1960-07-29

Mr. Speaker:: I feel sure that hon. members would permit me to express a word of welcome to the three distinguished members of the Bundestag, the house of commons of the Federal Republic of Germany, who are here today, particularly since last year the Bundestag extended a very cordial welcome to a parliamentary delegation from this House of Commons.



COMMITTEES OF THE HOUSE

[Stage Direction]
Third report of special committee on defence expenditures-Mr. Halpenny.
(Translation):

Mr. R. J. McCleave (Halifax):: Mr. Speaker, I have the honour to table the twentieth report of the standing committee on miscellaneous private bills, both in English and in French.
(Text):



PRIVILEGE


Hon. Ellen L. Fairclough (Minister of Citizenship and Immigration):: I rise on a matter of personal privilege, arising out of an advertisement in last night's Ottawa Journal by Abseil Wholesale which quotes an exchange which took place in this house a few days ago. At that time I rose and took issue with a statement made by the hon. member for Skeena that I was a client of this outfit.
Mr. Speaker, such is not true. I do not know this organization; I have never set foot in their establishment. On inquiry I discovered that a member of my staff had made a purchase there some time ago, without my knowledge, using a blank cheque with my signature which she endorsed. She has told me she shopped for the article desired in a number of other stores but was unable to purchase it anywhere else.
Under the circumstances it will be apparent that this was not a purchase made by me, and I repeat that I do not know this organization.



BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE

[Stage Direction]
REFERENCE OF BILL NO. SD-124 BACK to STANDING COMMITTEE
Robert Jardine McCleave: That the order for house again in committee of the whole on Bill SD-124, an act for the relief of Louise Dupuis Papineau, be discharged; and that the said bill be referred back to the standing committee on miscellaneous private bills together with the evidence taken and the papers produced in respect of the said bill before the Senate standing committee on divorce, and the letter of the petitioner's solicitor and the petitioner's own sworn petition and affidavit requesting that her original petition for divorce be withdrawn.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to.
(Translation):

[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Hon. Lionel Chevrier (Laurier):: Mr. Speaker, I wish to direct a question to the Acting Secretary of State. Is it true that he made this statement, as reported in La Presse for July 28, 1960, and I quote:
The Acting Secretary of State also pointed out that a reduction of the defence budget has enabled the federal government to better "meet its responsibilities towards the provinces".


Hon. Leon Balcer (Acting Secretary of State):: Mr. Speaker, having neither seen nor read the article in question, I shall reserve my judgment on the matter. I do not recall using those very words.


Lionel Chevrier: A supplementary question, Mr. Speaker. In fact, this is a reference to a statement allegedly made by the minister over the radio. It seetms to me, therefore, that he should remember it.
My second question is this: Is it the policy of the government to cut down on war expenditures in order to give more to the provinces?


Léon Balcer: Mr. Speaker, in the statement I made over the radio, I explained that this year the government had reduced defence expenditures; on the same occasion, I listed certain federal government expenditures that were helping out the provinces.


Lionel Chevrier: May I have a reply to my question: Is it the policy of the government to reduce war expenditures, so as to give more money to the provinces?

Inquiries of the Ministry


Léon Balcer: The policy of the government is to reduce any unnecessary expenses and develop all useful services.
(Text):



UNITED NATIONS


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. Hazen Argue (Assiniboia):: Mr. Speaker, I sent this question earlier this morning to the Prime Minister's office. In his absence I wonder whether I might address it to the Acting Prime Minister. In view of the C.B.C. report this morning to the effect that Premier Lumumba told United States authorities in Washington yesterday that he is willing to accept more foreign troops so that Belgian troops in the Congo may be repatriated to their own country as soon as possible, and in view of the fact that French is a common language in the Congo, can the Acting Prime Minister say whether the Canadian government will offer to the premier during his visit a French speaking infantry battalion for service in the Congo?


Hon. Howard C. Green (Secreiary of State for External Affairs):: Mr. Speaker, any troops which are sent to the Congo are going under the authority of the United Nations and not on the request of the prime minister of the Congo. Any action which Canada took would be through the United Nations, and we have received no request from the United Nations for a battalion from Canada.


Hazen Robert Argue: A supplementary question. Can the Acting Prime Minister say whether this question will be discussed with the premier?
I realize that troops will be available, of course, through the United Nations.


Howard Charles Green: I cannot say what items will be discussed with the prime minister of the Congo, but certainly any troops which Canada might send to that country would go under the authority of the United Nations.


Hon. L. B. Pearson (Leader of fhe Opposition):: May I ask the minister whether the government has indicated to the United Nations the kind of forces we will be in a position to send if requested to do so?


Howard Charles Green: I indicated to the house some days ago that the suggestion had been made to Canada that we should send administrative troops, and that is still the situation.



LABOUR CONDITIONS


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. H. J. Robichaud (Gloucester):: I wish to direct a question to the Minister of Finance. If the minister does not have the information he may take the question as notice. Has the minister received representation from the international brotherhood of electrical workers requesting that the 150 employees at Her Majesty's Canadian dockyard at Esquimalt, British Columbia, be permitted to retain their credit union and co-operative health plan and be given the privilege of premium payments by payroll deductions similar to the privilege granted to other groups of employees dealing with other insurance companies? If so, what action has the minister taken in this matter?


Hon. Donald M. Fleming (Minister of Finance):: Mr. Speaker, I have not received any such representation. I shall make an inquiry to ascertain if any message has come to the Department of Finance, but I have not received any representation personally.



PUBLIC SERVICE


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. H. W. Herridge (Kootenay West):: Mr. Speaker, I wish to address a question to the Secretary of State for External Affairs. The question I raise was brought to my attention by a distinguished member of a well-known Canadian family whose exploits in Canadian history are well recorded in our records.


Mr. Grafftey:: Ask your question.


Herbert Wilfred Herridge: Don't be in too much of a hurry. In view of the report in this morning's Globe and Mail to the effect that external affairs officials are trying to round up an interpreter for Prime Minister Lumumba, who speaks French but not English, and in view of the fact that the present government has repeatedly stated its respect for the bicultural and bilingual character of the country, would the minister assure the house that there are senior French speaking officials in his department fully competent to receive the prime minister of the Congo without an official interpreter being engaged?


Howard Charles Green: Mr. Speaker, the hon. member for Kootenay West usually asks some witty question, but today he has asked a very foolish one. He should not be so gullible as to believe all the things he reads,

even in the Globe and Mail. The Department of External Affairs has, I believe, far more bilingual officials than any other department of government. The deputy under secretary happens to be a very distinguished French speaking civil servant, and even the minister is becoming at least partially bilingual.


Herbert Wilfred Herridge: I am glad my question at least brought that information to the attention of the house.



ATOMIC ENERGY


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Hazen Robert Argue: I would like to direct a question to the Minister of Trade and Commerce. Can the minister assure the house that atomic waste from the United States will not be dumped off British Columbia or other Canadian coastal waters? Can the minister also inform the house why, as reported, Crossroads Marine Disposal Corporation of Boston, a firm which is licensed by the United States Atomic Energy Corporation to dispose of United States atomic wastes off the United States eastern seaboard, is now operating a plant in Nanaimo, British Columbia for the manufacture of containers for the disposal of atomic waste, and can the minister say where these containers will be used?


Mr. Speaker:: Did the hon. member give notice of this question? Unless the minister wishes to answer, it appears to be an appropriate question to be put on the order paper.


Hon. Gordon Churchill (Minister of Trade and Commerce):: The notice was very short, about an hour. The source of this report is not identified. The first question is applicable to the Department of External Affairs, not to the Department of Trade and Commerce, and the second question cannot be answered because we have no information which could be obtained within an hour as to whether the firm mentioned has a plant which is operating in Nanaimo, British Columbia, so obviously the question should be placed on the order paper.


Hazen Robert Argue: In view of the lateness of the session I wonder whether the minister would make further inquiries and give an answer some time before the session ends?


Gordon Minto Churchill: The matter will be pursued. I would appreciate the source from which the hon. member has obtained his information.


Hazen Robert Argue: I shall be glad to supply that information to the minister.
29. 1960	7189
Inquiries of the Ministry FISHERIES



BRITISH COLUMBIA


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Hon. J. W. Pickersgill (Bonavisia-Twillin-gaie):: I wonder if I may address a question to the Minister of Fisheries and ask him whether it is his intention to make public the report of Dr. Sinclair on the British Columbia fishing industry, and whether the government intends to carry out its recommendations.


Hon. J. A. MacLean (Minister of Fisheries):: No decision has been arrived at in connection with that matter as yet.


John Whitney Pickersgill: Even about publication?


John Angus MacLean: That is so.



AIRPORTS


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. John Pratt (Jacques Carlier-Lasalle):: I wish to direct a question to the Minister of Transport. I wonder if the minister could give us an up to the minute report on the progress which has been achieved in the construction of the new air terminal at Dorval.


Hon. George H. Hees (Minister of Transport):: Yes, Mr. Speaker. Yesterday afternoon I made an inspection of the progress in the construction of the new air terminal at Dorval. I was very much impressed by what I saw. There were at least a thousand men working on the job, and progress is very satisfactory. I would say from what I saw yesterday that there is no doubt this will be one of the finest air terminal buildings anywhere in the world, which of course is in keeping with the needs of the great city of Montreal. We fully expect to open the terminal this year as advertised.


An hon. Member:: Was the minister given notice of that question?



DOMINION-PROVINCIAL CONFERENCE STATEMENT ON FUTURE USE OF CONTINUING COMMITTEE

[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Hon. Paul Marlin (Essex Easf):: May I ask
the Minister of Finance a question. In view of the criticism directed at the minister's instrument known as a seminar or study group on federal-provincial fiscal relations, is it the intention of the government to continue that particular form of discussion with

Inquiries of the Ministry the provinces or has the hon. gentleman now decided to abandon that procedure entirely?


Donald Methuen Fleming: There has been no criticism from any responsible source-


An hon. Member:: Touche.


Donald Methuen Fleming: -either of the continuing committee or of the use which has been made of it. As a matter of fact, not very long ago I heard a commendation of the work of this committee-


Paul Joseph James Martin: By whom?


Donald Methuen Fleming: -from responsible sources-


John Whitney Pickersgill: Responsible but secret.


Donald Methuen Fleming: -on some aspects of the work it had done in preparation for the plenary conference which was held in Ottawa the first three days of this week. Indeed, so highly is the work of the continuing committee regarded by the eleven governments concerned that it has been asked to meet in the interval before the resumption of the plenary conference, and arrangements have already been launched to hold a meeting of that committee in mid-September. I have no doubt that the meeting of the continuing committee at that time will be fruitful, as have its previous meetings. I have heard some suggestion of an effort being made on the part of persons who are not altogether unallied with the hon. gentleman politically in seeking to claim some credit for the original appointment of the continuing committee.


Lester Bowles Pearson: Mr. Speaker, I rise on a question of privilege. Is it proper in this house to refer to the premier of Ontario as an irresponsible source?


Donald Methuen Fleming: Mr. Speaker, obviously the question put by the Leader of the Opposition has no relationship whatever to anything I said.



REQUEST FOR BREAKDOWN OF FIGURES QUOTED BY MINISTER OF FINANCE

[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
John Whitney Pickersgill: Mr. Speaker, I wonder if I could ask the Minister of Finance if he could clear up an ambiguity about his estimate of $2 billion. Could he say whether that includes payments already being made or whether that is additional to what is now being made?


Donald Methuen Fleming: There is no
ambiguity and there never has been in this respect in anything I said, Mr. Speaker. The figure I used, as I made quite clear, indicated additional payments.


John Whitney Pickersgill: Could the minister in some fashion provide hon. members with a breakdown?


Mr. Speaker:: Order. We dealt with this matter yesterday. The hon. member is repeating his request. I daresay it will be taken into account.



STATEMENT ON DELIVERY AND QUOTA POSITION

[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. Jack McIntosh (Swift Current-Maple
Creek): Mr. Speaker, I should like to direct a question to the Minister of Trade and Commerce. On Wednesday last, July 27, the minister was asked several questions with regard to the quota system as it pertains to grain producers in the prairie provinces. In reply to my question as to whether the 128 points still on the 6-bushel quota were the same points that were on low quotas in previous years, the minister stated he would have the answer later this week. I wonder if the minister is now in a position to advise the house about this situation.
Gordon Minto Churchill: Yes, Mr. Speaker. On Monday I reported that there were 128 points still on the 6-bushel quota. That number has now been reduced to 52, so that most of the stations are now on the 7-bushel quota.
With regard to the specific question, a year ago, on July 31, 1959 there were 183 stations on the 6-bushel delivery quota. I took this up with the Canadian wheat board in August and asked them to give special consideration to those stations during the course of the present crop year. That has been done. I checked with the wheat board on several occasions during the course of the year to make sure that those stations which had complained about being on a low quota for several years would be given special attention. They were on a low quota because of conditions during the course of this crop year and the previous crop year, when a certain amount of grain in the northern part of the three prairie provinces was damp and had to be moved rather quickly to the terminal elevators.
During the early part of this year I mentioned that fact on several occasions. I think the farmers generally in western Canada appreciated the fact that in order that the damp grain might be moved rapidly some would have to wait their turn on the quota. Nevertheless the 183 stations that were checked last year are all on the 7-bushel quota and were on the 7-bushel quota on July

27 when the question was asked. The wheat board has met the necessary requirement there.
The board informs me that the space situation at these points is such that the delivery of the full 7-bushel quota should be possible by July 31. If at the end of the crop year there are some stations still on the 6-bushel quota, or some on the 7-bushel quota where deliveries have been inadequate due to full storage space, I will do the same thing again with the wheat board and check to make sure that during the course of the next crop year those stations receive special attention.


Mr. McIntosh:: I should like to ask a supplementary question. Can the minister tell us the area in which the 52 stations still on the 6-bushel quota are located? Is it in the southern part of the province or the northern part?


Gordon Minto Churchill: I do not have the actual area and cannot say whether it is in the north or south, but perhaps I could give a rundown of the quota distribution. Of the 2,007 stations, in Ontario there are 2 on the 7-bushel quota; in Manitoba 369, or the entire group; in Saskatchewan 11 on the 6-bushel quota and 1,071 on 7; in Alberta 41 on the 6-bushel quota and 508 on 7, and in British Columbia 5 stations all told on the 7-bushel quota. The grand total is 52 still on 6-bushels and 1,955 on 7. I will find out for the hon. member what areas are affected by the 11 in Saskatchewan and 41 in Alberta.


