1960-12-13

Mr. Louis Fortin (Monlmagny-L'Islel) moved: for leave to introduce Bill No. C-53, to amend the Canada Elections Act (compulsory voting).


Some hon. Members:: Explain.
(Translation):
Mr. Fortin Mr. Speaker, if there was some delay in introducing this bill it is not because it required much consideration. It is only a matter of making an obligation as it were of what is called today the privilege of franchise in order to meet a situation which, in my opinion, calls for immediate action.
I shall give additional details when the bill is before us for second reading.
(Text):
Motion agreed to and bill read the first time.



O.E.C.D.-REQUEST FOR TABLING OF CHARTER

[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Hon. L. B. Pearson (Leader of ihe Opposition: I should like to ask the Prime Minister whether he is in a position to give the house any information about the organization for economic co-operation and development the charter of which, I understand, is being signed in Paris at this time. I should further like to ask the Prime Minister if it would be possible to table a copy of that charter.
Right Hon. J. G. Diefenbaker (Prime Minister):: I do not think there is anything to add to what has already been said in this connection. A statement was made some days ago by one of the ministers concerned, and I think in the regular course of events, when the signatures have been appended, the document will be tabled in the house as suggested by the hon. gentleman.



REPORTED ADJUSTMENT OF U.S. EXPORT SUBSIDY ON WHEAT

[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. Hazen Argue (Assiniboia):: I should like to ask a question of the Minister of Agriculture. Would the minister care to comment
on the statement of Secretary of Agriculture Ezra Benson that the United States has been losing out in the Japanese market to Canadian wheat, and that as a result the United States has taken steps to adjust its export subsidy for wheat entering that market? Can the minister say whether this constitutes a threat to Canada's market for wheat in Japan and, if so, have representations been made to the United States?


Hon. Alvin Hamilton (Minister of Agriculture):: Mr. Speaker, as the Department of Agriculture has jurisdiction over the Canadian wheat board it keeps in very close touch with any statements made by our competitors. When the statement of Mr. Benson was reported in the press we immediately got in touch with official circles in Washington to make sure that we had the statement correctly. The statement was to the effect that Canadian wheat prices in the Japanese market were slightly lower than United States prices, and that Mr. Benson was considering action. Under the agreement arrived at between the ministers of the two countries it is understood there will be no change in marketing policies unless the other country is informed. Yesterday there was supposed to be a quarterly meeting of the officials and it was not held because of the snow storm in Washington. Therefore there has been no consultation. We are in close contact with the officials at Washington, and have asked that no action be taken without informing us in plenty of time to permit us to make representations.



EXTERNAL AFFAIRS


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Hazen Robert Argue: I should like to direct a question to the Secretary of State for External Affairs. I wonder if the minister could bring the house up to date on the situation in the Congo where, it is reported, some 25 per cent of the United Nations forces may be withdrawn. Can the minister inform the house what Canada is doing in connection with this difficult situation?


Hon. Howard C. Green (Secretary of State for External Affairs):: This question has been under debate in the security council. There have been very extensive debates there on this subject, and the matter was being debated again yesterday. It looks as though

Inquiries of the Ministry no resolution will go through; I think perhaps the Soviet union will exercise the veto on the resolution likely to get the majority vote, and I rather think the debate would hen go to the floor of the general assembly.
It is true there have been some threats that forces would be recalled, but so far, I think, none have been taken out. As a matter of fact, the last word I had was that some Nigerian troops were actually going in. There has been no suggestion at all of Canada withdrawing any troops.


Hon. Paul Marlin (Essex East):: Is it not a
fact that the United Arab Republic, Ceylon, Indonesia and Yugoslavia have already taken active steps for the withdrawal of their units from this United Nations force. May I ask the Secretary of State for External Affairs if he does not support strongly the view taken by the Prime Minister of India that this is not the way to serve the cause of order and peace in that particular section of the world?


Howard Charles Green: As I said earlier to the hon. member for Assiniboia, it is my understanding that no troops have been taken out as yet. There has been talk of some contingents being recalled. As for the statement made by the Prime Minister of India, I merely point out to the hon. member for Essex East that we made similar statements in this house before the Prime Minister of India made his statement in New Delhi.


TRANSPORT
[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. J. M. Forgie (Renfrew Norlh):: I should like to direct a question to the Minister of Transport. Will the minister confirm the announcement that the federal government plans surveys in connection with a proposal to deepen the Ottawa river between Ottawa and Montreal in order to provide a shipping link with the St. Lawrence seaway, as announced in this morning's Montreal Gazette'!


Hon. Leon Balcer (Minisfer of Transport):: I shall have to take that question as notice, because I have not read the article in question.
(Translation):


SURVEY OF PROPOSED RICHELIEU WATERWAY
[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. Yvon Dupuis (St. Jean-Iberville-Na-pierville):: Mr. Speaker, I should like to direct a question to the Minister of Transport. Would his department consider the economic advantages that might result from the deepening of the Richelieu river, as will be done for the deepening of the Ottawa river?


Léon Balcer: Mr. Speaker, as I said the other evening in Montreal in the presence of my hon. friend, the Department of Transport will consider the economic feasibility of the deepening of the Richelieu river.
(Text):


Hon. Lionel Chevrier (Laurier):: Mr. Speaker, may I ask a supplementary question on this point. Why does not the government or the minister's department establish a committee of engineers to deal with the Champlain cut-off, in the same manner as the United States government is doing?


Léon Balcer: Mr. Speaker, the preliminary studies that have been made of the Richelieu canal project have proven that at the present time the cost of undertaking such a project would be prohibitive. The department will carry on a study of all the possibilities, nevertheless, and if it is discovered that the circumstances have changed the government will take into consideration all the factors of this project.
(Translation):


Yvon Dupuis: May I ask a supplementary question, Mr. Speaker? Could the minister tell us on what definite reports his statement is based when he says that it would be prohibitive to undertake the deepening of the Richelieu river?


Léon Balcer: We have had several reports from the economists and the engineers of the Department of Transport, and their conclusions indicate that such an undertaking would prove to be prohibitive at this time.


Yvon Dupuis: A further supplementary question, Mr. Speaker. Is the minister aware that the deepening of the Richelieu would provide jobs for the thousands of unemployed in our area?
(Text):


Mr. Speaker:: Order. The hon. member is now advancing an argument in support of a proposition and is not asking a question for information.


POSTAL SERVICE
[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. Frank McGee (York-Scarborough):: wish to direct a question to the Postmaster General. I wonder if he could inform the house whether arrangements have been made to avoid a repetition of the unfortunate occurrence of last year, when large quantities of Christmas cards addressed to Canadians were destroyed by the United States postal authorities because they had been insufficiently stamped. Incidentally, the Ontario area was saved from this difficulty by the Sir Galahad action of the Toronto Telegram.


Hon. W. M. Hamilton (Postmaster General):: Mr. Speaker, I think this is of more interest to Santa Claus than to Sir Galahad, but in either case we have been able to make more appropriate arrangements. Unlike Canada, where a 2-cent stamp will carry an unsealed Christmas card anywhere in the world, the United States has a rate of 3 cents for such cards to an address in their own country and 4 cents to Canada and other countries. This was a comparatively new rate in 1959, and many United States citizens placed only 3-cent stamps on their cards, including those for Canada. Those which could not be returned because of the absence of a return address were destroyed at that time by the United States post office rather than being forwarded to Canada.
This year, while the volume of such short-paid mail is not expected to be so heavy, we have had discussions with the United States postal authorities and they are going to forward these cards to Canada marked "postage due". In order to give Santa Claus and our heavily burdened letter carriers an assist, and since the postage already paid on such cards is 3 cents as against the 2-cent rate in Canada, it is not our intention in Canada to collect any additional amount when the cards are delivered by us.


SHIPPING
[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Lionel Chevrier: Mr. Speaker, may I direct a question to the Minister of Transport and ask him, in view of his statement at Baie Comeau over the week end whether the government is planning legislation aimed at establishing Canada's merchant navy. Will the minister tell the house whether the government has reached a decision to establish a Canadian merchant navy?


Léon Balcer: Mr. Speaker, as the hon. member will recall it was mentioned in the throne speech that the government intends to bring forward amendments to our shipping policy, and whenever this legislation is ready it will be introduced in the house.


Lionel Chevrier: May I ask a supplementary question, Mr. Speaker. The minister said according to the statement reported in La Presse on Saturday that the federal government is preparing legislation for the purpose of giving Canada a merchant navy. Is the minister correctly quoted?


Léon Balcer: Yes.
90205-6-48i
Inquiries of the Ministry


Lionel Chevrier: If he is correctly quoted, may I ask the minister a further supplementary question. Does the minister not think that the first step in establishing a merchant navy would be to reconstitute the seven ships of the Canadian National Steamships which have been lying at anchor in Halifax for the last several years?


Mr. Speaker:: Order. The question seems to be an argumentative one.


COLUMBIA RIVER
[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Hon. J. W. Pickersgill (Bonavista-Twil-lingate):: Mr. Speaker, may I ask the Minister of Justice whether he can give the assurance that no approval required from the federal government will be given to any project which would have the effect of delaying or prejudicing the development of power on the Columbia river.


Hon. E. D. Fulton (Minister of Justice):: In
so far as specific approvals are concerned, there would be more than one department of government involved. I suggest, therefore, that this question might more appropriately be directed to the Prime Minister.


John Whitney Pickersgill: I would be very happy to direct it to the Prime Minister. If he heard it I will not even repeat it.


John George Diefenbaker: Mr. Speaker, it has been made clear that the objective of the federal government in the negotiations for a Columbia river treaty is the maximum development of the potential of the river in co-operation with the United States, in the interests of each and both of the two countries jointly and severally. Every project will be examined from that point of view.


John Whitney Pickersgill: I should like to thank the Prime Minister for his answer.


NATIONAL DEFENCE
[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Hon. L. B. Pearson (Leader of fhe Opposifion):: Mr. Speaker, I should like to direct a question to the Secretary of State for External Affairs, who I understand is leaving with his colleague the Minister of National Defence for a NATO council meeting in Paris. I wish him a successful trip and a constructive meeting. May I ask the minister whether he has any comment to make, on the eve of this meeting, on the proposal for a pool of nuclear arms under NATO control?

Inquiries of the Ministry


Howard Charles Green: Mr. Speaker, I should like to thank the Leader of the Opposition for his good wishes on our trip. I think it would be inappropriate for me to make any statement at this time with regard to different subjects that will be up for discussion at these meetings.


Paul Joseph James Martin: May I ask
a supplementary question. In view of the statement attributed to the minister, that he was unaware officially of the proposal made by the NATO commander, is he now in a position to say whether or not the government of Canada has been officially advised of the position to be taken by the NATO commander when he spoke recently to the parliamentarians who were in attendance at a meeting in Paris?


Howard Charles Green: No, Mr. Speaker. I think General Norstad was just speaking for the benefit of members of parliament who were attending that informal meeting. There has been no official proposal placed before us, and there has been no proposal considered by the permanent council of NATO. I might add that there has been considerable talk of a long term plan which was to be submitted by the United States, and there have been press reports about what was to be in this plan, but it has not been submitted either.


FINANCE
[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Lionel Chevrier: Mr. Speaker, may I direct a question to the Prime Minister and ask him whether, when he spoke on television on Sunday and made the following statement, the hon. member for Stormont was speaking for the government:
There will be legislation-


Mr. Speaker:: Order. Before the hon. member for Laurier proceeds, I do not think it is an administrative responsibility of the ministry to verify that the statements of private members express government policy. I think that has never been the case in the house and has not been accepted as a proper question relating to administrative responsibility. If the hon. member has any precedent to the contrary I would be glad to hear it.


Lionel Chevrier: I rise on a point of order, to say that the hon. member was making an announcement of legislation to be introduced in the house, and I think I am entitled to know whether that legislation is going to be
IMr. Pearson.]
introduced and whether the Prime Minister was aware of the statement which was made.


Mr. Speaker:: I would agree with the proposition that the hon. member is now making, and if he puts a question of that kind I think he will be in order in asking whether the government proposes to do a certain thing. However, to ask a minister to adopt a statement of a private member would, it seems to me-


Mr. Campbell (Siormoni):: May I speak on that point?


Mr. Speaker:: Order-open up an unlimited area for verification which would not be acceptable at this stage of our proceedings. If the hon. member for Stormont wants to speak to the point of order-


Mr. Campbell (Stormont):: Yes. May I speak to the point of privilege or point of order?


Mr. Speaker:: -he may do so, but not about his former speech.


Grant Campbell: It is obvious that no private member is in a position to announce government legislation.


John Whitney Pickersgill: Why do it, then?


Grant Campbell: The hon. member for Laurier obviously must have misunderstood the situation or is not aware of the rules of the house. What he is referring to is that I just mentioned what had already been stated in the throne speech.


Mr. Speaker:: Order. I think it is clear
what is being referred to. If the hon. member for Laurier wishes to frame a question along the line I have indicated he may do so.


Lionel Chevrier: I should like to direct my question to the Prime Minister based on the statement which was made, namely "There will be legislation on that", "that" referring to the redefinition of goods of a class or kind made in Canada, and further, "it will raise the tariff in some areas to some extent, provide more protection and at the same time not contravene our international arrangements under GATT". My question is whether this legislation will be introduced, and whether the Prime Minister agrees with the statement.


John George Diefenbaker: Mr. Speaker, as the hon. gentleman knows, government policy and the processes of government require that announcements be made by ministers. When we are in a position to make whatever announcements are to be made, they will be made in the house.


DOMINION-PROVINCIAL CONFERENCE INQUIRY AS TO EXCHANGE OF VIEWS SINCE OCTOBER MEETING
[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Lionel Chevrier: May I direct a question to the Prime Minister. Has he had an opportunity to look into the exchange of correspondence or verbal exchanges which may have taken place between the federal government and the provinces following the dominion-provincial conference of last October?


John George Diefenbaker: If the hon. gentleman will allow the question to stand, I will be in a position to answer it tomorrow.


PRODUCTIVITY COUNCIL
John George Diefenbaker: the second reading of Bill No. C-52, for the establishment of a national productivity council.
He said: Mr. Speaker, I do not intend to speak at any length in moving this motion at this time. The situation has been fairly well covered, and there has been apparent general agreement as to the need for legislation such as that which is now before the house. The Minister of Trade and Commerce (Mr. Hees) made the opening speech in this connection. The Minister of Labour (Mr. Starr) carried on during the committee stage on the resolution. I intend simply to deal in general with one or two phases of this matter.
The government is most anxious that this national productivity council should be established as soon as possible. What I intend to do, as I said a moment ago, is simply to deal in general with some of those matters that are peculiar to the council as envisaged by the bill in question.
It is of interest, of course, that the hon. member for Vancouver Centre (Mr. Jung) brought to the attention of the house, at the last session, the general concept that is before the house today in the form of concrete legislation. As has already been said, the basic objectives of the British productivity council and those of the Canadian productivity council are the same. The Canadian council will, of course, be adapted so as best to meet Canadian needs.
The hon. member for Ottawa West (Mr. Mcllraith) suggested that there was some difference in the viewpoint I expressed on the occasion of the meeting in Ottawa when
Productivity Council
I convened and brought together representatives of industry, labour and the various other facets of the Canadian economy with a view to securing their views on those things which, in their opinion, might prove efficacious in meeting the employment situation in Canada.
It is of interest that similar ideas were advanced in the United States by both presidential candidates of the major parties. In other words, the success of the British productivity council and all others of like nature has been such that other nations have adopted a similar plan; and, as I said, in the United States the two leaders expressed views on this question that bore a striking resemblance to each other.
I convened the meeting of the various associations and groups by means of a letter dated September 28. The meeting was to be convened on October 4 and each of the organizations was asked to send one representative. The meeting duly took place. I do not know of any meeting that was ever more generally representative of all of Canada's economy in all its phases than the one in question.


Paul Joseph James Martin: May I ask the
Prime Minister a question?


John George Diefenbaker: Yes.


Paul Joseph James Martin: Will the Prime Minister tell us how long the conference lasted?


John George Diefenbaker: The conference met
throughout the day. The presentations did not take the length of time that otherwise would have been the case, because each of the representatives present had a brief fully and completely ready on his arrival. In that way, as the hon. member knows, when there is preparation, the length of time is greatly shortened for such conferences.
A moment ago I mentioned the remarks of the hon. member for Ottawa West wherein he had stated that there was some difference in viewpoint. Let me at once assure him that I have before me the various press references. I may say that I had a press conference upon the completion of this conference. I suggest that a perusal and reexamination of those press references by the hon. gentleman will indicate that he was slightly astray when he said that the concept which I placed before the press varies in any major particular from the concept now placed before the house in the bill in question.


Mr. Mcllraith:: It depends on what is meant by the word "major".


