method, as it has been demonstrated, does support chiefly the big, factory-type operator. It keeps him in business and enables him to drive the family farm operator out of business. This was the basic reason we had to get rid of it and, in addition, it was creating these enormous surpluses.
The hon. member for Kenora-Rainy River went on after that to ask, was it our intention to depart completely from the purchase method. He stated at page 1301 of Hansard:
There is every reason to inquire whether or not there is an intention to depart completely from this offer to purchase system.
When the Agricultural Stabilization Act was passed and I think in every speech I made on this subject subsequently in this house and outside, it was to the effect that the act provided for various methods of support. It is necessary, in any reasonable system, to have various methods to support the price. One of these methods is purchase, and we are still using it and under certain circumstances and for certain products it is the best method to use. Then there is the deficiency payments method of support which we are using for a considerable number of products. There is the flat payment method which we have used for some products. Any other method which it is found desirable to use can be used under the stabilization act; that is part of its essential flexibility.
All of these methods are being used and will be used. There is no intention of dropping any one of them. Which method will be used depends upon the commodity, what the circumstances are at the time and particularly whether it will produce the best result for the greatest number of average farmers in Canada. That is what we are striving to do under the stabilization act.
The next thing I should like to mention is found down at the bottom of this same page, namely page 1301. The hon. member tried to make out that the difficulties that arose as to surpluses were due to the fact that we had set incorrect prices. As reported at page 1301 of Hansard he said this:
If it has proven unsatisfactory-
That is the method of purchase.
-it is as the result of price decisions taken by the new administration, contrary to the advice of farm organizations, particularly with respect to these two products, eggs and hogs. It has been established that they did set what they were warned not to do, namely incentive prices. It was not the system that was at fault, it was the decisions made by this government.
Mr. Speaker, this is completely contrary to what the hon. member was arguing to
Disparity of National Income to Farmers begin with, to what the resolution states and to all his previous argument which was to the effect that we had set prices too low. This has been the position of the Liberal party throughout. At the time the stabilization act was put into effect they were complaining that we were going to set prices too low; and when we did set prices, they said they were set too low.
In the election of 1958, after the act had been passed, the Leader of the Opposition was going around the country saying that the price of 58 cents for butter was too low, that it should be 63 cents, and the same thing with regard to other commodities. At this time they said the price was too low, that we should set it up higher. Then, in the debate on the speech from the throne the Leader of the Opposition was arguing that we had set prices too high.
They have no policy with regard to this matter. They have no consistency whatever with regard to the matter. Here is the hon. member for Kenora-Rainy River in the same speech, in the first part of it condemning us because we set prices too low and because we are not giving the farmers a fair share of the national income. Now in this later part of his speech he is condemning us because we set prices too high. I leave it to anybody who reads his speech to conclude whether he is reasonable in his remarks and whether he has not completely contradicted his first position by the second one he has taken in this section I have just dealt with.
However, I may say that when we were setting these prices immediately after the stabilization act was passed nobody advised any lower prices. All the advice we received was for higher prices. In spite of what the hon. member says about farm organization, not one farm organization at that time asked for any lower prices. It is true that shortly after I had announced that the deficiency payment method of support would go into effect for hogs and eggs some of them said, "We should set lower support prices". But up until that time they all wanted higher support prices; that is, of course, higher support prices by means of purchase.
The next matter to which I should like to refer is this. The hon. member for Kenora-Rainy River, as reported at page 1301 of Hansard, stated:
they have created complete chaos in this country with respect to the production of both eggs and hogs.
The figures I have shown with regard to hog prices and the figures I have quoted with regard to the way in which egg prices are already improving demonstrate, in my opinion, quite conclusively that there has been no such thing as chaos in prices. There

Disparity of National Income to Farmers has been a necessary readjustment taking place in the price structure which will accomplish the purpose of bringing production down into line with what can be marketed.
I think those are all the points I need to mention in that speech. The hon. member for Kootenay West (Mr. Herridge), as reported at page 1307 of Hansard, moved a subamendment that these words be inserted:
-which will include consideration of support prices for various grades of hogs and eggs and the consideration of deficiency payments on grain

I am not going to say anything about the latter point. In fact, I note that I have not time in which to do so. But as to putting into effect deficiency payments for all grades of commodities, by doing that what you would be doing in effect would be subsidizing low quality production, the very thing which we have been trying to get away from by paying premiums with regard to hogs for example.
I do not think any good agriculturist in this country, a purebred breeder, anybody at an agricultural college or any good farmer would say that we should pay deficiency payments on-in other words subsidize from the treasury-low grade production. We must produce constantly better and better products in this country if we are going to have any hope of expanding our markets either at home or abroad. To pay deficiency payments for grade B eggs or grade C and grade D hogs would merely be to perpetuate the production of low quality products and I think it would be completely unjustified to use taxpayers' money for that purpose.
I have mentioned the fact that the hon. member for Assiniboia made the same sort of statement as that made by the hon. member for Kenora-Rainy River, namely that since the stabilization act was passed the condition of the farmers has worsened. I have demonstrated twice now, I think, that such is not the case but that the contrary, it has been improved since the stabilization act was passed. I should like to say that this constant reiteration of statements which are demonstrably incorrect not only proves nothing but merely wastes the time of this house and, of course, it shows the unreliability of the statements of persons who say things of that kind. In addition, I think it does them damage as far as the country generally is concerned.
The hon. member for Assiniboia made a great point of his interpretation of the act. According to his interpretation of the act half the things we are doing under it are illegal. Of course, he can make his interpretation if he likes to do so, but the fact is that our interpretation and the interpretation of responsible legal officers of the
[Mr. Harkness.l
crown are directly contrary to the hon. member's interpretation. I shall be happy to leave it to the members of the house and to the farmers of Canada generally as to whose interpretation they should follow. I do not think there is any question that the hon. member for Assiniboia will not get many people to accept his interpretation of these things.
I think that concludes all of the matters upon which I wish to comment, Mr, Speaker. I am sorry that I was not able to hear the comments of some of those who have spoken and that I have not had time to read what they had to say and am therefore in no position to comment.
One or two hon. members wished to ask a question and I said that I should be glad to answer those questions.


Hazen Robert Argue: The minister just now made a statement that I should like to question. He said the law officers of the crown had given their legal opinion that the act was being fulfilled. Would the minister be prepared to have the act referred to the Supreme Court of Canada in order to get an interpretation as to whether or not, under the act, the farmers are being paid that to which they are entitled? The question I wished to ask earlier was whether or not the minister had figures to show the prices paid to producers in Canada and to producers in the United States because I think the minister will agree that wholesale prices are not paid to the producers.


Douglas Scott Harkness: As far as the last point is concerned, may I say this? I think the hon. member will admit that the wholesale prices at markets-as far as hogs and steers are concerned-are the actual prices more or less to the producers.


Hazen Robert Argue: More or less; more than the producers receive.


Douglas Scott Harkness: The only difference is whatever the transportation cost is to the market I think the hon. member will admit that the price of $23.67 at Toronto for hogs is the price essentially that the producer got. In any event, it is so close to it that it does not make any difference. I think he will also admit that these wholesale prices, as they are called, reflect the difference in the prices between the two countries to the producer as well as at the wholesale level. I think that is the case.
With regard to the question, would I be willing to refer this to the supreme court, I am quite happy with the interpretation I give to it. The law officers of the crown are satisfied that this interpretation is correct and I have no reason in the world to refer

Disparity of National Income to Farmers
it to the supreme court. If the hon. member is not happy with the interpretation, let him start a suit and take it to the supreme court; we will be very happy to fight it.


Samuel Boulanger: I should like to ask a question of the minister regarding producers' eggs. The minister declared the other day that there was an interim payment to be made at the end of March. In order to clear my impression, may I put an example to the minister. Supposing he pays a ten cent deficiency payment at the end of March, and then at the end of December, the end of the year, the average is over 33 cents. Will the farmer have to pay back the difference in the deficiency payment he will receive at the end of March? The answer of the parliamentary secretary yesterday was not clear on this. He said, as reported on page 1321 of Hansard:
I may be wrong-I do not think I am-but I understand the deficiency payment that will be paid at the end of March will not be averaged on the year's average.


Douglas Scott Harkness: Mr. Speaker, I think the parliamentary secretary to the Department of Agriculture went into the details and explained this thing well and thoroughly yesterday. For that reason I did not go into any detail as far as the stabilization act is concerned; I considered the parliamentary secretary had done that completely.
I think this thing is clear enough. The press release I put out in connection with the matter was as follows. This was early in January. We would make a deficiency payment for the first quarter of this year, January, February and March, and that deficiency payment would be the difference between the national average price received during that three-month period by the producers and the national average support price of 33 cents. That is, for that three-month period alone. At the end of the year-in other words, at the end of September of this present year, when the system will have been in effect for a year on eggs-we will calculate what the national average price received by producers was, and if it is lower than the national average support price we will pay the difference between those two figures. Naturally if it is higher, there would not be anything owed; if it is lower, we pay the difference. But the amount we have already paid, of course, would be taken into consideration and be part of that payment.


Paul Joseph James Martin: Mr. Speaker, I am sure the house sympathizes with the minister in having to travel all night and having to answer some of the observations made yesterday in the course of this debate, 79951-0-86
which was so ably initiated by the hon. member for Kenora-Rainy River (Mr. Benidick-son). I was a little concerned myself when the minister was not in his seat yesterday, not having been informed of the circumstances that took him away from Ottawa. I was particularly concerned because almost at the same time that I noticed the minister's absence I had presented to me by one of my colleagues a recent issue of the Union Farmer for February 1960. At page five of that publication, in an article written by Mr. Ralph Hedlin, the following appears. First of all, the author complains very bitterly about the deficiency payment plans of the government, and then he says:
It is widely suggested that Mr. Pearkes will leave the defence portfolio-and the cabinet- and that Douglas Harkness would be the best bet to take over this ponderous and many-headed department. If this should, in fact, happen the most generally touted opinion is that the Hon. Alvin Hamilton, presently minister of northern affairs, would take over and the agriculture department would return to Saskatchewan.
These ministerial shuffles are, of course, unsupported gossip at this time. The only reason they are worth reporting is that they are suggested by responsible newsmen in Ottawa.
Then the article ends with this rather interesting observation:
On balance, especially when compared with 1958 and 1959, this year is likely to be quiet in terms of new farm programs.
I take it that the minister, by coming back to the house today, has not only scotched this rumour but has again definitely established that so far as he is concerned his preference is for the important portfolio of agriculture. If I cannot say that he always discharges it wisely, I will say that he discharges it with vigour. Sometimes his vigour causes him to be a little extravagant in the claims he makes for himself and the achievements of the government; and it also causes him, I think, as it did today, to be a little unfair in the assessment he makes of programs which have emanated from other governments which have been, as he well knows, of such great consequence to the farmers of our country.
I might say that in his absence yesterday, within the context of what we contend is misguided government policy, his parliamentary secretary (Mr. Cardiff) represented him in this house very well indeed.


Douglas Scott Harkness: I think so too. I just said so.


Paul Joseph James Martin: But, Mr. Speaker, I would point out that what his parliamentary secretary did was clearly to establish the chaos and the uncertainty and vacillation of prices flowing from the government's policy of repudiation in part of its price support program by resorting to a program of deficiency payments. As a matter of fact, the
1362	HOUSE OF
Disparity of National Income to Farmers prices which the minister quoted lor eggs in various parts of the country are to be compared with what the parliamentary secretary himself said yesterday on the price of eggs. I would ask the minister in his quiet moments to cogitate over these quotations of his parliamentary secretary yesterday and his own current quotation with regard to eggs which he gave a few moments ago.
The quotations of the parliamentary secretary are to be found at page 1321 of Hansard. For instance, at that page the parliamentary secretary said:
More recently egg marketings have Increased, associated with a sharp decline in prices. The extent ot the decline has varied in different areas. For example, the price of grade A large eggs at Regina is currently about 16 cents, 21 cents below the prevailing price of 37 cents a dozen on November 1.
Then since the Minister of Agriculture referred to some prices in western Ontario, it would be interesting to compare the prices he quoted with the quotations given by his parliamentary secretary.


Lewis Elston Cardiff: I think the hon. member wants to be fair. Those prices were quoted as of October, November and December.


Paul Joseph James Martin: Yes, that is right.


Lewis Elston Cardiff: They did not have anything to do with the prices the minister quoted.