Hazen Robert Argue: I should like to ask a supplementary question. In addition to the welcome announcement about special attention next year, I wonder whether the minister has given any consideration to whether deliveries could take place for a short time within the new crop year, perhaps for two weeks, so the 7-bushel quota could in fact be available to producers at all points.


Gordon Minto Churchill: I dealt with that question the other day, but it might be worth while to expand it a bit. I discussed with the wheat board the general subject of extension of quotas beyond July 31. As hon. members know, the initial quotas for the 1960-61 crop year become effective on August 1. This is in accordance with the practice of the wheat board, and the same policy has been followed over the last few years. In the opinion of the wheat board it is better to end each year's delivery quota on July 31 and open up with initial delivery quotas for the ensuing crop year on August 1. If delivery quotas were extended for a period after July 31, all deliveries would have to be for the account of the 1960-1961 pool, because under the terms of the Canadian Wheat Board Act
Inquiries of the Ministry July 31 is the terminal date for all pools. The extension of old quotas into a new crop year would result in delaying deliveries under new quotas which become effective on August 1.
Nevertheless, as I mentioned the other day, in one or two instances where box cars arrive on the last day of the crop year I think the practice has been to see that those box cars are filled up, even if it is August 1, and sent on their way. Generally speaking, however, the quotas and the deliveries end on July 31 for the 1959-60 crop year, and the new crop year opens on August 1.



WHEAT BOARD REGULATIONS RESPECTING DELIVERIES TO FEED MILLS

[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Hazen Robert Argue: Mr. Speaker, on July 26 the minister promised me an answer within a few days, and perhaps he has it now, with respect to whether or not it is the policy of the Canadian wheat board to insist that feed mills in the purchase of grain shall purchase it through ordinary delivery quotas, or is the policy being changed in line with the report of the agriculture committee?


Gordon Minto Churchill: Mr. Speaker, I referred the matter to the Canadian wheat board and asked them to consult with the advisory committee of the wheat board. I propose having a conference with the wheat board as soon as possible after the session is over to discuss this matter and see what should be done with regard to the proposal put forward by the agriculture committee.



ADMINISTRATION OF JUSTICE


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. D. M. Fisher (Port Arthur):: I should like to address a question to the Minister of Justice based upon a report by Gerald Waring on C.B.C.'s "Preview Commentary" today, which indicated that the Chinese immigration difficulties now being studied by the R.C.M.P. are related to a mysterious Chinese secret society known as the Triad. Can the minister give us any indication whether such a sinister society is or has been operating in Canada?


Hon. E. D. Fulton (Minister of Justice):: Mr. Speaker, the details of the operation and of the evidence collected by the police in the course of that operation and investigation will be made known as charges are laid and the cases brought before the courts. At that time the courts will have to determine whether the evidence justifies or supports the charges

Inquiries of the Ministry as laid, including charges that may or may not be laid against any member of any organization or the organization itself. Therefore I think it would be improper for me at this time to name or deny the name of any person or organization with respect to whom speculation may suggest that they are the subject of investigation.



MONTREAL


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Edmund Davie Fulton: While I am on my feet, Mr. Speaker, I should like to inform the house that I am advised that reports which have appeared in the press regarding the arrest of two Chinese in Montreal yesterday are inaccurate, especially in so far as mention was made that these Chinese were arraigned as much as three hours after their arrest. In fact I am advised that they were arrested at 1 p.m. and were before the court at 2.30 p.m.
In view of the adverse reaction and in some respects unjustifiable criticism with respect to the questioning that has been carried on in the past, may I say there has been no questioning at all of these two persons, on this occasion at least. Upon arrest they were taken directly to the R.C.M.P. headquarters for fingerprinting only and then taken directly before a judge. They have been released on bail. Further arrests are expected within a few days.



ALLEGED PERJURY IN DIVORCE CASE

[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. Arnold Peiers (Timiskaming):: Mr. Speaker, I should like to direct a question to the Minister of Justice. Is the minister in a position to report on the investigation being conducted by the R.C.M.P. into the alleged perjury in the Eccles divorce case heard before the miscellaneous private bills committee this year? If not, is he in a position to make a progress report?


Edmund Davie Fulton: The hon. member's question anticipates something which has not yet commenced, that is, an investigation by the R.C.M.P. A day or two ago I received a letter from the chief of the committees branch transmitting to me the report of the committee, and I also received a day or two ago the transcript of the evidence. In considering this matter I have felt that inasmuch as the matters concern themselves with two possible species of misconduct, first collusion and second perjury, and inasmuch as either or both of these, if they occurred, occurred also and
(Mr. Fulton.]
primarily with respect to the proceedings before the Senate committee, it would be only appropriate that I should communicate with the chairman of the Senate committee to see whether that hon. senator or his committee felt that there was further action their committee desired to take in the matter. I have indicated to him and I am ready to refer the question to the attorney general of Ontario, especially with regard to perjury, but I believe also the attorney general of Quebec should be informed in that regard. I felt it would not be proper for me to do so without obtaining the comments of the Senate committee first.
Of course, with respect to the matter of collusion, if there be collusion, that would have been committed or would have resulted in an abuse of the procedures of parliament but primarily in the Senate committee itself, and it is of course within the power of that body to deal with such an offence, if such an offence were committed in connection with the hearings there.



INDIAN AFFAIRS


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. Frank Howard (Skeena):: I should like to ask the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration whether she is aware that Bright's wine store at 186 Sparks street, Ottawa, is displaying an antiquated notice issued under the authority of the former director of Indian affairs which prohibits the sale of alcoholic beverages to Indians. In view of the fact that in Ontario Indians are now supposed to be on an equal basis with white men so far as liquor is concerned, would the minister make inquiries to see whether there is any justification for this notice being there?


Mr. Speaker:: I think the hon. member will agree with me that this matter is not of such urgency and importance as to occupy the time of the house when we are approaching the end of the session. I suggest that he take it up privately with the minister.


Frank Howard: It is very important to some individuals.



BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Lester Bowles Pearson: May I ask the house leader what arrangements have been made for the resumption of the debate on capital punishment?



I960

Gordon Minto Churchill: The understanding was that as we reached the close of the session, the house would determine what it wished to do; and in that regard, if the Leader of the Opposition will inform me as to the day on which we will close perhaps we can make some arrangements.


Lester Bowles Pearson: Is the minister not aware that the Prime Minister gave the house an assurance that arrangements would be made for the resumption of this debate?


Gordon Minto Churchill: My understanding is that he said it would be open to the house to determine what would be done.


Lester Bowles Pearson: Read Hansard.



AMENDMENT TO BRITISH NORTH AMERICA ACT


Edmund Davie Fulton: That a humble address be presented to Her Majesty the Queen in the following words:
To the Queen's Most Excellent Majesty:
Most Gracious Sovereign:
We, Your Majesty's most dutiful and loyal subjects, the commons of Canada in parliament assembled, humbly approach Your Majesty, praying that you may graciously be pleased to cause a measure to be laid before the parliament of the United Kingdom to be expressed as follows:
An act to amend the British North America Act, 1867.
Whereas the Senate and commons of Canada in parliament assembled have submitted addresses to Her Majesty praying that Her Majesty may graciously be pleased to cause a measure to be laid before the parliament of the United Kingdom for the enactment of the provisions hereinafter set forth:
Be it therefore enacted by the Queen's most Excellent Majesty, by and with the advice and consent of the lords spiritual and temporal, and commons, in this present parliament assembled, and by the authority of the same, as follows:
1.	Section ninety nine of the British North America Act, 1867 is hereby repealed and the following substituted therefor:
"99. (1) Subject to subsection two of this section, the judges of the superior, district and county courts shall hold>
office during good behaviour, but shall be removable by the Governor General on address of the Senate and House of Commons.
(2) A judge of a superior, district or county court, whether appointed before or after the coming into force of this section, shall cease to hold office upon attaining the age of seventy five years, or upon the coming into force of this section if at that time he has already attained that age."
2.	This act may be cited as the British North America Act, 1960, and the British North America Acts, 1867 to 1952, and this act may be cited together as the British North America Acts, 1867 to 1960.
3.	This act shall come into force on the first day of March, nineteen hundred and sixty one. be rescinded, and that the following resolution be substituted therefor:
B.N.A. Act
That a humble address be presented to Her Majesty the Queen in the following words:
To the Queen's Most Excellent Majesty:
Most Gracious Sovereign:
We, Your Majesty's most dutiful and loyal subjects, the commons of Canada in parliament assembled, humbly approach Your Majesty, praying that you may graciously be pleased to cause a measure to be laid before the parliament of the United Kingdom to be expressed as follows:
An act to amend the British North America Act, 1867.
Whereas the Senate and House of Commons of Canada in parliament assembled have submitted addresses to Her Majesty praying that Her Majesty may graciously be pleased to cause a measure to be laid before the parliament of the United Kingdom for the enactment of the provisions hereinafter set forth:
Be it therefore enacted by the Queen's most Excellent Majesty, by and with the advice and consent of the lords spiritual and temporal, and commons, in this present parliament assembled, and by the authority of the same, as follows:
1.	Section ninety nine of the British North America Act, 1867 is hereby repealed and the following substituted therefor:
"99. (1) Subject to subsection two of this section, the judges of the superior courts shall hold office during good behaviour, but shall be removable by the Governor General on address of the Senate and House of Commons.
(2) A judge of a superior court, whether appointed before or after the coming into force of this section, shall cease to hold office upon attaining the age of seventy five years, or upon the coming into force of this section if at that time he has already attained that age."
2.	This act may be cited as the British North America Act, 1960, and the British North America Acts, 1867 to 1952, and this act may be cited together as the British North America Acts, 1867 to 1960.
3.	This act shall come into force on the first day of March, nineteen hundred and sixty one.
He said: Mr. Speaker, I am very appreciative of the privilege of moving, on behalf of the right hon. the Prime Minister, the motion which stands in his name on the order paper. The motion, as hon. members will appreciate, asks that the house rescind the resolution adopted by this house on June 14 and substitute therefor a new resolution. The new resolution is in exactly the same form as the original resolution, with the exception that it omits reference to county and district court judges.
The effect of the new resolution therefore, Mr. Speaker, will be to ask Her Majesty to place before the United Kingdom parliament a proposal to amend the British North America Act to provide a retirement age of 75 for the judges of the superior courts ol the provinces of Canada. This change is made necessary-I cannot go so far as to say desirable-by the fact that the other place, in dealing with a motion they had before them which had been in identical terms to the resolution which we adopted on June 14, came to the conclusion that they should delete the reference to district and county court judges.

B.N.A. Act
The situation then was that we were faced with the necessity of taking action to deal with our own resolution in order to avoid the possibility of Her Majesty being confronted with humble addresses from the two different houses of the parliament of Canada in two different forms. This, it seemed to us, was a most undesirable if not an improper position for us to contemplate the crown being placed in. While therefore, Mr. Speaker, the government felt that its own view as to the form of the resolution was correct, nevertheless we came to the conclusion also that the exigencies of the situation, in all their implications, indicated that the preferable course was for us to invite this house to rescind its own resolution and adopt a new one which would be in exact conformity with the resolution of the Senate.
This having been done-and I trust this house will agree that this is the preferable course-then the two addresses founded on the resolution may be forwarded, and will be in identical terms. This is, of course, I am satisfied, what parliament would wish to see when we present addresses of this far-reaching importance and consequence to Her Majesty.
I have said that we felt this was the preferable course, and I should perhaps add we felt it was a course that could be adopted with propriety under the circumstances, notwithstanding our previous expression of opinion that it was desirable to include the reference to district and county court judges. In arriving at our conclusion that this was the preferable course, we were reinforced by the realization that in asking the House of Commons to adopt this course we would be achieving the major purpose which we presented to the house, that is of insuring that there will be a retiring age limit of 75 for superior court judges. We realized also that the determination of the retiring age of county court judges might then still be made in accordance with the present provisions of the Judges Act. In adopting this course we are achieving the major purpose, and we are not producing the result that the district and county court judges will have no retiring age limit set because their retiring age may continue to be determined, as at present, by the Judges Act.
On the basis of these considerations, but for the primary reason that we felt it would be undesirable that this parliament should present to Her Majesty addresses in two different forms, one from each house, we came to the conclusion that we should ask the House of Commons to rescind its resolution and substitute another.

Now, with respect to the procedure being followed, the authorities have been consulted, and I think there is no question but that this is the proper course, although it looks cumbersome on the order paper. Our position is that there is authority to the effect that the resolution can be rescinded and a new one substituted therefor, and that this is preferable to a motion to amend a resolution already adopted.
For these reasons, Mr. Speaker, I submit to the house this new resolution calling for the rescinding of the earlier one and the adoption of the new one.


Lester Bowles Pearson: Mr. Speaker, the views of the official opposition in regard to the purpose of the resolution which is now before the house were made known when we discussed the previous resolution, and I do not need to repeat those views on this occasion. At that time we expressed our support for an amendment to the British North America Act, which was undoubtedly required to provide for a retiring age for superior court judges. There was no difference of opinion between the government and ourselves on that score, although there was a difference of opinion as to whether this provision should be made applicable, as we thought, only to judges that were to be appointed henceforth.
However, Mr. Speaker, the decision of the house on that matter was reached, and I have no desire to reopen that question. The decision has been taken. However, this resolution before us today differs from the earlier resolution, as the Minister of Justice has pointed out, in the omission of the previous provision for an amendment to the British North America Act covering the retirement age of district and county court judges.
That provision is omitted. That was a provision that we did our best to have taken out, for reasons which we indicated at some length at the time the earlier resolution was before the house. We were not successful. The other house, however, decided that this provision should be omitted and it saves parliament, as the minister has put it-and indeed the British parliament-from the embarrassment of attempting to deal with two resolutions, not identical, in connection with an amendment to the constitution, the government has decided to accept this omission as recommended by the other house and has submitted this new resolution which implements that decision.
I think the government has been extremely wise in taking this course, which in our view saves this parliament from the consequences of a reversion to colonialism-


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh.