John George Diefenbaker: I cannot be responsible, Mr. Speaker, for the hon. gentleman's capacity to understand words. If he would reread

Productivity Council
what I said on that occasion-and I think in general the press correctly reported the matter-I believe he will find that what I have stated is correct.
The basic objectives of the British productivity council, as I said, are approximately the same as those of the Canadian council. At this meeting, after various views were expressed by the representatives who attended, I suggested that there might be considered by those present a recommendation for the inauguration of a productivity council. While there was discussion on the matter and the details were not fully worked out, there was on the part of those present a unanimity in this regard. I hope there will be widespread support for the productivity council. The idea originated during the discussion, and the concept has been generally accepted.
The reason for setting up a Canadian productivity council is that concern has been expressed regarding the maintenance and expansion of productivity levels. These fears have been expressed by such bodies as the Canadian Manufacturers' Association, various labour organizations and the Canadian Chamber of Commerce. As was said by the Minister of Labour, there has been an increasing awareness of the need to consider productivity from a long term view as well as from a short run view. Technological changes and productivity improvements have created short run unemployment problems and there is a need, as has been generally agreed, to stimulate productivity improvement.
We believe that through the formation of an independent national body, with its main representation drawn from industry and labour with some government participation, this body will encourage the development of suitable programs on a regional or national industry basis. Among its aims will be applied research in industry, the spreading and expansion of technical knowledge and experience, the development and promotion of ways and means whereby employment adjustments resulting from technological changes can be facilitated by individual employers through the stimulation of management and employee education and training.
Indeed, in the United States similar problems are being faced. In that connection I suggest an examination, without going into detail, of an article which recently appeared in the Christian Science Monitor, which sets forth the question regarding unemployment in the Morgan Guarantee survey, published by the Morgan Guarantee Trust Company of New York. That article is well worth reading. It sets forth the general reasons for the paradoxical phenomena of today, where with an increasing gross national product, with an

expanding economy, there is still unemployment. In the United States in the last few days it has been revealed that unemployment has been mounting very considerably, generally as the result of technological advance.
I might also say, in that connection, that the influence of technological advance and the contribution that it has made to unemployment was underlined and emphasized in an address given by Dr. Eugene Forsey on November 7, 1960, to the Ontario federation of labour. In that address he sets forth the situation that prevails in Canada, as in the United States, namely that there has been a very large increase in the number of employed. He points out that in Canada in 1948 the total number of people with jobs averaged about 4,690,000; in 1959 it averaged about 5,878,000, and in August of this year it reached an all-time high of 6,301,000. Then he goes on to say that even in September, after a drop of 132,000, the employment was still higher than it had ever been before except in August.
He goes on to outline the reasons for unemployment; the technological advances that have taken place, the shifts and changes in employment in various industries. I quote from what he said, because after all no one can say that he would be a prejudiced witness in any way in favour of the present government of Canada. He said:
I am convinced'-
I want to underline this, coming from him:
-that much of our unemployment results from technological change, or rather, from our failure to cope with technological change, to harness it, to make it do the job it could and should do. The evidence for this seems to me conclusive.
Then he points out the changes that have taken place:
First, agriculture. In 1946, people with jobs in agriculture numbered 1,186,000. Last year, the figure was 693,000. This year, it will probably be about 670,000.
Then he goes on. He is speaking here to the federation of labour and not to any political organization as such:
In 14 years, over half a million jobs have disappeared in this industry, nearly 44 per cent of the 1946 total.
He asks himself a question and then he answers that question:
Why? Because we are producing less? No. Because we can produce so much more with so many fewer people. Technological change, increased productivity: that's what did it.
Then he deals with the next phase of technological advance, manufacturing. These are his statistics in the course of this address:
In 1946, the number with jobs in manufacturing was about 1,222,000. Last year, it was 1,502,000... or an increase of 23 per cent.

Then he says that while there was an increase in manufacturing employment of about 23 per cent during that period, the gain in manufacturing production was about 75 per cent. Then he goes on to point out this fact, and all of this is of the essence when one discusses unemployment in Canada or in the United States, where the unemployment problem is almost identical with that in Canada. He says:
From 1947 to 1959 manufacturing production rose almost 60 per cent; manufacturing jobs rose only about 19 per cent.
Again he says that all of this is due to technological change:
[DOT]-for technological change has made it possible to produce more with fewer people.
Then he goes on and deals with other fields. I quoted from what he had said in this regard simply by way of indication that in this speech he does come to the heart of the problem which we face. He says:
Roughly speaking, last year the post-war gain in jobs in manufacturing, mining, forestry, fishing and trapping, and construction just about balanced the post-war loss in jobs in agriculture.
Then he says:
This is not something to lament. It is a triumph.
Then he proceeds to set out the facts in this regard:
Technological change is making extra people available, but the economies it produces are not producing enough jobs for them.
I shall say no more in this regard at the moment, except that he does point out the very great increase in the number of women workers. He says, and this is rather interesting too:
How can we solve these problems, notably the problems of organizing the hitherto almost unorgan-izable industries, of organizing women ...? I wish I knew. I don't.
I refer to what he said in this regard simply to indicate that this is a problem that requires to be attacked and met. Indeed, the problem today is one that has never been more challenging in Canada and the United States its effect is like that which followed the industrial revolution. I believe this council will be able to formulate programs to meet the problems created by automation and technological advance, and to meet the adjustments necessarily arising by reason of mechanical progress or obsolescence. It is going to be an effort of Canadians as a whole.
The membership has already been referred to during the course of the debate on the resolution. I expressed the hope that this body would bring together devoted citizens representative of business, labour, agriculture and all the various facets of Canadian development, with particular emphasis on
Productivity Council
representative women from business and professional clubs and the like and all other women's organizations, to consider this as a national problem and requiring and demanding the mobilization of the best thinking of Canadians as a whole. I would hope that the basic technique would be to direct the public consciousness not to fear but to faith; not to pointing out the difficulties without suggesting solutions, but to pointing to the strength and vigour of Canada and to bringing about, in a unity of effort, the best consideration that the best minds of Canada can bring to this problem.
As a result of the formation of this body I believe, indeed, that there will be the performance of a task which is as challenging as it is necessary to find a fulfilment. The initial task of the council and its staff will be to determine the general lines of approach appropriate under Canadian conditions. I would hope that the council would wish to consider establishing regional and area programs as well as programs for specific industries.
As to the field of endeavour, the branches of activity are generally set forth in the bill, though I am not allowed, of course, to refer to the clauses except in a general way. I might summarize clause 10 by saying that the purpose of this council will be the stimulation of industrial research, than which there is nothing more important in this country. Indeed, I express the hope that foreign concerns with subsidiaries in Canada will make available in Canada a major portion of the proportionate share that the Canadian industry bears to the total production of the entire industry and that this amount will be devoted to research rather than having the research done in another country, the course followed today. Further purposes of the council will include the dissemination of technical information, the improvement of production and distribution methods and the stimulation of training programs within industry at all levels.
Again, I find in Canada a situation similar to that which exists in the United States, a situation where many jobs cannot be filled because of the lack of technical training among the applicants. I shall not go into that question now because it has already been dealt with in the course of another debate. To continue, the purposes of the council will be to improve the promotion of efficient management methods and to encourage good human relations in industry. Nothing is more important than this particular field of human engineering. While today various government departments and agencies carry on informational, technical, research

Productivity Council
and other programs which would contribute to the council's work, much remains to be done in this connection. The objective of the council would be, in summary, greater industrial efficiency, more effective utilization of manpower, planned use of material and other resources to strengthen Canada's competitive position at home and abroad, and an increase in real income.
I do not think I shall say more at this time, except to indicate that the experience of other countries has pointed to action in this regard. I am not going to place before the house details of what has been done in Belgium and in other countries, except to say of their experience that much benefit has followed the adoption of this plan. This proposal is somewhat different from the British plan, inasmuch as the Canadian proposal makes provision for a measure of governmental participation. That is in line with the recommendations made in the United States setting up broad goals for the free economy, a purpose and objective that will rest upon this council.
I shall have more to say after the house has had the benefit of the opinions of hon. members in connection with this matter. I know we shall welcome any ideas or suggestions that may lead to any improvement in the bill, providing those suggestions are not of such a nature as would, in effect, constitute the council as a policy-making body with any control over the government. This, after all, would simply be applied socialism, and we, believing in private enterprise, will not accept suggestions of that type. But if there are views or ideas that will contribute to the strengthening of the objective and powers of the council or which in any way, in the opinion of the government, add to or strengthen the likelihood of attaining the objectives we have in mind, we shall be most happy to have the benefit of those ideas.
As I said a moment ago, the council will be widely representative of industry, commerce, agriculture and other primary industries. There will be representation from the workers and from the general public. In addition there will be four members who are officers or employees of Her Majesty's government employed in agencies of government which are active in dealing with the technical aspects of productivity. In this way we hope to strengthen the system as compared with that which exists in the United Kingdom, thereby making our contribution to the solution of the problem that faces both countries in North America today; a problem which has arisen in consequence of the vast improvement in technology in conjunction with

the tremendous competitive international warfare for trade which has been intensified in the last few years.
When the war was over, great nations found themselves devastated and industrially prostrate. Canada found easy markets everywhere in the world. That is past, today, and those countries which suffered most are now great industrial competitors. In addition to this competition there is rising competition from the communist countries which, generally speaking, will be intensified during the sixties.
That being so, countries believing in free enterprise will have to exercise their highest endeavours to assure the preservation of our standard of living and at the same time to maintain at the lowest possible minimum the costs of production. The achievement of both can be attained through the advances of technological skill. Concomitant with that we require to have the best opinion available about how to use technological advances not only for the attainment of those objectives but in order not to deny those who should have work the right and opportunity of having it.
That is the purpose of this legislation. It is a segment of the policy we are bringing before the house bill by bill. This policy, we believe, will be beneficial not only in the short term but in the longer term as well, and will provide the assurance of an ever-increasing expansion of the economy, an ever-increasing gross national product and an ever-increasing standard of living.


Paul Joseph James Martin: Mr. Speaker, perhaps the Prime Minister would permit a question; I did not want to interrupt the right hon. gentleman during the course of his peregrinations. May I ask the Prime Minister if he can tell us whether all the labour representatives and agricultural representatives at the one-day meeting accepted the idea of a productivity council? Is it not a fact that Mr. Claude Jodoin and Mr. Jean Marchand expressed opposition?


John George Diefenbaker: Mr. Speaker, I am
speaking from memory in this connection and do not have any notes here. My recollection is that Mr. Jodoin said he gave approval to the objective and also approval in general to the plan, but said that he would want to examine it more carefully than the time afforded by the meeting would give him the opportunity to do.
As far as the other gentleman mentioned is concerned, he expressed doubt as to whether it would be effective. That was not strongly expressed. He said it came as something of a novelty, and he would want to study it and be assured that the objectives that had been

referred to by me would be reasonably attained. I think, otherwise, there was general acceptance.


Miss Judy V. LaMarsh (Niagara Falls):: Mr. Speaker, may I in rising in my place for the first time extend my appreciation of the gallant expressions of welcome from many hon. members of this house on the occasion of my introduction, and in particular the gracious words of the hon. member for Berthier-Maskinonge-Delanaudiere (Mr. Paul) and the gracious gesture of the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration (Mrs. Fairclough).
It might perhaps be forgiven if in rising in my place for the first time in this house I mention with affection my predecessor both in office and in this seat, whose untimely death we all regret. I knew the late W. L. Houck for most of my adult life and from the time of reaching my majority was one of his devoted supporters. His long years of selfless service to the people of his constituency, on municipal, provincial and federal levels, left a shining mark which few might hope to achieve. I know that his family and his constituents appreciate the many warm expressions of loss and of sympathy which emanated from many hon. members on his death.
It may also be understood if on this occasion I make some mention of the fine people of my constituency. They are Canadians of varied backgrounds, knit together by a common commitment to the future. They are of the best of Canada. They serve their nation both in peace and war and are among her proudest sons and daughters. It is a high duty to be called upon to serve them in the capacity of their federal representative.
This Christmas season will be an unhappy one in too many of the homes of Niagara because of accelerating lay-offs and discharges, failing businesses and a shrinking economy. I venture to suggest that none of them will find Christmas cheer for this year in the provisions of the bill before us.
The government made clear that this early session was not to deal with an economic emergency which it denies exists, but to deal with a heavy work load of legislation. Apparently the fruit on the legislative branches is so overripe that it must needs be plucked all at once. I point out that there is great need for legislation now to deal with the problems of the here and the now. Less than two months ago the right hon. gentleman opposite called together a conference of some 21 persons representing various Canadian groups in order to deal with unemployment. That subject appeared then to be of an emergency nature. I am unable to find how
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it has now ceased to be, with each monthly employment statistic more depressing than the last.
Following a day and a half of representations the Prime Minister announced the establishment of a productivity council, which has been embodied in a resolution and now in the bill before the house for consideration. The press reports of that day carried such headlines as "P.M. Pleased with Talks", "25-man Council to Plan More Jobs, P.M.'s Idea", "P.M.'s Solution: Productivity Council to Create Jobs". This was the impression created; yet I invite hon. members opposite to point out how the bill now before the house will create jobs or plan more jobs. How will it assist the people of my riding this winter? The Minister of Labour last evening, as reported at page 733 of Hansard, tacitly admitted that it will not do so when he said:
In some fields the results will appear fairly soon. In more complex fields it will take longer.
I invite hon. members of the government to tell us in what field there will be results fairly soon, and to tell us what the government means by "fairly soon".
The minister sponsoring this bill indicated that the proposed council is to be modelled after the British productivity council. Has the minister or the government heretofore consulted any officials of the British productivity council directly? Has there been any consultation with the productivity councils in Japan and Lebanon, to which he referred? Surely these were set up to deal with problems similar to British problems and exportable to those countries because of the similar nature of those problems. The British council was set up to spread ideas of industrial efficiency throughout British industry and to meet shortages in order to shift from a wartime to a peacetime economy, to produce sufficient goods to fill both export and domestic markets.
That is very different from that situation which now obtains in Canada. We need markets now for what we produce now, and we need expansion of that production to create new jobs to put to work our expanding labour force. There was in England at the time of the setting up of this council no question at all of unemployment. There was full employment, but even with the labour force all at work the British did not have goods to sell to their own people.
Surely it cannot be argued that increased productivity alone necessarily means expanded ready markets. We have before us the example of the tremendous increase in productivity of the Canadian agricultural community. The Prime Minister today referred to certain figures with respect to this, showing that in 14 years some 44 per cent of


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear.


Julia Verlyn (Judy) LaMarsh: I, too, approve of those remarks, and if the government will only do so it may claim the support not only of all hon. members but of the country as a whole.


Mr. H. W. Herridge (Kootenay West):: Mr. Speaker, it is with a great deal of pleasure that I extend my congratulations to the lady member for Niagara Falls (Miss LaMarsh) on the quality of her maiden speech. It showed thorough preparation, a thoughtful assessment of the situation and a very deep concern for her constituents who are unemployed and are seeking some remedy through legislation introduced by the government. The hon. member for Niagara Falls, Mr. Speaker, is a colourful addition to, except in a few cases, a somewhat drab political landscape.
I now wish to congratulate the Prime Minister on his excellent presentation of his Christmas present to the Canadian people, a present well wrapped in the ribbons of language and eloquence; and, Mr. Speaker, I certainly love to watch the Prime Minister waving in the wind of his own eloquence.
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However, after listening very carefully to the speech by the minister at the resolution stage and the speech by the Prime Minister this afternoon, I am afraid that the Christmas present is mostly wrapping and ribbon and there is very little in the box.
While we in this group will admit that there may be some value in this productivity council in so far as it provides for research and the obtaining of facts, and also for a better understanding of our economic problems by a greater number of people, we do question the effectiveness of the bill to meet the problems that we face in Canada now.
We do so on two grounds, Mr. Speaker. First of all, the productivity council has to work within the framework of an economic philosophy and circumstances which from our point of view-I am speaking as a democratic socialist and proud of it; I am an unregenerate socialist, and I say that without any hesitation -practically defeat the objects and purpose of the council. Where do we find unemployment today? On the North American continent, in the United States and Canada, in two countries with abundant natural resources and tremendous opportunities for all their people to have a high standard of living.
There is no question but that this is a most serious problem. Anyone who listened to the debates on television between the two candidates for the presidency of the United States will realize that the problem concerns the government and people of the United States. What concerns me is that while the great percentage of the people in the United States and Canada are enjoying a reasonable standard of living and in some cases a considerable measure of prosperity, we have this hard core of unemployment at the same time, which we see little opportunity to decrease at present.
The cycle is now complete, Mr. Speaker. Here are nations that can co-operate for military purposes, for defensive purposes; yet in the world of today they are cutting one another's throats economically. That is one of the first things to which we have to give consideration. We combine for defensive purposes, and at the same time we compete with one another for the vanishing markets in the world today. That situation will continue, in the opinion of the members of this group, until we are wise enough to recognize that we can only treat the world as a whole at the present time and try to take advantage of markets that are closed to us because of the foreign policy of our neighbour and other states.
I said that we criticize the bill on two grounds. First of all we as socialists criticize it because we believe that, with the best of intentions, the productivity council will be