Paul Joseph James Martin: 
presented by hon. members who support the present government. How different their enunciations were from the speeches made by the Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Harkness), the Prime Minister (Mr. Diefenbaker), and others during the course of two elections. Contrasting those speeches even with what the Minister of Agriculture has said today it will be difficult not to urge both the hon. member for Medicine Hat and the hon. member for Provencher to join the hon. member for Rosthern (Mr. Nasserden) who has expressed his keen dissatisfaction over the repudiation by the government of its own agricultural policies.
Some hon. members have not confined themselves, as I said, to the question of deficiency payments and support prices, and have talked about other so called achievements of the government including crop insurance. The fact is that notwithstanding all that hon. gentlemen have said about crop insurance, no province yet has accepted the federal proposal. It is true that in Manitoba with regard to a restricted area there is an experimental testing operation under way and it is likely that if the results of those testings warrant it, Manitoba may participate on some modified basis. The fact remains, however, that no province in any part of Canada has yet accepted the crop insurance proposal introduced last year by the government and, I suspect, for the reasons which we in the opposition then pointed out.
First of all there had been no consultation with the provinces and the extent of the federal contribution was of such a limited character as not to give encouragement either to the provinces themselves or to individual farmers. In any event, the provinces have not participated.
I think it was regrettable that the Minister of Agriculture today, speaking as a minister of the crown and referring to the preceding government which he criticized, should have asserted that there was nothing done by the previous administration in agriculture that commends itself. That surely was a most irresponsible statement to be made by a minister of the crown, particularly when one thinks of what the present Prime Minister said by way of tribute to the former minister of agriculture regarding the P.F.A.A. program. The Prime Minister who was then the private hon. member for Prince Albert and leader of the opposition was frank enough to pay tribute to that program initiated by a Liberal government when Mr. Gardiner was minister of agriculture.
I would say this about one who is not in this house and who has served his province and his country well. The history of

Canada up to the present time will reveal that no one has done as much for Canadian agriculture as the former minister of agriculture.
I did not intend to deal with this next subject but the statements made by the Minister of Agriculture provoke my doing so. It is well for the minister to recall, as I am sure he does, some of the achievements during the period when Mr. Gardiner was minister of agriculture under two great prime ministers, leaders of the Liberal party.


Mr. Lennard:: Mr. Gardiner should have accomplished something because he was certainly here long enough.


Paul Joseph James Martin: My hon. friend is right in saying that Mr. Gardiner was here for a long time. Those were long, productive years during which he accomplished much that was of benefit to the people of Canada.
Let me mention some of the things that were done. Hon. members will recall that under the freight assistance policy alone over one quarter billion dollars were paid out to assist in the transportation of feed grains from the prairies to British Columbia and eastern Canada. Under the Farm Improvement Loans Act over $650 million were lent at reasonable rates to assist farmers to improve their farming operations. Under the Prairie Farm Assistance Act nearly $200 million were paid out as compensation for crop failures, only about one half of which came from collections by the 1 per cent levy on grain.
Under the Prairie Farm Rehabilitation Act over $100 million were paid out to rehabilitate drought and soil drifting areas in the prairie provinces. Under the Maritime Marshland Rehabilitation Act some $10 million were spent to retain and develop the marshland areas of Nova Scotia, New Brunswick and Prince Edward Island.
Under the Agricultural Prices Support Act, the offer to purchase principle having been established first by that act, nearly $400 million were extended to support the prices of various commodities of which all but $90 million was recaptured in subsequent sales. By the way, let me just say in passing that the moneys authorized by parliament to the present administration under the Agricultural Prices Stabilization Act have not all been utilized. I believe my memory serves me correctly when I say there is still the sum of $150 million available for use as a result of the sanction by parliament by the Minister of Agriculture for the benefit of the farmers of Canada.
79951-0-861
Disparity of National Income to Farmers When the minister says nothing was done, let him compare the results of the program under the previous administration with the accomplishments of the government of which he is a member and see how extravagant, irresponsible and unfair was the statement made by the hon. gentleman.
The Liberal administration assisted and supported, as hon. members know, the Canadian wheat board through vigorous sales policies. Record crops caused a pile-up of grain stocks but sales reached record proportions. Let me refer to wheat marketings in recent years. These figures are worth noting particularly in the light of the present administration's difficulty in finding increasing markets for western-produced wheat. The figures for wheat marketings, expressed in bushels, are as follows:
Year	No. of Bushels
1953-	54	
396,961,0001954-	55	
319,857,0001955-	56	
353,400,000
Farm income in 1956, the last year the Liberal administration was in office, was 10 or 11 per cent above that of the previous year. To encourage sales abroad at reasonable prices-and I contrast this effort with that of the present administration-the government of that day pursued a vigorous and successful trade policy. It undertook through the repayment guarantee of wheat, exports to certain countries. It participated, as this government has but certainly not under circumstances more generous, in the formation and in the support of the international wheat agreement to keep prices at a reasonable level to assure Canada a fair share of the world market. We well remember the discussion in this house last year about the reduction in the price of wheat under that agreement.


Mr. Rapp:: What about the $600 million you
lost?


Paul Joseph James Martin: I am not forgetting what my hon. friend refers to nor am I forgetting my hon. friend's recommendations which the government is not recognizing in relation to rapeseed.
The previous administration enacted the Temporary Wheat Reserves Act to pay storage costs on wheat stocks in excess of 178 million bushels. In 1955-56 this meant an additional revenue for farmers in the amount of $31,500,000. Then we enacted the Prairie Grain Producers Interim Financial Act to put cash in the hands of the farmer. The previous government brought in programs to build and to encourage the building of storage facilities.


Reynold Rapp: Would the hon. gentleman permit a question?
1364	HOUSE OF
Disparity oj National Income to Farmers


Mr. Marlin (Essex Easl):: At the end of my speech. We took satisfaction in the fact that farm income increased 10 or 11 per cent, as I said a moment ago, in the last year we were in office. In the face of that record-and that is not the whole record-I ask the Minister of Agriculture will he not in his sober moments, in his reflecting moments-


Douglas Scott Harkness: All my moments are sober.


Peter Francis Martin: -carefully
revise the sweeping generalizations which no minister of the crown, no matter how partisan, should ever allow himself to make.
The only thing that this government has done that was not done by the previous administration was to bring in cash advances. Hon. gentlemen talk about cash advances as though the most stupendous achievements in the realm of agricultural policy had come to them as a result. The hon. member for Kenora-Rainy River put some questions on the order paper and the reply was given on February 3. Here are the answers: No. 1, crop year ended July 31, 1958, total amount paid out by way of interest was $476,000; crop year ended July 31, 1959, $519,000; crop year ending July 31, 1960, $324,000, as of the end of December 31, 1959. Now, compare that with our storage agreement, which cost roughly from $30 million to $40 million a year, a program which hon. gentlemen are carrying on. Therefore, the record, for anyone who wants to look at it objectively, does not support the very extravagant claims made by the Minister of Agriculture who, in this case, ought to understand the principles of human justice.
None of us denies that this is an important problem. I was impressed last night when I listened to the hon. member for Medicine Hat and the hon. member for Provencher. As I said a moment ago, my quarrel with them is not with their diagnosis of the problem but with their failure to relate it to our responsibility in this house, more particularly to relate it to the assurances given to the Canadian people by the administration which they support in this house. The hon. member for Medicine Hat spoke of the dwindling farm population; then he spoke of the necessity for further diminution in that regard. I would only say that one would want to be careful if one wants to see the farm family unit preserved. One will want to see a proper balance between the urban and the rural population of our country, and if the former deserves to be maintained, as I think it must, then we have to be prepared to recognize that the government will have to undertake, as we do for the unemployed, as we do for many other


dependent groups in our country, to provide ad hoc measures to deal with economic crises and difficulties which attend the farming community from time to time.
In this connection, I note that the farm labour population in 1946 was 1,271,000. Today it has been reduced to 731,000. The fact is that those who have remained have about held their own in real income while the income of others has gone up. I refer particularly to the weekly earnings of Canadian industry which have gone up about 25 per cent in the last decade. The minister told us last year that he had halted and reversed the cost squeeze. I ask him to recall the words presented to him on February 17 by the executive of the interprovincial farm union council. Here is what they said on page 3 of their brief:
The disparity between farm prices and costs in Canada is continuing to widen. The October, 1959, national index for prices of farm products stood at 235.9 and represented a decline of 6.1 points from the 1958 annual average of 242.0. The composite national index for commodities and services used by farmers (exclusive of living component) for August, 1959, stood at 272.0-up 14.5 points from the 1958 national average of 257.5. The November. 1959, issue of The Current Review predicts that the trend toward increased farm costs is expected to continue into 1960 while farm income will remain stable or decline, resulting in declines for both realized farm net income and farm net income in 1960.
Therefore, the boasts of the minister that he has halted the cost squeeze cannot be sustained. The real fact is he has reversed it. It is not only tighter; it is tougher. In talking about farm income the minister ought, once and for all, to clearly understand the difference between cash income and net income, I suggest that he ought to read with great profit the little pamphlet that has just been written by Professors David L. MacFarlane and Cecil B. Haver, two distinguished agricultural economists at MacDonald College, McGill University. This is a review for January, 1960. It is very interesting to see the table which is produced in this document and which appears on page 6. It gives the net farm income in current millions of dollars from 1946 to 1959.
Because we have been talking about the last decade, I am going to put these figures on the record, which the minister has challenged, and ask him to ascertain the justification he has for challenging them. In 1950 the figure is given at $1,220 million; in 1951, $1,937 million; in 1952, $1,919 million; in 1953, $1,644 million; in 1954, $1,025 million; in 1955, $1,290 million; in 1956, the last full year that the previous administration was in office, $1,458 million; in 1957, the year when my hon. friend and his colleagues took over

in June, $1,062 million; in 1958, $1,278 million; and in 1959, estimated on the basis of the first three quarters, $1,200 million.
These are figures produced on the basis of government reports by two non-political, impartial experts, and to satisfy the country and parliament, if they do not fully satisfy the minister himself, I made a calculation a few moments ago with regard to income from the sale of farm products. The total in 1958 was $2,869 million; in 1959, $2,776 million, less by $93 million. Therefore I think my hon. friend will want to revise very carefully some of the conclusions which he has arrived at as a result of figures that are produced by the bureau of statistics and by other agencies of the government. In this instance it is not possible for the hon. gentleman to make the charge that the statistics are those which I have produced. Those are statistics of my hon. friend's own agencies, and they tell the story. The story is that the policies of this government are creating all over this country among the farmers a disquietude the like of which we have never had in this country since the end of the first world war.


Douglas Scott Harkness: We created a much better situation than prevailed during the last four years you were in office.


Paul Joseph James Martin: My hon. friend must recognize that shouting from one's seat is not a constructive way of replying to a strong argument.


Douglas Scott Harkness: Your numerous interruptions in Hansard show you do not appreciate that.


Paul Joseph James Martin: We say that the government, by its own repudiation, has gone back not only on its own policies but on its own assurances. We were reminded yesterday by the hon. member for Kootenay West (Mr. Herridge) of the observation of the Prime Minister, parity, not charity. We recall the strong declarations made by the present Minister of Agriculture and the demands that he made when he sat in opposition to the previous administration. We recall particularly the words of the Prime Minister uttered in 1957 and already referred to by my colleague, the hon. member for Kenora-Rainy River. Listen to them. The Prime Minister said:
We will assure the farmer of his fair share of the national income by maintaining a flexible, and I underline the word "flexible", price support program to ensure an adequate parity for agricultural producers based on a fair price-cost relationship.
Note that, "a fair price-cost relationship". That statement contained three promises; first, the assurance of a fair share of the
Disparity of National Income to Farmers national income; second, an adequate parity; and, third, a fair price-cost relationship. All of these were to be received and guaranteed through a flexible price support program. These words were uttered in 1957. The Minister of Agriculture and the Prime Minister before the election of 1958 assured the house that the farmers would receive guaranteed yearly prices so that, as the Prime Minister put it-these words are significant-the farmer may know in anticipation each year what he is going to receive. The objective of guaranteed yearly prices, the Prime Minister said, was to give the farmer a fair share of the national income.
What is the situation today? I listened to the hon. member for Assiniboia and the hon. member for Kenora-Rainy River, both of whom in some particulars directed against the administration an argument that I believe is incontestable because the government, in violation of its promises, has substituted a deficiency payment program for payments to the producers of two important agricultural commodities, eggs and hogs. They have forgotten altogether both what the act says and what they promised, namely guaranteed yearly prices.
The minister spoke a while ago and said that what would happen with regard to these two commodities was happening now with regard to the application of price supports on soya beans. The minister knows perfectly well that what is done with soya beans is an averaging on the national price and while the floor is designated as $2 the farmer never does know in advance, because of this averaging process, what price he will receive for that particular commodity any more than the egg producer or hog producer will know under this deficiency payment program.
So the hon. member for Kenora-Rainy River was right. Instead of prices in anticipation as was promised the government offers a retroactive price which means that the individual farmer will not know what he will receive for his produce until the end of the year. A so-called support price for eggs and hogs was set at a mandatory or emergency level, but a large number of farmers, as the hon. member for Assiniboia pointed out, will never receive the emergency price. Some will get more and others will get less. They will have to wait at least three months for any deficiency payments and then wait until the end of the year before they know the exact amount of the payment.
I do not want my hon. friend to say that this is an unfair argument, that we are politically prejudiced and that we are giving
1366	HOUSE OF
Disparity of National Income to Farmers an unfair interpretation of the matter. I come back to the pamphlet prepared by Professors MacFarlane and Haver and here is what they say about this particular program at page seven:
The move to deficiency payments was widely criticized both by farmers and national farm organizations. The criticism has been directed not only at the mechanics of the schemes but at the restriction on amounts of product to which supports would apply. Medium to large scale operators in hogs and poultry will receive support on only a small proportion of their output. While this is ostensibly directed at vertical integration involving financing by feed companies and processors, it will apparently affect just as importantly large scale operators who undertake the financing of their own enterprises. The move will in general terms represent a blow to improvement in efficiency in Canadian agriculture, necessary not only to meet the interests of Canadian consumers, but also to keep Canadian agriculture within the general range of efficiency found in such countries as the United States, Denmark and New Zealand.
The minister told us this afternoon that with the flux of time we would see that there would be an improvement in the situation, that the chaos which he now denies exists would be corrected and that in the fall prices would increase considerably. Yesterday I asked the parliamentary secretary whether in the fall prices would likely go up to the level of the price support and, if I recall correctly, he said that that was quite right. I suggest to the minister that the indications now are that it may be away beyond that and then the minister and the government will have to consider another consequence of their policy. Instead of giving farmers an adequate return, they will be giving them a return that will cause great consternation among the consuming public.
This policy of the government obviously has not been carefully thought out. I suggest to the government that not only has it repudiated its own policy with regard to hogs and eggs but there are strong reasons for thinking that it is going to extend the deficiency payment system to products other than hogs and eggs. I know that nothing has been announced yet. We do not know what products will be included in such an extension. There we have another example of indecision which creates uncertainty in the classes of the community concerned. If the government has any further policy in this regard, then in order to avoid the uncertainty that does flow from such indecision let it announce its policy as quickly as possible. The minister announced the policy for eggs and hogs last fall. Why does it not do the same thing so that we can test and discuss whether or not the further extensions are wise in the circumstances?
Not only is the government to be condemned for its repudiation of its own policies but the