Lester Bowles Pearson: It will be a simple matter to show that. At a time when the Prime Minister has called for a conference or rather has accepted an invitation to a conference which would repatriate, so we hope, the rest of our constitution; while that initiative was being taken, a step had been taken in this house which, if it had been carried out, would have resulted in the expatriation of a part of the constitution which is now under our control.
There has been a good deal of public misunderstanding of the meaning of this provision as it appeared in the first resolution, and some misinterpretation of the effect of its removal. As the minister himself has pointed out, this provision has nothing whatever to do with the retiring age of county court or district court judges. It has nothing whatever to do with that matter. The federal government has legislated for that purpose now without challenge, so far as I know, for 73 years. Under that legislation of this parliament the present age limit of 75 years for district and county court judges was established, I believe, as far back as 1913.
There is therefore no question of re-establishing a retirement age which was established so many years ago. All that this provision would have done-I refer to the one which is now omitted-was to have removed, according to the minister, doubts about the constitutionality of those actions which have been taken by this parliament over a period of 73 years without challenge. When we discussed this matter previously, I referred on June 14 to a question on this specific point. It was a question asked in the session of 1927, and it will be found at page 1080 of Hansard of that year. It was a question asked by the then hon. member for Sim-coe, Mr. Boys, of the minister of justice of that day. The question was this:
Is there any special provision in the British North America Act with respect to the retirement of county court judges?
The then minister of justice said no. Another question was asked:
Is it suggested that such legislation was ultra vires?
The reply given was:
No, not at all. .. There is nothing in the British North America Act preventing us from dealing with the tenure of office of county court judges.
However, when we discussed this matter previously the Minister of Justice said that while the provision has not been challenged in the courts there is involved, as he put it at page 4907 of Hansard, a residual doubt. Indeed, in his communications with the provinces on this matter he said there was a serious doubt.
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As a result, we were asked in this house to resolve this doubt which, so far as I know, had not been in anybody's mind previously; at least there had been no public expression of that doubt, so far as I am aware. We were asked to resolve this doubt not by carrying on until our constitution was entirely repatriated, at which time we could resolve it in our own way if there was any doubt; we were asked to resolve it not by submitting the question to our own supreme court for a decision. No; after the expiration of 73 years we were asked to resolve this so-called residual doubt or serious doubt by asking the parliament of the United Kingdom to declare that we were wrong, that we in this parliament did not in fact have this power which we had been exercising for 73 years, and therefore to ask the parliament of the United Kingdom if it would please amend our constitution and make us honest Canadians again.
That request, Mr. Speaker, was made by a government which talks a good deal about Canadian nationalism and Canadian national development. I ask you, Mr. Speaker, what would have been the reaction in the British House of Commons or in the British parliament upon receiving from this great independent state of Canada a request of this kind, to change our constitution in respect of something over which we have had control for 73 years.
That was the only issue involved in this particular provision which appeared in the earlier resolution, Mr. Speaker, and even at this stage I am glad the government has decided not to take the course which it advocated should be taken a few weeks ago, and which at that time we tried to persuade it not to take.


Hazen Robert Argue: Mr. Speaker, I should think the government would find itself at this time in a rather embarrassing position. As the Leader of the Opposition has said, it was argued in this house by members of his party that the provision to retire district and county court judges at 75 should not have been in the original motion. However, the government insisted that it remain in the motion and the address went to the Senate, where this matter was also considered. Now we have action being insisted upon by the government to bring the address of the House of Commons into line with that of the Senate. I would think that the government, by this action, is admitting bad draftsmanship on its part and, it would appear, is bowing to the accusation that it has received bad advice and admitting in public that this additional provision which was in the first motion was not needed.
Mr. Speaker, I think another course should have been followed. Instead of an abject

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surrender to the members of the other place, this government should have arranged for a meeting between the House of Commons and the members of the other place and had a joint conference, as provided for in rule 22, as set forth in Beauchesne's fourth edition. This method which would have demonstrated that the House of Commons was not ready to surrender the terms of its motion to those members of the other place who are insisting upon changes. I believe that is the place where this whole matter should have been discussed, and perhaps at this conference the House of Commons could have persuaded the members of the other place to go forward with the motion we had passed in this chamber.
I think the position the House of Commons is in today demonstrates very clearly the need for reform of the other place, as has been advocated in general terms by this government on many occasions. This is a demonstration which the members of the other place can bring to the House of Commons of-


Mr. Speaker:: Order. I would ask the hon. member to consider whether he is in order in pursuing that line. I would think not. It is not relevant to the motion, and I think it is against our rules to make disrespectful references to the other place. The hon. member has not made disrespectful references, but he has questioned their actions. The principal reason I intervene is because this resolution really does not involve the question of the reform of the other place.


Hazen Robert Argue: No, Mr. Speaker; I was just saying it is an indication that in my view there is a need for certain reforms in the other place. I was not speaking in any disrespectful manner of those in the other place. As a matter of fact, this is an occasion when one must give to them the greatest amount of respect, since their motion is the overriding one and we are asked by the Minister of Justice in this motion to amend our position in order to go along with the members of the other place.


John Whitney Pickersgill: Would the hon. gentleman permit a question. Does he not really think that what this indicates is a need of a reform in this place?


Hazen Robert Argue: Mr. Speaker, I think it demonstrates both. It definitely demonstrates that this government was either wrong initially in the terms of its motion, or is wrong in its action today. For a man with the knowledge of the Minister of Justice, and for a government led by a distinguished lawyer, it would seem to me that they have been in great error in presenting a motion with such an obvious loophole in it in the first place; or, if they were right in their motion in the 
first place, then they are now agreeing to a change in a rather subservient way which I think is degrading to the House of Commons itself.
I think hon. members of this house should oppose the motion as it is now set forth as protest against the members of the other place who, with the connivance of the government, are prepared to place the House of Commons in what is obviously an inferior position. In our Canadian democracy it is the belief of the members of this group that the people's will is better served by the House of Commons without so much power being vested in members of the other place. Certainly we say that the government should have had the type of conference set forth in the rules, instead of an abject and total surrender as demonstrated by the terms of the present motion.


Paul Joseph James Martin: Mr. Speaker, I would like to say a brief word on this subject. The Minister of Justice will remember that when the matter was before the house, I did state my views with regard to this situation. The minister and I had several exchanges as he will recall. The Leader of the Opposition in his succinct statement has made a comprehensive coverage of the problem in so far as this party is concerned, but I believe there is a situation arising out of the position of the government at the present time that must not be overlooked.
The minister has been preoccupied during the past ten days with consultations with the government of the United States in Washington, with his responsibilities as spokeman for the government on the combines act, and with heavy obligations as spokesman for the government in the bill of rights committee. I can only in all charity attribute this heavy preoccupation as the reason for the position in which the minister now finds himself. Other members of the government may not have as valid an excuse, but in the light of what I am going to say I recognize that that is the case so far as the Minister of Justice is concerned. But the Minister of Justice is the spokesman for the government of Canada in this House of Commons. He is not as other private members are. He has a responsibility not only as a member of this house but also as a member of the government.
Mr. Speaker, what was the position of the government regarding this matter when it was first discussed in this house? The position, as the Leader of the Opposition has stated, was that in the matter of the tenure of office of the county and district court judges, the minister felt there was a doubt as to the authority of this parliament to deal

with this question in any way notwithstanding the fact, as was pointed out, that from 1867 and more particularly from 1873 on this parliament had take measures directly in relation to the tenure of office of district and county court judges.
We argued that to ask the United Kingdom parliament for leave to amend our constitution so as to give parliament the power to deal with the tenure of office of district and county court judges was to ask the United Kingdom parliament to do something which we now have the power ourselves to discharge. As the Leader of the Opposition said, to take that course now would be a retrogressive step and that would be going back to the colonial period so far as Canada was concerned. We argued that was objectionable particularly at a time when through one of our provinces, the province of Quebec, initiative was being taken in the matter of acquiring for Canada the right to amend our constitution without resort to any legislative body outside Canada.
Surely the Minister of Justice owes the house a fuller explanation than he has given. We recognize that as a result of the action taken in the other place, the situation now is that Her Majesty's government in the United Kingdom would be confronted with two resolutions from the houses of this parliament which, in part, are in conflict with one another. To allow that situation would be a reflection, as the Leader of the Opposition has said, on the responsible independent position that must be taken by a parliament such as the parliament of Canada.
What the Minister of Justice has not explained is this. Does he now say that the action we took in this house prior to the passage of the resolution with regard to county and district court judges was a valid position to take? Is he now satisfied beyond doubt that this parliament has the right to deal with the tenure of county and district court judges without resort to an amendment of the constitution by the parliament of the United Kingdom? The minister must be in that position before he can accede to the suggested way out of the dilemma in which he has been placed.
The minister cannot accept this solution merely on the grounds of expediency or merely to relieve the government of an embarrassment; he cannot accept it because he is faced with the dying days of this session and that accordingly this is the best way out of the muddle caused by the government's failure to appreciate the constitutional position regarding the tenure of county and district court judges. That, surely, is the
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situation. The government cannot agree to a course such as this on the mere ground of expediency. It must be backed up by conviction and by an appreciation of what the true constitutional position is. If the minister will now tell the house that it is the considered opinion of himself, of the law officers of the crown and of the government, that the position he took in this house prior to the vote on the resolution has now been changed as a result of further consideration, then of course he will extricate himself from the difficulty in which he now finds himself.
What were the grounds for saying that we must go to the parliament of the United Kingdom to obtain the necessary power to deal with the tenure of office of district and county court judges? What were the grounds presented by the minister? We pointed out the precedents. We pointed out what was done in 1873 and we pointed out what happened in 1926 when the then minister of justice, Mr. Lapointe, in answer to a question asked by Mr. Boys in the presence of such outstanding legal luminaries as the late Lord Bennett and Mr. Cahan, said there was no doubt about the constitutional right of this parliament to deal with matters having to do with the tenure of office of district and county court judges. The Minister of Justice heard that argument prior to the vote in this house on the resolution. He did not agree with that position. He said there was some doubt about the situation, although I think the only evidence of doubt was an observation made by the attorney general of, I believe, the province of Saskatchewan. The minister apparently agreed with that doubt. Does he still agree with it?
The important thing is whether the minister now believes that it is not necessary to go to the parliament of the United Kingdom to get the necessary authority to deal with the tenure of office of county and district court judges. Unless the minister can answer that question in the affirmative, he is now taking, in my judgment, pursuant to the high responsibilities of a minister of justice, an irresponsible course. The minister cannot act merely on the ground of expediency. He cannot act merely because he wishes to extricate himself from the difficulty which the circumstances present.
We in this party believe that it is desirable to retire judges at the age of 75. We have taken the position that in order to provide for the compulsory retirement of superior court judges, authority must now come from the United Kingdom parliament. We have always taken the position that authority of this kind was not required in connection with the

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tenure of district and county court judges. But having taken that position, we are now faced with a situation which confirms our fears and our concern. The position taken by the minister prior to the passage of the resolution has been repudiated, not only by a decision in the other place but by the very act which the government now accepts.
Surely the government owes the house a much more careful explanation than the minister has so far given us. The minister must now tell us, "I was wrong". The position, he must now agree, is clearly that this parliament has the right to deal with the tenure of county and district court judges. If the minister takes that position we shall respect him for it. But if not, I say that the course taken by the hon. gentleman is not a responsible one.


John Whitney Pickersgill: I wish to rise briefly to reinforce what has been said by my hon. friend from Essex East, and to reinforce it out of the mouth, in part, of the Minister of Justice himself, because it does seem to me that the point raised by the hon. member for Essex East deserves a serious answer.
I say this with all the more conviction because when I made the same argument in the debate on June 14, as had previously been made by the Leader of the Opposition on this point, the argument that this was a reversion to colonialism and that it was totally unnecessary because the jurisdiction of this parliament had never been questioned, my contentions were ridiculed. I pointed out that no question had been raised regarding this jurisdiction by anyone of eminence in this country since county court judges were retired at the age of 75 in 1913; indeed since Sir Charles Fitzpatrick, who later became chief justice of Canada, had asked parliament to provide for the retirement of judges at 80 years of age in 1903; since Mr. Doherty had done the same thing in 1913, changing the age to 75; since Mr. Lapointe in 1926 took the position to which my hon. friend from Essex East referred, in reply to a Conservative member of that day. I said it was an extraordinary thing that the present Minister of Justice or the Prime Minister should suddenly have had a revelation that every government and every parliament up to this day had been wrong and they were right.
When I made that argument following the Leader of the Opposition, who had already made it one June 14, it was ridiculed. I should therefore like to repeat a few of the words
I Mr. Martin (Essex East).]
I used on that occasion. I will not go over most of what I said, but I did use these words:
However, if they feel there is a doubt-
That is the government. I continue:
-I hope they will refer the matter to the courts. Surely it is the height of colonialism-and no other word can be applied to it-to seek to vest in Westminster a jurisdiction which they have never had-* which they did not assume in 1867 and of which certainly, once the Statute of Westminster was passed, they divested themselves-and to seek to put into a British statute something no one has ever questioned since 1867 until the minister had this bright idea quite recently, namely the right of this parliament to do something which this parliament has done over and over again and which has been the basis of the tenure of county and district court judges since the year 1913 without any kind of question. It almost passes comprehension why a government should seek to be so abject.
The hon. member for Carleton (Mr. Bell) interjected at this point, "Nonsense". I went on to say:
What purpose they think this is going to serve it is very hard to perceive.
The hon. member for Carleton again interjected:
Argue it on a sensible basis.
The Minister of Justice then interjected:
The hon. member does not know what that means.


Mr. Martineau:: Mr. Speaker, would the hon. member permit a question?


John Whitney Pickersgill: Certainly.


Paul Raymond Martineau: Can the hon. member not find a better authority than himself to back up his previous affirmations?


Lester Bowles Pearson: Yes; the Minister of Justice.


John Whitney Pickersgill: I do not think the minister is a better authority, but I will go on to quote another authority, the Minister of Justice, if the hon. gentleman will just possess his soul in patience for a moment.


Paul Raymond Martineau: This is a sign of progress.