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working within the framework of an economic order and philosophy that defeats the very purpose and objects of the council. There is no suggestion in the bill for a program of over-all planning of production. There is no suggestion in the bill that there should be any consideration of fiscal policy, which is a most important aspect of economic policy. There is no suggestion in the bill that the council will give consideration to a national investment policy, possibly a guided or directed investment policy. There is no suggestion in the bill that this council should draft a program or make recommendations for full employment in the days ahead.
I am not suggesting that these things can be done overnight. There is no suggestion that this council should interfere in any way with what I would term a free reign and a free rein enterprise system. Admitting the best of intentions on the part of the Prime Minister and the government, we doubt the effectiveness of this productivity council under our present circumstances.
Second, we doubt its effectiveness because there is no power in the bill for this council to make recommendations, but only to report to parliament. According to the language of the bill, it may do this and that. With respect to many important aspects it does not say "shall" but rather says "may". We criticize this legislation on that ground.
When we look at the measure we also find that the council is a charitable organization. I can well understand the reason for defining this as a charitable organization if it intends to receive gifts and so on from individuals, organizations or other sources. Just think of it, Mr. Speaker; we are aiming to solve our economic problems by establishing a charitable organization in Canada. There may be a lot of misunderstanding about that point, but anyone who reads the bill very carefully and gives the matter some consideration will notice that this is a charitable organization being established by the government of Canada to meet a very serious situation in our country at this time.
I listened, as I always do, with great interest to the Prime Minister. When he was speaking I noticed that he said that this productivity council would be an independent national body, and he made some reference to the productivity councils in Great Britain and other countries. I agree with what I thought was a very good point made by the hon. member for Niagara Falls. You cannot compare the operations of productivity councils in countries like Great Britain and the other countries that were mentioned with the possibilities for a productivity council of this type in Canada. Our major economic problem so far as overseas markets are concerned is

the export of primary agricultural and industrial products, and this presents a different situation entirely from our point of view.
The Prime Minister also said that the council was going to be formed to mitigate the effects of technological changes. When I listen to the Prime Minister I listen to the words he uses, because sometimes in a single word you will find illustrated a frame of mind, an approach that actually is not revealed in the development of his speech or in the development of his argument. He said that the purpose was to mitigate the effects of technological changes. What does the word "mitigate" mean? It means to moderate, to appease, to alleviate, but not to cure. We in this group want to see this government take some action along the road to curing this chronic unemployment situation. We do not for one moment say it is going to be done overnight. However, we want to see a course of action that will offer hope in the years immediately ahead for some solution to this question, and not merely a mitigation of the effects of technological changes and improvements.
In concluding his remarks the Prime Minister made reference to an expanding economy and a higher standard of living. The situation we face at the present time is this. While this body is termed a productivity council, it is the same old story. The farmers and the workers of Canada produce too much and consequently they are unemployed. It is not only a question of productivity; it is a question of distribution and of markets, and those matters are related to the policies I have mentioned.
Therefore, in concluding my brief remarks on second reading of this bill, I say that we question the effectiveness of this measure for the reasons I have outlined this afternoon.


Mr. Alexander Best (Halton):: Mr. Speaker, I should like to make some brief comments on Bill No. C-52 which is before us at this moment. This most important measure is one which, in my opinion, has captured great interest throughout our country. We have heard this afternoon three most interesting speeches on this matter. I feel that the speech of the Prime Minister was a most powerful exposition of the bill that is before us, and explained in great measure the hopes and ideas as to the future part this council might play in our country.
I think we were all pleased as well to hear the stimulating and interesting speech of the hon. member for Niagara Falls (Miss LaMarsh). In this, her first speech in the House of Commons, she certainly presented her ideas in an interesting fashion. Among her remarks I noted the thought expressed -and I believe this statement was made the

other evening as well by the hon. member lor Ottawa West (Mr. Mcllraith)-that we should perhaps not connect too closely the British productivity council with the council we propose to establish in Canada. I can only say that it would seem amiss indeed if our government did not compare our proposed new council to some extent with similar bodies in other countries around the world. It would be most amazing if we did not do that.
The hon. member for Niagara Falls made remarks to the effect that the British council was established to make more goods available, and that there was no problem of unemployment at that time; she continued that we had a reverse problem here in Canada. We have many goods to market but we have an unemployment problem. We have men and women left over, so to speak. It seems to me that surely these two matters, even if we admit to the basic truth of them, are not far apart at all. It seems to me that the crucial problem in Canada in order to make more jobs is to do things better, more cheaply and faster, and that this process in turn will make for more employment; and that this thought in turn is partly the responsibility, the idea and the reasoning behind the productivity council we have in mind.
Of course these two plans are not so far apart. The plan or purpose of the British productivity council is not so far apart at all from that of the council we now have in mind. The hon. member for Niagara Falls went on to suggest that technological progress in Canada can make for unemployment, and decried technology on that basis. To me this suggestion seems to be an example of retrograde thinking. Indeed, it seems to me that we need to sell more, to make things more cheaply, more rapidly and in better quality. This is the key in the long run, and indeed in the short run, to more employment and more sales throughout Canada and outside our country as well.
I do not think this voicing of opinion on the part of the hon. lady is compatible with the extremely progressive constituency from which she comes. I believe it is much more compatible with the ideas and the thinking, rigid and inflexible as it is, of the party into which she has fallen.
I noted the other evening the remarks of the hon. member for Ottawa West. At one stage he said that the Liberal party had voiced support in this house of measures and ideas of a similar nature. He mentioned that last spring, the idea really was that of the opposition Liberal party. No mention was made, of course, of what the hon. member for Vancouver Centre said or the ideas voiced by him at an earlier stage in this house. The
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hon. member for Ottawa West went on to say that this idea of a productivity council was really based on the 1958 campaign platform of the Liberal party. He added that it actually came from something called the Pearson plan, supplemented and bolstered by visions of the hon. member for Essex East (Mr. Martin). He was really giving most grudging approval to the measure before the house. It was approval, but it was given in inches and fractions of inches; it was approval in most minute amounts.
It seems to us on this side of the house, that opposition may have at least a partially salutary effect on the Liberal party. However, it puzzles us-and this is something that has been said before-how it happens that after a generation of forming the government in this country, these new ideas have actually popped up from the other side of the house only when their party is in opposition; and that after a generation of having authority to bring in new measures of this sort, we see them now giving grudging approval to the many new plans that we have brought forward in the last few weeks and months.
As to the idea of productivity itself, may I say that it is one which has been perhaps loosely defined by various bodies. It is an idea which is perhaps difficult to measure in terms of figures and in terms of what various groups and various people think or wish to call it. I believe that one of the purposes of our new council would be perhaps to devise some definitive means of explaining what productivity figures really are. Since I have come to this house-and I am sure many other members are faced with the same difficulty-I have read many varying and contradictory remarks about productivity. They come from labour organizations, manufacturing organizations and various groups which may have rather different objectives than mine. I would hope this new council would have as one of its purposes some measure of ability to give really definitive figures as to productivity in various industries and various types of activity throughout our country.
Productivity has been defined as well in various reports. One of them, the so-called Gordon commission report, has an interesting chapter on this subject and discusses it in some detail. It refers to productivity as the ratio of total input to output, and goes on to discuss the relationship of labour to these figures. The gross domestic product of any given industry in a year may be regarded as the output, and the input the number of man hours employed in that industry in the year in question, with no distinction made between regular hours and overtime hours. These are some of the methods and terms by which productivity may be compared and examined.

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In other words, we are really talking about gross domestic production per man hour. Perhaps this is the wisest explanation for our term "productivity".
Why do we say that the productivity is important in Canada? This is perhaps an obvious question, and the answers are equally obvious. We are a country of tremendous importing and exporting needs and capabilities. In a country as small as Canada, with our ribbon-like population and our tremendous distribution areas, productivity must be a keystone to a healthy and successful economy. It seems to me that in Canada productivity really must mean efficiency; it must mean efficient production. In other words, efficiency must be almost synonymous with the term "productivity". We need productivity in our internal markets. We are faced today with a tremendous challenge of imported goods from Britain, Europe and Asia. I think that challenge will grow and will not diminish in the immediate years ahead. The tremendous necessity that we have for these goods is one of the reasons productivity is so important to Canada.
I have mentioned that we have a small population. We have tremendous distribution costs. All these things make for a large overhead in Canada. Indeed, if we are faced, as we sometimes are, by restrictions imposed by other countries on the incoming of our manufactured and other goods, and if we must depend entirely on a local or domestic Canadian market, our overhead may indeed be large and fixed and very difficult for many Canadian manufacturers and people in other businesses to work under.
The United States, for example, a neighbour of ours, has a rather different problem. Their dependence on exports and imports is perhaps roughly one tenth of ours, a factor something like the population ratio between our two countries. Their tremendous population and perhaps little greater distribution costs make for an overhead that is not comparable to that faced by many Canadian businessmen.
Mr. Speaker, what makes for greater productivity in Canada? The Prime Minister has stated previously that we have seen a resurgence in the war torn countries of western Europe, and indeed Japan, into the commercial markets of the world. I might say that in a strange sense productivity may be brought about by wars. This is a horrible thing, but we have seen increased productivity arise as a secondary effect of terrible and destructive wars. I believe we have seen this in some countries of western Europe. I believe it is the consensus of economists that certain countries which did not suffer such

terrible ravages of their homelands and industries have more troubles today, perhaps, in their industries than there are in the industries of other countries which were more completely razed by the war.
We have seen a period of resurgence in Germany through the compulsion of the times and the facts of life. Germany had to rebuild much of her basic industry from the ground up. This terrible toll was paid, in a sense; and a decade or 15 years later, through her dependence on new plants, new machinery and new ideas, that country and other countries like her-perhaps Japan is an example -have been put on a competitive or superior footing with other countries of western Europe and, indeed, with ourselves here in North America. War is a terrible thing, but it has a secondary effect and a very direct effect on the productivity of a country in the years that follow.
Other things, of course, make for productivity. The strenuous competition that is facing us in Canada today might be said to be the very lifeblood of productivity. Competition must force increased productivity, and this is really what we are facing in Canada today.
The Liberal party talks about technology and how increased technology would result in more unemployment. I say we need increased technology, and we need a great deal of it.


Paul Joseph James Martin: When did the Liberal party ever say that?


Charles Alexander (Sandy) Best: The competition we are facing in Canada today is forcing our hand. We must become more competitive; we must trade more. The brilliant trade conference now taking place is an example of the resolution and determination of this government to sell more products in more markets all around the world.
Technical education, the aid to technical schools which has recently been discussed in this house, and measures of this sort must be part of the solution to unemployment, efficiency and productivity in our country. The technical skills of our workers will indeed affect our production. In addition, all the improvements in medical standards and physical well-being that have gone on in recent years affect our productivity in Canada, in the same sense.
Mental well-being, the tensions of our modern life, might be placed on the other side. These tensions may have a deleterious effect on productivity and the mental wellbeing of some, at least, of our workers and our management staff. The fewer hours worked by labour today may affect productivity. It certainly gives many people in

many walks of life throughout Canada more opportunity to indulge in outside interests and activities. One could only hope, from the point of view of productivity, that this shortening of working hours and the very general increase in wage rates would also be followed by a corresponding increase in responsibility and interest in the job at hand.
This is something which I think is a fundamental worry to many of us, that decreased working hours and increased wages ought to be followed by an increased interest and skill in the job to be done, in the job at hand. To me this is also part and parcel of our productivity needs in Canada. Labour-management harmony throughout our country, the incidence of strikes and disagreements between opposing factions, must necessarily affect our productivity. The interest of the workers can affect their efficiency in any given job. The psychological effects of strife must be adverse indeed to production within our economy. The desire to do a job well, rather than to earn the maximum for a minimum of hours and effort, must affect our efficiency and our productivity.
These are perhaps some areas, you might say some shadowy areas, that are most difficult to legislate upon, naturally. Nevertheless they are fundamental in what I say is necessary in Canada; that is, increased efficiency, the ability to make goods better and cheaper. The skills and attitudes of the workers affect productivity, of course, in any country; and that productivity is measured by the resources, the capital and tools and the management, if you will, that go into different industries such as agriculture and others in our country. We have seen-we know, because the figures show us-that productivity is frequently highest in a number of basic resource industries in Canada such as mining, oil and gas, in which large volumes of valuable products may be handled at times by few men and with large capital investments. Nevertheless, a complicating factor within our country has been our problem of distribution, the fact that in the past at least a great deal of capital has had to go for the exploitation or development of these basic industries, and this might not have been the case in other countries. Thus much of our basic capital, while developing our primary industries to a state of high productivity, has had to go as well to the actual tying or holding of this country together through railroads or other basic forms of communication just to maintain ourselves as a unit. The incidence of the inflow of capital from Britain, the United States and elsewhere has tended to markedly
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affect our productivity in the past. There have been periods when this inflow of capital has been great, followed by other periods of levelling off in which the effect of the inflow of large sums of capital was felt as business progressed and the worth-while and profitmaking results of this capital were felt by the investors.
Productivity in Canada is measured through education and research. These must be keystones of increased productivity and efficiency in our country. Education is a keystone-and I am sure this council will play a part in this-to establishing relations between labour and management; to a knowledge of how technology may disturb, in any given instance, the labour relationship in any particular industry; how this in the long run may have a beneficial effect on the price of goods and on the increased markets resulting from that, and on the increased jobs in service and other industries which labour may be able to gain. Thus education and harmony among the various parties increases productivity and efficiency in our country. This sort of liaison education would, I would think, be of fundamental concern to this new council.
We discuss automation. We talk of automation, this process by which a series of mechanical jobs may be joined together, which is looked upon with distress by some and favour by others. Automation is particularly evident in a number of our basic industrial fields, in oil and so forth and, indeed, in government in the mailing of numbers of cheques in welfare and social security programs. Here again automation plays its part to an increasing extent.
I was interested just the other day in an example of automation coming into our government. It seems there are some 100 people involved in a certain branch of the dominion bureau of statistics analysing, largely by hand, the returns and papers from the various customs ports across Canada. The bureau has planned the installation of machinery to do this, at least in part, mechanically. Here is an example of the way in which automation might displace, at least momentarily, some of these people; yet I have instance after instance in which manufacturing concerns in Canada seeking the establishment of new industries, dependent upon the availability of fast, accurate and full information from the bureau of statistics, find themselves enormously helped by the possession of more up to date statistical information. Here are new industries which depend on the availability and accuracy of this information and which will be served even better by automation, as a result of which we will have new jobs and new industries in Canada. So on

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the one hand we see some disappearance of employment, but on the other hand there is, I think, a very much larger benefit from the increased employment possibilities throughout the whole of our country.
Agriculture has been mentioned during this debate by a number of speakers, and while productivity in agriculture is not generally regarded as being as high as it is in the business sector of our country, the rate of increase in productivity in agriculture in Canada has been, in the past number of years at least, much more rapid. Productivity in the field of agriculture has indeed been most extraordinary. We can look at the chicken broiler business, the dairying field, as well as many other fields and see a fantastic increase in efficiency and productivity. This is demonstrated also by the increase in size of the average farm, as well as by the perplexing and somewhat troubling decline in the number of agricultural workers.
The increase in the total production of farm products here in North America has certainly been a bit of a paradox in the face of the cries of warning and dire predictions by economists and others who have been saying through many of the past years that we would run out of our food supplies. In spite of those predictions our production in agriculture has always increased at a more rapid rate than our population. In my mind I see no cessation to that rate of increase, and no ceiling to the possibility of future productivity in agriculture in North America.
Productivity in the business sector of the economy increases to the extent of 2 per cent, 2J per cent or 3 per cent a year. In agriculture the increase has tended to be somewhat greater. The Gordon commission has made some predictions until the year 1970 or 1980. Other bodies in Canada have done similar things. I can only say that this measure before us is indeed a milestone and a marking post on the definition of this term and its use in Canada, and the start of information relating to this field. Indeed, as I see it and as our party sees it, it is a milestone on the way toward more industry, increased exports and many more jobs for Canadians.
(Translation):


Mr. Samuel Boulanger (Drummond-Arthabaska):: Mr. Speaker, anyone interested in economic and social questions can find several subjects to tackle and may pass judgment on the attitude of politicians with regard to the problems that face them.
So it is that everywhere we hear the same topics of conversation being discussed by workmen, businessmen, industrialists, economists and even intellectuals: the talk is about unemployment, recession and the slump which affects our economy.

Comparisons are being made-and rather obvious ones at that-with the policy of the last Conservative government, that of Lord Bennett, which was in power from 1930 to 1935, the years of darkness as they are still being called after thirty years.
History is repeating itself today. After three years of administration, the Conservative government is more worn out than the government in power from 1930 to 1935, more so than all previous Conservative governments.
The present economic situation is strikingly similar to the one prevailing in those former years; yet the Conservatives claim that this is entirely by pure accident.
One of my Conservative colleagues told me the other day that his party always came into power when the economic position of Canada was in a bad way.


Mr. Pigeon:: That is not true.