government has also been guilty of an affront to the farmers of Canada. Last year 1,000 farmers came to Ottawa to urge the government to adopt a policy of deficiency payments. What did my hon. friend from Edmonton West (Mr. Lambert) say?


Norman Platt Lambert: I said that you are getting mixed up. Your indignation is getting the better of you.


Paul Joseph James Martin: I thought he said, 'Why bring that up". In my judgment that represents on the part of the government one of the greatest acts of effrontery ever committed by a government against a group of people in this country. A year ago the farmers came down and made certain representations for deficiency payments. The Prime Minister said, we are considering that matter and before parliament rises we will announce our policy. I well remember asking the Prime Minister, after this delegation renewed its efforts on May 10, what the government was going to do about these demands. He said, you will see before the end of the session. The end of the session came and nothing was done. Now the farmers came back again and made their representations on January 30, 1960.


Mr. Bigg:: Where do you stand?


Paul Joseph James Martin: My hon. friend says, where do you stand? I would never give a responsible group of people in this country a brush-off such as this government has given the farmers of this country. No wonder that in the Country Guide for February, we find this observation:
The long indecision on the farm organizations' requests for deficiency payments on wheat, oats and barley grown in the prairie area is inexcusable.
Surely, that is not too strong a statement. The Prime Minister has about seven days to go. We will be interested in seeing what excuse he offers at the end of that period with regard to the assurance he gave the farmers of Canada on January 30.


Norman Platt Lambert: What would you do?


Paul Joseph James Martin: What would I do? I know my hon. friend, as a parliamentary secretary, would like to know. The government is continually asking the opposition, what would you do? Let me tell my hon. friend that the Canadian people will, as quickly as possible whenever an election comes, give us an opportunity and the responsibility of deciding that very point.


Mr. O'Hurley:: The old dodge.


Paul Joseph James Martin: I suggest that if the government wants to act in conformity with its own legislation to meet a disastrous

situation, for which we contend it is largely responsible, it seems to me only two alternative courses of action are possible. Either the government must restore the method of support prices through purchases, without incentive payments, or it must substantially revise its system of deficiency payments. This statement, and this policy, which I am now giving would have been stated by our leader, but because of another assignment which he proposes to assume. This is our view of the situation. We say that the offer to purchase policy is the right policy. We say that a price support program is the right policy. If the government is determined to embark on this deficiency payments basis, we say this is the way to do it. We prefer the offer to purchase principle as a sounder way to guarantee stability of prices.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: Order; I am sorry to interrupt the hon. member, but his time has expired.


Paul Joseph James Martin: Would the house allow me to finish this statement of policy?


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: Is there unanimous consent to allow the hon. member to continue?


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


Paul Joseph James Martin: I should like to make two suggestions which would undoubtedly improve the system. In the first place, the so-called support price should be increased to take into account the rising cost of production. At present, the support price is recommended by the board and approved by the government. It is at the mandatory or emergency level, and is not related in any way to the upward trend of production costs. However, the board is obliged by the present legislation to maintain a fair relationship between the price received by the farmer and his costs. For instance, the support price which otherwise would be prescribed in each given year could be adjusted to take care of the change in costs which occurred during the previous year. I am sure that the board, in consultation with farm organizations, could devise other and perhaps more suitable formulae.
Our second proposal is to urge that the government introduce regional average market prices in the calculation of deficiency payments. The minister has already rejected this on the ground that if regional market prices were used, regional support prices would also have to be used and nobody would be better off. This it seems to me is a poor argument. When prices for the same commodity vary from one region to another, a national system of deficiency payments discriminates against those regions where prices are low and which, therefore, need more
Disparity of National Income to Farmers assistance, and in favour of those regions where prices are higher and which, therefore, need less assistance. Indeed, a uniform national deficiency payment may not be enough to bring the prices received by producers in the less conveniently located regions up to the national average prices or up to the support prices, but it will be a windfall return for those producers located in regions where the market price is already above the national average or support price.
Such a result is undesirable. After all, a deficiency payment is a government subsidy designed to correct the deficiencies of market mechanisms and it is only normal that, so far as practicable, those producers who are in a less favourable position in the marketplace should receive proportionately more than others who have already got price support on the ordinary market.
For all these reasons, I submit that deficiency payments, if that is the policy which the government proposes to continue to pursue, should be calculated as the difference between the national support price and the average regional market price. Such graduated deficiency payments would not complicate the administration of the scheme. They would be fairer than the present system and in greater conformity with the requirements of our legislation. If that is the policy the government wishes to pursue, then we offer this as a better way of embarking upon a policy which we contend is a repudiation of the government's own program.


Reynold Rapp: Mr. Speaker, the hon. member for Essex East stated he would answer my question. The hon. member mentioned my name in connection with rapeseed. I should like to make just one or two observations in this connection. He is aware of the fact-


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: Order; I thought the hon. member was just rising to ask a question.


Reynold Rapp: I will do that, Mr. Speaker.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: Otherwise, I shall recognize the hon. member for Fraser Valley. If the hon. member has a question, he should ask it right away.


Reynold Rapp: Is the hon. member for Essex East aware of the fact that the freight rate on rapeseed is high as a result of the methods followed during the last 10 years his party was in power, at which time they increased the freight rate 125 per cent? This is the reason, and the previous government is the cause of the condition in this industry.


Paul Joseph James Martin: Since my hon. friend, for whom I have a high regard, puts this very important question to me, I am only going to suggest to him that if the facts
1368	HOUSE OF
Disparity of National Income to Farmers are as he states-I would want to examine the basis of his argument-I think it is about time that he and I got together and commonly opposed this administration.


Mr. Harold Hicks (Fraser Valley):: Mr. Speaker, in discussing the amendment and subamendment before the house today, I wish to take a short time to say a few words about some of my experiences, then to point out that British Columbia is an importing province and, lastly, to show that this government has certain agricultural policies which are being carried out gradually, reasonably and efficiently.
Before I do that I should like to say that all the respect, all the admiration I have always had for the last speaker, has been lost. I have lost all faith in the figures and quotations that he gives. I have here, Mr. Speaker, the very paper from which he quoted, namely the current issue of the Union Farmer of Saskatchewan printed in Saskatoon. I have the very front page he mentioned and the very article he discussed. He quoted from the last two paragraphs and you heard what he said. I am particularly anxious to quote this now because after the dinner recess the hon. gentlemen who are in the house at the present time may not be in the chamber. I want you to listen to this. This is the part that he left out:
Two factors contribute to the fact 1960 will be a relatively barren one as far as farm policy is concerned.
The first one is that a large proportion of the agricultural programs promised by the Tories in their 1957 and 1958 campaigns have, in fact, been implemented. The most recent include a far-reaching farm credit program and legislation respecting crop insurance. These, and the programs introduced earlier, will require considerable digesting, and it is understandable that the national government should let one year stand without the introduction of new programs. It must be freely conceded that a good many overdue farm programs have already been put on the statute books.
The ones we can expect to come include the national soil and water conservation authority and the feed bank.
I should now like to say just a few words about some of the experiences I have had in agriculture. I do so because of a remark that was made on the opposite side about my friend the hon. member for Medicine Hat (Mr. Brunsden) yesterday afternoon with regard to his experiences. I want to say that my father and mother were born out here at Manotick and North Gower, just a few miles from here.


Mr. Hodgson:: That is a good place.


William Harold Hicks: You bet your life it is. In the year 1882 father homesteaded in southwestern Manitoba. The first year he was on the homestead he and my mother mixed dough on the


homestead, put it into a can, hitched a team of oxen to the stoneboat and hauled it two miles to an oven where they could bake their bread. They had some fairly difficult times. Those were the conditions under which I was born in southwestern Manitoba. Many are the hours I put in working after school on the farm, and since then I have done very little ever but work on a farm. I have picked up a row of potatoes in length as far as from me to you, Mr. Speaker, and back again for five cents a row. I may also say that I got more kick out of spending that money and doing what I liked with it, I will bet, than the hon. member for Port Arthur (Mr. Fisher) gets out of spending his $10,000 a year, according to his own report.
Among the things that go into practical experience is the bringing of domestic animals into the world. I have been on the shelf a good many times doing that. I have been thrown off a horse because he was a better man than I was at the time. I have been thrown off a horse because he stepped into a badger hole at full gallop.


Mr. Mariineau:: I wonder whether that ever happened to the hon. member for Essex East?


Paul Joseph James Martin: I have often been thrown.


William Harold Hicks: I have driven and broken horses of all kinds, some so balky that when you hitch them to the buckboard, you would get in and sit there and wait till the horse decided to go. In other words, it was a case of waiting him out. That is all right too if you have the right party beside you. I have adjusted plows. I have driven machinery of all kinds. I have helped to milk a cow that gave the most butterfat of any cow in the world up to that time. I have even helped to gather eggs from hens that laid 357 eggs in 365 days, with eight days holidays. No wonder we have overproduction.
I have stood on a seed drill sowing grain when the wind was blowing the sand so thick you had to stand up to see the wheel marks that you came down on. These are some of the things that prove that some of us know a little bit about agriculture. I would not have said that except for the remark that was made yesterday afternoon. That is the reason I have done so.
I think I have spent just about as many years in this world as have most hon. members in this house; and I have come to the conclusion that no matter how much you know about agriculture you are a terrible man if you cannot adjust your views as time progresses. I think that is exactly what this government has been doing in the last few