John Whitney Pickersgill: The hon. member for
Carleton suggested that I should argue the matter on a sensible basis.


Edmund Davie Fulton: What page?


John Whitney Pickersgill: Page 4923 of Hansard of June 14. I went on to say:
The hon. member for Carleton says "argue this on a sensible basis". If the hon. member for Carleton belongs to the school of thought that wants to vest in Westminster again the control of parts of the constitution of this country that have always since 1867 been vested in this parliament, I do not know what other convenient words could be found for such an attitude than a colonial attitude.
I repeat that. I am glad to say that in another place, where the majority is different from what it is here, that colonial

attitude was not taken. In that respect I must say it rather astonishes me to find that the hon. gentlemen in the far corner of the house supported the government on that occasion and appear still to be supporting the old position of the government that this colonial gesture should be made; for the hon. member for Kootenay West warmly supported what the government was doing and opposed the amendment moved by the Leader of the Opposition to take this colonialism out of the resolution before us at that time.
I should like now to turn to what the Minister of Justice had to say about my argument, as reported at page 4925 of Hansard in the second column. Referring to my remarks the minister said:
I have seldom heard so distorted an argument as that made by the hon. gentleman to the effect that to seek to place the position of judges of district and county courts of Canada under the constitution is a retrograde step. Yet that was the argument made by the hon. member for Bonavista-Twillingate.
I interjected "Not at all," and the minister went on to say:
In an attempt to bolster his political position the hon. gentleman used charges of colonialism and similar inept words.
I certainly did use charges of colonialism. I think it was colonialism and nothing else. It served no practical purpose. The judges were being retired. No one can believe that those judges, some of whom did not like being retired, would not have taken action in the courts if they had thought there was any doubt about the validity of the legislation under which they were being retired. The minister went on to say:
Of course, as I recall some of the things that were done by the former government I can well understand their resentment of the attempt now being made to place the position of the judiciary with respect to the county and district courts on the sure basis of the constitution-
At this point a number of interjections were made resulting in the following exchange:


Lester Bowles Pearson: Of the British parliament.


Edmund Davie Fulton: My friend the hon. member for Bonavista-Twillingate and the Leader of the Opposition by his endorsement of that argument would prefer to have the judiciary-the county court judges particularly-left to have their tenure of office-


Lester Bowles Pearson: In Canadian hands.


Edmund Davie Fulton: -determined-


John Whitney Pickersgill: By the parliament of Canada.


Edmund Davie Fulton: -by the government with no
reference to the constitution whatever.
In fairness to the minister I think I should read that sentence without the interjections made by my leader and myself so we can thoroughly appreciate what the minister said on June 14. These were his words:
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My friend the hon. member for Bonavista-Twillingate and the Leader of the Opposition by his endorsement of that argument would prefer to have the judiciary-the county court judges particularly-left to have their tenure of office... determined... by the government with no reference to the constitution whatever.
That is what the minister said. He said that the retirement of county and district court judges was being done with no reference to the constitution whatever. He was unequivocal about it. In other words the hon. gentleman said that the law under which we are now operating is unconstitutional, yet he comes here today and asks us to reverse the decision of this house, to do what? To go on with this unconstitutional situation which he found so intolerable only six weeks ago.
I wish to draw attention to the words the minister used, referring again to county and district court judges, as found in the second column of page 4930:
What would happen if they were not included in this address? One would have an extraordinary situation if he considers what would happen if they were left out. Section 1 would say that judges of superior courts shall hold office during good behaviour and shall be removable by the Governor General on address of the Senate and House of Commons. Section 2 would say that judges of the superior, district and county courts shall cease to hold office on attaining the age of 75 years. This would be a most intolerable distinction and differentiation between the position of judges of district and county courts on the one hand and judges of superior courts on the other.
The minister described the situation as most intolerable; yet we are now asked to go back to that situation. In view of the fact that the minister told us on June 14 that what was being done at present was unconstitutional and intolerable-and that was the basis, with which we did not agree, on which he asked the majority in this house to adopt the original address-we are within our rights in marvelling that he should now come back to restore this unconstitutional and intolerable position without giving a word of explanation except that hon. gentlemen elsewhere, refusing to act in a colonial fashion, refused to pass the address that the minister was able to persuade the majority here to pass. That is the situation, as my friend the hon. member for Essex East pointed out a few moments ago.
I wish to draw the attention of the house briefly to another argument used by the minister, that with respect to consultation with the provinces. The minister said that one reason he could not accept the amendment that was offered on June 14 by my leader- and here are his words as found at page 4910; I am going to read no more than is absolutely essential to be fair to the minister and make the argument-was that:
In my view, therefore, it would not be open to me to suggest at this stage that I could consent to

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an amendment to give effect to the point made by the Leader of the Opposition. Before I could do so I believe I would have to go back to the provinces and ask further consent to what to my mind would be a new proposal rather than the proposal which we have placed before the House of Commons and the Senate.
I think we are entitled to be told whether the minister has gone back and asked the provinces, or whether he has recanted about this view too. It is true, I believe, that in the case of every province but one the decision was made by the executive, but in one province the terms of this resolution, literatim and verbatim, were placed before both houses of the legislature and accepted by the legislature, and that is the legislature of a province which historically is perhaps as sensitive about its rights under the constitution as any province.
Is the minister asking us in this house now to change what the legislature of Quebec agreed to without even consulting the premier and the attorney general of that province? If he has consulted them, will he tell us what the premier or the attorney general said about this change? I think perhaps I should also put it on the record that it is true, as I pointed out in defence of our amendment, that district and county courts do not exist in the province of Quebec, and the reference to them was quite irrelevant so far as that province was concerned. That was one reason, of course, why my leader did not hesitate to move and we did not hesitate to support his amendment, because we realized that to take this out would not in fact have any practical effect whatsoever so far as that province was concerned.
But that was not the position taken by the Minister of Justice. The position taken by the Minister of Justice was:
Before I could do so I believe I would have to go back to the provinces and ask further consent to what to my mind would be a new proposal rather than the proposal which we have placed before the House of Commons and the Senate.
What we were asked to do on the 14th of June and what we are being asked to do again is a very solemn thing. We are being asked to go to the parliament of another country to change the constitution of our own country, and we should not be doing this in any spirit of levity. We should be most careful in doing this to follow all the proper forms and procedures, because we know very well how easily precedents are made even when we say we are not making precedents.
It does seem to me, sir, that in view of the confused state in which the government has got itself over this matter we certainly require more explanation of the position of the government than we have had. That, of
[Mr. Pickersgill.l
course, does not alter the fact at all that we take the same view now that we took on June 14 and for which we voted, namely that we should never have contemplated this proposal to ask the parliament at Westminster to start changing parts of the constitution that belong to Canada and always have belonged to Canada. We think that was a grave mistake, a grave error. It was perhaps a lapse into the traditional colonialism of the Tory party.
If the minister wants to get up now and say they are repenting of that colonialism, repenting of that reversion to type; if he wants to say they have got better legal advice than they had when the Prime Minister first introduced the measure, let him do so. We should not forget that this is the Prime Minister's motion, not the minister's motion. If he wants to say that they were ill advised and had the wrong advice and have received better advice now, I think we should be told what that advice is, and whether or not they are satisfied that the retirement of district and county court judges is constitutional, before we are asked to adopt this amended motion.


Edmund Davie Fulton: Mr. Speaker-


Mr. Speaker:: I must inform the house that if the Minister of Justice speaks now he will close the debate.


Edmund Davie Fulton: Mr. Speaker, just before the hon. member for Bonavista-Twillingate sat down he made reference to some confusion that existed in somebody's mind. I turn these words upon him and say that the only confusion that exists is in the minds of the opposition, a confusion created in large by their deliberate refusal to understand the whole of the proposal in its context but rather to give vent to their desire to choose only those selected parts which suited their convenience. I give proof of what I have said immediately by referring to the extraordinary tactic just followed by the hon. member for Bonavista-Twillingate. He is an expert at this kind of tactic. He says, "I am not going to be selective, I am not quoting the whole of the minister's remarks, but I assure the house that in selecting passages I have selected those which will nevertheless indicate his whole position."


John Whitney Pickersgill: I rise on a question of privilege.


Edmund Davie Fulton: There is no question of privilege.


John Whitney Pickersgill: I rise on a question of privilege. The hon. gentleman has made a suggestion which I think touches my honour as a member of the house. I quoted and gave

the minister the reference, and the minister knows perfectly well that when I have given quotations in the house and have been asked to quote the context I have always been ready to do so, unlike some other hon. members.


Edmund Davie Fulton: I do not know who the hon. member has in mind, and that does not matter. I have him in mind, and I am going to say that in his argument with respect to my position on the amendment of the Leader of the Opposition he has deliberately omitted a portion of my statement occurring immediately before the portion he read which, if he had read it-


John Whitney Pickersgill: Which one?


Edmund Davie Fulton: I will come to that in a moment-would have put my position in an entirely different context from that in which he sought to place it by his selective reading. The hon. member said that I owe the house an explanation as to why I rejected the amendment of the Leader of the Opposition. He said I had said that before accepting it I would have to go back to the provinces. He said, "Why then are you now able to accept this position, and have you gone back to the provinces? You owe the house an explanation."
I made it clear, on the earlier occasion, Mr. Speaker, that I rejected the amendment of the Leader of the Opposition in respect of its whole effect on the proposal of the government, because it would seek to remove the word "whether", which would have had the effect of giving the resolution then before the house application only to superior court judges appointed after the resolution came into effect.


John Whitney Pickersgill: Who is doing the selecting now?


Edmund Davie Fulton: I pointed out to the house that before presenting the resolution I had discussed it with the provinces and had made no reference to its confinement only to judges appointed after it came into effect but rather to its application to all superior court judges. I said I would therefore not be able to accept an amendment which would have the effect that the provision would cover only judges appointed here after, without going back to the provinces. I made it clear that it was on that ground I was opposed to the amendment. Now the hon. member for Bonavista-Twillingate has sought to suggest that I opposed it because the elimination of district and county court judges was what was in my mind.
That was not what was in my mind when I made the statement. The hon. member for Bonavista-Twillingate said that I opposed
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the amendment on the ground that it eliminated district and county court judges and that I said I could not do that without going back to the provinces. In proof of what I say let me read this passage which he quoted-


John Whitney Pickersgill: In the first place, I did not say that.


Edmund Davie Fulton: -from the bottom of page 4910. It is true that this is what I said there:
In my view, therefore, it would not be open to me to suggest at this stage that I could consent to an amendment to give effect to the point made by the Leader of the Opposition. Before I could do so I believe I would have to go back to the provinces and ask further consent to what to my mind would be a new proposal-
But the immediately preceding paragraph omitted by the hon. member made clear what I had in mind when I said "new proposal", and that what I had in mind was the proposal to delete the word "whether" so as to give the resolution application only to judges appointed hereafter. Here is what I said toward the bottom of page 4910:
One way or the other, and it was not intended that the letters should create that impression. The letters and the discussion I had proceeded on the basis that the legislation would become effective immediately and with respect to all judges whether previously or subsequently appointed. It was on the basis of these letters and that discussion, that the provincial consent was received.
In my view, therefore, it would not be open to me to suggest-
The house will appreciate from what I have just finished reading that the paragraph making my position clear is the one immediately preceding the one which the hon. member for Bonavista-Twillingate read and which states:
In my view, therefore, it would not be open to me to suggest at this stage that I could consent to an amendment to give effect to the point made by the Leader of the Opposition.
That is, without going back to the provinces. My whole argument on that point was that I could not consent to his amendment without going back to the provinces, because his amendment would have had the effect of preventing the resolution being applicable to judges hitherto appointed. I had in mind, as my words prove, that I would have had to go back to the provinces on this question. At that time the county court judges were already covered in the Judges Act and therefore, in that respect, we were making no substantive change; we were making a change merely in the legislative provision.
For the hon. member for Bonavista-Twillingate to suggest that I now have to explain why I have not gone back to the provinces before introducing this new resolution, and then to make that allegation on the basis

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of such carefully selected passages from my remarks when the passage immediately preceding it, which he could hardly, have avoided seeing, made it clear that his argument was clearly inapplicable, results now in his being in the false position in which he sought to put me.


John Whitney Pickersgill: Would the hon. member permit a question?


Edmund Davie Fulton: Yes.


John Whitney Pickersgill: Does the hon. gentleman feel, then, that he could ask for an amendment to the constitution in certain particulars without consulting the provinces, though he must consult them in respect of others?


Edmund Davie Fulton: That, of course, is a question-


John Whitney Pickersgill: That is what you have just said.


Edmund Davie Fulton: -which shows how incapable the mind of the hon. gentleman is of following a simple proposition. The question of whether I believe there could be a change in the constitution without consulting the provinces is not relevant. We did consult them with regard to county court judges. We said we wanted this amendment with respect to superior court judges, and wanted to know also whether they would be willing to have an age limit on district and county court judges included in this amendment. They said yes. No point arises, therefore, because we are not amending the constitution in the new form of the resolution in any way to which the provinces have not consented.
Now, I hope my hon. friends will be able to appreciate at least that simple statement.


Lester Bowles Pearson: Will the minister permit a question? Did he not include in his communication to the provinces-I have before me the one to the attorney general of Newfoundland, dated October 5-a sentence to the effect that there does appear to be serious doubt as to the constitutionality of that provision? The minister was referring to the provision dealing with district and county court judges.


Edmund Davie Fulton: Certainly I did. But surely my hon. friend can appreciate the distinction between amending the constitution without consulting the provinces on the one hand, and on the other the mere failure, for good and sufficient reasons, to go forward with an amendment to which the consent of the provinces has been received. The two are entirely different propositions. It would be most inappropriate to amend the constitution in a feature requiring provincial consent without having obtained the consent of the provinces, but there is nothing improper

about a situation that arises where, having obtained the consent of the provinces to the amendment of the constitution in two respects, we proceed to submit an address to amend it in only one respect, particularly when the elimination of the second respect does not change any single aspect of the change in the first respect.


Lester Bowles Pearson: You said there was serious doubt.


Edmund Davie Fulton: My hon. friends are so anxious that they seek now to deprive me of the opportunity of dealing with these picayune points they have raised. I am going to deal with all these points, but first of all I wanted to demonstrate the falsity of the position assumed by hon. members opposite in making the so-called arguments they have sought to advance.