Samuel Boulanger: He attributed our present difficulties to circumstances against which men or governments are powerless. That colleague was clearly confessing his incompetence and that of his government. There can be no better proof of this than the recent cabinet shuffle.
Mr. Speaker, in the last three years, the Liberals, whose ranks include distinguished and experienced personalities, have been lavish with advice and warnings to the present authorities. We are ready to advise them at every opportunity and such is the purpose of my humble participation in this debate. This is why, after speaking briefly about the present economic situation and giving some thought to current ideologies, I shall lay before you a theory to which I have devoted many hours of study and reflection and which, I am convinced would greatly improve the economic situation if it were put into practice.
The D.B.S. official reports periodically show the precarious situation to which the government is leading us. The number of unemployed is increasing from year to year, and is reaching new records.
Thus, there are today nearly 400,000 unemployed in this country. At the same time, in the last three years, Canada's debt has increased by two and a half billion dollars. In addition, our trade balance is unfavourable.
United States control of our industry is growing from year to year, and our imports of manufactured goods are also increasing. Another factor which complicated matters was the threat of a strike involving 110,000 railway workers in support of their claim for a $35 million wage increase at a time when our railway companies were, and still are, operating at a loss.

The same may be said of the stevedores strike in British Columbia which delayed our overseas exports of wheat.
Those are signs of unsatisfactory industrial relations which the government has been unable to improve.
The picture I have just drawn of this country's economic position is dark enough to call the vengeful wrath of some Conservative members upon my head.
Yet, I must say this: If this government is not entirely responsible for the prevailing situation-I do not mind admitting it, up to a point-there is, nevertheless, an aspect for which it is to be blamed, and that is its failure to preserve the prosperity and prestige which Canada was enjoying at the time the government took over.
We have now reached a turning point- (Text):


Louis-Joseph Pigeon: Mr. Speaker, I wish to direct a question to the hon. member.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. McGee):: The hon. member for Drummond-Arthabaska (Mr. Boulanger) has the floor unless he wishes to yield it.
(Translation):


Samuel Boulanger: When I finish my remarks, I shall allow the hon. member to ask me any questions he wants.
(Text):


Louis-Joseph Pigeon: The hon. member is afraid to accept the question.


John Whitney Pickersgill: What? Afraid of a pigeon?


Paul Joseph James Martin: Mr. Speaker, on a point of order, the statement made by the hon. member is completely out of order and I am sure you would so direct.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. McGee):: I am
afraid I did not hear any remark. It did not come over the translation system.


Paul Joseph James Martin: The observation made by the hon. member for Joliette-L'As-somption-Montcalm (Mr. Pigeon) was that the hon. member for Drummond-Arthabaska (Mr. Boulanger) refused to allow any questions to be put because he was afraid. The hon. member said he would accept the question at the conclusion of his speech.


Mr. Ricard:: Mr. Speaker, I should like to draw your attention to the fact that the hon. member for Essex East is not in his seat.


Paul Joseph James Martin: This is a point of order and one can speak from any seat in this house.
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The Acting Speaker (Mr. McGee):: If the
hon. member who has the floor has taken offence at some remark made by another hon. member I wish he would so indicate.
(Translation):


Samuel Boulanger: Mr. Speaker, I clearly
specified that the hon. member for Joliette-L'Assomption-Montcalm could ask me as many questions as he wished after I had completed my remarks. However, the hon. member is probably still feeling his disappointment at the results of the by-election in the constituency of Joliette.
Mr. Speaker, we have reached a turning point in our economic or social life and must search for new formulas and by-words. We must reconsider our economic theory in relation to our present difficulties, try to improve it or to discover a new one in line with our needs, our way of thinking and our situation.
Our guiding motives, if we want to achieve a prosperous and expanding economy, must converge on means to raise our national production, while improving the standard of living of all our citizens. That is the source of the problem of wages or of labour management relations to which economists have been unable to find an adequate answer.
Under the present economic concept, management strives, as duty commands them to to, to safeguard the capital invested in an industry. They aim at maximum profits, which is a legitimate goal.
The worker, on the other hand, must do an honest job for the benefit of his employer and society. He therefore seeks to get better wages for the shortest possible working hours, and that too is legitimate.
However, between the two groups, conflicts arise which can only be harmful to the economy of the country as a whole. Now according to the Rev. Bernard Dempsey, conflicts between capital and labour are only two economic factors and have no human element.
Why are humans incapable, or I might say unwilling, to control those two factors?
Is it that employers and workers are so concerned about materialism that they ignore social and spiritual values?
Recently, at a meeting of the Canadian Labour Congress, Cardinal Leger said:
Economy cannot ignore morals. That estrangement of morals from economy has led to two equally materialistic modern economic systems: economic liberalism and marxist communism.
Admittedly, in the light of past experience in industrial relations, for some years we have not been making any progress towards a permanent solution. Our record is one of repeated failures.

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Why, then, is it so difficult to come upon the magic formula that would offer the possibilities of peace?
Why is it that, in any conflict, humans have to grasp desperately at a major part of the spoils, when they could be divided up fairly and peacefully?
It is not my intention to apportion blame as between employers and workers, for in my opinion, their mistakes balance out.
If no such magic formula has been found, it is because neither employers nor employees have looked for the solution, or else have ignored the difficulties.
Through the years, several economic theories have been evolved and tried out, and with altogether conflicting results.
Adam Smith had a theory which was further developed by Ricardo. That theory had unfortunate implications for mankind and it was called "the iron law on wages", which implied that a certain portion of mankind was bound to live under bare survival standards.


Mr. Paul Martineau (Poniiac-Temis-camingue):: Mr, Speaker, on a point of order. The hon. member who has been speaking for 15 minutes now may be setting forth very interesting views, but as yet he has not touched on the matter at hand, the establishment of a national productivity council. I respectfully submit that, to remain in order, the hon. member must deal with the purpose of this bill, that is the establishment of a national productivity council.


Mr. J. P. Deschateleis (Maisonneuve-Rosemont):: Mr. Speaker, may I say a
word or two on the point of order?
I heard the speech made yesterday by the hon. member for Pontiac-Temiscamingue (Mr. Martineau) who just raised a point of order, and if my memory serves me right, during the most part of his speech, he dealt with the application of similar legislation in Great Britain; he hardly said a word about the merits of the bill now before us. I am not complaining, but I feel-


J.-H.-Théogène Ricard: You should have raised a point of order at that time.


Jean-Paul Deschatelets: I am not complaining, Mr. Speaker, but the hon. members who took part in the debate yesterday took advantage of the great latitude allowed by the chair, and I do not think that the hon. member for Drummond-Arthabaska (Mr. Boulanger) has gone beyond the latitude allowed to other members.


Paul Raymond Martineau: Just a few words, Mr. Speaker-
(Text):


The Acting Speaker (Mr. McGee):: Order. I should like to dispose of the first point of order before I dispose of the point of order based on the discussion of the first point of order. As I have heard the discussion on second reading of the bill in the house today, it seems to me that there has been quite wide latitude allowed in the area of discussion surrounding this subject. In my judgment, I do not believe the hon. member who has the floor has gone really any farther afield than the pattern established.
(Translation):


Samuel Boulanger: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.


Paul Raymond Martineau: Mr. Speaker, I rise on a question of privilege and I wish to speak on the point of order raised by the hon. member for Maisonneuve-Rosemont (Mr. Des-chatelets).
The hon. member stated that I did not address myself to this question in the speech I made yesterday. I want to point out to him that my whole speech was directly related to the question under debate, that is to the benefit that will flow from the establishment of a national productivity council, while the speech which is being delivered by the hon. member for Drummond-Arthabaska (Mr. Boulanger) has no relation whatever with this measure.
(Text):


The Acting Speaker (Mr. McGee):: Order. The hon. member's question of privilege was that he had been misquoted. That has been disposed of, and I recognize the hon. member for Drummond-Arthabaska.
(Translation):


Samuel Boulanger: Thank you, Mr. Speaker,
I was referring to the various economic theories which were developed a number of years ago, and I mentioned those of Adam Smith and Ricardo.
Later on, two economists were impressed by the inhuman aspect of such a wage theory, and developed a theory which took human needs into account. One of them was Marx, who found a solution to the wage problem. His theory was quite simple. It abolished private property and made the state politically responsible for the production and

distribution of goods. Unfortunately, his system has led men to sacrifice their freedom and justice, both in the political and economic spheres.
For nearly 50 years now, freedom loving and justice loving countries have been fighting this theory which has been condemned by the popes and by the whole democratic world.
The other man who tried to find a solution to the wage problem was the German Von Thunen. He based his theory on the right to private ownership, and tried to settle the problem without any political interference.
His theory is expressed in the fair wage formula. Here is how it applies: in an expanding economy, every person, apart from satisfying his subsistance needs, must share in the general prosperity. This is called the theory of "profit sharing".
To illustrate Von Thunen's thesis, I should like to describe his experiment in the field of land cultivation in Germany, around 1800.
On the basis of his theory, he distributed part of the profits every year to each of his workers. The ratio was based on his own personal formula. At the end of the year, instead of paying the worker's share in cash, he reinvested it in the business, and the following year, he paid out a given cash interest.
Over the years, the money in the fund increased, and the annual interest payments to the workers also rose.
At the end of his career, the worker was entitled to an amount large enough to allow him to retire.
The plan was a success over several generations, and it is on the basis of the same principles that are organized the 30,000 American industries, as well as a number of Canadian industries, which apply the theory of profit sharing.
Of those two theories, that of Marx denies justice and individual freedom, while the other, that of Von Thunen, is based on the freedom of man and takes due account of his needs, without any political interference.
Mr. Speaker, if we analyse the results of our present economic system over the past 50 years, we find that we have always been faced with the problem of wages versus capital.
As our technological and scientific methods helped to bring about an increased production, the resulting distribution, in view of our present concept of wages, became more and more unrealistic.
Productivity Council
In order to maintain our economy in a state of progress and to enable the world to use the products created by technological progress, we have had to keep raising wages.
Then, credit facilities developed to such an extent and so rapidly that they now threaten to smother economic life.
To react against the purchasing power created by these credit facilities, governments have taxed goods and then levied personal and corporation income tax. Later on came social assistance programs and fringe benefits were added to wages.
In spite of all our efforts the application of these policies has not solved the economic problems that originate with capital and wages.
There is always more inflation and high production costs are keeping us out of international markets.
Under the guidance of economists in many cases, authorities keep trying out certain theories through which we are gradually being led to government control over our economic system.
When that stage is reached, we will be wondering what difference there is between the socialist or communist system and ours, apart from our political climate, which will be less despotic and probably more enlightened.
There are two solutions to our economic problems. The first one, which was preached by Marx does away with private property and limits freedom, since the whole of the economy is placed under state control. The other, developed by Von Thunen, maintains private property and freedom within the framework of governmental legislation which affects economic life but not political life.
It is urgent that we start considering this latter theory and try to adapt it to our own society.
The application of that profit sharing theory would be to the advantage of our economy. It should, however, become a national economic policy enforced not through government decree but by private enterprise with the support of the government.
What is that profit sharing theory?
Several organizations have given a definition of it, but let me quote only one, which, in my opinion, is the best. This is a definition taken from "The Profit Sharing Industries, 1957". It reads as follows:
(Text):
Any procedure under which an employer pays or makes available to all regular employees subject

Productivity Council
to reasonable eligibility rules, in addition to prevailing rates of pay, special current or deferred sums based on the profits of the business.
(Translation):
The first notion that comes to mind in the matter of profit sharing is the relation between capital and labour. The two words appear to be in opposition, while they should rather be conducive to co-operation.
That theory does not entail, as is often thought, any participation with management or any taking over of control. The head or the directors must of necessity remain in control of the business. Has an army general ever been known to win a battle-


Louis-Joseph Pigeon: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. The hon. gentleman is referring to an army general and, in my opinion, he is out of order. He should be brought to order. (Text):


The Acting Speaker (Mr. McGee):: Order. On the point of order, a question was raised earlier as to the scope of the debate on second reading. I had thought that the hon. member who now has the floor would by this time have perhaps become more specific than he has been up to now, but I had not thought it appropriate to call him to order at this time.
(Translation):


Samuel Boulanger: Mr. Speaker, if I had not been constantly interrupted since I began my remarks, I would have finished a few moments ago. I realize that the hon. member for Joliette-L'Assomption-Montcalm does not seem to understand anything I say.


Louis-Joseph Pigeon: On a question of privilege. The hon. member for Drummond-Arthabaska just spoke about a general; yet we are not discussing national defence estimates. He should rather keep to the subject matter of the bill.


Samuel Boulanger: Mr. Speaker, the main objective of this profit sharing plan consists in sharing with the workers-


Paul Raymond Martineau: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. Would it not be appropriate for the hon. member to identify the document he is quoting from?


Samuel Boulanger: A few moments ago, I gave the definition of profit sharing, quoting from "The Profit Sharing Industries", of Chicago.
The main purpose of this profit sharing plan is to give to the workers a fuller share in the profits to which they contributed.
When I earn a dollar, and the worker earns a dollar-and this is a simple thing which even any illiterate man can grasp-the latter recovers the value and dignity inherent to the individual as he is no longer considered as

a mere cog in the production cycle. He therefore attains some result, not only from an economic point of view, but as a dynamic social factor.
As some prominent people said, unless the North American continent proves as aggressive and imaginative in the social sector of business as it has shown itself to be with regard to the mechanization of industrial operations, we shall lose our status quo and face social and economic disintegration.
Whereas the socialist communists attempt by every possible means to sell their philosophy by trying to infiltrate themselves into the mind and heart of the working classes, it is time, in the interest of our management and unions, that we should take up this challenge in a way which will lead to an era of peace and prosperity.
Last October, with a group of Quebec industrialists, I had the privilege of making a trip to Toronto and Chicago to study on the spot the results attained in the operation of this plan.
I mainly wanted to discover there ideas which would allow to improve the profit sharing plan which has been in operation in my own plant for five years and which is working marvelously.
I might quote many an instance of industrial and labour groups which, after adopting the profit sharing plan, have grown economically as well as socially.
The spirit of a co-operation and confidence which is the basis of all industrial relations, has given, and still gives, results which have been known for more than a century, for instance in the case of LeClaire, in France, in 1835.
(Text):


Mr. Speaker:: Order. I am sorry to interrupt the hon. member but it being five o'clock the house will now proceed to the consideration of public bills pursuant to section 3 of standing order 15.


NATIONAL ENERGY BOARD ACT
Mr. W. H. A. Thomas (Middlesex West) moved: the second reading of Bill No. C-5, to amend the National Energy Board Act (drainage works).
He said: Mr. Speaker, this bill seeks to amend the National Energy Board Act by including in it section 273 of the Railway Act. When the National Energy Board Act was passed first in 1959, some 40 sections of the Railway Act, sections 207 to 246 inclusive and section 248, were included in the National Energy Board Act but section 273 which had
7G3