Disparity of National Income to Farmers
years. They have tested out certain schemes and found the weak spots and the good spots. They have built new policies. These are the things that are forming a permanent agricultural policy for Canada. Viewpoints change. What were good views yesterday are history today. What we do today will be old tomorrow. This old world is changing very fast.
I cannot help but at this moment tell you about an implement catalogue I saw when I was a very young chap. It was a nicely coloured catalogue. I do not know what machinery it was advertising but on the front page of it was a picture of John Bull with a pair of broncos hitched to the old buck-board and alongside of him was Uncle Sam. John Bull drove out to the middle of a wheat-field in Saskatchewan and Uncle Sam stood there, looked around the country and he said, "Gee, John, this is a wonderful country, but damn it all, you can't see it for wheat". I think probably that is just one of the things that is the matter today. Saskatchewan possibly is producing too much wheat. I do not know whether or not that is so. But I cannot help but think that Saskatchewan has actually snowed one party completely under with wheat. There is not one of them west of the great lakes any more because of this wonderful wheat crop that has come to Saskatchewan.
Dairying has been a very happy thing in the Fraser valley up to date. The Fraser valley is represented by one of the great cooperative associations in Canada but it is in a particular area that is very well suited for such a thing. On the south there is the 49th parallel. On the west there is Vancouver island which does not produce enough milk to supply its own needs. On the north there is nothing but mountains and on the east there are the Rocky mountains. Hence we have in there an area in which milk is produced in order to supply the Fraser valley and particularly the Vancouver market.
Some time ago the British Columbia milk board passed an act on equalization to equalize the amount of pay which producers in the Fraser valley would receive. This act was appealed and it went before the supreme court, and probably hon. members have recently noted it was proved to be in order and 1 understand is now law. At least, it continues to be law. That is a great thing for an area such as that. But now I notice that a price war has started by pricing canned milk down a couple of cents to a dollar a case, and I cannot understand why the farmers themselves would do such a thing and allow a price war to start in a place like 79951-0-87
the Fraser valley. After all, a price war will not get the producers, the consumers or the processors any money.
The farmer is having to fight weather, soil drifting, climate, irrigation, plant and animal diseases. Whoever thought the day would come when one could not grow even the poor old humble carrot. But that is exactly what is taking place now. If you do not grow a carrot under certain conditions, why the bugs get him before you do.
What about the potato crop? The lower Fraser valley has always been a wonderful area for growing high-class potatoes. This year we have another new disease, and that will have to be looked after.
I should like to make another point in connection with wheat. It has been rumoured that wheat might be sold on a double-price system, one price for exporters and one for domestic purposes. I cannot say that I am agreeable to that. I feel that if the domestic price of wheat is going to be higher than the export price it will mean an increased cost for bread that is not going to be any good for the people living in any part of Canada, certainly not to civil servants, certainly not to veterans, and certainly not to old age pensioners and the poor.
Mr. Speaker, I mentioned before that British Columbia, the province from which I come, is an importing province. In 1956 there was imported into the province of British Columbia $65,553,798 worth of vegetables and agricultural products for food purposes. The same year there was an estimated importation of animal and animal products for food valued at $14,975,652.
I arranged yesterday afternoon to make my speech which I am making now, and during that time I considered the fact that fair value for duty on fruits and vegetables should be given. In other words, I am referring to section 40A (7) b of the Customs Act. Those of us who were here when the house first met heard the Minister of National Revenue (Mr. Nowlan) say that this legislation had already been proclaimed. I think this is one of the really forward steps this government has made because it is going to prevent dumping of after-season crops in Canada, and I am sure it not only affects the areas in British Columbia, but also the areas along the line, and will certainly be an improvement for the strawberry growers in Ontario.
I heard yesterday the statement that this government has done nothing. I cannot agree
1370	HOUSE OF
Disparity of National Income to Farmers with that. On page six of the English translation in Hansard of yesterday, the hon. member for St. Jean-Iberville-Napierville (Mr. Dupuis) is reported as saying:
What has the government done so far? Absolutely nothing, and it has no positive proposal to submit to the house.
Did you ever hear such a ridiculous statement coming from a member of parliament?


Some hon. Members:: Never.


William Harold Hicks: I must also say that I listened with a good deal of attention to the hon. member for Assiniboia (Mr. Argue), the so-called voice of the prairie farmers.


Some hon. Members:: Never.


William Harold Hicks: It has been reported in several papers that he made the statement that his party is the real opposition in the house. Did I hear somebody say never?


Some hon. Members:: Never.


William Harold Hicks: I do not want to repeat again in this connection the article in the Union Farmer. What has this government done? Crop insurance was mentioned yesterday by the hon. member for Provencher (Mr. Jorgenson). We have the farm credit corporation. Incidentally, the federation of agricultural managers of British Columbia is representative on the advisory board, and I want to say that you could not get a better man than Charles Walls, who is also secretary manager of the federation of British Columbia.
I should also like to relate the South Saskatchewan dam to agriculture. Can anyone in the house tell me-I am only a newcomer- for how many years the Saskatchewan dam has been mentioned in this house? Was it five, ten, twenty or twenty five? I do not know. What did this government do when it got into power? It immediately proceeded to build the South Saskatchewan dam. And what will that do? It will provide more farm land, it will provide cheaper power, and it will provide the recreational facilities which are needed at the present time.
Mr. Speaker, I did have a few more things to say, but let me say this in conclusion. I think the hog situation at the present time in Canada is absolutely A 1. Also I think the arrangement to pay deficiency payments for eggs could not be better than it is at the present time. May I call it six o'clock?


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: It being six o'clock I do now leave the chair.
At six o'clock the house took recess.



COMMONS AFTER RECESS

[Stage Direction]
The house resumed at 8 p.m.
(Translation):
Mr. Theogene Ricard (St. Hyacinlhe-Bagol):: Mr. Speaker, since the constituency of St. Hyacinthe-Bagot is known as one of the ridings with the most productive and richest land in the province, I feel it my duty to say a few words on this motion concerning agriculture.
Naturally, Mr. Speaker, I may not be able to deal with this matter with as much smugness as did my hon. friend, the member for Drummond-Arthabaska (Mr. Boulanger), who sets himself up as an expert on agricultural questions, and because he knows so much about it all that, though an agronomist, he cannot earn his living otherwise than by manufacturing caskets.


Mr. Deschaielels:: That is a fine argument.


J.-H.-Théogène Ricard: Nor can I compete with the hon. member for Essex East (Mr. Martin) who no doubt, vying with the hon. member for Laurier (Mr. Chevrier) for the leadership of his party, certainly has to make superhuman efforts to prove how superior he is to his colleague.
But since I am from the province of Quebec, where agriculture plays a vital role, as you know, I cannot do otherwise than rise to say a few words.
So far, we have heard the hon. members of the opposition discuss agriculture and, to hear them talk, they are the only ones who know anything about this, and the only ones who feel any concern for the farmer's welfare.
However, Mr. Speaker, I should like to say in this house that if we, of the Conservative party, form the present government, it is because the farmer put his trust in us and felt that the program which we submitted to the electors in the last two elections, in June 1957 and March 1958, was worthy of their support.
In a general way, as you know, Mr. Speaker, the farmer is quiet, reasonable in his requests and wants nothing more than a chance to earn a decent living.
This is something the Liberal government had failed to understand, but the Conservative government did understand it.
This is why the present Conservative government, as soon as it came into power, placed an embargo on turkey meat imports from the United States, to the great satisfaction of our farmers.

I should now like to list some of the measures in favour of the farmer that the Conservative government has enacted since it came into office, even if in so doing I cast a pall of gloom over my Liberal friends here on my right. But I owe it to myself to do so as a matter of duty, so as to remind the population, and this house, what the Conservative government has done for farm people.
I shall deal, first of all, with price support and say that the support price legislation introduced by the Conservative government had long been awaited by farm people as a means of stabilizing farm prices.
The price stabilization act, Mr. Speaker, is applied by means of a revolving fund of $250 million. There is also the farm credit act, under which the maximum loan was raised from $15,000 to $20,000, while the percentage of the loan was increased from 65 per cent to 75 per cent of the estimated value of the farm, including buildings. In line with the promises made by the Conservative party during the elections of 1957 and 1958, the Diefenbaker government has developed a new type of farm loan. Young farmers, from 21 to 45 years old, are thus able to set up their farm on an altogether sound basis. The loan ceiling can be as high as 75 per cent of the assessed value of the farm, including equipment and livestock, up to a maximum of $27,500. Moreover, the government has set the interest rate for those loans at 5 per cent.
Crop insurance is another measure which Canadian farmers had been wanting for a long time. The Liberals failed to refer to it because they were not conversant with the matter; whereas the Conservative government introduced the crop insurance act which was passed on July 8, 1959.
The crop insurance act, which was enforced last year set up a system of contributions and loans, providing:
1.	Payment by the federal government of half the administration costs of any insurance system established in a province.
2.	Payment, by the treasury, of 20 per cent of required premiums.
3.	A loan to the provinces of 75 per cent of the required amount to meet obligations with regard to compensations, less $200,000.
Let me now deal, Mr. Speaker, with increased payments.
79951-0-87J
Disparity of National Income to Farmers


Mr. Denis:: Would the hon. member allow a question?


J.-H.-Théogène Ricard: No, when I am through, sir.


Mr. Loiselle:: No, because he could not answer it.


J.-H.-Théogène Ricard: The government took steps to amend the Animal Contagious Diseases Act. The maximum compensation, under the tuberculosis and brucellosis control program, was increased from $100 to $140 for pure breds, and from $40 to $70 for other categories.
A few words, if I may, about farm improvement loans. An amendment to the Farm Improvement Loans Act, introduced by the Conservative government in 1959, provided for an increase of the maximum loan, granted by chartered banks, which the gov-vernment guaranteed under the act. Thus the maximum was raised from $5,000 to $7,500, and the provisions of the act were extended to June 30, 1962. The limit on guaranteed loans was set at $300 million.
Hon. members of the liberal party claim that we have done nothing for farmers. If my Liberal friends will take the trouble to read an article which appeared in Le Droit for July 28, 1958, they will find that Canada's agricultural exports have decreased over the past twenty years-


Mr. Caron:: Quite true.


J.-H.-Théogène Ricard: And that was in the days when our Liberal friends were being wet blankets.
As regards price support, let me mention only the price support on sugar beets, which has given $41,390.70 to the St. Hyacinthe-Bagot constituency. Thanks to that policy, the federal government has paid the farmers of the province of Quebec an amount of $73,039.99. The hon. wet blankets of the Liberal party could, for instance, ask Mr. Maurice Cote, a Liberal, if you please, of St. Dominique parish-how he likes the Conservative government price support policy. This year he got over $1,600 in premiums out of his sugar beet crop.


Mr. Racine:: An industry established by the Godbout government.


Raymond Joseph Michael O'Hurley: Why don't you listen.
This hurts, doesn't it.


J.-H.-Théogène Ricard: I fully appreciate the feelings of my hon. friends, Quebec Liberal party wet

Division
blankets who did nothing but abuse their province just to catch votes. I can understand those hon. wet blankets, who are planning to go out into the province of Quebec and set the stage for another Liberal defeat in the provincial field.
Mr. Speaker, I can understand that my Liberal friends don't like being reminded of those things, but the people of Canada had to be told. The Liberal members talked only of eggs and hogs, that they know better than any other product, but they overlooked all other products-


Azellus Denis: May I ask my question now? (Text):


Mr. Speaker:: Order. It being 8.15 o'clock p.m. it is my duty, pursuant to section 4 (d) of standing order 56, to interrupt these proceedings and forthwith put the question on any amendments now before the house.


Mr. Speaker:: I declare the amendment to the amendment lost. The question is now on the amendment.


Mr. Speaker:: I declare the amendment lost. The question is on the main motion.



REQUEST FOR ASSISTANCE TO MAINTAIN URANIUM INDUSTRY

Lester Bowles Pearson: Mr. Speaker, I rise to take advantage of this occasion for raising grievances in order to mention one which is very much in the public attention at the present time. I refer to the condition of the uranium industry in this country.


An hon. Member:: It is a matter that you are bringing to the attention of the public.


Lester Bowles Pearson: Perhaps my hon. friends will allow me to pursue my statement for a moment before they begin to interrupt. We get a great deal of interruption in this house but interrupting before a speech has begun is something new in parliament. Whatever

Crisis in Uranium Industry hon. members who have already interrupted may think, this is a matter which concerns not only those workers who will be jobless because of what is happening to this industry but it is a matter of great national importance because it concerns an export trade which this year, according to the official figures, will be something over $300 million-


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh.


Lester Bowles Pearson: -an export trade which, to say the least, is in jeopardy.


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh.


Lester Bowles Pearson: If my hon. friends can recover from their postprandial exuberance I will continue my remarks.
The centre of this industry, the place where the greatest production takes place, is in and around the new modern community of Elliot Lake. Indeed, I think about 70 per cent of the uranium produced at the present time comes from that area.


An hon. Member:: In your constituency.


Lester Bowles Pearson: Indeed it is in my constituency in which I have managed to get elected five times. My hon. friend would be lucky if he had an equally good constituency.


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh.


Mr. Speaker:: Order. I hope that my hon. and exuberant friends will restrain themselves and give the Leader of the Opposition an opportunity to make his point.


Lester Bowles Pearson: I echo your hope, Mr. Speaker, although from past experience I cannot say that I share it.
This community of Elliot Lake, which has now developed into a thriving modern town of between 25,000 and 27,000 people, sees its future in jeopardy because of what has happened to the uranium industry. In that community of Elliot Lake the federal government and the provincial government of Ontario have put something between $50 million and $70 million in order to aid in the development of that city. It would be-and I am sure all members will agree-a matter of the greatest possible importance and the greatest possible distress not only to the community but to all Canadians if this city were to become a ghost town. I just mentioned the importance of the industry. The trade figures show how important it is. It is important also to find out how this industry got into the situation in which it finds itself at the present time.
This matter of responsibility must be of great importance because the Minister of Trade and Commerce (Mr. Churchill), instead of replying to questions which were

addressed to him on this subject, has always managed to make some political allusion to the responsibility for the situation in which the industry finds itself. Therefore it is necessary to deal with that matter and I intend to do so. I intend to take the time which is necessary, including interruptions.


Gordon Minto Churchill: Will you give me a chance to reply?