John Whitney Pickersgill: Before the minister leaves that point, would he permit a question?


Edmund Davie Fulton: Yes; anything that might
elucidate the position for the hon. gentlemen opposite, I would be glad to do.


John Whitney Pickersgill: The minister said he did not feel there was any impropriety in not going ahead with an amendment to which the provinces had agreed. I could not disagree with that point of view. However, I would ask the minister whether if my hon. friend's amendment had carried the other day he would not still have been going forward with the residual portion of the address, and the residual portion of the address would still have been something to which the provinces had consented. If that were the case, what was the point of what the hon. gentleman said in the remarks I quoted earlier?


Edmund Davie Fulton: No. In my view the words immediately preceding the passage which the hon. member quoted make clear that taking out the word "whether" would have made a substantial difference. It would have altered the effect of the proposition which I put before the provinces.


John Whitney Pickersgill: Not at all.


Edmund Davie Fulton: If my hon. friend cannot even appreciate the difference between something that is substantial and something that is insubstantial, I may not be able to help. However, other hon. members will be able to follow the argument, so I will complete it.
My view was that to take out the word "whether" would have made a substantial alteration in that aspect of the constitutional change to which we had received provincial consent, namely the imposition of a retirement age of 75 on judges of superior courts.

My hon. friend is surely not going to try to pretend that the provinces, in giving that consent, were not aware of the fact there were quite a number of judges well over 75 at that time, and that there were many more judges under 75 who had been appointed before this resolution was to come into effect and therefore a great number of judges, in fact all the judges presently serving on the superior courts, would have been affected. My hon. friend is trying to suggest by his argument something which is really in the nature of an insult to the provincial ministers who considered this matter, that they would not have been aware that it affected all the judges, and that it was on the basis of that awareness that their consent was given.
So that the change in the address as suggested by the Leader of the Opposition, to make it apply only to those judges appointed subsequent to its passage, would have been a substantial change in the basis upon which provincial consent had been given. I said I did not believe, as a responsible minister of justice, I could consent to that without going back to the provinces. Perhaps my hon. friend from Bonavista-Twilingate would have followed such a course when he was minister. I do not know. All I know is that I am thankful he did not have the opportunity to do it. I am glad he does not have the opportunity to do it now because I would have regarded it as irresponsible, and I suggest that as long as he persists in that attitude that you can play ducks and drakes with the consent received from the provinces, then just so long will he remain where he is, at least until such time as the electors conveniently remove him from the house.


Lester Bowles Pearson: Will the minister permit a question on this point? Is he now stating that if our amendment had been restricted to district and county court judges, then he would have accepted it?


Edmund Davie Fulton: I am not able to give an answer to that question at the present time. All I can say in answer is that, in general, if my hon. friends opposite would introduce sensible amendments, then we would be able to deal with them at the time. What I would have done if he had brought in a sensible amendment, I do not know. I might have fainted with surprise.


Lester Bowles Pearson: You are accepting our amendment now.


Edmund Davie Fulton: My hon. friend says we are accepting his amendment now. We are not accepting his amendment now. His amendment was rejected because, in part, it contained this change which would have sub-79951-0-455
B.N.A. Act
stantially changed the basis upon which provincial consent had been received, and that is still rejected.
Now let me come to some of the other things that were said this morning. It was suggested that our original proposal by including district and county court judges was a reversion to colonialism. May I suggest to those who consider this problem seriously that not only was it not a reversion to colonialism, but I think I shall be able to establish that the course that has been suggested by some, if followed, would have been a real and substantial reversion to colonialism. There has been a suggestion that what we should have done was simply to let the two resolutions go forward, and that somehow or other-


Paul Joseph James Martin: Who suggested that?


John Whitney Pickersgill: Yes, who suggested that?


Edmund Davie Fulton: -we are guilty of yielding or knuckling under in making this resolution and bringing it into conformity with that of the Senate.


John Whitney Pickersgill: Eating crow.


Edmund Davie Fulton: May I point out that as a result of the procedure followed in submitting the original resolution to the respective house, there was no possibility of a conference after the other house had changed its motion. That is my view on reading rule 22, cited by the hon. member for Assiniboia, because that rule applies only to a case in which one chamber has amended something submitted by the other chamber. In this case the procedure followed was that identical resolutions were submitted in each chamber. It was not the case of an address being adopted here and forwarded to the Senate for their concurrence. Identical addresses were submitted in each chamber. We adopted our address without change. They adopted theirs with an amendment. There is no provision for a conference under those circumstances. It may well be that our rules should be changed in order to take care of this situation. However, in my view and in the view of those who advise me there is no provision for a conference with the Senate in this situation. There is provision for a conference only if one house amends something sent to it by the other.
I have been asked why we followed this course of submitting simultaneous resolutions instead of a resolution of one house to be transmitted to the other. I find that the procedure we followed is the procedure that has been followed with respect to addresses regarding amendments to the constitution

B.N.A. Act
since 1940. I have not been able to find authority as to why this course began to be followed and has been consistently followed since 1940 whereas previously it was not the course followed. But with respect to the manner in which these things are placed on the papers of the houses, we have accepted those procedures worked out by the officials of the houses. It was for that reason that it was done in that way in this case.
I must say that I think we should now give consideration to the question of whether or not we should in future follow the previous system of having an address submitted to one house and then forwarded to the other. Either we must do that or most certainly we must look at our rules with a view to seeing whether they do not need revision in order to make it possible to have a conference with the other place in a situation such as this.


Paul Joseph James Martin: Will the hon. gentleman permit a question?


Edmund Davie Fulton: Yes.


Paul Joseph James Martin: Will the minister just tell us where in rule 22 there is anything that would prevent a conference between the two houses in this matter.


Edmund Davie Fulton: If my hon. friend reads the rule he will find-


Paul Joseph James Martin: I would suggest that the minister read it.


Edmund Davie Fulton: I have read it and I have had it analysed, and the advice I have is that it applies only to amendments made by one house to proposals received from another. Hence what we were confronted with was a situation in which we must either do what we are now inviting the house to do, or be in the position where two conflicting or different addresses would go to the United Kingdom. I ask hon. members of the house to ask themselves this question. Which would have been the greater colonialism, if there be any question of colonialism; the original proposal which we put forward, or a situation in which two conflicting addresses arrive in the United Kingdom and it is then for the United Kingdom authorities to decide what it is that the Canadian parliament wants done, instead of having the Canadian parliament indicate clearly by unanimous resolution what it is that it wants done. We came to the conclusion that the latter situation would be an intolerable one, and we therefore decided to recommend to this House of Commons what we believe to be the proper course for the reasons I outlined when I spoke in moving this motion, namely that the only proper course was to bring the two addresses into conformity.


John Whitney Pickersgill: Will	the	minister	permit	
a question?


Edmund Davie Fulton: No; I minutes.	am	confined	to	40


John Whitney Pickersgill: No,	the	minister	is	not
confined.


Edmund Davie Fulton: I will permit a question.


John Whitney Pickersgill: Will the minister say
whether he does not now think that the colonialism consisted in putting in the district and county court judges in the first place? That is what we said.


Edmund Davie Fulton: I wish my hon. friend, when he asks questions, would ask proper ones. He has already said that. All he is seeking to do is to repeat his own nonsense.


John Whitney Pickersgill: Because the minister did not deal with the argument.


Edmund Davie Fulton: My hon. friend is so fascinated with his own nonsense that he cannot avoid yielding to the temptation of repeating it by making interruptions in all the manners he knows he should not pursue.


John Whitney Pickersgill: Because the minister was not dealing with our argument at all.


Edmund Davie Fulton: If my hon. friend will just have the courtesy of abiding by the rules of the house, I should like to deal with this so-called argument that they put forward, but I should like to be permitted to do it in a fashion which, at least to those accustomed to orderly argument, will bear some resemblance to an orderly argument. However, I find it extremely difficult in the light of these petty interruptions that are constantly made.


John Whitney Pickersgill: The precedents of 1956.


Edmund Davie Fulton: Will my hon. friend not contain himself? Can he possibly stop his tongue from wagging?


John Whitney Pickersgill: The minister has asked me a question, Mr. Speaker, and the answer is that I will not contain myself.


Mr. Speaker:: Order.


William Arnold Peters: May we call it one o'clock and give the minister an opportunity to think the matter over?


Mr. Speaker:: The minister seems to be having difficulty in making his remarks without interruption. May I ask for the co-operation of hon. members so that he may continue. While I am on my feet may I say that in my view the house will adjourn at one o'clock today unless by unanimous consent it wishes to change its order.


Paul Joseph James Martin: I think the Minister of Justice ought to be allowed an opportunity to carefully consider his remarks.


Edmund Davie Fulton: I was just coming to the point of dealing with the question of why we put district and county court judges into the resolution in the first place. Here I should like to correct several inaccurate statements made by all three hon. members of the Liberal party who have spoken this morning. Each one of them has said that the exclusive right of the parliament of Canada to legislate with respect to the tenure of office of district and county court judges has ben accepted without challenge for 73 years. That is not the case, Mr. Speaker, and that statement reveals the lack of preparation and consideration given to this matter by hon. members who used those words.
The fact is that there have been circumstances giving rise to doubt as to where the authority to legislate with respect to the tenure of office of district and county court judges resides ever since 1869, when the legislature of Ontario enacted a statute dealing with the tenure of office of district and county court judges. That statute continued in existence on the statute books of the province of Ontario until the year 1953, I think it was, when it was finally removed in the course of one of their annual revisions. Hence to say that there has been no doubt about this matter for 73 years is as complete a misstatement as are most of the other statements that have been made about the matter by the members of the opposition in the course of this debate.


Some hon. Members:: One o'clock.
At one o'clock the house took recess.


[Stage Direction]
AFTER RECESS

The house resumed at 2 p.m.
Edmund Davie Fulton: Mr. Speaker, when the lunch hour intervened I had just directed the attention of the house to the fact that the question of whether the parliament of Canada has exclusive legislative authority to deal with the question of the tenure of office of district and county court judges is far from having been without challenge for 73 years, as has been erroneously asserted by the Leader of the Opposition, the hon. member for Essex East and the hon. member for Bonavista-Twillingate.


John Whitney Pickersgill: I in fact made no such assertion.
79951-0-4554
B.N.A. Act


Edmund Davie Fulton: Then I am glad to have that correction made by the hon. member for Bon-avista-Twillingate.


John Whitney Pickersgill: I said it had not been challenged since 1903.


Edmund Davie Fulton: Then the hon. member says it has not been challenged for 57 years. Apparently he differs from the other two members of his party, because they said it has been without challenge for 73 years. Apparently hon. members opposite cannot agree among themselves as to the length of time for which it has been without challenge.
However, my main point is that it has not been without challenge, and that that challenge has continued ever since 1869, when the legislature of Ontario passed a statute dealing with the tenure of office of district and county court judges, which came immediately under question by the minister of justice of Canada, who at that time was Sir John A. Macdonald. Sir John A. Macdonald took the position that the statute as originally passed in the legislature of Ontario was open to great question.
There is a long history of discussion of that matter which is reflected in the Journals, I think it is, of this house. These record the correspondence which took place between the government here and representatives or officials of the government of Ontario. From reading the original correspondence it appears that the time for disallowance had gone by on the first occasion when it could have been exercised. So there was correspondence between officials of the two governments, and the Ontario government agreed to submit to its legislature another bill amending its original bill.
However, the subsequent statute also dealt, although in an amended form, with the matter of the tenure of office of district and county court judges in Ontario, and it is quite obvious from the correspondence and the discussion which took place with respect to the legislation that there was a very fundamental difference of opinion as to whether the parliament of Canada had the exclusive right to legislate with respect to the tenure of office of county or district court judges.
I might refer hon. members, if they want to follow up the interest which 1 am sure they have in this matter, to an article appearing in the Canadian Law Journal of 1881, volume 17, starting at page 445, in which the author of the article took the position that although the matter had been brought under question, that the authority lay with the parliament of Canada. The editor of the law journal appended an editorial note at the end of the article in which he reviewed some

B.N.A. Act
of the authorities and some of the considerations relative to this question.
The position of the government, therefore, with respect to this matter has been that it could not be asserted that there is no question as to where the legislative authority resides and that our constitution is not absolutely clear on the point. There is one other view which I think deserves mention; that because of the silence of the British North America Act on the point, the authority to determine the question of the tenure of office of district and county court judges lies perhaps not so much with the parliament of Canada as with the Governor General.
I think probably the best view is that the complete authority over this question does reside somewhere in the federal field, but that whether it be with the Governor General or with the parliament of Canada itself is a question; and there has been a very considerable and authoritative body of opinion which holds that it is open to question as to whether it lies between the federal and provincial authorities.
So, Mr. Speaker, in the light of that brief resume of the differences of opinion which have been expressed, differences of opinion which, as I say, resulted in a legislative enactment by the legislature of Ontario which continued on their statute books until 1953, I think it is desirable to resolve the doubts and to resolve them in a manner which would place the matter beyond any question.
In asking the house to consider the reasonableness of that point of view, I think I should remind the house that this suggestion of a constitutional amendment which is now before the house is the first time since confederation that we have asked that the British North America Act be amended with respect to the tenure of office of judges. This is the first time since 1867 that the parliament of Canada has asked the United Kingdom parliament to amend the British North America Act in that respect.
There is no doubt that with respect to the tenure of office of superior court judges the only way in which it is proper to ask for an amendment is first to obtain provincial consent and then to ask the United Kingdom parliament to make that amendment in the British North America Act. That is agreed to by every hon. member of the house who has spoken in this debate.


Paul Joseph James Martin: Would the hon. minister permit a question?


Edmund Davie Fulton: May I just conclude this portion of my remarks. There is no question as to the propriety of our having asked for provincial consent. There is no question as

to the necessity at the present time and under the present circumstances, of submitting an address to the United Kingdom parliament to amend the British North America Act in this respect.
That being accepted by all members of this house, and having been accepted by the members of the other place without question, it is surely reasonable to suggest that while we are asking for this kind of amendment, and this being the first occasion on which this kind of amendment has been asked for with respect to the tenure of office of judges, it would only be the course of prudence to include at the same time in our request for an amendment, a provision that would place the position of district and county court judges beyond question, and which would also have the effect of making it clear that the authority to legislate with respect to the retirement of district and county court judges resides in the parliament of Canada.
Hon. gentlemen say that that is a return to colonialism. Their argument is absurd.