been included in the Pipe Lines Act, which preceded and was replaced by the National Energy Board Act, was omitted.
We have two sets of rules governing pipe lines. At least that is the situation in southwestern Ontario. I think it is reasonable to assume that the drainage laws of the various provinces would be similar. There are in Canada only two areas in which pipe lines have seriously interfered with drainage or caused problems in connection with drainage so far. These areas may be increased in number as the number of pipe lines across the country is increased. However, at the present time the only areas seriously affected are southwestern Ontario and the lower Fraser valley in British Columbia.
In southwestern Ontario we have two sets of laws or rules governing pipe lines. The pipe lines which operate under provincial charter come under provincial drainage laws. They come under the jurisdiction of the municipal drainage law and they are compelled to pay any extra costs which arise in connection with a drain by reason of their presence or operation. However, pipe lines operating under federal charter do not come under provincial drainage laws. They come under the national energy board and thus far they have not been compelled to pay the extra costs to drainage schemes which arise by their presence or operation. In time this situation may be changed but at the present time pipe lines operating under federal jurisdiction or at least the one running through our area which operates under federal jurisdiction, have been carrying on under much more advantageous rules than have the pipe lines which operate under provincial jurisdiction.
This amendment would make pipe lines operating under federal charter subject to provincial drainage laws in the same way as are pipe lines which operate under provincial charter. Pipe lines involved in municipal drainage schemes would be treated like any other property owner. They would be subject to assessment for benefit cost or damage like other properties and their owners would enjoy the right of appeal to county or district courts for adjustment in such assessments. Owners of pipe lines would be made responsible for any added cost to a municipal drainage scheme caused by their presence.
The provisions contained in the proposed amendment would include in the National Energy Board Act section 273 of the Railway Act which was incorporated in the Railway Act in 1903 after an extended debate in parliament. It has been suggested that the arguments which were valid and successful in connection with drainage problems caused
National Energy Board Act by the railways in 1903 are equally valid today in connection with pipe lines.
In order to indicate that this bill has considerable support, may I point out at this time that this proposed amendment is endorsed by the association of Ontario land surveyors; the Middlesex county council; the chairman of the special committee of the Ontario legislature which was set up to inquire into land expropriation proceedings in Ontario; the townships of East Williams and London and the Ontario federation of agriculture.
It may be worth while at this stage to explain briefly to those who are not familiar with the subject how drainage is carried out in the areas of greater rainfall in Canada, especially in southwestern Ontario and in the lower Fraser valley of British Columbia.
Tile drainage of farm land in some parts of Canada is essential to successful crop production. In wet seasons in Canada's areas of greater rainfall surplus water gathers in the low spots on the farm fields. This surplus water interferes with cultivation and also ruins standing crops. Tile drainage is the best cure for this condition. Proper drainage permits aeration of the soil and promotes the healthy growth of crops. Drainage also facilitates cultivation of the soil.
In some areas of southwestern Ontario on level farms it has been found necessary to construct parallel lines of tile drains across the entire farm as close together as 15 yards. Tile drainage is accomplished by burying clay tile end to end in a trench approximately two feet below the surface of the land. When the land becomes saturated with water the extra water seeps into the drain between the ends of the tile and is carried away to a suitable outlet. It is essential that a drain maintain a steady downward grade-or, as we might say, a downward slope-from its upper end to its outlet. Water cannot run uphill. When anything obstructs a drain or the grade of a drain or the downward slope, it causes a pocket or a stagnant pool within the drain and the sediment settles there and plugs the drain. I repeat that it is essential that the downward slope or grade of a drain must be constant from its upper reaches to its outlet.
We might liken a drain system to a tree. Starting at the trunk the tree spreads out into the main branches. These in turn spread out into smaller branches and you end up on the outer fringes of the tree with the twigs or extremely small branches. A drain would be described in the inverse order. You would start at the outer end of the drain with the small branches or twigs, as it were. These small branches flow into the larger branches and they in turn flow into the main branches
764	HOUSE OF
National Energy Board Act which in turn flow into the trunk. Carrying the description a step further may I say that at these outer fringes of a drain you would commence with tile four inches in diameter. As these bring the water together into the larger drains it is necessary to increase the size of the tile to a diameter of six, eight or ten inches, up to 12 inches and sometimes even larger. When you get so far down the drain that a tile is no longer sufficient to carry the volume of water, then for the rest of the drain you must use an open ditch.
You have trouble if a pipe line goes across the country and is not buried deep enough in the soil so that the drains can cross above the pipe line. The only cure is to lower the pipe line. You can well imagine that with a 10, 12 or even up to a 30 inch pipe line, that this becomes a very costly business.
You cannot lower just a short length of the pipe line; you have to dig the dirt from under the pipe line for hundreds of yards back on either side and lay down a whole long section of that pipe line into the soil. It is necessary to get the earth out from below it and allow the pipe line to settle under its own weight. Later I will give specific instances of where this has been done, and the cost.
Most drainage is organized and carried out by municipal drainage authorities. Farmers may construct short drains on their own where they have a suitable outlet, but as a rule it is necessary for all the farmers living in a watershed, or part of a watershed, to join together to construct a drain. This is done under the municipal drainage act.
When a majority of farmers feel a drain is required in a certain area a petition is circulated under the provisions of the municipal drainage act. The municipal council has no alternative, when it receives a petition signed by a majority of ratepayers, but to establish the drain. An engineer is called in. He makes a survey, and not only does he lay out the plan of the physical drain but it is his responsibility to prepare an estimate of the cost and make an assessment on every property owner toward the cost of the drain according to the benefit each property owner receives from it.
Under the Ontario municipal drainage act, which applies to those pipe lines that come under provincial charter, pipe lines companies are treated the same as any other property owner in a drainage scheme. They are assessed for benefit or allowed damages the same as any other property owner. All the litigation is carried on at the municipal level. An appeal is taken to the county court involved. That is the way the local people like it. In addition to that, the pipe line company is compelled, under provincial law, under 

the municipal drainage act, to pay any added costs which accrue to the drain because of the presence or operation of the pipe line.
Perhaps I may for a moment make a brief review of the history of section 273 of the Railway Act, which it is suggested should be incorporated in the National Energy Board Act. In the early years of the century railways sometimes proved to be serious obstacles to the construction of drains. Farmers and municipalities often experienced difficulty in arranging with railways for crossing rights. Farmers or drainage authorities who wished to carry a drain across a railway had in those days to apply to the railway committee of the privy council for an order for crossing.
This railway committee of the privy council was the antecedent of the board of transport commissioners. The problems met by farmers and drainage authorities in their dealings with the railway committee of the privy council were fully outlined in the House of Commons debates of June 16, 1903 by Messrs. Cowan of South Essex, Sutherland of North Essex, McCarthy of North Simcoe, Lennox of South Simcoe, Lancaster of Lincoln and Niagara, Demers of St. Jean-Iber-ville and others of that parliament.
It was contended by those members in 1903 that although the railway committee of the privy council had done everything in its power to make an adjudication on drainage crossing applications as convenient and inexpensive as possible, farmers and municipal authorities were very reluctant to apply to the railway committee because they feared the cost of litigation before the railway committee would be more than they could afford. They preferred to get along without the drainage rather than take the chance of running into heavy expenses.
The railway committee often sent out engineers to conduct hearings in the field, but the farmers still feared the costs. The same reluctance on the part of farmers and municipal authorities to apply to a central agency, such as the national energy board, still persists. Local authorities prefer to have this litigation brought to the local or municipal level, as it is brought under the provincial drainage laws in Ontario. Parliament remedied the situation in 1903 by incorporating section 273 into the Railway Act. This section makes railways subject to provincial drainage law. It brought the litigation to the municipal level and made railways responsible for the added cost to a drainage scheme brought about by the presence or operation of a railway.
For many years the railways were the only public utilities which created problems of this nature. We now have gas and oil pipe

lines and other utilities creating similar drainage problems. The Pipe Lines Act was enacted by parliament some years ago to control interprovincial and international oil and gas pipe lines. As with the railways, control was entrusted to the board of transport commissioners. Many provisions of the Railway Act were made applicable to pipe lines, including entry upon, use and expropriation of lands. However, section 273 of the Railway Act, to apply provincial drainage laws to pipe lines companies, was not incorporated. Instead, the board of transport commissioners was given authority over drain rights of way that crossed interprovincial or international pipe lines. This section 32 was carried forward, except for non-material changes, into the National Energy Board Act as section 77. Section 77 of the National Energy Board Act reads as follows:
77 (1) A highway, private road, railway, irrigation ditch, drain, telegram, telephone line or a line for the transmission of hydrocarbons, power or any other substance may, by leave of the board, be carried across any pipe line and for such purposes may be constructed upon, along, under or across such pipe line.
(2)	Upon application for leave, the board may grant the application in whole or in part and upon such terms and conditions as the board considers proper.
That is the part of the National Energy Board Act which controls drainage problems in southwestern Ontario at the present time. The result of the present laws is that the railway utilities both interprovincial and provincial, and the provincial pipe lines utilities, are subject to provincial drainage authorities while the interprovincial and international pipe line utilities are subject to the national energy board.
It is requested, therefore, that steps be taken to incorporate the municipal drainage laws in the National Energy Board Act so as to apply these laws to interprovincial and international pipe lines. This may be done as suggested by including Section 273 of the Railway Act with the other sections of the Railway Act which are incorporated into section 75(1) of the National Energy Board Act.
Section 75(1) of the National Energy Board Act now reads:
Sections 207 and 246 and 248 of the Railway Act in so far as they are reasonably applicable and not inconsistent with this act, apply mutatis mutandis to companies and their works and undertakings.
The suggested amendment would cause it to read:
Sections 207 and 246, section 248 and section 273 of the Railway Act in so far as they are reasonably applicable and not inconsistent with this act, apply mutatis mutandis to companies and their works and undertakings.
National Energy Board Act
Just what is this section 273 of the Railway Act? It contains five subsections, the first of which reads as follows:
(1)	Whenever by virtue of any act of any province through which the railway runs, proceedings may be had or taken by any municipality or landowner for any drainage, or drainage works, upon and across the property of any other landowner in such province, the like proceedings may, at the option of such municipality or landowner, be had or taken by such municipality or landowner for drainage or drainage works, upon and across the railway and lands of the company, in the place of the proceedings before the board, provided in Section 272.
Turned into layman's language I would interpret this to mean that railway companies are made liable like any other property owner in a municipal drainage scheme. They are subject to the same responsibility as to assessment for benefit or damage and for their share of the costs of a drain. They are subject to the law at the municipal level. Appeals would be heard by a county court.
Subsection (2) provides:
(2)	In case of any such proceedings, the drainage laws of the province, subject to any previous order or direction of the board made or given with respect to drainage of the same lands, apply to the lands of the company upon or across which such drainage is required, to the same extent as to the lands of any land owner of such province; but the company has the option of constructing the portion of any drain, or drainage work required to be constructed upon, along, under or across the railway or lands.
Again, in layman's language, this subsection gives a railway company the option of carrying out the construction of a drain across its own right of way at its own expense. It is felt that a railway would prefer to do this in order to protect its own property.
Subsection (3) reads:
(3)	In the event of the company not exercising such option and completing such work within a reasonable time and without any unnecessary delay, such work may be constructed or completed in the same manner as any other portions of such work are provided under the laws of such province to be constructed.
Again, in layman's language, this subsection provides that if the railway company fails to exercise its option to carry out the construction of the drain across its own right of way within a reasonable time the drainage authority may do the work and charge the cost to the railway.
Subsection (4) states:
(4)	Notwithstanding anything in this section, no drainage works shall be constructed or reconstructed upon, along under or across the railway or lands of the company, until the character of such works, or the specification or plans thereof, have been first submitted to and approved by the board.
This subsection seems to provide the board of transport commissioners with a veto power over the specifications or plans for carrying a drain across the railway. If the drainage

National Energy Board Act authority drew up specifications or plans of an unreasonable nature the board of transport commissioners could compel them to revise the plans.
Even if section 273 were incorporated into the National Energy Board Act as is proposed this subsection (4) of section 273 of the Railway Act would provide the national energy board with a veto power over plans or specifications for carrying a drain across a pipe line right of way. Subsection (5) is very important to farmers and municipal drainage authorities. It reads as follows:
(5)	The proportion of the cost of the drain, or drainage works across or upon the railway to be borne by the company shall in all such cases, be based upon the increase of cost of such work caused by the construction and operation of the railway.
We have today in Middlesex county, the western part of which I represent, four major pipe lines crossing that area. One of them is operating under federal charter. Three of them are operating under provincial charters, and I wish to place on the record what this means to the local drainage authorities in that area. Archibald, Gray and McKay, drainage engineers of London, obtained this information from two pipe line companies, the Imperial Oil Company and the Sun (Canadian) Oil Company which operate two of the pipe lines across that area. These two pipe lines are operated under provincial charters and therefore the companies are compelled to pay any added cost to a drainage authority because of their presence or operations. I quote from the Imperial Oil letter addressed to Archibald, Gray and McKay under date of March 23, 1960 which reads as follows:
We have for acknowledgement your letter of February 25 requesting examples of locations where our company has been put to extra expense due to the construction or deepening of a municipal drain. The following is a list of the locations and the total cost of the work:
Lower main line, McKellar drain, Lobo
township	 $8,176.00
Lower line at Colvin drain, Lobo township	 $3,747.00
Lower line at McKay drain, Lobo
township	 $5,423.00
Lower main line, McLean property,
Colvin drain, Lobo	township ______ $6,775.00
Lower main line, Lackey property,
W. Nissouri township	 $2,918.00
In all cases, the entire	cost of	each job was borne
by our company.
The Sun-Canadian Pipe Line Company Limited wrote to Archibald, Gray and McKay under date of March 4, 1960 as follows:
We are listing four examples of line relocations and lowerings due to our location affecting a drain under the provincial drainage act:

1.	Cole drain, Sarnia township, lot 13,
concession 2, cost	 $ 830.83
2.	McKellar drain, Lobo township, as
per attached sheet, cost	 $3,631.86
Hon. members may remember that the McKellar drain cost the Imperial Oil pipe line a much higher figure. It cost the two pipe line companies nearly $12,000 to get this municipal drain across those two pipe lines. I continue:
3.	McDougall drain, Caradoc township, lot 4, concession 10, cost ....	$5,934.55
4.	Name unknown, West Nissouri township, lot 6, concession 5, cost .. $ 957.29
Contrast those costs which were paid by a pipe line company operating under provincial charter with what happens in the case of a pipe line which operates under federal charter in the same area only a few miles away. This information comes from Mr. Charles P. Corbett, drainage engineer. Mr. Corbett contributed the following information concerning the cost of carrying drains across pipe lines, in his letter under date of March 3, 1960 addressed to Archibald, Gray and McKay which reads as follows:
I enclose prints of the plans prepared for the board of transport in connection with Interprovincial Pipe Line Company and the O'Reilly and Needham drains.
The Interprovincial Pipe Line Company is one of four pipe lines crossing this part of the country. It operates under federal charter. Mr. Corbett continues:
The increased cost on the O'Reilly drain was
as follows:
90 lineal feet of 12-inch diameter transite pipe in place	 $ 208.09
Digging, laying and backfilling ________ $	35.00
Two concrete manholes in place _________ $ 150.00

Less cost of 90 feet of 12-inch diameter field tile	 $	54.00
Increased cost of construction	 $ 338.19
That sum had to be paid by the drainage authorities. The letter continues:
Interprovincial Pipe Line Company prepared the plans for this application. We found on the Needham drain that the drawing cost us $30.00 and the linen prints cost $33.30.
The Needham drain has not been constructed. The drawings cost $63.30 and we estimate the cost of placing the asphalt at $100.00 for both crossings.
There is another point I should like to make here. When a pipe line does not have to bear the cost of carrying a drain across a pipe line right of way it appears that they are more inclined to over-emphasize the precautions which are taken to protect their property and for which they do not have to pay. I think this is important in considering the proposed amendment.
There are others who wish to take part in this debate and I have occupied more than

my share of time. I would, however, urge that the government and the national energy board give the fullest consideration to this amendment.
I wish to express my appreciation to the national energy board for their kindness in helping me with this research. My thanks are also due to the deputy minister of the department of energy resources for Ontario, and to the officials in the head office of the Imperial Oil Company for their contributions to the information which I have prepared.


Ernest John Campbell: Mr. Speaker, it is a privilege for me to be able to rise at this time to speak in support of the proposal which has been advanced by my colleague the hon. member for Middlesex West (Mr. Thomas) whose constituency is in the neighbourhood of my own. I know that the hon. gentleman has given this matter considerable study, thought and effort. I consider it a very important matter. There is perhaps no need of my rising to participate in this debate because our time is very limited and I therefore intend to take only a few moments to express my support of this measure. I did feel, however, that because I come from an area which I am sure is even lower and flatter than the area represented by my hon. friend I should make a few points at this time.
First of all I must say I am heartily in agreement with the hon. member's contention that tile underdrainage is essential to successful agricultural production in our part of southwestern Ontario. I feel I can safely say that we have many hundreds of miles of tile underdrainage in the part of southwestern Ontario I represent. Perhaps, therefore, I can speak with some authority on this matter. I have also had the privilege of serving in the municipal council of my municipality for 16 years. During that time we had many occasions to deal with municipal drainage both of the covered type which has been particularly referred to in the remarks of the hon. member who spoke previously and also considerable open drainage as well. There are thousands of acres in my part of the country that are low and flat to the point where the land has to be diked and pumped in order to take care of the extra water that falls in that area.
As a drainage contractor myself I have also had some experience in the laying of underdrainage. Because the land is so flat down there, and has so little variation, it is extremely important that accuracy be adhered to in the laying of those drains. There are parts of that country where there is a fall of a little more than 12 inches in a mile. That may seem strange to many people in 90205-6-49
National Energy Board Act this area who can look out their back windows and see hills that are perhaps hundreds of feet in height to think of a country where there is little more than 12 inches of fall to the mile, but that is so in parts of our area. Therefore, I should like to emphasize three points particularly. First, I feel that this bill which the hon. member for Middlesex West is asking the house to pass will be of considerable assistance to all types of underdrainings in instances where that drainage has been laid down previously to the laying of these pipelines. Where these pipelines do damage to those drains I feel that provision should be made in the legislation to make the company, or the board, as the case may be, that is responsible for the laying of these pipe lines responsible for the damage that they do to the underdrainage.
Second, by the same token, where open drainage is necessary as the hon. member for Middlesex West has explained, to carry water in places where so many underdrains have converged to the place where they create a sufficient volume of water that it is not economically possible to carry it away by underdrainage and therefore it becomes necessary to make open drains for a more free flow, I feel that where those pipelines interfere in any way with the free flow of those open drains then the pipe line should become responsible for the interference caused.
Where it is necessary to construct new drains as distinct from those that are laid after a pipe line has been laid I feel that, if, as a result of coming in contact with those pipe lines, it becomes necessary to increase the cost of this municipal drainage, or private drainage, as the case may be, the pipe line should be made responsible, or provision should be made in the law to make it responsible for the increased cost as a result of the pipe line being there.
These are the three main thoughts that I had in mind. I do appreciate the privilege that it is to speak for a few moments at this time and I would emphasize that I am heartily in accord with the proposal outlined by the hon. member for Middlesex West.