Lester Bowles Pearson: I intend to make my speech. The hon. minister who is now asking for the right to reply and his colleagues are about the last men in this house to complain about someone getting up and making a speech, and not allowing a reply to be made. That, of course, is their favourite tactic, but when it is used against them they do not like it.
As hon. members know, at least as those who know anything about this matter know, the production of uranium in this country goes to the United States of America with the exception of a relatively small amount which goes to the United Kingdom and even smaller amounts which go to other countries. Our export of uranium to the United States has been covered by a contract made by agencies of the two governments. It was a five-year contract which included in its terms options which could be taken up by the United States government before the expiry of the contract, which I think was in 1962.
It is interesting in this regard-no doubt the minister most concerned will be aware of this-to recall the circumstances which existed at the time of the negotiation of this contract and at the time of the signing of the agreement. At that time, from 1953 on, when we were talking about a contract of this kind, so far as this important commodity was concerned we were in a situation of scarcity, not of surplus. It was a situation of dangerous scarcity for an essential defence material, the scarcity of which at that time and for some time after these negotiations began was the cause of very great anxiety to all those concerned with the defence of the western world.
Very great pressure was brought to bear at that time on Canadian authorities to take every possible step to increase production as quickly as possible of this essential war material. Nevertheless, though that pressure was great, though the need was great and the importance was great, there was some question in the minds of those concerned with this matter in government as to whether we should in those circumstances have tied up all the production of uranium in this country, or almost all of it, in one contract, let alone a contract which was for five years. There was certainly no suggestion at that time in

anybody's mind that we should tie up our complete production of this very scarce material for a period beyond five years.
It is interesting, in reading the discussion which took place in the committee of the house concerned with energy questions, and in the house itself, to recall that in all of those discussions there was not a single occasion when any member of the opposition of that day, including the present Minister of Trade and Commerce and the Prime Minister (Mr. Diefenbaker), suggested there was anything wrong with this contract in regard to its term. The only suggestion made by the opposition of the day was whether we would get enough uranium and were sufficiently aware of the danger of the scarcity of this commodity in the world.
Perhaps I can quote from the leader of the opposition at that time, Mr. George Drew, as repored at page 6441 of Hansard for July 20, 1955, who was replying to a statement made by the minister of trade and commerce at that time, Mr. C. D. Howe. Mr. Drew said:
Mr. Speaker, X have no desire to pursue this unnecessarily beyond the extreme importance of this development.
This was the contract. He went on:
Is it not true that the opinion has been expressed that, with the peacetime developments of the use of uranium, it is unlikely that the supply will keep pace with demand?
That is what was worrying the opposition at that time, including some of the hon. gentlemen sitting opposite me now who are trying to create the impression that what we should have done, as those responsible for this contract, was to tie up our total production for a period of longer than five years.
The same fear that we might run out of this material existed both in the United States and the United Kingdom. If hon. members read The Economist, the current edition for February 13, at page 639 they would come across a paragraph which gives the feeling which existed in the United Kingdom at the time this contract was signed. This paragraph reads as follows:
When that program-
That is the United Kingdom program for the development of nuclear energy.
-was first drafted, experts foresaw two possible threats to its fulfilment: that industry might not be able to tackle the vast building program, and that world production of natural uranium might not be sufficient to meet the fuel needs of a nuclear power program of this size.
In the United Kingdom they were also worried whether there would be enough uranium to go round, and they were the more worried because of the contract we had made with the United States, which had to be modified in order to make uranium
Crisis in Uranium Industry available for United Kingdom needs. Indeed, there were many other authorities at that time who had the same worries about this scarcity of uranium.
As I have said, members of the government when in opposition had no word of caution or criticism at that time about this five-year contract. The only thing which worried them, as far as I can gather from the record, was whether we were wise in tying up our supply with the United States for five years, and whether we had sufficiently taken into account the possibility of a scarcity of uranium. Even as late as October 1957 the present Minister of Transport (Mr. Hees) had the same feeling about the uranium situation. He certainly had no worry at that time about what might happen to the uranium industry of this country because of over-supply. In speaking to the transportation club of Ottawa on October 10, 1957, he said, and I am quoting from his speech:
Just a few weeks ago we had the official opening of the world's largest uranium mine in the Blind River area of northern Ontario.
As we enter the atomic age and nuclear industrial power becomes a reality, production of uranium will assume increasing importance in the Canadian economy. The industrial development of nuclear power on this continent, in Europe and elsewhere is creating a demand for uranium of such magnitude-
I repeat, this is the Minister of Transport speaking as a member of the government in October 1957.
that we can now look forward to continued and extensive development in this phase of the mining industry.
Was the Minister of Trade and Commerce himself very worried about the situation two years ago? Was he planning what might happen when this contract expired if effective steps were not taken with the United States government to have the United States government take up the option? Were he and his colleagues bringing the kind of political pressure to bear on the United States government which was essential if these options were to be taken up in whole or in part? What was his reaction when he was pressed by the opposition in this house about those difficulties and dangers and worse that would occur if action were not taken by the government to see that the United States lived up to its moral obligation to take up some of these options, if not all of them? The hon. gentleman was continually pressed by hon. members on this side of the house who were aware of what might happen, if the government was not aware of its own responsibilities.
On April 14, 1959, as recorded at page 2657 of Hansard, I addressed a question to the minister about his talks in Washington. In reply the minister referred to his one day

Crisis in Uranium Industry visit to Washington which was the only visit he had on this question so far as I know. We were worried about what would happen if these talks were not successful. This is what the minister said:
This is the first opportunity X have had to meet with him-
That refers to Mr. McCone, head of the United States atomic energy commission. The minister continued:
-and with other members of the commission. We discussed matters of general interest with regard to the atomic energy program affecting our two countries.
The minister said that this was the first opportunity there was to discuss matters affecting an industry of such vital importance in Canada. He went on to say:
Further conversations with respect to the particular matter raised by the Leader of the Opposition will be held in the near future.
Since that time we have been trying to get some information about these further conversations but without any success at all.
A few days later on April 20, 1959, as reported at page 2835 of Hansard, I asked the Prime Minister whether he would comment on a statement made from Washington immediately after the Minister of Trade and Commerce had left Washington to the effect that United States uranium imports from Canada would be cut down by more than two thirds after June 30, 1962. That was a statement by a United States official concerned with atomic energy matters in the United States made in that country right after the minister had been there. If that was not a warning as to what might happen if steps were not taken, I do not know what more drastic warning one could get. In reply to that question the Prime Minister said:
I realize the situation in general with regard to uranium, as I am sure the hon. gentleman does, and also the difficulties which lie ahead. By 1962 we trust that steps will be taken in order to meet the needs of the two countries, and that agreements will be arrived at.
That was the statement of the Prime Minister which did not indicate any great worry about this situation. I was not satisfied, of course, with that kind of reaction from the government, especially in the light of the reports we were getting from Washington as to what was going to happen. I point out that these were public statements. On April 21, 1959 I again brought up the matter in the house as reported at page 2913 of Hansard of that date. This is the question I asked having regard to what I considered to be the cavalier treatment accorded to our minister by the authorities in Washington concerned with this matter when he visited that city. I said:

To say the least, that is a discourteous way to treat a Canadian minister to make such a statement, only a few days after he had been down to Washington.
I referred, of course, to the statement to the effect that the United States was going to cut off this contract. I went on to say:
I hope to impress upon the United States government, not only the importance of this export trade but also the fact that the United States government has a moral duty to take up those contracts, because it was not many years ago when they got down on their knees and begged the Canadian government to spend all its energy and resources in order to develop this product for United States consumption. Now, having found uranium in their own country, are they going to do what they have done with other base metals, namely turn off the tap when they find a tap of their own?
The United States government did have a responsibility in this matter. It was as a result of United States government-I was going to say pleas-requests that we developed this uranium industry in the country for the common defence of the west. Immediately after that development occurred and when it was clear that there was going to be a great source of uranium supply in Canada the government of that country made the same kind of effort in the United States to find and develop uranium. Having regard to the contract they made with Canada and having regard to the moral obligation which I claim they had to keep this industry a thriving one in Canada, it seems to me the least the United States authorities could have done at that time, having found uranium, was to use that uranium as a reserve and not allow the production in that country at that time to interfere with or destroy the uranium industry in Canada. If defence co-operation means anything-and I have said this in the house and outside the house-it means the coordination of defence industry. For the United States to have encouraged Canada to develop this kind of defence product because it was necessary for our common defence and then to cut off the contract as they did last autumn was not in my view an exhibition of what they often talk about down there, integrated continental defence.
Naturally that was the time for the Canadian government to bring political pressure to bear on the United States government to get this situation straightened out. That is why I brought up the matter again in the house on April 23, 1959, as reported at page 2971 of Hansard. I asked the Minister of Trade and Commerce what progress was being made in this matter and whether anything was being done, but the minister was

not very worried at that time because his reply to me was as follows:
There is plenty of opportunity for discussion during the course of this year with regard to those options-
I point out that this was April 23, 1959, not very long before we got the news last autumn that the options were not going to be taken up. The minister went on to say:
-and there will be plenty of time to discuss- if the information can be obtained-the requirements for the period 1962 to 1966.
The minister continued:
The picture is not as gloomy as the Leader of the Opposition attempted to show in his speech the other night, or as he is perhaps attempting to convey by means of this question.
Subsequent events showed beyond any shadow of doubt that the picture was even gloomier than I portrayed it to be at that time, yet since that time we have had no information from any member of this government as to what political steps were taken and on what level to get the United States to take a reasonable view of this situation.
The question came up again in this house on June 25, 1959. We were then approaching the zero hour when the options were to be turned down. On that occasion, as reported at page 5178 of Hansard, I had this to say:
The minister has been to Washington to discuss this matter with the United States government. He spent a day there a couple of months ago, I think, but I suggest to him that the importance of this matter justifies the most formal and the most impressive representations that can be made to the United States government at the highest possible level.
Further along in my statement I repeated that thought when I said:
I hope that not only will the government give this matter the attention it deserves on the highest diplomatic level but that before long it will be able to make an announcement that a specific arrangement has been made with the United States. If continental defence means anything at all- and, of course, it does mean something-it means that some consideration has to be given to the economic and industrial aspects of defence on a continental basis as well as to the strategic aspect and if there was ever an important economic and industrial aspect of defence it is the supply of uranium for defence purposes.
What did we get as a result of this intervention?


Gordon Minto Churchill: Would the hon. member permit a question. In what way would the hon. gentleman use this material strictly for defence purposes?


Lester Bowles Pearson: That is not a very difficult question to answer, because the minister knows probably better than I do that unfortunately, because of the state of the world in which we live, perhaps 94 per cent, 95 per cent, or more of this material is going
Crisis in Uranium Industry into defence equipment in the United States at the present time. That is how it is being used, for defence purposes. It is going into different nuclear weapons, defensive tactical nuclear weapons of the United States, which my hon. friend and his colleagues have decided they will use in defence equipment for the Canadian forces, and surely that is an answer to his question.
On July 14, not discouraged, I brought the matter up again, and the minister had this to say, as reported at page 5957 of Hansard:
The matter is under consideration, and we have had discussions with the authorities in the United States, but they have indicated that there is some uncertainty with regard to their requirement after 1962.
Then, he added this:
However, I do not think there is cause for alarm over this matter at the present time.
There was cause for alarm over this matter at that time, as we learned later in the year when, as the result of discussions of some kind that went on in Washington with the United States authorities, there was an announcement that there was to be a stretch-out of the contract, but no new purchases of uranium were to be made outside this contract. This was done presumably after negotiations with the United States. I should like to ask the minister, whenever he gets the opportunity, to reply to these questions.


Mr. Fleming (Eglinton):: That is up to you.


Gordon Minto Churchill: Another 10 minutes.


Lester Bowles Pearson: Did the Secretary of State for External Affairs (Mr. Green) take part in those negotiations? Were those political and defence considerations bearing on this contract and those options brought to the attention of the United States government? Was that done by a minister of the government? Was it done by the Secretary of State for External Affairs? Did the Prime Minister ever bring up this matter with the head of the United States government? The answer must be no because we have asked the Prime Minister more than once and he has not been able to reply to the questions. How were these negotiations conducted which dealt with such a vital raw material, strategical and economical as this one was? Was the government at that time-November, I think-satisfied? Indeed, the press communique said they were satisfied with the stretch-out arrangement which did not result in the purchase of an extra pound of uranium from this country.


Gordon Minto Churchill: To make more nuclear bombs.

Crisis in Uranium Industry


Lester Bowles Pearson: Is my hon. friend suggesting now the reason no pressure was brought to bear on the United States to pick up those options was that uranium was going into defence equipment for the United States forces, for Canadian forces and for NATO forces, because that is the implication of his reply; that he did not care very much about the idea of this material going into nuclear bombs?


Gordon Minto Churchill: You are advocating the building of more nuclear bombs?


Lester Bowles Pearson: This is a new reason, and it will be of very great interest to this country that a government which has not advocated the unilateral destruction or abolition of nuclear weapons, which belongs to a coalition where nuclear weapons are being used, which has a continental defence arrangement with the United States which relies for its deterrent value on nuclear bombs, now has said, we did not try too hard to get those contracts renewed because we were worried about this material going into nuclear weapons.


Donald Methuen Fleming: Such a distortion.