Paul Joseph James Martin: The minister says that our allegation that this is a return to colonialism is absurd. Does he not agree that his statement, that the power likely resides with the Governor General is perhaps the most blatant declaration of the colonial tendencies of this government that could be found?


Edmund Davie Fulton: First, the hon. member for Essex East has done what he so often does. He has taken a statement which I made beyond what I said, and then tried to say that that was my statement, which it was not. Second, he has misinterpreted what he himself said I said. I said there was some opinion which held that although it may be agreed that authority in this matter lies in the federal field, yet, because of the silence of the British North America Act on the question of the tenure and removal from office of county court judges authority in this matter rests with the Governor General. I did not say it rests with the Governor General. I said there was argument that that might be the case, and I refer the hon. gentleman to the remarks of Lord Watson in the case of the Attorney General for Canada v. the attorney general for Ontario (1898) Appeal Cases, 247.
That was not my decision. A Conservative government was not in office at that time; a Liberal government was in office.
What I say is that there is doubt about the matter for the reasons I have given; reasons which, I submit, would lead the average reasonable person to a conclusion that there is indeed some doubt about it. So I said, this being the situation, it seemed to us proper that when we for the first time submit an

address to ask that the British North America Act be amended to deal with the tenure of office of judges, we should take the opportunity at the same time to ask that the authority to deal with the tenure of district and county court judges should also be placed beyond doubt, and that it should be placed beyond doubt within the jurisdiction of the parliament of Canada.
There is nothing whatever of colonialism in that position. It is a reasonable, logical and proper position to take. It is a position which asserts the pre-eminence of Canada in this field, and which attempts to have the situation resolved in the only way in which I submit it can be resolved at this time, that is by a constitutional enactment.
If there is any responsibility for the fact that at the present time we still have to go to the United Kingdom parliament in order to get this sort of constitutional amendment, the responsibility certainly does not rest with the present government of Canada. Indeed, the present government of Canada has given notice in unmistakable terms of its intention to attempt to resolve this problem and produce a method by which authority to amend the constitution of Canada may be brought home to Canada. That was announced by the Prime Minister in the course of his remarks this session, when he was speaking in the debate on the address. Therefore for hon. members opposite to seek to take advantage of this situation by blaming this administration for the fact that authority rests elsewhere is again a misrepresentation and a distortion.


John Whitney Pickersgill: Would the minister permit a question? I understood him to say-and if this is not correct I hope the hon. gentleman will correct me-that the effect of this amendment was to give the jurisdiction to the parliament of Canada.


Edmund Davie Fulton: That is correct.


John Whitney Pickersgill: Will the minister explain how this amendment gives jurisdiction to the parliament of Canada; because this will be an act of the United Kingdom parliament. Is that not the case? It would be an act which could only be changed by the British parliament.


Edmund Davie Fulton: At the present time, yes; but it makes it clear-perhaps I have not appreciated the meaning of the hon. member's question-


John Whitney Pickersgill: Perhaps the minister would permit me to make a slight intervention so I may put it in declaratory form. It seems to me that what the address now before us is seeking to do is to change the provision that judges, should hold office for life. It provides that they should hold office until
B.N.A. Act
the age of 75. That would be an enactment of the British parliament and, having been enacted, the British parliament alone will be able to change it unless we repatriate our constitution.


Edmund Davie Fulton: That is correct.


John Whitney Pickersgill: If the minister had persisted in putting county and district court judges within the terms of the British North America Act, that would have taken jurisdiction away from this parliament, and if any subsequent change was needed that would be up to Westminster and only Westminster could change the situation. That is what we call colonialism.


Edmund Davie Fulton: Then the responsibility for that kind of colonialism rests equally with hon. gentlemen opposite. Indeed, the major responsibility rests with them, because they have rested content with that kind of colonialism for the last 22 years.
Let me complete what I have to say before hon. gentlemen opposite lean back and laugh all over their desks. This government has said it intends to consult with the provinces on a method of bringing the constitution back to Canada so it may be clear that wherever the power to make specific amendments resides, the general power shall reside here in Canada. I am quite prepared to admit that in haste and under interruption I may have overstated the case in one particular and, if so, I should like my previous remarks to be read in the light of what I say now. The point I was making earlier is that there is doubt as to where the authority to legislate with respect to the tenure of office of county and district court judges resides, whether it resides here or whether it resides in the provinces. Our suggested amendments would have made clear that the provinces do not have authority to legislate with respect to the tenure of office of county and district court judges.


John Whitney Pickersgill: Nor do we.


Edmund Davie Fulton: If I said our amendment would have put the authority in the parliament of Canada, I should have said in the constitution of Canada. It is our intention to suggest to the provinces the formulation of a means by which the authority to amend the constitution may be brought to Canada, that authority for all amendments to the constitution may be brought to Canada. At that time, this being accomplished, authority with respect to the tenure of office of all judges will be determined in accordance with the constitution of Canada, a constitution which can be amended in Canada.

Division
If there is no objection, as there has been no objection, to our using the present facilities for amending the constitution, namely asking the United Kingdom parliament by way of an address to Her Majesty to amend the constitution, then I fail to see why there should suddenly be objection to a procedure which places district and county court judges in the same position as superior court judges when at the present time no one can say with absolute certainty where the authority to legislate with respect to the tenure of county court judges resides.


John Whitney Pickersgill: Would the minister permit a question? Would he say whether he knows of any case since the amendment of 1903-


Edmund Davie Fulton: I am coming to that. The hon. member should not be so eager.


John Whitney Pickersgill: May I complete my question? Can the minister give any instance since 1903-


Mr. Speaker:: I am sorry to interrupt, but if my interpretation of the rule is correct the hon. minister is limited to 40 minutes and his time has expired.


John Whitney Pickersgill: Oh, I think everyone in this house will consent to allowing the minister to go on.


Some hon. Members:: No.


Hazen Robert Argue: Let us take the question.



DEPARTMENT OF LABOUR

[Stage Direction]
General administration-
164. Departmental administration including a grant of $10,000 to Frontier college and the expenses of the international labour conferences, $1,118,255.
Lionel Chevrier: Mr. Chairman, I, together with those who sit on this side of the house, have listened with interest to the remarks made by the Minister of Labour concerning his department during the course of his opening statement. While his statement was an interesting one, I think all of us will agree it was a statement which had to do with the activities of his department. Important as those activities are, in my opinion very little was said during the course of his remarks concerning the very important problem with which this country is faced at the present

time. Of course, I refer to the serious economic problem of unemployment. The minister, while he spoke for some 30 minutes or more, did not give to the committee a detailed statement other than what had been said by the Prime Minister and his other colleague concerning a frontal attack upon the problem which faces us today.
What is the problem? Earlier during this year, when the matter was under discussion in the house, and I refer now to February, 1960, there were 800,000 Canadians out of work and seeking employment. This represented 8.1 per cent of the labour force of this country. The Toronto Star, dealing with that question in its weekly editorial on February 27, 1960, had this to say:
As parliament and various provincial legislatures opened this year, speeches from the throne glowed with confidence about the return of good times and of surging economic activity in 1960. At the very same time 723,000 Canadians were looking for jobs through national employment service. Not all, but the great majority of these were out of work.
The two views do not jibe. There may be good times, but not for the hundreds of thousands of people-and their families-having to depend on unemployment insurance instead of pay envelopes. The insurance, though a help, is no substitute for a job.
Then there is this remarkable paragraph which I should like to put on the record.
Apart from extending unemployment insurance benefits, the government's main attempts at treatment^ are to solicit the public to hire people for odd jobs ("Do it now" campaigns) and the winter works program. This program provides relatively few jobs and is certainly no answer to the problem.
At that time there was a great deal of advertising about what was known as the "Do it now" campaign. To what extent this has assisted in providing jobs for people, little or nothing has been said.
What is the position now? The hon. member for Essex East the other day put on the record the situation, and I shall not repeat it except to make one general statement. In June of this year, having regard to the latest figures from the minister's office and the dominion bureau of statistics, there were
300,000	people out of jobs and seeking work. According to the labour force survey of the dominion bureau of statistics for the month of June of this year, this represented 4.6 per cent of the labour force, unemployed and out of work. Three hundred thousand people out of work in the month of June, at a time when normally there is no seasonal unemployment and at a time when the business cycle should be at its peak, is symptomatic of a problem which, it seems to me, demands the immediate attention of the minister and all those who sit with him on the treasury
Supply-Labour
benches. Three hundred thousand people out of work at this time of the year is a serious matter.
What will the position be as time goes on? If the committee will bear with me, I shall attempt to deal with that. I hear from my left the statement, "doom and gloom". Yes, we were accused of being the prophets of doom and gloom, not only during the course of this debate but during an earlier debate, at which time the minister lost his temper and said to those of us who sit on this side of the house, what have you got to offer? Have you anything to offer? I have been sitting here now for I do not know how many days, he said at the time, waiting for suggestions from those of you who sit on the other side of the house, and I have not heard a thing. However, we replied at the time that the responsibility was not on this side of the house, but on the other side of the house to find a solution and to do something about the problem with which this country was faced.
The government faced up to it with the winter works program which provided about
40,000	to 50,000 jobs, a winter works program which was announced too late in 1959 to be of any use in the province of Quebec and which was, because of the credit restrictions in 1960, of very little value. What is the solution?


William Heward Grafftey: Will the hon. member permit a question?


Lionel Chevrier: Yes.


William Heward Grafftey: The hon. member said it was of no use in the province of Quebec. I was wondering if the hon. member was aware of the fact that in my own particular constituency many men were put to work as a result of this program last year?


Lionel Chevrier: The hon. member is perhaps correct. Perhaps when I used the expression it was of no use, I should have said it was of little use because I now say, without fear of contradiction, that in the province of Quebec it provided jobs for less than 8,000 people when there were over 200,000 people out of work in that province. Of that there can be no doubt. The complete lack of planning for dealing with the problem at the time is what has brought about the hard core of unemployment with which this country is faced.
The other day the Prime Minister, the Minister of Public Works, and then later the Minister of Labour himself announced a new solution. What was this solution? It can be dealt with under four headings. First, there was housing. The restrictions are to be relaxed to provide greater employment. I shall

Supply-Labour
not go into the details of this program because it would take too long. I believe the weakness of that program has been stated by the hon. member for Essex East when he said that all this was doing was replacing unemployment in the winter with unemployment in the summer.
Then there was the winter works program which was extended. I am not complaining about that; that was all to the good. But if the winter works program, as we had it in effect last year and the year before, provided from 40,000 to 50,000 jobs at a time when there was a substantial number of people out of work, what is this extension going to do with regard to the problem?
Then there is the training of unemployed workers. The federal government is to increase its contribution in that field from 50 per cent to 75 per cent of the total cost. Finally, there was the statement by the Minister of Labour himself, made during the course of consideration of his estimates, that the Prime Minister promised that he would add, as and when circumstances warranted, new and additional programs to meet the position. Does anyone in this committee seriously believe this is the proper way to meet a problem which was serious in the wintertime, which is serious now and which, according to certain economists coming from the area from which the minister himself comes, may well reach such proportions that there will be one million people unemployed next winter.


Mr. Ricard:: Will the hon. member permit a question?


Lionel Chevrier: Yes.


J.-H.-Théogène Ricard: How would he explain the fact that in Canada now there are more people employed than ever before?


John Whitney Pickersgill: There are more people.


Lionel Chevrier: There may be more people employed but there are far more people unemployed today than there were last year or the year before.


J.-H.-Théogène Ricard: The population is increasing.


The Deputy Chairman:: Order.


Lionel Chevrier: My hon. friend says that the population is increasing. But what is the gov-vernment doing to meet the situation? The government is using half-way measures.


J.-H.-Théogène Ricard: Will the hon. member permit a question?


Lionel Chevrier: I will permit a question provided that extra time is granted to me.


Edmund Davie Fulton: That is not what happened to me.


Charles Edward Rea: Order. I am sorry but the Chair cannot allow the hon. member an extension of time if he permits a question.


Lionel Chevrier: In that case I will not allow a question Mr. Chairman, and I thank you.
I was saying that the program which has been announced by the Minister of Labour will not meet the situation as we on this side of the house understand it and as it is understood in the country. Let us see what some of these matters are concerned with. When the minister lost his temper in the house on an earlier occasion and I am not complaining of that fact-


Mr. Siarr:: You lose yours all the time.


Lionel Chevrier: It happens to me at times. I admit that fact at once. However, it is not a fact that I lose it all the time.


Michael Starr: You harped on this one.


Lionel Chevrier: Yes, I harped on it with every reason because it was, I repeat, your responsibility and that of your colleagues to meet the situation and you called upon us to tell you what you should do.


J.-H.-Théogène Ricard: No.


Lionel Chevrier: Yes, you did. If you want me to do so, I will put on Hansard the intervention of the minister.


J.-H.-Théogène Ricard: Let us settle it.


Lionel Chevrier: As reported at page 1617 of Hansard of Tuesday, March 1, 1960, the
minister stated:
T have sat here hopefully and patiently waiting for some concrete suggestions as to how this problem should be met, but there has not been one.
And further on:
I am sitting here waiting patiently for some concrete suggestions for immediate action and I will continue to sit here until I get some. Instead of making empty speeches about unemployment they should get down to concrete facts and treat the matter seriously. As members of this house they should put forward concrete suggestions.
We did that, Mr. Chairman. We put forward concrete suggestions. Concrete suggestions were put forward by the hon. member for Essex East, the hon. member for Bona-vista-Twillingate, the Prime Minister and myself.


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh.


John Whitney Pickersgill: You mean the next prime minister.