Mr. John Smith (Lincoln):: Mr. Speaker, I am glad to have the opportunity to rise at this time to give my support to the principle of the bill which has been moved by the hon. member for Middlesex West (Mr. Thomas). He should be congratulated on bringing this matter to our attention because it is a very important one to municipalities, to farmers and to a great many other different groups of people. I was rather surprised myself when I found that pipe lines that are operating under a federal charter
768	HOUSE OF
National Energy Board Act are not subject to the regulations of the provincial drainage scheme. I think this is a matter which should be corrected as soon as possible. I think the bill we have before us at this time would just do that very nicely. I was interested in hearing that a former member for Lincoln county a good many years ago-I think the hon. member quoted 1903-spoke on this matter when it was being discussed at that time.
I have not given this matter the same attention as the sponsor of the bill, but I think I can advance several practical reasons why oil companies, or oil pipe line companies, should not be subject to the same regulations as railway companies, public utilities and other bodies, at least in the province of Ontario, which I am speaking of at this time. I can see where surplus material left on the site after the pipe line was built could become a problem in so far as interfering with the drainage system is concerned. I can also visualize depressions caused by settlement. I know of a case of that kind where a depression caused a change in the drainage system, which in turn brought about a washout. This is an important matter.
I think another matter that should be taken into consideration is that of low lying properties, which have been mentioned, where drainage is slow and sluggish and drainage channels very quickly become grown up with weeds and brush and have to be cleaned out every two or three years; I think five years in some instances and three years in others. This is a rather expensive project. Generally, an engineering firm is brought in and makes a report on the estimated cost, and then the provincial drainage authority brings down a recommendation as to how the cost should be assessed. I think the pipe line companies which are crossing a piece of land of this type, using the land for getting the product from one place to another, should be definitely responsible for a part of the cost of keeping those waterways in a satisfactory condition.
There is also the question of trunk sewers and water mains, which affects municipalities perhaps more than other places. I have known of water mains which came in contact with a pipe line and there was a question of which one should go down. Should the water line go down or should the pipe line go down? If they came under provincial draining regulations these matters could be quite easily solved without any difficulty.
There is another matter that I doubt whether I can speak on at this time, but I know that there are others who might wish to speak on it. I might mention also the effect on field tile drainage systems. In the


riding that I represent the land is practically all under a field tile drainage system. We have at least a couple of oil pipe lines going through there and that also creates a problem because oil pipe lines are quite often close to the surface and they do interfere with drainage systems.
That is just one more reason why they should be under provincial drainage regulations so that matters of that kind could be taken care of. A pipe line, just the same as anything else that goes through the ground, disturbs the natural state of the land and does create problems. I have tried to put forward briefly a few of them that come to my mind, all of which prove in my opinion that this is a good bill. If it is not passed at this time I think the amendment should be brought up at some other time and put into effect.
If the act were amended and the national energy board were given the authority to, see that this work was done this would provide protection for farmers, municipalities and the public generally. I am very happy to support the bill and to extend my congratulations to the hon. member for Middlesex West for introducing it at this time.


Mr. H. O. While (Middlesex East):: Mr. Speaker, I wish to say a word or two on the very important amendment to the National Energy Board Act introduced by the hon. member for Middlesex West (Mr. Thomas). I wish to compliment him on the great work he is doing for his own constituency and for southwestern Ontario in particular as far as this amendment is concerned.
For many years all of western Ontario has been trying to deal with this problem, first of all in connection with the railways and then in later years with respect to pipe lines. While there seems to be provision in the provincial act, as time goes by, we in that area and those in the Galt, Kitchener and Guelph areas will have to face the question of pipe lines for the distribution of water. Let us now make some changes in the act so that drainage installations, which are costly from the viewpoint of the farmer, are not made almost impossible.
The hon. member for Middlesex West pointed out the cost to the oil companies of lowering their pipe lines in accordance with provincial regulations, and if that cost is added to the cost of municipal tile drainage systems many of them will not be installed. Consequently it is of vital importance that the amendment suggested by the hon. member for Middlesex West be considered seriously at this time.
I also want to point out that for many years prior to 1903, when section 273 was

incorporated in the Railway Act, the railways hindered much of the development and drainage of those areas simply because they would not co-operate with the municipalities or with the farmers. With respect to the installation of pipe lines in Middlesex county over the past few years, if it had not been for the yeoman service of the Middlesex county federation of agriculture much greater difficulty would have been encountered. The oil companies were not too co-operative with respect to the expropriation of land and the restoration of tile drains.
Section 273, as I mentioned before, was incorporated in the Railway Act in 1903 to solve the problem and has served very well since that time. It is passing strange to me that when the National Energy Board Act was passed in order to deal with these problems the Railway Act was copied but section 273 of the Railway Act, strangely enough, was not included in the National Energy Board Act. It seems to me that it was more by design than by mistake that it was not incorporated in the act at the time.
I mentioned also that the question of water pipe lines may enter the picture in the years ahead. There is some reference to this in the Ontario act and I should like to read one portion of that act because to me it seems to leave some doubt whether water pipe lines would come under the provincial drainage laws. Section 20 of the Ontario act reads as follows:
Where a drainage work or a part of a drainage work is to be constructed, repaired, improved or maintained upon, along, adjoining, under or across the lands, permanent way, transmission lines, power lines, wires, conduits or other permanent property of a public utility, the public ' utility shall have the option of constructing, repairing, improving or maintaining such work or part.
So far as the distribution of water is concerned, in some cities this would be under the jurisdiction of a public utility but there is also the possibility that it might come under a conservation authority, which presents another problem to us and to the provincial authorities. It is interesting to note that the minister of highways of Ontario, Mr. Cass, has become very interested in this matter and, along with county councils, township councils and the Ontario federation of agriculture, has concurred in the proposed amendment introduced by the hon. member for Middlesex West. May I call it six o'clock, Mr. Speaker?


Mr. Speaker:: The hour for the consideration of private and public bills having expired, the house will revert to the business which was interrupted at five o'clock.
At six o'clock the house took recess.
90205-6-49J
Productivity Council AFTER RECESS
The house resumed at 8 p.m.


PRODUCTIVITY COUNCIL
[Stage Direction]
The house resumed consideration of the motion of Mr. Diefenbaker for second reading of Bill No. C-52, for the establishment of a national productivity council.
(Translation):
Samuel Boulanger: Mr. Speaker, when the house adjourned at five o'clock, I was quoting some instances of corporations where the profit sharing theory is put into practice. I would have liked to quote some statistics to indicate the economic advantages which those companies reaped, but I shall spare you those figures. However, I do not want to omit the still greater advantages to the workers who participate in such plans, for they have been able in some cases to accumulate quite fabulous sums.
Thus, an employee of the Sears & Roebuck Company in the United States, who has 10 to 15 years of service, has, upon retirement, an average $11,106 in his pension fund; the man who has worked from 20 to 25 years gets an average of $48,024, and the one who has been from 30 to 35 years with the company gets $116,140. Finally, the man who has more than 35 years of service, gets the appreciable amount of $191,679.
In the case of the Motorola company, in Chicago, a worker who retired in 1959 after 12 years of profit sharing received a cheque for $16,618.
An employee of Signode Steed & Strapping, of Chicago had built up a fund of $39,506 after 19 years of sharing.
And now, Mr. Speaker, how can such a system be applied in the context of our present economy?
Should the government, by regulation, take the lead in implementing such a plan? I do not think so, as such an attitude would work against individual freedom. However, the government could play a truly constructive role by promoting friendly meetings between employers and workers and starting discussions towards that objective.
Under the circumstances, I think that the national productivity council, whose principles are now under consideration, is the very organization capable of looking carefully into our economic problems and the profit sharing schemes. The establishment of that body, long advocated by our distinguished leader, has been approved by trade unions and religious authorities.

Productivity Council
A second step that the government could and should take to promote closer co-operation between management and labour and a gradual change to profit sharing schemes would be to amend the Income Tax Act in order that contributions paid to a retirement fund would not be taxable.


Paul Raymond Martineau: Mr. Speaker, I must once again rise to a point of order. The hon. member has just suggested that the Income Tax Act should be amended, and I do not see how that suggestion relates in any way to the bill now under discussion. Moreover, I must add that up to now the hon. member has not mentioned once the matter before the house.


Samuel Boulanger: On the point of order, Mr. Speaker, I am glad to say that I have just mentioned the productivity council. The hon. members says I am digressing.
(Text):


Mr. Speaker:: Order. I think the hon. member who has the floor is perhaps addressing himself to the proposed objectives of the council in improving production and management techniques. This matter is not directly provided for in the bill but I have not stopped him because it seems to have some relation to production, the increase of which is the objective of the council.
(Translation):


Samuel Boulanger: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
The hon. member for Pontiac-Temisca-mingue was not happy about my remarks. It is because I did not praise the government. I make suggestions to the government, and they are constructive suggestions. That is why I mentioned the national productivity council to which recommendations should be made.
I was saying, Mr. Speaker, that this organization should be urged to consider the profit sharing plan. I was saying also that this organization could make recommendations to the government to the effect that the amounts paid by the employer and the employees respectively to a pension fund be exempted from taxation.
Mr. Speaker, when our economic system is faced with the unemployment problem arising from greater competition and is faced with theories tending to destroy individual and economic freedom, the time has come for us to look for ways and means to safeguard the free enterprise system.
The prime role of the government is to give us leadership in order to strengthen economic democracy. And the best way to do at, as was stated by our incomparable Leader

of the Opposition (Mr. Pearson), is to enable the worker to take a more active part in the economic life of our nation.
In the establishment of any profit sharing plan, mutual trust between employers and employees is the key to success. The government should then create opportunities for them to have more frequent contacts, and there is no better way to do it than through this new national productivity council.
Specific recommendations made recently by Cardinal Leger and supported by a trade union leader advocated the establishment of a tripartite organization composed of employers, workers and governments for the study and solution of economic problems.
At its annual convention held a few weeks ago, the professional association of Quebec industrialists had on its agenda the profit sharing plan.
It is a commendable effort which proves that employers are in the van of progress when it comes to new theories which might bring about an improvement in their economic condition and, possibly, to a greater degree still, in that of the worker and the general economy.
The employers are willing to do their share, and the farmers and the workers have often expressed their desire for a bringing together of employers and employees or of capital and labour.
It is with the government that lies the responsibility of pushing the button which will set in motion a new economic mechanism which will be better than any other, or which at least could not be any worse.


Louis-Joseph Pigeon: May I put a question to the hon. member for Drummond-Arthabaska? The hon. member talked about profit sharing. How can he explain then that when his party was in power it levied an income tax on farmers co-operatives and co-operatives in general?


Samuel Boulanger: If the Liberal government levied a tax on co-operatives at that time, I am sorry. It should have levied an income tax on the contractors of the Union Nationale. That is what it should have done.
(Text):


Mr. F. J. Bigg (Athabasca):: Mr. Speaker, democracy itself is on trial today. Our friends in the group in the corner, and even the opposition in general, think we cannot pull ourselves out of this so-called hole that

we are in. We are not fully employed, as everybody knows, although a great many Canadians are still working. We have a national problem today, we have an international problem, and it is one and the same thing.
We believe that free men can work and will work. I think we can. But the problems are great and we have to have the knowledge. It is not enough to have dynamic leadership, and who will deny that we have that dynamic leadership in our Prime Minister (Mr. Diefen-baker), in our cabinet and in the people who sit on this side of the house ready to back them up?
This is no piecemeal program. We have attacked this problem one stage at a time. We have stopped wasting the nation's money. We have spent money, all the money we had. Now we have to go back to work. The government is going back to work; we are at work behind them. Now I think it is time we asked the Canadian people to roll up their sleeves and get to work behind us and stop whining.
We believe in democracy, and this is one of the acceptances of that belief right here. This bill which has been introduced today asks the Canadian people to get together; it asks all five major groups to get together and take a good look at their problems, to stop theorizing and go back to work. There is no short cut to success, not even socialism. They work in the socialist countries, but they are not happy. If we go back to work here we can be happy; we can make a profit; we can show the free world that Canada is not only a great voice in the United Nations but a great voice at home in the factory and in the field.
One of the objects of this bill is to get us together, and I think it will. We are not sectional; we are not going to try to do it by organizing labour; we are going to try to do it by getting everybody together. Read clause 2 of the bill and you will see for yourselves. Our Prime Minister does not intend to be a dictator; he intends to be a chairman, a chairman of the Canadian people. I do not think this is a last ditch stand; I think the free world is going to win, and I make a personal appeal: I am willing to work. Are you?
If we get this council together it will not be enough. It is going to be a fact-finding organization; it is going to ask us what we know about our own business and then it is going to ask us what we are willing to do about it. You know what kind of an organization it is going to be. It is going to be a group of free Canadians putting their backs into it- leadership without compulsion.
I have heard a great deal of talk today that we cannot do it without compulsion. I do not believe it. The people up in my district are working, and people are willing
Productivity Council
to do more. All they ask from us is intelligent, planned leadership. We have shown it already, and we are going to show it again. I believe that such a source of information will provide more of what is needed than any other method of obtaining the answers to our present grave problems of how to obtain full employment. We have to talk straight to the people. We are not going to give them a Utopia without hard work. That is all I have to say at present.


Mr. C. W. Carter (Burin-Burgeo):: Mr. Speaker, I should like to express my support for the objectives and purposes behind this bill. I think any measure that is designed to bring together labour, management and government in a co-operative effort and in a co-operative spirit is deserving of our support. It must be remembered that this bill is brought in as a part of the government's plan to offset unemployment. To be effective in this respect it must either directly or indirectly help to create jobs. As a member from one of the Atlantic provinces I am particularly interested in the emphasis placed on regional industry, regional committees and regional programs. I hope the council will be successful in finding ways and means of overcoming the handicaps which we experience in the Atlantic provinces, and will be able to encourage the expansion of our present industries and the creation of new ones.
But as one studies this bill it becomes most evident that the main emphasis is on increasing technical efficiency. It is true that this will improve and strengthen our competitive position both at home and abroad, but it has already been pointed out that technical efficiency is already responsible for much of our present unemployment. The Minister of Labour (Mr. Starr) has referred to this fact, as have many other hon. members. I think that was confirmed again today by Dr. Forsey's figures which were placed on record by the Prime Minister (Mr. Diefenbakerl. I do not know how accurate Dr. Forsey's figures are but in so far as they apply to agriculture I would be prepared to accept them because production in agriculture is in terms of volume, bushels per acre. But when we come to production in the manufacturing industry, that is usually expressed in dollar value. In that respect I think Dr. Forsey's figures give a very inaccurate impression, because there is only one accurate way of expressing efficiency in the manufacturing industry, and that is in terms of output per manhour.
Before we can do that, before we can compare the output per manhour in 1946 with that in 1959 we must reduce the dollar value to 1946 dollars, or reduce both to constant dollars. If that were done-and I have not

Productivity Council
been able to check the figures-I think we would find that over the past years our increase in manhour production has not gone up to any appreciable degree. To that extent we must, I think, increase our efficiency, particularly in the export industries. On the other hand, we must not lose sight of the fact that the more this bill contributes to the efficiency of industry the more it will contribute to unemployment.


Paul Raymond Martineau: Will the hon. member permit one question? He mentioned earlier that the main purpose of the bill is to improve efficiency. Will the hon. member declare if he is for or against efficiency in industry?


Chesley William Carter: If I thought the hon. member was going to ask a stupid question like that I would not have yielded the floor.


Paul Raymond Martineau: I would like an answer.


Chesley William Carter: I have already said I am supporting the principle of this bill. What more does the hon. member want? It is our duty over here to make constructive criticism, and that is what I am doing. Does the hon. gentleman himself deny that technical efficiency has made a contribution to our present unemployment? Does he deny that? I will give him a chance to answer when I sit down.
It seems to me that while the achievement of technical efficiency is one of our problems it is certainly not our most pressing problem. I would think that a body so broadly based as this proposed productivity council would be an appropriate body to serve two other purposes in addition to those outlined in the bill. One of those purposes could be, I think, the generation of some influence on the trend of productivity; to indicate to some degree the direction in which it should go in order to meet the needs of the people.
I admit that this would involve planning, but what I have in mind is not bureaucratic planning or state planning but voluntary planning by free men who take responsibility ' for the needs of the people as well as for the security and welfare of the nation and who, in order to do that, would be willing to work . together on a voluntary basis and plan to .make the best use of our resources. Industry was made for man, not man for industry. There are many urgent needs which are not being met by industry today simply because it is more profitable to meet other needs which are not so urgent.
I think the second purpose which this council could serve would be to act as a sort of watchdog over our resources. Our resources are not unlimited; they are not inexhaustible and they are not ours alone. We hold them in trust for future generations. As we look out today over the country and

see some of the products of industry I think it cannot be denied that in many ways our resources are being squandered. For example, we do not need all the big tail fenders that one sees on motorcars. The tendency to build in obsolescence is another way of squandering our resources. Then there is the manner in which technical improvements are doled out one year after another. We all know that many features which will appear on the 1965 cars are available today and that many features which will be incorporated in the 1965 television sets are available today. Yet industry does not see fit to make these improvements available because the practice has been built up of basing sales on styles which change year after year.
I hope the government will consider these two suggestions and make provision to include them in this bill among the objectives already listed so that this council when it is set up may be able to exert a positive influence on the direction productivity should take and at the same time utilize our resources to the maximum degree.


John Whitney Pickersgill: I have a few observations to make about the bill which is now before us. I must say that my impression when I saw the reference to this proposed legislation in the speech from the throne was a very favourable one. I imagined that what the government had in mind in making this proposal was what the Leader of the Opposition (Mr. Pearson) had had in mind in 1958 in the suggestion he put forward in the program which was advanced at that time when it was apparent that in addition to the unemployment which was caused by the recession at that time there was also the beginning of a good deal of structural unemployment caused by automation or what is usually considered automation today-technical advances of one kind and another.
I supposed that what the government had in mind was the setting up of a council which would primarily concern itself with what is, I think, a primary problem at the moment- that industry, in order to be competitive simply must advance technically and that in advancing it is apt, very often, indeed too often, to make many of its employees redundant. This creates problems unless there is sufficient growth in the economy at the same time to take up the slack in other industries. I would not question for one moment that the long term effects of automation will be advantageous just as the long term effects of what it is no longer fashionable to call the industrial revolution of the eighteenth century were advantageous.