Lester Bowles Pearson: I ask the minister to correct that now. If that is not the minister's position he can rise in his place and say so because it was the minister and not I who raised this question of this material going into nuclear bombs, and asked me whether I agreed with that. I ask the minister something else. During those negotiations in Washington which resulted in this stretch-out arrangement which has been received with such satisfaction-my moral friends to my left are making observations about the use of a material for defence purposes which the Canadian forces are using, but which they do not wish to make available to the United States, which is making the defence equipment which our forces are using. That, Mr. Speaker, is the most illogical, hypocritical attitude that anyone can take in regard to this matter. If that is their position they should have cut off the supply of uranium as soon as they came into office and should have seen that none of it went into bombs. They did not do that until two or three years after, when the United States refused to buy it any longer,
I will ask another question of the minister. In those negotiations in Washington, which resulted in this stretch-out arrangement which, according to the minister's statement at the time, was a very satisfactory solution to this problem but has not been considered to be very satisfactory by anybody else, was the uranium industry of this country consulted? Did they take any part in the negotiations? I ask him whether the arrangements that were put to the United
[Mr. Churchill.I
States were submitted in any way to the representatives of industry? Were they consulted in any way? Were they allowed to give their views as to this stretch-out arrangement before it was concluded with the United States? The answers to these questions would seem to me to be a pretty obvious negative, if one can judge from the statement made by Dr. D. R. Derry, vice president of Rio Tinto Mining Company, in Toronto on January 13, to the conference on uranium and atomic energy called by the provincial government of Ontario. At that conference Dr. Derry read a paper which included this paragraph:
The simultaneous announcement in Ottawa and Washington on November 6 that the United States would not exercise the options they held on Canadian uranium production in the years 1962 to 1966, came as a severe blow to the Canadian producers. This was particularly so because the government, doubtless for what they considered to be the best of reasons, had not kept the producers informed about their negotiations with the United States until the final decision was reached. The industry did expect a partial exercise of the options which would have enabled a smoother transition to the period of healthier demand which is hoped and expected towards the end of the 1960's and early 1970's.
So far as this statement is concerned, it is quite clear-and perhaps the minister will deny its accuracy, if it is not accurate-that the industry was not consulted about those negotiations, about this arrangement, which had such a vital effect on its future and on the future of the people who are working in this industry until the agreement had been reached with the United States government. After that, consultation, of course, would be useless.
That is the situation. What is the government doing about it? On February 5 the minister said in the house, and I am quoting from page 772 of Hansard:
But let me say that I have every sympathy, and that the government has every sympathy, with those concerned with the situation at Elliot Lake, and that steps are being taken to make sure that the people there will not suffer unduly from the changes that are taking place in the uranium industry.
The minister repeated that assurance on the air on February 21, last Sunday, when he said:
Over the next two or three years there will be a reduction in employment in these areas. This is very unfortunate but my hope is that as mining development goes on in Canada in other forms there will be plenty of opportunity for employment for those who may be displaced in the uranium mines.
What have we learned today about the possibility of those miners being used in other mines in Canada? We learn today from reports in the press that miners are being brought in from Europe-and they cannot get in here without the approval and permission

of the government-at a time when the minister said that miners who may be out of work in Elliot Lake will have a chance, he hopes, to find work in other mines. So I ask the minister, what is he actually doing to carry out this promise? What steps are being taken to make sure that the people there will not suffer unduly?
We on this side have asked the Minister of Labour (Mr. Starr) more than once whether he would make sure that the severance pay to be given by the companies to the 3,500 miners who will be unemployed shortly will not be considered as income for income tax purposes, and the best we can get out of the Minister of Labour on this point is that it is expected that the unemployment insurance advisory committee will meet on March 4, I think. That does not show the sense of urgency which is required to deal with this matter.
I ask the minister-we have asked him already in the house-and the Prime Minister whether they will go to Elliot Lake and see the situation there and also to any other uranium area affected. Elliot Lake, of course, because of the size of the community and the number of people affected is going to suffer much more than any other area. The minister has not yet been able to visit there and see for himself what is going on. The Prime Minister-incidentally, he said the other day that he had been at Elliot Lake which will be a very great surprise to the people there-has other duties, of course, and he has not been able to visit the place. But I hope the minister will find an opportunity shortly to visit Elliot Lake and see on the spot what can be done to carry out his promise to make sure that the people there will not suffer unduly from the changes that are taking place.
What can be done? What can be done to help this and other communities affected but particularly this community which is going to be the most affected because it is much the largest? What can be done to help in terms of providing new activity and providing industry and employment for the Elliot Lake-Blind River area which at the present time depends exclusively on this one product for its livelihood? What can be done? Can pressure on the highest political level he brought to bear on the United States government to reconsider its position in this matter? That does not seem to be possible so far as the government is concerned according to the communique which resulted from this happy conference held in Washington last week at which we were told everything went off beautifully and with respect to which the press tells us that everything
Crisis in Uranium Industry was all sweetness and light and people admired each other and there were no problems except ones that were bilateral and nothing could be done about them. In this communique we have the following paragraph:
Canadian and United States of America representatives discussed the outlook of the uranium industry in both countries and agreed on the importance of keeping each other informed of development prospects.
It is not development prospects that we are so worried about at the present time in the uranium industry in Canada; it is the salvation of the industry and the livelihood of the people who are affected by it.
There is another aspect of this question which should be mentioned in terms of what might or could be done to help the situation. We now have a government crown company, Eldorado, a very efficient company, well run, well administered, which has played a very helpful part in the development of this industry in Canada in the past. It is a crown company; it is the agency for marketing all uranium produced in Canada. All uranium from private corporations has to be marketed through this crown company. Therefore it is the sole marketing agency. It is at the same time a producer in an industry where the private companies are not all going to be able to survive. That is obvious now because some have already been incorporated in others. I ask the minister whether he thinks in these special circumstances, these emergency circumstances, it is a desirable thing to keep the crown company in production at the expense of private companies going out of production. Perhaps he will be able to indicate the views of the government on that score.


Gordon Minto Churchill: Would the Leader of the Opposition answer a question on that point? He would then suggest that Uranium City disappear and other places be sustained, because Uranium City is maintained by the employment offered by the Eldorado mine.


Lester Bowles Pearson: I am not suggesting that any city disappear. I am suggesting that every step that can be taken be taken to maintain this industry on the best possible basis. I am asking my hon. friend, and this he will be able to refer to, whether in these circumstances-


Donald Methuen Fleming: If you give him time.


Lester Bowles Pearson: The minister will have lots of time during this session to talk about uranium.


Donald Methuen Fleming: You are certainly seeing to it that he has as little as possible tonight.

Crisis in Uranium Industry


Lester Bowles Pearson: The Minister oi Finance (Mr. Fleming), as I said before, should be the last man to talk about somebody being kept out of the discussion.


Donald Methuen Fleming: It is a contemptible trick. You ought to be ashamed of yourself.


Mr. Speaker:: Order.


Lester Bowles Pearson: I should like to remind my hon. friend who has interrupted that there was no whining on our part when these tactics were adopted by members of the government party when they were in opposition.


Donald Methuen Fleming: It was never done before by a leader of the opposition.


George James McIlraith: We have never had a minister of finance so ill-tempered before.


Donald Methuen Fleming: It is a contemptible trick.


Lester Bowles Pearson: I should like to give the minister some time to reply but if my hon. friend keeps on interrupting that will take up a lot of time.


Donald Methuen Fleming: Shallow hypocrisy.


An hon. Member:: You are the hypocrite.


Mr. Speaker:: Order.


Lester Bowles Pearson: There is a second suggestion I should like to make to the minister. Has the government given consideration to the establishment in this country of a plant for the production of enriched uranium? It must be clear to the minister and the government that in the future the material which will be of greatest importance in this industry will not be raw but enriched uranium.


Gordon Minto Churchill: Not necessarily.


Lester Bowles Pearson: There is a good deal of evidence to support that view. As a result the United States may very well get control of the uranium export industry in the world because of two things. It is the only country that now manufactures enriched uranium. It is the only country which is now making reactors available to other countries which reactors can only use enriched uranium. Canada is in a very fortunate position so far as the production of enriched uranium is concerned because we have abundant quantities of water power which is essential for this operation.
It might well have been considered economically impossible to do this a few years ago because of the cost involved, but I am sure my hon. friend has read a pamphlet by an authority on this matter, Dr. John Davis, dated November 18, 1959, entitled, "The Case for a Uranium Enrichment Plant in Canada", in which he points out among


a lot of other things that the cost of an enriched uranium plant now is much less than it was, much less indeed than when the United States built their plant. He thought that it could be done for $200 million and he even got down to $100 million for a particular type of plant. But let us say $200 million whereas it cost the Americans between $500 million and $600 million to build each plant; so a plant built in Canada at a cost of $200 million, a most modern plant, would surely put our industry in a position to compete with United States enriched uranium in the markets of the world.
This might be a very important development to save the uranium industry of Canada during this difficult period of transition until uranium is required for peaceful purposes in quantities that will consume all our uranium, and that is going to be some years.


Gordon Minto Churchill: That development figure should be $500 million.


Lester Bowles Pearson: I am quoting figures given by a man who has made a very careful investigation. If it will cost $500 million no doubt the minister will be able to substantiate that.
Then, of course, there is the question of the construction of a nuclear power station. The government has agreed to build a second one at Kincardine and perhaps the time will come when a third will be required.
Then there is the question of the nuclear research station that is now to be built in Manitoba. Other things being equal, Mr. Speaker, there would be no one on this side who would question the choice of location by the government for a particular nuclear research station. When this matter came up some months ago there was no controversy over it. Everybody in the house hoped to get the nuclear research station for his own constituency and I put in a bid for Elliot Lake because I thought it had some of the facilities that were required.
But since that decision was made the situation has changed very greatly. We will now perhaps have in Elliot Lake facilities and services available for this kind of development which will have to be built at very great expense in any other area of Canada that may be chosen for this station. I have just said the provincial and federal governments spent between $50 and $70 million at Elliot Lake in the provision of services and facilities. It would seem to be good economy to save that money if the station could be built in another area and if, at the same time by putting it there, this community could also be saved. That is the only reason why anyone would ask the government to reconsider the decision which has been made.


An hon. Member:: What have you got against Manitoba?


Mr, Pearson:: Nobody has got anything against any part of Canada. I have just said that if other things were equal Manitoba would be a desirable place in every respect for this station. I am asking the minister if he considers, in the light of developments since last October, whether things are still equal. No doubt, he will tell us that in due course.
The minister now says that the decision was made-he said this in his broadcast the other night, and I will read what he said so I will not be misquoting him:
A suggestion has been put forward that the proposed nuclear research establishment be put in at Elliot Lake.
Then, he went on:
Acting on the advice of the directors of Atomic Energy of Canada Limited, who made a careful survey of the situation across Canada, the government decided that the nuclear research establishment should be located at Whiteshell in Manitoba.
According to the minister now the site was chosen by Atomic Energy of Canada. However, last October, when he announced that this station was to be established in Manitoba he said, speaking in Winnipeg, according to the Winnipeg Free Press of October 1, 1959:
Manitoba was elected for the site, the trade minister said, because the province, with the exception of military and agricultural research centres, had little in the form of industrial research. He said Manitoba had no particular physical advantages that led to its selection for the next research centre.
There is quite a contradiction between those two reasons given. Indeed the reply to the minister's most recent reason for establishing the centre in Manitoba was given by the men in the uranium industry themselves, who have pointed out in a statement that there was no technical reason why the station should not be at Elliot Lake. The president of Atomic Energy of Canada Limited himself, whose company the minister says was responsible for the choice of this site, had this to say as quoted in the Sudbury Star of January 26, 1960:
J. Lome Gray, president of Atomic Energy of Canada Limited, told the Star that from a technological standpoint he could see no valid reason why the new establishment could not be located at Elliot lake. He said government reasons for wishing to locate it in Manitoba should emanate from the government.
That is sufficient to answer what the minister said the other night over the air. The minister also said that plans are too far advanced now to change them, even if it were desirable to change them. But he spoke very differently about that last autumn when he said that it would be a long time before
Crisis in Uranium Industry construction would begin and before plans would be ready for construction. The secretary of Atomic Energy of Canada has said that nothing has yet been designed and it will be a year before the plans are ready. So, I ask the minister if he will inform the house whether any considerations have now been advanced, because of the situation of the industry, which in his view necessitate a reconsideration of this matter by the government. It was only in these circumstances of emergency that anyone on this side suggested any such reconsideration.


Gordon Minto Churchill: Would the hon. member suggest the transfer of the nuclear station to Uranium City?


Lester Bowles Pearson: The minister has asked
whether I would suggest the transfer to Uranium City. Surely the minister knows that if we are trying to save a community and all the people involved in that community it is more important to save a large community than a smaller community. While everybody has every sympathy for the people of Uranium City who are going to suffer from this situation, the minister will probably agree with me if I tell him there are, say, 3,000 in Uranium City?


Gordon Minto Churchill: There are 8,000.


Lester Bowles Pearson: There are between 25,000 and
30,000	in Elliot Lake and Blind River, and that is a community in which much more money has been spent-


Gordon Minto Churchill: You did not put any money into Uranium City.