Lionel Chevrier: I amend that statement at once by saying that the next prime minister and myself put on the record some concrete proposals. What happened to those proposals? They were laughed at. I have not at my disposal the time in which to repeat those

suggestions but I should like to put half a dozen of them on the record and recall them to the attention of the minister.
To help overcome technological unemployment we advocated the expansion of vocational training in order to develop new skills among workers. We advocated a national advisory board on economic development, automation and unemployment. We advocated a special capital fund to encourage industrial development in the Atlantic provinces. We advocated again, as we did in 1958, a national science commission to ensure the most effective use of our national resources. We urged the government to plan now against the danger of cyclical unemployment when the economic cycle turns downward again.
We must learn a lot more, we said, about seasonal unemployment than we know now. We advocated a special unemployment committee to study and analyse the problem. We must have the best brains of government, business, trade unions, agriculture and universities set to work on the study of seasonal unemployment.
I could go on but time is of the essence. What were we told from the other side of the house? In fact, these suggestions were laughed at by hon. gentlemen who sit on the side of the Minister of Labour. What did the Minister of Finance say? On March 31 the Minister of Finance said that the problem of unemployment would melt with the snow. That was in effect what the Minister of Finance told us at that time when he spoke at a meeting in Toronto. He said that with the coming of spring and with the melting of the snow the problem of unemployment also would melt and disappear.
Then again we were given some more advice by the Minister of Finance. He found a new formula which was to be added to the "Do it now" program and that was "work and save". It is an easy thing to make that statement in speeches but when it comes to putting it into operation, particularly by those who have no work, as can be seen, it is of no practical use whatsoever.
The Leader of the Opposition put on Hansard some months ago the fact that there were three kinds of unemployment, namely cyclical or economic unemployment caused by the ups and downs of business; technological unemployment caused in large part by automation; and seasonal unemployment brought about by climatic conditions. I say to you, Mr. Chairman, that the government has addressed itself to only one of these categories of unemployment, namely that of a seasonal or climatic nature. The program which has been set down as a four-pronged program deals with but one of the categories.
79951-0-456
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As has already been stated, when we put questions to the minister on orders of the day, the replies have been either in the negative or evasive. I have asked him repeatedly about the statement and the recommendations made by the federation of reeves and mayors of Ontario who held their convention in Cornwall and who requested of him the immediate establishment of a study to consider the scope of unemployment in this country. I asked him that question on three different occasions and on three different occasions he evaded it. If that is the way in which to deal with questions in the House of Commons-


Michael Starr: I rise on a question of privilege. I do not want to interrupt the hon. member for Laurier but may I say this? He says that I evaded the questions. If he would be honest with himself and with the house and if he looked up Hansard I think he will find I answered his question in the way in which he asked it. He asked whether I had received any representations and I said no; and to this day I have not received any representations from that body.


Lionel Chevrier: That is not a question of privilege, Mr. Chairman. It is true that the first question I asked was whether the minister had received representations. But then the next question I asked was whether he had seen this report in the press and he said yes, that he had read the press report. At that point he was interrupted by the hon. member for Bonavista-Twillingate who asked him whether it was not true that at one time he was a member of the federation himself and he said that he was the mayor of the city of Oshawa. What is the inference from that reply? If that is not replying evasively to a question, I do not know what it is; and where is the question of privilege in a matter of this kind? I say to the minister that the hon. member for Essex East is right and so am I when I state without equivocation that to many of these questions the answers have been in effect evasive.
It has been said repeatedly in the House of Commons and elsewhere that the situation with regard to unemployment is serious in the province of Quebec. I believe it is more serious there than it is in any other part of Canada perhaps with the exception of certain areas in the maritime provinces. There were members from the province of Quebec who spoke here on several occasions. They dealt with one small aspect, the textile industry-and an important one indeed to Quebec-of the unemployment problem. But did they deal with the serious situation in the province of Quebec? Have they made representations to the minister and to the government?

Supply-Labour


J.-H.-Théogène Ricard: Yes; we have made representations.


Lionel Chevrier: I am glad to hear that. It is apparent that those representations have had no effect. I read now from the brief which was presented by the present premier of the province of Quebec on the occasion of the dominion-provincial conference.


Mr. Pigeon:: Mr. Lesage promised during the last election campaign to regulate the position. He said that was his own responsibility.


Lionel Chevrier: If my hon. friend will hold his seat I will tell him what the premier of the province of Quebec said and then I will read what the Minister of Labour said with respect to this matter, and then he will see and perhaps understand once and for all what the true position is. I have not time to read the whole of the brief dealing with unemployment but I will start with this:
The province of Quebec and the rest of the country are faced at present with serious economic problems. Unemployment is one of the most serious of those problems .. .
The fight against unemployment has become one of the main duties of the state. This responsibility belongs to all spheres of government under our federal system. In Quebec, we recognized recently that the province has its share of responsibility and we intend to face it without delay. This is not the time to describe the measures that we shall take, but it might be noted, in passing, that we intend to establish shortly a council of economic orientation to serve as the planning agency of our economic and industrial life and which will have under its jurisdiction a bureau of economic and scientific research as well as an industrial development bureau.


J.-H.-Théogène Ricard: That was long before Mr. Lesage-


Lionel Chevrier: Mr. Chairman, I have no objection to being interrupted, but if the hon. member wants to ask a question let him get off his seat, because there seems to be nothing in his head, as I intend to establish in a moment.


J.-H.-Théogène Ricard: I did get up a while ago and you refused my question.


Lionel Chevrier: I did not refuse you.


The Chairman:: Order.


Lionel Chevrier: The final statement with respect to this position by the premier of the province of Quebec is as follows:
We have recognized that there is-


J.-H.-Théogène Ricard: There is a strong-


Lionel Chevrier: Mr. Chairman, I cannot carry on unless there is order from the other side, and I hope you will try and establish it.
IMr. Chevrier.]


Jacques Flynn: I must ask hon. members to permit the hon. member for Laurier to continue.


Lionel Chevrier: The rest of this is as follows: We have recognized-
He is referring to the province of Quebec. -that there is a provincial responsibility in this field but we have never claimed that it was an exclusive responsibility.
Let us see what the Minister of Labour said when addressing this house on March 3, 1960, as reported on page 1699 of Hansard. He said: This present government is responsible for that problem-*
He was referring to unemployment.
-and has been responsible for it. I, as Minister of Labour, answer on behalf of the government in this respect.
I think that makes it quite clear, and I hope the hon. member who interrupted me a moment ago will once and for all in view of those two statements realize where the responsibility for this matter lies. We have never stated that it lay anywhere else, but hon. members on the other side continue to misstate the position.
(Translation) :


Louis-Joseph Pigeon: May I point out that-


Lionel Chevrier: No. There is nothing whatsoever you may point out in the circumstances.
(Text):
Then there is this position.


Louis-Joseph Pigeon: You are afraid of it.


Jacques Flynn: Order.


Lionel Chevrier: I am certainly not afraid of you because you are so useless and repetitious-


Jacques Flynn: Order.


Lionel Chevrier: I am going to deal now with another matter, and that is a matter about which the hon. member for St. Hyacinthe-Bagot claims to be an expert-


J.-H.-Théogène Ricard: No, I never did.


Lionel Chevrier: -and that is the question of the textile industry in the province of Quebec. The textile industry in the province of Quebec is a very important one, important not only to that province but also to other parts of Canada. But, Mr. Chairman, if you had listened to the hon. member for St. Hyacinthe-Bagot the other day you would have thought that all the ills which had fallen upon that industry were the fault of the previous administration. All you would have to do to get a reply to what the hon. member stated is not to listen to me but to

have listened to the hon. member for Sherbrooke, who gave a complete reply to what this hon. gentleman has said with reference to that situation.
I would think that the hon. member for Sherbrooke, while we may not always agree with him, at least knows what he is talking about. He knows something about the textile industry because it means so much to Sherbrooke. I would like to put on record some of the things which were said by the hon. member for Sherbrooke, and I would ask the hon. member for St. Hyacinthe-Bagot to listen to this very carefully because it answers him completely. I am reading from page 3 of the translation section in Hansard of his speech which is to be found on page 7159 of Hansard for July 28, 1960. He said:
Some 20 years ago,-
I remind the house that that is when the previous Liberal administration was in office.
-Canadian textile products were getting about 75 per cent of the Canadian market. Today, they barely get 44 per cent of the national market.
The major cause of this situation is the quantity of foreign textiles flooding the Canadian market.
In 1959 United States mills sold in Canada six million more yards of cotton than did Canadian mills.
Besides, in that same year, 1959, Japanese textile exports increased by 56 per cent.
Now listen to this, Mr. Chairman. In the same city of Sherbrooke, on March 23, 1958, this is what the Prime Minister said about this problem:
Sherbrooke, a textile manufacturing city of 70,000, has been seriously hit by United States
dumping" of textiles and Mr. Diefenbaker made it plain this situation will not be permitted to continue.
"The textile industry. . . has not always been treated fairly in the past", he declared in a searching denunciation of the former Liberal government. "Its requests for better treatment have much too long been neglected".
Mr. Chairman, in the words of the hon. member for Sherbrooke, this is what the situation is today in 1960, much worse than it ever was before.
I ask my distinguished friend from Stormont who sits away down at the other end whether he remembers what the Prime Minister said in his own city about the textile industry; how he would do away with dumping; how he would move quickly to get rid of dumping of textile products on the Canadian market in the same way as the government had succeeded in getting rid of the dumping of agricultural products. And what is the position in that unfortunate city where its cotton industry has had three mills close down and 2,500 people put out of work? That is also the position to a large extent in certain parts of the province of Quebec, for 79951-0-456i
Supply-Labour
instance in Valleyfield where the textile industry has suffered a tremendous drop in employment and the sales of its products.
I could go on and refer to what is happening in the city of Montreal; but no. Hon. members from the province of Quebec will rise in their places and say that this is a wonderful government, that it is doing great things. Still the number of unemployed mount, notwithstanding the fact that we find ourselves in the month of July when the problem should be disappearing entirely.
I have stated this before and it is worth repeating, because there are some hon. members of this house who understand nothing unless it is repeated. It has been said in this house that things were much worse during the days of the Liberal regime, but I would remind hon. members of this house of the program which was tabled in the house in April, 1945 by the then minister of reconstruction and supply, the Right Hon. Mr. Howe who was laughed at when I mentioned his name the other evening when I said that many of those on the other side of the house would like to have him today to direct the economy.
He tabled a program of eight points dealing with the initial period of reconstruction in the post-war era. What was the result? I should like the hon. member from St. Hyacinthe-Bagot, who made all sorts of affirmations about what had happened under the previous regime, to listen to this, because these are figures taken from the dominion bureau of statistics for the period 1946 to 1956, a period of little more than 10 years. During those 11 years the percentage of the labour force without jobs and seeking work was at an average of 2.8 per year when the experts say that 3 per cent is the equivalent of full employment. That was the situation from 1946 to 1956.


Jacques Flynn: I am sorry to interrupt the hon. member, but his time has expired.


Lionel Chevrier: May I be allowed to continue?


Jacques Flynn: Does the committee consent to the hon. member continuing?


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


Michael Starr: That will be all right.


Lionel Chevrier: I thank the Minister of Labour and those who sit in the committee for their kindness in allowing me to continue. It gives me the opportunity to put on record that between 1946 and 1956 the average percentage of the labour force without jobs was 2.8 per cent as I said, whereas

Supply-Labour
according to the experts 3 per cent of the labour force is the equivalent of full employment.


Mr. Speakman:: Would the hon. gentleman permit a question. Would the hon. member tell us during that 11-year period what was the highest percentage in any one year?


Lionel Chevrier: Yes, I have it here and I will put it on the record. Here are the figures:
Proportion
Year	Labour force without work
1946	
4.8 million	2.9	per cent1947	
4.9	"	2	"	"1948	
4.9	"	2	"	"1949	
5	"	2.6	"	"1950	
5.1	"	3.2	"	"1951	
5.2	"	2	"	"1952	
5.3	"	2.4	"	"1953	
5.3	"	2.5	"	"
I cannot go on indefinitely-


An hon. Member:: There are only two more.


Mr. Maclnnis:: Would the hon. gentleman permit a question? The house has made time available to the hon. member, and surely he can answer one question.


Lionel Chevrier: Perhaps the hon. member would allow me to put the rest of the table on the record and I will answer the question then if I can.
Proportion
Year	Labour force without work
1954	
5.4 million	4.2 per	cent1955	
5.5	"	4.1	"	"1956	
5.7	'*	3.1	"	"1957	
6	"	4.3	"	"1958	
6.1	"	6.6	"	"1959	
6.2	"	5.6	"	"
In 1960 the percentage rose almost to 9 per cent-8.6 per cent, I think, was the figure given by the minister's office.


Michael Starr: Were these figures for the same month of each of those years and, if so, what was the month?


Lionel Chevrier: This was the average for the year. I believe the minister asked me that question before.


Michael Starr: >No, I did not.


Lionel Chevrier: Then I am sorry.


Donald MacInnis: I wonder if the hon. member would now explain to the committee, if he can, the effects of the war and the Korean conflict on the figures in that period between 1946 and 1956.


Lionel Chevrier: I will deal with both. The last figure the hon. member mentioned was 1956 and we were far away then from either the Korean or world war II. Now let me deal with the first part of the question. The right hon. gentleman who headed the department of reconstruction and supply put a plan

on record. He tabled it in this house and the government of the day followed that plan, and because of that plan the favourable position which I have indicated here in these tables taken from the dominion bureau of statistics came about; the figures indicate what happened, as a result, during that interval.
What I am complaining about now is that there is no plan, not even a halfhearted one, being followed by the present government. If there was such a plan, or if there was a committee set up such as we had at one time to deal with this problem, then perhaps the government would not be facing criticism such as has been made on this side of the house with regard to the weak attempt- I say this with respect to the minister and not as a personal attack-to deal with what is, after defence, Canada's No. 1 problem.


Donald MacInnis: The hon. gentleman has failed to answer the question I put to him and he made reference to the plan which was put forward. Would he now explain to the committee the detriment to the maritime area of any plans put forward by Mr. C. D. Howe?


Lionel Chevrier: That plan was put into effect, and I have no doubt that it was of benefit to all parts of the economy of Canada.


Donald MacInnis: That is not so.


Lionel Chevrier: The hon. member keeps interrupting. If he does not want to listen to what I have to say he should not be asking questions. I am attempting to say that this plan was of benefit to the whole economy of Canada and I have no doubt that that is a fact, and if the right hon. gentleman who was responsible for putting that plan into effect had not been at the helm in those days the situation in the area from which the hon. member comes would be a great deal worse than it is today.