Any historian knows that the short term effects were the exact reverse. They were to increase unemployment, and the unemployed on numerous occasions in rages broke the machines which they felt, were destroying their jobs. There are undoubtedly many unemployed persons today who feel the same kind of resentment at these advances which are throwing them out of work. Since this is the urgent and immediate problem, it seemed to me it was obviously the problem to which this council would address itself. I had all the more reason for thinking that because we know that the council was suggested at the end of a meeting which the Prime Minister (Mr. Diefenbaker) called in October for the purpose of discussing unemployment. It was to a logical mind, I think, not unnatural to assume that this council that was produced out of a conference about unemployment would be primarily concerned with dealing with unemployment.
I must say it was quite a shock to me to read the bill this morning and find that it has no relationship whatever to the current and immediate unemployment problem. It was also somewhat of a shock to me when I examined the speech that was made on the resolution stage by the Minister of Trade and Commerce (Mr. Hees) to discover that several paragraphs of that speech which I can point out, if any hon. gentleman wishes me to, are simply taken absolutely verbatim but without any acknowledgement, from the memorandum submitted by the British productivity council to the select committee on estimates in the United Kingdom. Considering the fact that the hon. gentleman who introduced this resolution suggested to another hon. member earlier in this session that he should get a new speech writer it was something of a shock for me to discover that this distinguished minister of the crown who obviously glories in his own originality should have passed off as his own without any kind of acknowledgement several paragraphs from this document.
I am afraid that what the minister did in his speech is what the government is doing in the bill. Since there was no bill in the United Kingdom but merely a charter under the companies act-and I have not seen the charter so I am just inferring-it seems that this bill is as nearly as it can be a mirror or copy of that charter. I must say it looks like it.


Mr. Stinson:: A copy of what?


John Whitney Pickersgill: If the hon. gentleman had been following what I had been saying he would know that I had suggested it appears to be a copy of the charter of the British productivity council.
Productivity Council


Frederick Coles Stinson: Has the hon. member seen it?


John Whitney Pickersgill: Let us consider for a moment what the British productivity council was set up to do. It was set up at a time when there was over-full employment in the United Kingdom, when there was an acute labour shortage, when there was every need to economize in the use of labour and manpower in every possible way and when, moreover, the British who had suffered the terrible destruction and devastation they did suffer during the war were faced with the serious problem of getting their industries and particularly their export industry on a basis on which they could again compete in the world markets and restore something of the position they had enjoyed before the war.
It was, in other words, to deal with a problem which is the precise opposite of the immediate problem we have before us in this country at this time. That we also have a problem with respect to productivity I do not deny. I do not deny that it is necessary for some of the reasons the Prime Minister gave in moving second reading that we keep our industries modern and competitive. There is no doubt about that whatever, but I doubt whether Canadian industry is technically so backward and that the speed of automation has been so slow in this country that that is what one would call a really number one problem at this time. However, it is a genuine problem and for the reasons already given by my friends the hon. member for Burin-Burgeo (Mr. Carter), the hon. member for Ottawa West (Mr. Mcllraith) and the hon. lady from Niagara Falls (Miss LaMarsh), who made such an effective maiden speech this afternoon, we feel this measure, to the extent that it is effective, will be dealing with a matter that is of national importance and ought to be supported. But we do not think it ought to be camouflaged as a measure to deal with the urgent unemployment problem, which we, unlike the government, regard as an economic emergency in this country at this time.
It seems to me it is additional evidence of the fact that appears to grow increasingly obvious that the government is primarily concerned about public relations and is only secondarily concerned about the actual effect of the measures it has introduced. I do not imagine that the idea of a productivity council was a child of the conference in October. It was something that the government had ready to be quickly pulled like a rabbit out of a hat so it would have something to put in the newspapers the next morning. To paraphrase from numerous speeches made in recent months by the right hon. gentleman who

Productivity Council
presides over the government-and I must paraphrase because I do not have the newspapers in front of me-this government has done so many good things and it has had no time to advertise them. I venture to say without any fear of successful contradiction that no government in the history of the world has done so little and advertised so much in the course of three years as this one has.
The stock in trade of hon. gentlemen opposite is words. That is the only commodity they seem at all capable of understanding. So far as I can judge one word seems to be just about as good as another for hon. gentlemen opposite, except one word which is a dirty word and must not be used, and that is the word "unemployment".
So far as the immediate problem of unemployment is concerned this measure cannot possibly make any kind of contribution whatever except to the extent that the appointment of 25 people and a few clerks and civil servants will perhaps provide a few part-time and possibly one or two full-time jobs, but whatever its long term effect on the economy may be its short term effect, based on the appreciation of it given to the house by the Minister of Trade and Commerce, its sponsor, the Prime Minister, its godfather, and the Minister of Labour (Mr. Starr), its stepfather, will be negligible.
It seems to me it is about time that in these matters we did consider what things really mean and not what if one talks fast enough and incoherently enough they can be made to appear to mean for a very brief time. There is no one that is better at that than the right hon. gentleman who moved the second reading of this bill this afternoon.
I was also very much impressed by the speech made by the porte parole of the Prime Minister, his parliamentary secretary, the hon. member for Pontiac (Mr. Martineau). Yesterday the hon. member for Pontiac told us that this productivity council was a very different thing from a body which was suggested by my hon. friend from Essex East (Mr. Martin) in an amendment which was moved to one of the motions to go into supply in the last session of parliament. What was the difference? What was the great difference that troubled the hon. gentleman constitutionally? The great difference was that what the hon. member for Essex East had suggested was a body which would advise the government and, forsooth, this government needs no advice from anybody. Therefore, a body that was to be advisory was ruled out; it was contrary to our British system of government, according to the hon. member

for Pontiac, the spokesman of the Prime Minister, and therefore we must be absolutely sure that any body that was set up would give no advice about policy, but it would advise once the policy had been set; it was then to give advice about administration. Some of us who have had some experience of government will find that doctrine quite extraordinary.


Mr. Kucherepa:: Don't be so modest.


John Whitney Pickersgill: The notion that governments must not on any account receive any advice from outside their own ranks before it formulates policy, but must be advised about the administration, does seem to me to be a reversal of everything that is in the experience of those who have either had any experience of government or even have had much opportunity to observe government. It does seem to me that there is no question that any government and every government needs advice and it needs all the advice it can get and from the best possible sources. That was true of the previous government-I admit that at once-and it is certainly true of hon. gentlemen opposite.
If this productivity council is not being set up to advise the government, what on earth is it being set up to do? That is the question. If it is not to advise the government about policy, what is it to advise the government about? Surely it is not going into the individual businesses of individual concerns to tell the management how to run their businesses. If I understood the Prime Minister correctly, that would be socialism. If I understood one of the phrases he used this afternoon, that would be socialism. Surely it is not going to do that; surely it is going to be studying the general problems.
That does not mean that it is going to tell the government what to do; but it surely means that if it is going to be of any use it is going to provide advice, advice to industry, advice, perhaps, to the congress of labour and other trade unions who I think perhaps could do with a little also; but above all, advice to the Minister of Labour, to the Minister of Trade and Commerce and, indeed, to the government generally in helping them to formulate policies which, of course, it is their responsibility to do and their duty to do and which no one who believes in responsible government wants to take away from them. But surely it is no abrogation of the responsibility of the government to seek to get good advice, and I really cannot believe that the hon. member for Pontiac was correctly reflecting the views of the government when he made the statement.


Paul Raymond Martineau: I rise on a question of privilege, because I certainly never said that the government should not seek advice. That is not what I said yesterday in the course of my speech on this matter. Following the interruption of the hon. member for Bona-vista-Twillingate, I pointed that out. Why he should bring this up tonight, insisting and re-insisting that I said it, and misquoting me at length, I do not know.


Mr. Valade:: Crystal ball gazing.


John Whitney Pickersgill: As it happens I have not attempted to quote the hon. gentleman at all, but since he asks me to quote him I do not mind doing so. All I did was to suggest what I had understood the hon. gentleman to say.


John William Kucherepa: Oh; that is different.


John Whitney Pickersgill: What the hon. gentleman said is found in yesterday's Hansard at page 719. This is what the hon. member said:
If one examines the motion made at that time by the hon. member for Essex East, it is quite apparent that there is no relation between it and the present productivity council, because that motion suggested that an advisory board be set up composed of different people:
"-for the purpose of developing economic policies designed to achieve a high and stable level of income and employment."


John William Kucherepa: Is that such a terrible thing?


John Whitney Pickersgill: That is the end of the
quotation from the motion.


Some hon. Members:: Read on.


John Whitney Pickersgill: I am going to read on:
In other words, that motion-


Some hon. Members:: Be fair.


John Whitney Pickersgill: If I might be allowed to read the hon. gentleman's words unassisted by his friends, so that they will get clearly into Hansard, it would be better.
In other words, that motion would have had the effect, had it been accepted by this house, of substituting a policy-making body for the present government.
Of course, that statement itself is just nonsense, as was pointed out by my hon. friend from Ottawa West and by me. All it did was to suggest an advisory board; it did not suggest something to be substituted for the government at all.
Then, the hon. gentleman went on:
In other words, an advisory board to tell the government what policy it should adopt. I believe that under our democratic process it is up to the government that has the confidence of the people-
At that point there was an interjection "More or less". If I had been making the interjection I would have left out the first two words. I continue:
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I believe that under our democratic process it is up to the government that has the confidence of the people to produce policies and then,-
This is the doctrine, sir:
-if it is necessary to establish different boards or different advisory bodies to put the policy into effect,-
Well, now, I did not-


An hon. Member:: Continue.


John Whitney Pickersgill: -ever hear of having an advisory board to put a policy into effect. Surely you have an advisory board to help you generate a policy. Having generated a policy, you then put it into effect as an executive act. However, the hon. member is going to have an advisory board to put the policy into effect; after, as he says, the government makes it. I continue:
This is the purpose of the present resolution.
When the policies have been generated by this all-wise government then this productivity council will put them into effect-I do not want to denature the hon. gentleman's words-if it is necessary. This is what he said:
-to produce policies and then, if it is necessary to establish different boards or different advisory bodies to put the policy into effect, of course the government sees to it.
Therefore, what this advisory productivity council is intended to do, according to the hon. member for Pontiac, is to put the policies into effect that the government has generated. As I say, sir, it was really so extraordinary a doctrine about responsible government that it did seem to me it should not pass entirely unnoticed. I know that the Prime Minister has pointed out before now that parliamentary secretaries are not members of the government and therefore I feel it is not fair to ask the government to take the responsibility for what the hon. member said. I am not doing that but I do think the Prime Minister ought to tell us, in view of this rather astonishing doctrine, precisely what he thinks the productivity council is really going to do and how it is going to do it, in simple, clear, coherent language and not in involved hyperbole, which is rather more characteristic of some of the explanations we get at times about these measures.
There are just two other observations I wish to make. This bill is the fourth of four measures that were introduced at the very outset of the session as the government's pre-Christmas program to deal with the problem of unemployment. The first measure was the amendment to the National Housing Act, and I think every one of us hopes that those amendments will work really well. There were some of us who were rather troubled and are

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still rather troubled about some of the restrictions that there seemed to be upon them, particularly upon one of them, but I am not going to transgress the rules by going into that. The extent to which this housing legislation will provide additional employment depends upon the extent to which it is used and I for one, and I think I can speak for every member on this side of the house, hope that it works exceedingly well and produces a great many jobs. At any rate, no one would question that it could have some relatively immediate effects.
The second measure was the bill respecting loans to small business. It was rather hard to tell whether that was really meant to aid small business or really meant to produce employment. I do not say that the two are exclusive but I have some very grave doubts about its immediate, though not its ultimate, employment generating possibilities.
The third bill was the one we disposed of yesterday, the vocational training measure, which was not as good as we would like to see but nevertheless was a fairly good measure. I said before and I say again that it was a fairly good bill and marks a considerable advance but it is not going to provide, apart from the advisory council that has been set up, one job immediately. In a few months it may provide some jobs on the building of schools but those schools will have to be planned, organized and started before the measure will provide any jobs that would not have been provided anyway because of the assistance to be given to schools already under construction or already planned. Therefore, of these three measures the only one that will provide any immediate additional employment at all is the one amending the National Housing Act.
This is the fourth measure to come before us, and if the Prime Minister can show any way in which it is going to provide any immediate employment I am sure we will all be very pleased and I will certainly take back anything of this sort I have said. I cannot find anything in the bill that would justify any immediate hopes of that kind.
It will be recalled that on September 21 the Prime Minister made a speech on television in which he admitted for the first time that there was some unemployment in this country, in which he told the unemployed that they were really unemployed. But he also told us in that speech on September 21 that the government had a lot of plans that were ready in detail to be submitted to parliament. I think it can be shown that the housing act was not one of them because at that time the Minister of Public Works (Mr. Walker), who is responsible for housing, was making rather different kinds of noises about

housing. It is quite clear that the things contained in the housing act amendments had not been generated in the government in September and had not yet reached the point of policy and, as I have shown, none of the other measures is going to provide any immediate employment.
So I think it is about time that the Prime Minister told us what those measures were that were ready in detail in September to be submitted to parliament because so far we have had none of them in this session. I admit that perhaps this is not strictly relevant to the second reading of the bill but in my opinion it has some relevancy. And I invite the Prime Minister when he gets up to conclude the debate to show us precisely in what way the measure now before the house is going to provide any additional jobs in the next six months.


Mr. Speaker:: Order. May I repeat the caution in the rules that if the Prime Minister speaks now he will close the debate.


John George Diefenbaker: Mr. Speaker, my first words must be of appreciation to several hon. members who in the course of the debate this afternoon made a contribution to the discussion of the problem that we are endeavouring to meet through the formulation of this legislation. I should like particularly to say to the hon. member for Niagara Falls (Miss La-Marsh) that I am sure the house listened to her contribution with interest and, if I may, I convey to her my congratulations. I listened to her most carefully. I am of those who through the years have always been most happy to see new members come into the house and make, in the course of their maiden speeches to the house, that type of contribution that is in keeping with the best traditions of the house. For her I express the sincere hope that during her period of service in parliament she will continue to make a contribution to the solution of those problems that all of us face. I know something of what a trying experience a maiden speech is. All of us have gone through that. I recall with trepidation even at this date the excruciating experience through which I passed for several days in advance of the ordeal.
In paying my tribute to her may I say, however, that with respect to her description of Niagara Falls as an economic desolation, or so I understood her words to convey, it was of interest that while she was speaking I had before me an excerpt from the Niagara Falls Review of Friday or Saturday last. I am sure she would want me to see that the record is complete by quoting the words expressed at that time by William R. Sootheran,

chairman of the greater Niagara industrial committee. He is reported as follows:
One of the most productive years in this area's history of industrial growth has been recorded in 1960, William R. Sootheran, chairman of the greater Niagara industrial committee, told members of the Niagara Falls, Stamford and Chippawa municipal councils Friday.
"A total of six new firms have settled in the area and eight local industries have made major expansions to their manufacturing facilities," Mr. Sootheran said ...
Mr. Sootheran also expressed confidence that in the coming year "industrial growth will continue to expand due to the greater Niagara industrial committee's efforts," . . .
"The first firm to announce its intention of opening a new plant in the Niagara area was the Ford Motor Company of Canada Limited. When finished in early 1961, the 125,000-sq.ft. factory will employ approximately 250 persons," Mr, Sootheran continued.
"Then came Canadian Ohio Brass Company Limited with their plans to house the Holan division which will manufacture specialized truck bodies. This plant will also be in operation early in the new year."
Sterilon of Canada Limited, a subsidiary of Buffalo's Sterilon Corporation, has located here in a modern plant. . . and they are in full production at the present time,,-
And so on it goes. He said Anally as follows:
It has been an active year and great progress has been made in promoting the advantages of Niagara Falls as a site for new industry.
I thought those words of this industrial official might And their place in Hansard as well.
To the hon. member for Kootenay West (Mr. Herridge) I should like to say that I always listen to his remarks with great attention. I think he is becoming somewhat lonely though. He is still an unreconstructed socialist. He has not allowed the hon. member for Peterborough (Mr. Pitman), by the process of political osmosis, to change him, even although they are quite closely allied at the moment, I am sure he will view with alarm the early departure from the name of his party through the assumption by the same old party of a new name in which private enterprise, according to the hon. member for Assiniboia (Mr. Argue), is going to play a large and important part. These are indeed the days of transition. I only hope that the hon. gentleman will be able to And that solace and satisfaction in the old party with the private enterprise features and new phases that some others sitting close to him now And themselves able to appreciate.
In the course of his remarks the hon. member mentioned one or two points. He spoke most disparagingly of private enterprise. Of course he was not in Calgary last week, Mr. Speaker. That must have been a meeting that gathered together the hon.
90205-6-50i
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member for Assiniboia and others. The hon., member for Assiniboia spoke there feelingly and touchingly about the effects of private enterprise. That was not the position taken by the hon. member for Kootenay West. He made quite clear today what he thought with regard to the policies that were necessary for Canada, namely the maintenance of socialism in all its strength and power.
He asked the reason-and it was a perfectly proper question-why this institution was described as a charitable organization. I put it simply to him that the reason for that description is that if donations are made to charitable institutions, the donors are permitted to make the necessary deductions when determining the amount of their liability for income tax. Any corporations that make a contribution to the strengthening or to the improvement of the institution or to the fund in general of the productivity council will be able thereby, by reason of this clause, to claim the necessary deductions when determining income tax liability.
As to the manner in which jobs will be provided, I now come to one of the most interesting speeches that have been made. The hon. member for Bonavista-Twillingate (Mr. Pickersgill) is always interesting. He spoke as an historian. You will recall, Mr. Speaker, that he emphasized the fact that historians have certain knowledge and certain information that is denied to the rest of us. I found that fact singularly interesting because he is an historian. There have been some who have stated, and with some cause, that his latest contribution to the history of one of my predecessors may well win him the fiction award for 1960.
I must say this, Mr. Speaker. When he spoke of the fact that the legislation that has been brought before the house at this time will not provide jobs, let me point out that the legislation passed yesterday, almost as soon as third reading had been given to that legislation, permitted the following announcement to be made today, namely the construction of a new building for the eastern Ontario institute of technology, Ottawa.
It will cost about $2 million. Final plans have not been completed, but the building is to be pushed forward, immediately, ...
It will be constructed under the federal-provincial emergency program under which the federal government pays 75 per cent of the capital costs of buildings for technical education.
That is No. 1. All across this nation, as a result of one other piece of legislation that provided for a contribution from the federal government in connection with pollution measures, the result has been a tremendous demand everywhere in Canada by