Lester Bowles Pearson: -and in which more homes have been established by people who expected to stay there. Therefore, if you have to make a choice, and I hope you will not have to do so, surely the minister, if he were reconsidering that matter, would consider it more important to move the research centre to the larger centre rather than the smaller centre which is very remote from those institutions which the minister himself has told us are very important to have nearby and which was one of the reasons he said they adopted this Manitoba site.
In closing, I would just remind the minister-that he will have 20 minutes to answer some of these questions-that at page 772 of Hansard for February 5, 1960 he said, and I ask him to explain this in the light of what has happened since, that steps are being taken to make sure that the people there will not suffer unduly-he is talking about Elliot Lake-from the changes that are taking place in the uranium industry.

Crisis in Uranium. Industry


Mr. Speaker:: I assume that the minister wishes to speak on the grievance raised by the Leader of the Opposition (Mr. Pearson)?


Gordon Minto Churchill: That is true, Mr. Speaker. He has asked some questions and he has very kindly offered to give me 20 minutes when he spoke for 55 minutes in order to deal with this very important problem.
The Leader of the Opposition (Mr. Pearson) started off with a review of the developments of the uranium industry in Canada, and then passed on to some other topics. The development of the uranium industry in Canada has been a spectacular development, and up until 1953 there was a serious shortage of uranium. There was the necessity, on the part of the western allies, to find more uranium in order to build weapons because of the failure, in 1947, of the plan to discontinue making nuclear weapons and because of the developments in Russia in this particular field. It was, therefore, a matter of self-preservation in various countries of the world, not only the United States but Canada as well, to launch out in search of uranium in order that there would be an assured supply for military purposes. This was done and great discoveries were made, none greater than the discovery in the Blind River area.
The United States authorities urged the Canadians to do what they could in this expansion. I do not think that they begged us or that we made any tremendous sacrifice in order to do this because the amount of money that was made available was substantial and provided quite an incentive. At any rate, the steps were taken and the exploration was successful. Uranium deposits were found in Canada. I do not doubt that, in 1953, they were the largest and most important in the world. But at the same time, other countries were actively engaged in this business.
May I direct the attention of the Leader of the Opposition to the situation as it prevailed in September of 1954. The late Mr. R. J. Henry, who was then vice president of Eldorado Mining and Refining Company, spoke to the provincial ministers of mines in Winnipeg in September, 1954, and he said this:
Canada is not the only producer of uranium, as you are well aware. Production in the United States reached record levels this year-
That is 1954.
At least 15 orebodies are known to contain reserves in excess of 100,000 tons each and several of these greatly exceed this figure and the ore is high grade. By the year-end, nine mills will be producing on the Colorado plateau and mills in other areas are under construction or planned. Uranium is also being recovered as a by-product

from four phosphate plants in Florida, and negotiations with several others for additional facilities are in progress. In South Africa six plants are in operation, and several others are scheduled for completion this year. South Africa's potential for low cost uranium is very great. In Australia two plants will be in operation this year. By this you can see we are going to have plenty of competition in a world market.
Not only was there evidence of competition in a world market but there was evidence that uranium was coming into considerable supply that might exceed demand and my hon. friends were in office at that time in
1954.	In the succeeding years of 1955 and 1956 contracts were entered into with the United States authorities for the production of uranium in Canada and they were very substantial contracts. Those contracts were entered into by the United States atomic energy commission with Eldorado, the government purchasing agency in Canada and then with the producing mines. These contracts ran for five years and they did get in the contracts an option clause which could be taken up in March, 1961.
My hon. friend might be interested in what the then minister of trade and commerce in
1955,	Mr. Howe, said with regard to some of these matters. He indicated that these contracts would be written or available not later than March 31, 1956 and the mines had to come into production not later than April 1, 1957. He was asked questions about supply and demand. He said this, and I quote his words from a press release which was issued on August 3, 1955:
As I indicated in the House of Commons recently, there is no information at this time as to whether the military demand will continue beyond March 31, 1962. If the military requirement should be extended beyond March 31, 1962, the government's decision as to its future purchasing policy will be announced.
There was no clear understanding that this thing was going to go on indefinitely. In 1954 it was known to the government and to the industry that there was a growing world supply of uranium. The contracts were written for a five-year period. My hon. friend says, "Well, we did not want to tie up the uranium in this country for a longer period". It would have been sound common sense to have contracts extending longer than five years when it was evident that other countries were in the production field with regard to uranium.


Lester Bowles Pearson: You took the other view then.


An hon. Member:: Don't interrupt.


Gordon Minto Churchill: Then my hon. friend talked about this dangerous scarcity. The dangerous scarcity evaporated when these discoveries were made and there was really no reason for

the United States authorities to consider relying solely upon Canadian resources. It was only prudent for them to undertake their own exploration program and that also was a very successful program. When their uranium mines were found and when they came into production they were satisfied that they had a balanced program that assured a supply of uranium in their own country for most of their military needs, and the contracts they had with Canada, South Africa, Australia and the Belgian Congo gave them other sources of supply.
My hon. friend talks about the United States not living up to its moral obligation to take up the options to have more uranium available, as he describes it. Available for what? For a stockpile? If so, a stockpile of what? A stockpile of uranium weapons so that we will ensure that the world will be completely blown up when the time comes that somebody is foolish enough to set these things off? Actually what my hon. friend is suggesting, when he says that we failed to press the United States to take up these options, is that we took no action at all.
What action did he take in 1956? In 1956, when my hon. friend was secretary of state for external affairs, this situation with regard to uranium production was very well known to the then government and to the world.


Lester Bowles Pearson: And to the opposition.


Gordon Minto Churchill: But did my hon. friend take any action then to see whether or not these options were going to be taken up? Not one single thing did he do as secretary of state for external affairs. He had from then until a date in June, 1957 which is well remembered in this country. Did he take any action up to that June 10?


Edmund Davie Fulton: Nothing.


Gordon Minto Churchill: -or June 21, 1957? Not a bit of action did he take.


Lester Bowles Pearson: That was the first year of the contract.


Gordon Minto Churchill: His interest in uranium in his own constituency has just developed in 1959 and it is only then that he started asking questions.


Lester Bowles Pearson: After you destroyed the industry.


Gordon Minto Churchill: With regard to the contracts and the options, the time to have taken action was in 1956 and 1957 when world production was steadily increasing and the Americans were expanding exploration and their production in North America.


George James McIlraith: Will the minister permit a question?
Crisis in Uranium Industry


Some hon. Members:: Sit down.


George James McIlraith: Does he realize that the time of which he speaks is the time at which most of these mines were starting to come into production and before there were many of them?


Edmund Davie Fulton: Starting over-production which your government encouraged.


Gordon Minto Churchill: My point is that in 1954, 1955, 1956 and 1957 world production of uranium was on the increase. My hon. friends should have known these facts but they did not know them and they are responsible for the overexpansion of the uranium industry and the contraction of time to five years which should have been expanded to at least ten years because you cannot conduct mining operations on a five-year basis and put in established communities with any chance for their survival. If you have a ten-year period or twenty-year period there is a possibility then of having an established community set up. But my hon. friends, working on the slender thread of five-year contracts, misled the people who are now living in Elliot Lake. A miner of Elliot Lake, when he appeared on a television program on Sunday said, "Why did not somebody tell us?" These are the people who should have told them in 1957.


An hon. Member:: They knew it or they should have known it.


Gordon Minto Churchill: Why did they not say, "This is a temporary occupation for you; this is all we can guarantee with regard to your occupation here at these mines because the options have not been taken up and during our term of office as a Liberal government we took no action to have the options taken up in 1956 and 1957".


Lester Bowles Pearson: Before the contract was
signed? How do you take up an option before the contract is signed?


Gordon Minto Churchill: But no; they misled the people terribly. I certainly sympathize with the people of Elliot Lake.


William Arnold Peters: What are you going to do for them?


An hon. Member:: Don't interrupt.


Gordon Minto Churchill: Just give me time to finish.


William Arnold Peters: What are you going to do for them?


Gordon Minto Churchill: I just have a few minutes left.


Mr. Speaker:: The minister has limited time available and I would hope hon. members might hear him.

Crisis in Uranium, Industry


Mr. Monleilh (Perth):: That is only lair.


Gordon Minto Churchill: My hon. friend attempted to make out that the government took no action. We did consult with the authorities in the United States.


Lester Bowles Pearson: One day in Washington.


Gordon Minto Churchill: We saved the uranium industry in Canada from complete collapse in 1962. That is what faced it in 1962 had we not made the arrangement with the United States for this stretch-out program, a basic contract written between Eldorado and the United States authorities covering the entire production that had been bargained for from the Canadian mines and that became a firm settlement.
Had that not been done, what would have happened? The contract would have been lost and the export of uranium would have declined very seriously. But we arranged with the United States authorities a stretch-out program under this master contract and saved the uranium situation in Canada to the extent of $120 million. My hon. friend says nothing about that, and that is why I said on November 8 that it was a successful termination of our negotiations with the United States. The sum of $120 million went into the uranium industry and provides employment over several years which would not have been provided had we not made that arrangement.


Lester Bowles Pearson: A successful operation but the patient died.


Gordon Minto Churchill: Then my hon. friend asked, what about pressure on the United States? He said, cannot we bring political pressure on the United States at this stage? I ask, for what purpose? They have announced that their military requirements have been met. They are stockpiling and have stockpiled uranium for military purposes. The peacetime uses of uranium have not advanced to the stage where they require imports from Canada, so what is the political pressure we are to exert on the United States at this time? Can we go to them and say, "We have a uranium industry in Canada; take more from us for the next five, six, or ten years"? For what purpose? For the peaceful uses of uranium? No, because the peaceful uses of uranium have not advanced to the stage where much in the way of poundage is required. Are we to press the United States to get more uranium from Canada in order to make more thermonuclear bombs when they say they have a surplus? I do not know what attitude the Nobel Foundation would take to that suggestion.
My hon. friend has suggested that the Eldorado mine be closed down. He says that

the people of Uranium City are not as important as the people of Elliot Lake.


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh.


Lester Bowles Pearson: Mr. Speaker, on a question of privilege, the minister knows perfectly well, and if he was not so heated he would realize it, that I made no such statement at any time, as Hansard will show. It is a good thing it is nearly ten o'clock.


Gordon Minto Churchill: My hon. friend said that
24,000	people are more important than 8,000 people. That is recorded in Hansard and I state it again to make sure it is there.
Then he talked about building an enriched uranium plant, and his evidence was founded on a report made by a Mr. Davis. Again, I have not time to bring forward the evidence here, but you have to build a plant and develop the electricity, and these diffusion plants need enormous quantities of electricity. To develop the electricity and build the plant, an estimated $500 million, according to the experts who are as knowledgeable as Mr. Davis in this field, is required. The Leader of the Opposition mentioned the nuclear power station at Kincardine and hoped that this would be built soon. Let us not forget the fact that Ontario has not fared too badly with regard to atomic research and nuclear development. There is the NRX reactor at Chalk River as well as the NRU. NPD is being developed which, in the course of the next twelve months, will put 20,000 kilowatts of energy into the Ontario grid. The CANDU station near Kincardine at a cost of $60 million is being developed within the next few years to put 200,000 kilowatts into the Ontario grid.
That is a substantial contribution to atomic research in this country and is a substantial contribution by this province in the nuclear research field. I think this government's policy has been to spread out the advantages right across this country, and to establish a nuclear research establishment elsewhere sounds reasonable to most people except the Leader of the Opposition. Other reactors which may be built in the future will have to go to various sections of this country which are power deficient, and some of those are not in this area; yet there may be other reactors established in Ontario. I would like to see more of them. Again it will be the peaceful use of uranium for which they will be required.
Now with regard to Elliot Lake. I hope to make a visit to Elliot Lake, and I am also going to Uranium City. These people have been upset, and naturally upset, and provision will have to be made for them. But let us view the situation carefully, Mr. Speaker.

Of the 24,000 or 25,000 people at Elliot Lake, I think half of the employed miners are single men, 4,500 of them living in bunkhouses and some hundreds more living in trailers. It is not exactly a permanent situation. However, what we will do there with the cooperation of the Minister of Labour (Mr. Starr) and the Minister of Public Works (Mr. Walker) who is responsible for national housing is that we will see that the people there are not inconvenienced due to the necessity of having to shift from one place to another. And on the industry itself must rest a great responsibility to see that employees are not let out just overnight.


George James McIlraith: Like Avro.


Gordon Minto Churchill: I have talked to the leaders of the industry and suggested to them that they must cushion this blow and make it possible for these people who have worked for them for years to transfer to other occupations without too great an inconvenience. These are things which we intend to do with the co-operation of the provincial government and the companies themselves, to help cushion this blow to the uranium industry. It is not the only industry which has had to make adjustments and I think this can be done over a period of years. I do not see Elliot Lake becoming a ghost town; far from it. The number of permanent dwellings there will support a town of between 8,000 to
10,000	people. There may be a contraction, but the major producing mines are still there, still operating, and will operate for another three years, and then there will be a decline in production. By that time there may be an increased demand for the peaceful use of uranium.
Just to give a rapid forecast of that, it looks as if uranium is now in greater supply than demand. By 1965 supply and demand come a bit closer together, and by 1970 it is expected by people who are experts in this field that world supply will be just under the projected world demand. I grant that there is an awkward little period in there where we are not sure at this moment what the future for uranium is, but by 1963 or 1964 we will have a much clearer idea.
Canada's atomic research efforts in the use of natural uranium and heavy water will by that time have reached the stage where we can determine if it is economically successful, and if it is there may be an export possibility for Canada of that type of reactor based on the use of natural uranium.


Mr. Speaker:: Order. It being ten o'clock it is my duty, pursuant to section 4 (f) of standing order 56, to interrupt the proceedings and to put forthwith the question on the motion now before the house.
Business of the House
Motion (Mr. Fleming, Eglinton) agreed to and the house went into committee, Mr. Flynn in the chair.
The estimates of the following departments were first taken up and entered for consideration:
DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE Administration branch-
1.	Departmental administration, including advisory committee on agricultural services, $777,657.
DEPARTMENT OF FISHERIES General services-
128. Departmental administration, $411,500.
DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE A-Department
151. Departmental administration including annual contribution of $200 to the conference of commissioners on uniformity of legislation in Canada, $872,484.



DEPARTMENT OF NATIONAL HEALTH AND WELFARE

[Stage Direction]
242. Departmental administration, $1,641,729.

[Stage Direction]
327. General administration, $9,784,537.

[Stage Direction]
457. Departmental administration, $2,367,981.
Proceedings reported.

Lionel Chevrier: Mr. Speaker, may I ask if there is any change in the order of business announced last night?


Gordon Minto Churchill: No, Mr. Speaker, the business will follow the course anounced last night and that will apply to Friday as well.


Lionel Chevrier: I do not understand. I am not sure about Friday.


Gordon Minto Churchill: I announced that on Wednesday we would take supplementary estimates. If that were completed I announced that it would be followed by discussion of the three resolutions in the names of the Prime Minister, the Minister of Transport and the Minister of Public Works. Thursday is private members' day. Friday will see a continuation of the business announced for Wednesday.


Lionel Chevrier: But will we continue with the supplementary estimates if we have not disposed of them?


Gordon Minto Churchill: Yes, but I appeal to my hon. friends to conclude the supplementary estimates on Wednesday.


[Stage Direction]
It being five minutes after ten o'clock the house adjourned, without question put, pursuant to standing order.
[Stage Direction]
Questions

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

Mr. Howard: How many classification officers are employed in each of the penal institutions under federal government jurisdiction, and what are the qualifications set for, and duties of, such officers?
Answer by: Hon. E. D. Fulton (Minister of
Justice:
Classification of inmates is a method for the pooling of all relevant knowledge about the offender in the institution and for the coordination of all important decisions and activities affecting him. The penitentiary officer primarily responsible for gathering and collating such information is the classification officer. Qualifications for this position are:
University graduation, preferably with training in psychology or social work; experience in treatment of delinquency or in
Dorchester penitentiary	
St. Vincent de Paul penitentiary	
Kingston penitentiary	
Manitoba penitentiary	
Saskatchewan penitentiary	
British Columbia penitentiary	
Collin's Bay penitentiary	
Federal training centre	
Joyceville institution	
Prison for women (Kingston penitentiary)
Total:
( * A social worker, performing comparable duties, is employed instead of a classification officer in the prison for women).


PER CAPITA PRISON COSTS
Mr. Howard: For 1958 what was the per inmate cost of keeping an inmate in (a) a maximum security prison; (b) a medium security prison?
Answer by: Hon. E. D. Fullon (Minister of
Justice):
(a)	In the fiscal year 1958-59 the average per diem cost of maintaining an inmate in a Canadian penitentiary was $5.41.
(b)	In 1958 the department did not operate a medium security prison on a separate accounting basis.
other rehabilitation work; keen analytical mind; sympathetic personality; ability to conduct interviews and prepare suitable reports; good character; satisfactory physical condition; provision is made for a higher ranking and salary level for incumbents who possess a master's degree in psychology or social work with postgraduate experience.
The duties of a classification officer may be briefly summed up as follows: Preparation of case histories of inmates; assessment, selection, and counselling of inmates in various phases of rehabilitative treatment; presentation of all pertinent data to the classification board (treatment team); participation in the implementation and subsequent appraisal and readjustment of the treatment plan decided upon in respect of each inmate.
Associated with classification officers in this work, and under their direction, are classification assistants, for whom both qualifications and duties are similar but somewhat less stringent than those of classification officers proper.
The number of persons authorized as classification officer and as classification assistant in each of the penal institutions under federal government jurisdiction is as follows:
Classification	Classification
Officer	Assistant
1	1
3	2
2	3
1	1
2	1
1	3
2	1
2	1
1	0
0*	0
15	13


PENAL INSTITUTIONS
Mr. Howard: How many inmates in each penal institution under federal government jurisdiction are taking group therapy training, and how many have applied for such training but are not able to participate because of lack of trained personnel?
Answer by: Hon. E. D. Fulfon (Minister of Justice):	.
(a)	The number varies from month to month.
(b)	Information not available.



Mr. Howard: How many (a) psychologists; (b) psychiatrists, are employed on a full time basis in each of the penal institutions under federal government jurisdiction?

Answer by: Hon. E. D. Fulton (Minister of
Justice):
(a)	Full time psychologists authorized are
as follows:	Dorchester penitentiary, 1; St.
Vincent de Paul penitentiary, 3; Kingston penitentiary, 3; Manitoba penitentiary, 2; Saskatchewan penitentiary, 1; British Columbia penitentiary, 1.
(b)	Psychiatrists (full time): none. Psychiatric services on a part time basis are provided at all institutions.
Dorchester penitentiary	
Federal training centre	
St. Vincent de Paul penitentiary
Kingston penitentiary	
Collin's Bay penitentiary	
Manitoba penitentiary	
Saskatchewan penitentiary .... British Columbia penitentiary ., Joyceville institution	
Questions



Mr. Howard: How many cells, if any, are there in each penal institution under federal government jurisdiction which do not have contained within them (a) toilet facilities; (b) washbasin facilities?
Answer by: Hon. E. D. Fulton (Minister of Justice):
cells without	cells without
installed toilet	installed washfacilities	basin facilities
(a)	(b)
107	107
nil	nil
420	420
34	34
nil	nil
nil	nil
11	nil
nil	nil
nil	nil


EDUCATIONAL STANDARDS FOR GUARDS AND INSTRUCTORS
Mr. Howard: 1.	What educational standards are set for (a) guards; (b) instructors, at the penal institutions of Collin's Bay and' the Federal Training Centre?
2.	How many, if any, (a) guards; (b) instructors, do not meet these standards and what percentage of the staff do these persons represent?
Answer by: Hon. E. D. Fulton (Minister of Justice):
1.	(a) Grade 8 or better; (b) journeyman's certificate in trade in which he instructs.
2.	(a) Nil; (b) nil.


CUSTOMS BUILDING, FORT FRANCES, ONT.
Mr. Fisher: 1.	Has the government built a new structure for the use of customs officials at Fort Frances in the past two years?
2.	If so, from whom was the property purchased and what was the price?
3.	Did the government make any check to find out if this particular property had come into the hands of the vendor a short time before it was sold to the government?
Answer by: Hon. D. J. Walker (Minister of Public Works):
1.	No.
2.	Not applicable.
3.	Not applicable.


APPENDIX
[Stage Direction]
February 19, 1960
Mr. S. F. Rae,
Minister,
Canadian Embassy,
Washington, D.C.
Dear Mr. Rae:
With reference to your letter of this date in which you request assurance that, in the event S-3019 is enacted into law, the department of state will recommend to the President that Canadian vessels operating primarily on the great lakes and St. Lawrence river which make occasional trips to the Canadian maritime provinces in the Canadian coastal trade be excluded from the designation of foreign vessels under section 3 (a) of the said bill, I take pleasure in stating that the department will make such a recommendation.
Sincerely yours,
Ivan B. White
February 19, 1960
Mr. Ivan B. White,
Department of State,
Washington, D.C.
Dear Mr. White,
The agreement of the Canadian government which is transmitted concurrently herewith to the terms of the aide memoire in regard to the bill on great lakes pilotage is subject to the following reservation. Section 9 (c) of the bill does not fully meet the Canadian requirements in that lake vessels which occasionally operate through the St. Lawrence to the maritime provinces in the Canadian coastal trade are not covered. The Canadian government considers that these vessels should be covered and understands that United States officials concerned with this matter are sympathetic to the Canadian position.
During discussions between the appropriate officials of our two governments, United States officials indicated that the position of such vessels could be protected under section 3 (a) by not being designated pursuant to the section.
We would appreciate receiving assurance that in the event S-3019 is enacted into law, the department of state will recommend to the President that Canadian vessels operating primarily on the great lakes and St. Lawrence river which make occasional trips to the Canadian maritime provinces in the Canadian coastal trade be excluded from the
designation of foreign vessels to be made by the President under section 3 (a) of the said bill.
Yours sincerely,
S. F. Rae
Aide Memoire
In discussions of great lakes pilotage between United States and Canadian officials following the receipt of the Canadian aide memoire of September 11, 1959, the Canadian officials were informed of the provisions of a proposed draft bill on the subject which was prepared by representatives of interested agencies of the government of the United States. The principal purposes of the proposed bill would be to establish certain pilotage requirements for the navigation of United States waters of great lakes and St. Lawrence river by vessels operating on ocean routes to and from great lakes, and to provide a basis for a regulated system of pilotage to meet those requirements.
Provision is made for co-ordination of this pilotage system with a Canadian system on the basis of reciprocal recognition of and equitable participation by United States and Canadian pilots in the pilotage of the vessels to which the bill would be applicable. These pilots would be registered by an appropriate agency of their respective countries, and vessels to which the bill is applicable would be required to have registered pilots in their service for the navigation of designated United States waters. It is the understanding of the United States government that Canadian waters will also be designated in which the services of registered pilots will be required.
In undesignated waters of great lakes, the vessels to which the proposed bill would be applicable would be required to have on board either a registered pilot or an officer of their regular complement who would be qualified for the navigation of the undesignated waters and licensed either by United States coastguard or the appropriate agency of Canada.
As a result of the above-mentioned discussions, the Canadian representatives indicated that their government would be prepared to recommend to parliament that legislation be adopted permitting coordination on the above indicated basis, if United States enacted legislation along the lines of the proposed draft bill. It is the United States government's understanding that provision would be made to restrict the registration of Canadian pilots

to persons, other than members of the regular complement of a vessel, who hold a master's certificate or equivalent licence, unlimited as to tonnage, issued by the Department of Transport to authorize navigation of great lakes and pilotage services on routes specified therein.
The term "equivalent licence" as used in the proposed United States draft bill means a licence issued to a St. Lawrence river pilot to authorize the navigation of those portions of the river specified therein. In this connection Canadian officials explained that St. Lawrence river pilots are specially trained for pilotage in the districts for which they are licensed, and that they are not required to obtain a master's certificate, although some do hold such a certificate. Under the proposed co-ordinated arrangements, Canada would register the holder of a St. Lawrence river pilot's licence solely for pilotage service on that river.
The Canadian officials further indicated that the Canadian government would include in any proposed legislation such provisions as might be considered necessary to authorize the Department of Transport to issue certificates qualifying for the navigation of the "open" (i.e. undesignated) waters of great lakes those officers of the regular complements of ocean vessels who meet the following requirements:
(1)	Hold an appropriate certificate of competency as master, valid for voyages in any part of the world and issued or recognized by the country in which the ship is registered.
(2)	Have the experience of at least two round trips, within the preceding two years, in the "open" or undesignated waters of great lakes where the vessel will be operating.
(3)	Possess a working knowledge of great lakes rules of the road as evidenced by exam.
(4)	Have proficiency in the English language, to be tested also by exam, sufficient
to make effective use of the radiotelephone.
(5)	Have knowledge of the practice of following separate upbound and downbound courses on great lakes, giving due regard to the suitability of such courses for deep draft vessels.
The substance of the proposed draft bill which was the subject of the above-mentioned discussions is now embodied in a bill introduced in the Senate as S 3019. The government of the United States of America would appreciate being informed as to the accuracy and applicability of the foregoing understanding of the intentions of the Canadian government with respect to S 3019.
The State Department,
Washington, D.C.,
February 19, 1960.
Canadian Reply
Aide Memoire
An aide memoire presented to the Canadian embassy in Washington by the department of state on February 19 outlines the manner in which Canadian and United States legislation aimed at establishing certain pilotage requirements for the navigation of the waters of the great lakes and St. Lawrence river could be co-ordinated if the legislative proposals contained in a bill known as S 3019 are approved by the United States congress. In the event that that bill does become law in the United States, it is the intention of the Canadian government to submit to the Canadian parliament legislative proposals which would effect just such a co-ordinated pilotage regime in the great lakes in the manner indicated in the United States aide memoire.
Canadian Embassy,
Washington, D.C.,
February 19, I960.
[Stage Direction]
Wednesday, February 24, 1960