Productivity Council
municipalities to take advantage of the legislation passed by this parliament to the end that if the work is done before March 31, 1963 the federal government provides a 25 per cent bonus of the amount of the loan advance. Everywhere across the country towns and municipalities are making applications to the end that they may proceed at once, because we fixed a date close enough and yet far enough away, to permit of the plans being made and the provisions being taken forthwith so that jobs would be maintained and employment would be increased.
To the hon. member for Bonavista-Twillin-gate I say this. If he had listened this afternoon to the hon. member for Halton (Mr. Best), he would have had an answer to the question he raised during the course of his remarks this evening. To the hon. member for Halton I want to say that his speech today was one of those to be remembered in this house, being representative of study, personal knowledge and experience. A reading of that speech will answer the questions of the hon. member for Bonavista-Twillin-gate as clearly as it was enunciated as to the purposes of the legislation; and no further words on my part are required in order to explain the legislation.
I must say that I followed with considerable interest the philosophical discourse of the hon. gentleman. He spoke of the ideas of the opposition, their clear-cut conception of what is to be done. They have never revealed it in the house, but they have it, Mr. Speaker.
But do you not recall that a few months ago a meeting was convened at Queen's University. There, from all parts of Canada, gathered together as of old in the cave of Adullam, were the representatives of liberalism with a small "1". There were mighty few of them from over there, because there were only six or seven chosen of the two hundred. They went there. When the hon. gentleman says they have an answer to these problems, the period of office from 1936 to 1940 and unemployment at that time, before the days of automation, is an answer to many of their arguments of today when they say they have an answer.
But they met. They were gathered there by selection and by choice. The viewpoints were all types of viewpoints. I have read them. It is a magnificent study in confusion. Read over the various concepts that were produced there. There were those that ranged from the official viewpoint of the Liberal party, which bear the Lamontagne trademark, to the economic fringe group. They were far to the left. One advocated the welfare state, financed by a tax on advertising.
[Mr. Diefenbaker.l
I have not the record here. I have sent out for some of the clippings. Then there was the Leader of the Opposition (Mr. Pearson). He said, "What Canada should have is a Canadian identity". Then there was the other group which believed in complete integration with the United States. Then there were those, Mr. Speaker, who when they were dealing with this great problem of employment said, "What we must do is to assure that Canadian industry shall have a Canadian identity".
At the same time the president of the Liberal federation, one of the major shareholders in an insurance company, sold out that company to the United States because it had a provincial licence. It was a gathering of the clans and the objective was to meet the problem of unemployment and to assure full production in Canada.
Then there were the old boys, many of them who said that what we require is a greater degree of centralization. Those were the autocrats of those days. Then there were the free traders. I spoke of the cave of Adullam that brought together all with varying thoughts. There was the free trade group, with Walter Gordon, the political boss of the Liberal party, as its chief opponent. It was most interesting that on the question of employment, how to meet the problem of automation, there was even more confusion than in the general concepts of the party.
Then there was the defence group, headed by a professor who advocated that in the interests of peace the Soviet defence minister, Mr. Malinovsky, should attend the meetings of the Canadian cabinet defence committee. That was one of the great conferences of all time.
Finally-and with this I must say I am not in disagreement-Michael Barkway in his analysis claimed he had heard remarks that the Liberals "cannot win public confidence unless they become completely disassociated from the old regime". No matter what we may think of those words, he ended up with these words and I bring them out because of the observation made by the hon. member for Bonavista-Twillingate respecting the confidence the people of Canada have in this government. Mr. Barkway said this:
It would be a ghoulish task to try to catalogue the dismal illusions and failures of the later Liberal years.
I want to give the whole quotation:
They would fill a book-a history of the 1950's which badly needs to be written.
I commend to the hon. member for Bonavista-Twillingate, when he finishes his present monumental work, that he might be able to undertake that work to which Mr. Barkway refers.


John Whitney Pickersgill: I intend to.


John George Diefenbaker: If the hon. member intends to do that, I hope he keeps closer to the facts. Then Mr. Barkway says:
But for the present purpose it is vital to indicate four of them which hang like millstones around the party's neck.
I thought I ought to refer to that conference. I looked through the references, the speeches and the deliberations and, sir, if you can find anything on this problem in which the two hundred were in agreement, then indeed you will have discovered something that I was unable to find.
The problem is a difficult one. The problem of unemployment today in all parts of North America is one that affects the thinking of the very best in public life, in industry, in economics, in the field of labour. All are endeavouring to arrive at something that will bring about a solution of a problem difficult, as the hon. member mentioned, in its implications and difficult to be met completely at an early date.
The hon. member for Bonavista-Twil-lingate has mentioned that on September 21 I referred to the program. We have been placing it before parliament step by step since this session began, and we intend to continue.
I did not intend to bring the hon. member for Laurier (Mr. Chevrier) in but I read from Hansard that in the resolution stage he complained, with great sincerity, of the fact that government members were daring to speak: they should not do that. He criticized that. He said, "They are holding up the legislation". It is only about three months ago that he was complaining that they were not speaking. On the one hand, in the last session of parliament the complaint was that they were not discharging their responsibilities; they were not speaking, and now the complaint is that, they analyse and assess and have taken the place of the opposition.


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh.


Mr. Crestohl:: It will not be long.


John George Diefenbaker: Now they are criticized, in return-


George James McIlraith: You are getting them trained for it.


John George Diefenbaker: I do not want to engage in any training of the hon. gentlemen, though I may have to. But I want to say this. They have criticized each piece of legislation. They have said it would not be effective. Then, Mr. Speaker, when the vote is called they are always there. Oh, it has been an interesting study as we watch them. Yet point after point is brought forward, and the legislative
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program is just nicely under way. Much remains to be introduced. It is difficult for the opposition. They do not feel very happy about it.
The members who support the government are attempting to present something of Canada's position. They are not being overly optimistic. They are able to point at an increase in production, at the greatest export trade in our history; they are able to point at a greater number of men employed than ever before, the same situation as exists in the United States. On the other hand, they are also trying to make their contribution to meet this problem which all of us are endeavouring to meet. The reason hon. gentlemen opposite are feeling not as happy as they were feeling a few months ago is the fact that they are finding that their policy of gloom, always gloom, is proving less and less effective among more and more people. They see a rising national production; they see a rising agricultural production, a greater and better return for agriculture, an increase in manufacture and production; they see the greatest trade with the United Kingdom that has ever taken place in our country; they see all of these things at a time of intense international competition. And they do not seem to be too happy about the results in that regard.


Lionel Chevrier: May I ask the Prime Minister a question?


John George Diefenbaker: When I am finished I shall be very glad to hear the question.
I simply say this: this is one more of the pieces of legislation. We do not say it will effect wonders but it is a major step forward. Placed alongside the steps already taken and those yet to be taken we believe we have outlined a plan which will give to Canadians as a whole new hope and new opportunities. Now, what is the question?


Lionel Chevrier: May I ask the Prime Minister this: will he put on the order paper between now and the time we adjourn for the Christmas recess the steps he intends to take over and above those he has already announced to deal with the emergency and the unemployment situation in the country today?


John George Diefenbaker: We shall place on the order paper, in accordance with the regular plan, the steps we intend to take, but we are not going to be stampeded into following the suggestions of the opposition in that regard. On the order paper, I believe tonight or tomorrow, will appear the step in agriculture. Then there are further steps which will be outlined as legislation is passed after full and complete discussion. Finally, just before the end of the session, prior to the Christmas
HOtfSE OT COMMONS
Division
holidays, the Minister of Finance (Mr. Fleming) will produce what has been described as a baby budget, and I want to say in that connection that the hon. gentleman will have every opportunity of discussing it before the Christmas adjournment. They raised an objection to the fact that the date fixed is December 20. The reason for that date is the absence of ministers on their duties in Europe.
The other day it was stated there was something about this that was unfair and unjust. Do hon: gentlemen opposite remember 1952? At that time, when they sat over here, they introduced the budget just before Easter, one day before the adjournment, and it went over without discussion until after the Easter holidays. Do they recall 1955 when the same course was followed? We shall place before the house, as I said before, further legislation, further legislative steps. We have yet, of course, to face the house on the question of the supplementary estimates. We should like to get these through before Christmas. As soon as we have the present items of legislation passed we shall proceed in the order indicated by the leader of the house. Having done that, we shall be in a position to carry out further legislative enactments. The course of action is ready. The chart has been laid out.


Lionel Chevrier: Bring it on.


John George Diefenbaker: I respect the curiosity of the hon. gentleman, because each of these pieces of legislation they say is worthless, and then they vote for it. We are going to bring on further matters, and ultimately the whole picture will be here to receive the attention of the House of Commons. But we are not going to throw legislation at the house in an indiscriminate manner. We intend to follow a regular and proper plan to the end that the house and parliament as a whole may have the opportunity to fully consider all these matters, and we believe that out of this general plan, when finally it finds its way to the statute books, we shall have gone a long way toward carrying out those promises which we made in 1957 and 1958 in their entirety, and that we shall also have gone a long way to bring about that degree of economic prosperity which is the objective of this government.


Mr. Speaker:: I declare the motion carried.
Bill read the second time, and the house went into committee thereon, Mr. Flynn in the chair.
On clause 1-Short title.


John Whitney Pickersgill: Before clause 1 carries I should like to draw attention to the fact that-


Mr. Palleil:: The hon. member for York Centre has the floor.


John Whitney Pickersgill: Since the whip has made an observation, I think I should draw your attention to the fact that, unless the minister speaks, it has always been the custom in this house, in my experience, to recognize a member of the opposition. If the minister wishes to speak I will yield to him at once.
As I was saying, I merely rose to draw attention to the fact that in the exceedingly entertaining and utterly irrelevant speech that the Prime Minister made on the second reading he was most careful not to answer the question that perhaps I should have asked in committee anyway rather than on second reading; and the question I repeat to the stepfather of the bill who is now sponsoring it in committee is, will the minister tell us just how many jobs this bill is going to provide in the next six months? This is the question I invited the Prime Minister to answer; this is the question he ignored completely. I would also ask the minister to tell us at the same time just what procedure he envisages will be followed under this measure to provide jobs over a longer period, and how many additional jobs will be generated by this legislation?


Mr. Hodgson:: Why not ask the hon. member for Laurier? He knows everything.


John Whitney Pickersgill: This is government legislation.


Mr. Starr:: With respect to the inquiry of the hon. member for Bonavista-Twillingate as to how many jobs the setting up of the productivity council will create, that is certainly a nonsensical question because the council is being set up to delve into the industrial sector in co-operation with management and
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labour committees now established to the extent of 1,600 across the country in order to find out where and how productivity can best be increased. At the same time it will have in mind the human element in the industry concerned and try to work out a plan whereby people who may be displaced because of automation can find some other useful place in our economy.


John Whitney Pickersgill: The minister's answer is fine as far as it goes but it does not go very far. The minister talks about looking after the human element. As I said earlier at another stage of the bill, it was precisely the human element in the problem that those of us on this side of the house expected this council would be primarily concerned with. The urgent problem at this time is to provide jobs for the people who have already been displaced by measures to increase productivity. I think the minister should tell us just how the council is going to deal with the human element and what techniques the government envisages it will use to deal with what the minister referred to as persons displaced by measures to increase productivity. That is what we really want to know. That is the crucial question with respect to the bill and the one on which I should like to hear the minister.


Michael Starr: When automation sets in in any industry there are no provisions under present circumstances, unless there is a humane feeling on the part of those controlling the industry itself, to enable the people who are displaced to re-establish themselves when as a result of automation or technological change they find themselves out of a job. The ultimate and most important job of the productivity council will be, if automation is resorted to in an industry in order to accelerate productivity, to recommend the retraining of the people who are displaced so that they may be best fitted into some other useful employment in our labour force.


George James McIlraith: Following the answer given by the minister, I take it it would not be the job of the council to recommend policies that might help to provide alternative employment for those persons who have lost their jobs. Is that right?


Michael Starr: No, not specifically.


George James McIlraith: Then there seems to be a misapprehension about the whole legislation. As was mentioned in the debate on earlier stages of the bill, it was announced by the Prime Minister at the conclusion of a conference on unemployment-I do not have the clippings here but this is the gist of it-that the council would help to do something to meet the problem of unemployment. In any

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event, the establishment of the council was announced, in conjunction with the report on the conference on unemployment. The legislation is mentioned in the speech from the throne and reference is made there to the ultimate success of efforts to improve Canada's trade and employment. What I should like the minister to do now is to relate to the committee a little more closely just how this measure will improve the employment situation in Canada. I would ask him to relate that in a more specific way bearing in mind the genesis of the legislation and the way in which it was announced and, if you like, represented to the public.


Michael Starr: The conference that was called in October by the Prime Minister was not a conference on unemployment. I think the hon. member should note that it was a conference on employment. In my view the best way that the productivity council can assist in the matter of employment is by helping to make industry in this country more efficient and as a result more competitive. Consequently, because of the improved ability of industry to sell its products abroad more employment would be created.


Lionel Chevrier: Because of the remarks which the Minister of Labour has made in answer to questions already put to him by the hon. member for Bonavista-Twillingate and the hon. member for Ottawa West it seems to me that this is a measure which should be under the jurisdiction of the Minister of Labour, and I am wondering why the government decided to put it under the jurisdiction of the Minister of Trade and Commerce. Would the minister explain that to the committee?


Michael Starr: It actually comes under both. Reports will be made to the Minister of Trade and Commerce and the Minister of Labour but because of the fact that productivity is involved and as a result the exporting of products it properly comes under the Minister of Trade and Commerce who will report to parliament.


Lionel Chevrier: Is it not primarily a matter falling under the jurisdiction of labour rather than trade and commerce?


Michael Starr: Not primarily, no. It is a cooperative effort, we hope, on the part of labour, management and other groups and that is why the composition of the productivity council is as set out in the bill.


Mr. Peters:: Mr. Chairman, I am wondering why the Liberal opposition voted for the bill tonight in view of the questions they have asked. They are asking the same questions that I asked. Why do we need a productivity council in Canada when, as was indicated in most of the speeches made today, we are overproducing in almost every field. Unless we can get rid of the products we have now we are one of the last countries in the world to need a productivity council. We need a sales council. We need to put all our efforts into selling the products we now produce. In each of the fields where productivity has been speeded up we have a surplus. May I call it ten o'clock, Mr. Chairman?
Progress reported.



BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE

Lionel Chevrier: May I ask what we will be doing tomorrow and Thursday?


Mr. Churchill:: Mr. Speaker, Thursday will be a government day and the private members' Thursday will be postponed to a future date. We have before us now the productivity council bill in the committee stage. I also suggested that we would consider supplementary estimates and if we finish the productivity bill tomorrow we will take up supplementary estimates. In addition to those two items, we have the resolution on veterans pensions which was introduced last night and in Votes and Proceedings tomorrow will appear a resolution dealing with a proposed agricultural program. I presume that these four items will take up the time of the house on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday. If there is any change in the order of consideration it will be announced at the appropriate time.


Lionel Chevrier: I take it then that if we complete the productivity council legislation tomorrow we' will go on with the supplementary estimates and continue with them until completed.


Gordon Minto Churchill: It depends on the progress we make. Each evening I will suggest to the house what we will continue with but tomorrow, being a short day, I would expect that we would not get very far with the supplementary estimates and might have to carry on with them oh Thursday.


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