Donald MacInnis: That would take a lot of explaining to the servicemen of the last war.


An hon. Member:: Oh, sit down.


Lionel Chevrier: What have we instead? Instead we have the remedies given by the minister a moment ago which can be summed up in two words; first, the "Do it now" program we had when the winter works program was originally announced and then, later, the program announced by the Minister of Finance to fight inflation, namely "work and save". Those were brave words as were the words of the Prime Minister which were used on so many occasions by the right hon. gentleman and which hon. members know so well, though the hon. member for Brome-Missisquoi does not seem too sure of them.

"Work and Save" is a good slogan providing we have the kind of economy where it is possible to work and save, but when there were 800,000 people out of work and seeking jobs at the beginning of the year and 300,000 now, it is not the answer to this problem. The answer to this problem is a constructive approach, and a constructive approach has not been forthcoming from the Minister of Labour. Until one has been submitted which is deserving of serious study and consideration, I say emphatically that the difficulty in which we find ourselves today will not be solved.


J.-H.-Théogène Ricard: Mr. Chairman, a few moments ago the hon. member for Laurier accused me of making statements in this chamber that were contrary to the facts. I said last evening that 23 textile mills in the province of Quebec closed their doors during the course of the Liberal administration. In order to keep the record straight I should like to place on the record the names of those firms which had to close their doors between the years 1951 and 1957. I do this for the information of the hon. member for Laurier who seems to doubt what I said in this regard. When he said what he did I think he had something else in mind concerning which were I to give proof in this chamber it would put in a shameful light the hon. member and his colleagues in the Liberal party. The list to which I referred is as follows:
Approximate
Company	closing	date
Actonvale Silk Mills	 1952
British-American Silk Mills	 1954
Canadian Silk Textiles Registered ..	1953
Classon Mills Limited	 1956
Demetre Sault & Ciriez (Canada)
Limited	 1956
Eastern Woollen & Worsted Mills ....	1952 or 1953
Franco-Canadian Dyers Limited ....	1956
International Worsted Mills Inc		1953
Kenmar Textiles	 1955
La Filature de Saguenay Limitee .. 1954 Laurentian Textile Company	 1958


John Whitney Pickersgill: 1958?


J.-H.-Théogène Ricard: I continue:
Approximate
Company	closing	date
Mattawin Textiles Limited	 1957
Roby Worsteds Limited	 1952
Rouville Textiles Company	 1955
Seneca Weavers Limited	 1952
St. Andrews Woollen Mills Limited ..	1953
St. Johns Textile Mills Limited ___ 1956
Soieries Boell Limited	 1954
Sutton Silk Mills Limited	 1952
Valleyfield Silk Mills Limited .... 1953
Wesley Mason Mills
(Drummondville, Quebec)	 1954
Wesley Mason Mills Limited
(Cap-de-la-Madeleine, Quebec) ..	1953
Wolsey of Canada Limited	 1954
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That information was drawn from material published by the Primary Textiles Institute Limited.
Furthermore, I should like to ask the hon. member which minister in the last Liberal government said that the textile industry in the province of Quebec was heading toward its death. That was a former Liberal minister. Not only was he satisfied at the decline of the industry in that province but he longed to see the industry in that province wiped out.


Mr. Deschaleleis:: Would the hon. member permit a question?


J.-H.-Théogène Ricard: No. I will ask the hon. member to wait until I am finished. I will do the same thing to him that the hon. member for Laurier did to me.


John Whitney Pickersgill: You will soon be finished.


J.-H.-Théogène Ricard: I wish to remind the committee that never in the history of Canada were the average weekly earnings of workers as high as under a Conservative government.


Lionel Chevrier: And employment so low.


J.-H.-Théogène Ricard: The Canadian worker enjoys an average salary of $75 a week under this government, a peak of achievement never reached by Canadian wage earners under a Liberal government. It took the Conservative government to ensure that Canadian workers would earn that much money.
As I said yesterday, it requires the effort of every Canadian citizen to create employment in our country. The creation of employment is not the sole responsibility of the federal government but is a responsibility shared by all Canadian citizens. Each of us must do everything he can to ensure the creation of employment in this promising young land of ours for the young fellows of today who will be the leading men of tomorrow in our country.
Because of the farsightedness of Canadian engineers and industrialists we have accomplished things in our country that are the pride of all Canadians. In Drummondville J. A. Gosselin Limited Company developed an apparatus used in the dyeing process in the textile industry, some kind of gadget never seen before. It has been exported to England where it has been greeted enthusiastically. This shows what our Canadian engineers and industrialists can do. I appeal to all Canadians to stop weeping about temporary conditions and to join together in a united effort to build up Canada better than it was under Liberal organization. (Translation):


Jean-Paul Deschatelets: Would the hon. member allow me a question?


J.-H.-Théogène Ricard: Certainly.

Supply-Labour


Jean-Paul Deschatelets: The hon. member mentioned earlier that a minister in the previous administration had made a certain statement. Could he give us the name of that minister, and also the reference in Hansard of the said statement?


Mr. Valade:: Do you know him?


J.-H.-Théogène Ricard: I feel that, as usual, the hon. member for Maisonneuve-Rosemont has not been listening to my remarks, because I, myself, asked who had made the statement. Since I was inquiring about it myself, I am surely not in a position to inform the hon. member. However, I would be very glad to get that information, because I know that such a statement was made.


Jean-Paul Deschatelets: You are more ridiculous than ever.


J.-H.-Théogène Ricard: Apparently, the hon. member has been taking a look at himself in the mirror.
(Text):
.Mr. Pickersgill: Who has the thimble?


Hazen Robert Argue: Mr. Chairman, although this debate is taking place in the dying days of this sesion it is nevertheless an exceedingly important one. Recent statistics issued by the department show that unemployment is still a serious problem in Canada.
I have in my hands statistics of unplaced applicants as a percentage of the labour force. These show that in June this year there were 401,196 unplaced applicants. I have the figures for the same month back to 1956. In the year before this government took office, in this month, there were 191,000 unemployed in this category. In 1957, the next year, when the Conservative government had handled the administration of this country for half a year there were 270,000. In 1958 in the same month it was up to 526,000. In 1959 it was 320,000 and this year it is 401,000. Under this administration the government has been able to accomplish nothing towards reducing the general unemployment picture.
This government took office in June, 1957 and its administration since has been notable throughout for the widespread unemployment that has existed in the country. In case it might be said that the figures for June are unrepresentative, I have figures in my hand for all of the months of the same year and they show the same general trend. In January, 1957 the number of unemployed amounted to 526,000; in the same month in 1958, 816,000; in January of 1959, 775,000; and in January of this year, 772,000.
I think this is a disgrace to Canada. I do not understand why the minister in introducing his estimates did not deal with the

central problem of unemployment. Apparently the government does not think that the problem is really important. It has not attached to the problem a high priority. The government has come forward with no plan that I know of to deal with this national emergency, for that is exactly what it is.
Widespread unemployment is surely a blot on our country, not only because of the hardship to the people who are unemployed but because of the general reduction in the production of our nation and because of the great loss of material wealth. When we have widespread unemployment as we have today I would estimate that the country is losing at the very minimum $2 billion of wealth production a year. The government which has been in office for three years has seen our country forgo the production of at least $6 billion of wealth because of unemployment. That is a very high price to pay for a Tory administration which is unconcerned and certainly unable to deal with this great problem.
Not only have the minister and the government been unwilling to present a program to deal with the problem but the government has not been able to forecast that conditions are going to improve. As a matter of fact, there are a great many forecasts from officials of the departments by way of speeches that have been made which indicate that within the next year or two we may face a much deeper recession than we now have. Instead of the government coming forward with a bold program we hear rumours of the government pulling a snap election to avoid having to call an election when we are in an even deeper recession than the current one.
The Minister of Labour is in a difficult position. He has to take more of the responsibility for this situation than other members of the government because he is the minister. I do not want to be unduly harsh on the minister but the government has failed the Canadian people. It has failed to put forward a policy to solve the unemployment problem. As a matter of fact, statistics released from government departments suggest that conditions in recent days are getting worse. I have in my hand the April index of industrial production found in the D.B.S. daily bulletin of June 29 in which there is the following:
Canada's seasonally adjusted index of industrial production in April declined 2.4 per cent to 167.3 from the March level of 171.4.
An important index of economic activity in the country, the industrial index, shows a decline of 2.4 per cent. Another important

index is the gross national product, and in the D.B.S. daily bulletin for June 22 I find the following:
The advance in gross national product moderated in the first quarter of 1960. Apart from the third quarter of last year, the increase of 1 per cent was the smallest quarter to quarter gain in the value of production since the expansion began following recovery from the 1957-58 recession.
There is little indication there that we are getting out of the woods. Another economic index that is considered to be an important one in showing the buoyancy of our economy or otherwise is the index of new motor vehicle sales. Total sales of new passenger and commercial vehicles in April declined 2.7 per cent to 57,773 units from 59,360 in the corresponding month last year, while sales in the January-April period rose 1.9 per cent to 180,702 units from 177,334 a year ago. The retail value of that month's sales fell 4.2 per cent to $172 million from $179 million.
The index of motor vehicle sales indicates not only a general recession in the economy but shows the difficulty experienced in the sales of automobiles. Information is published by D.B.S. as to starts and completions of new dwellings from time to time, and the latest daily bulletin, that of June 28, states as follows:
Starts on the construction of new dwelling units in urban centres of 5,000 population and over in May fell to 6,913 from 11,151 in the same month last year, according to advance D.B.S. figures.
This is another indication of a depressed economy. Another index that is considered an important one is that showing the number of railway car loadings. The D.B.S. daily bulletin of June 30 states as follows:
Cars of railway revenue freight loaded on lines in Canada in the week ended June 21 numbered 78,867, slightly below last year's corresponding total of 79,233 cars.
Department store sales in May decreased slightly by .7 per cent to an estimated $116 million from $117 million in the corresponding 1959 month while the January to May total increased 1.7 per cent to $514 million from $505 million a year ago. The bulletin showing chain store sales indicates that chain store sales in May declined 4.3 per cent to $269 million from $281 million in the corresponding month last year.
All of these indications of economic conditions in the country show not only that we are in trouble but that conditions have been worsening. The widespread unemployment situation is having other adverse effects. When the government took office there was $852,
729,000	in the unemployment insurance fund as of June 30, 1957; after this government had been in office for a period of just 12 months, the money in the unemployment
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insurance fund had dropped to $644.5 million or a loss in the first year of this administration of $208 million. After this administration had been in office a further year, the unemployment insurance fund had dropped to $434 million, a further drop of $210 million. On June 30 of this year, in spite of an increase in the amount of contributions made to the fund, the fund had dropped another $138 million to $296 million.
I should like the Minister of Labour to tell us how long, in his opinion, it is going to be until the unemployment insurance fund is bankrupt, and the government either has to borrow money or get money from the general revenues to replenish the fund or the people on unemployment will be denied benefits. The unemployment insurance fund is going into bankruptcy at a very alarming rate. Still the minister, in introducing his estimates, gave this committee and the country no hope that the government has a policy or a policy to solve unemployment, Members of this government support the present capitalist system. They like to call i1 a free enterprise system. The members ol the Liberal party support that kind of system. Whether we support the present economic order as it exists, we support our democratic processes and our free parliamentary institutions. I think the communists must be smiling in the Kremlin when they see a nation like ours, perhaps with more wealth in relation to our population than any other nation in the world, hobbling along on one leg.
This government lauds the free enterprise system. It lauds its own efforts, and yet there are half a million people unemployed while the government has no policy. I think in this day and age, when we are competing in an ideological sense with the communist world, this government should be exceedingly concerned about doing everything possible to make our economy one of full employment, full production and a high standard of living. Yet, in my opinion, the government plays into the hands of the communists by allowing our economic system to hobble along while losing $2 billion worth of production a year. In the interest of strengthening our society, in the interest of the welfare of all Canadians, I hope the government will soon come forward with a positive policy for dealing with unemployment.
There was an announcement made in the house the other day that the government was going to appoint a royal commission to inquire into the automobile industry in our country. This was a welcome announcement. I hope that action to improve the chances of employment in this industry will not have to wait the royal commission report which may

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take years in its completion. Before anyone may misunderstand what I am about to say, I want to say that we in the C.C.F. party are opposed to tariffs being used as a method of combatting unemployment. We feel that the answer to unemployment in this and other industries is not to resort to the use of tariffs. There may be room for some planning, for some move toward the integration of the automobile industry of this continent.
We have in Canada automobile companies which are subsidiaries of United States parent corporations. In Canada our companies are asked, in the main, to produce exactly the same models as are produced in the United States. It would seem to me a much more sensible arrangement if in Canada our industry could produce fewer models and produce a more standard model which could be produced for the whole of North America. This kind of co-operation would remove the need for tariff protection and would bring about efficiency in the industry. I would hope it would go a long distance toward increasing employment in that industry. I only hope the government will not fold its hands and do nothing, waiting for years until the royal commission may make its report. May I say that I welcome the announcement and I hope the commission will be appointed immediately; that it can undertake its work within the next few weeks and that its report will be received at the earliest possible date.
Unemployment is a major problem in our country. As has been suggested on former occasions, this is the time for action by the government, this is the time to call a conference to consider this great national problem which should include within it representatives of provincial governments, municipalities, management and labour. It would be a conference to consider the economic welfare of the Canadian nation. This government, in this kind of conference, should not take the same attitude it took at the federal-provincial conference which just concluded. This kind of conference would require leadership. The last conference on federal-provincial fiscal relations found this government empty-handed; it went in without proposals. They said, this is just a talkfest and we will hear from the premier of each of the provinces. The suggested conference is the kind before which the government should place well defined proposals which would lead, when implemented, to the removal of unemployment in our country.
I have a number of suggestions I should like to make, Mr. Chairman. I think now is the time for a tremendous increase in investment. I should like to see a national investment board or a national investment corporation which would have available to it at least

a billion dollars to be used for investment in industries, in roads, in schools, in hospitals, in housing, in works of all kinds that would lead to a reduction in unemployment. The government takes the opposite view. The government says we are following a tight money policy; we have a high interest policy. Instead of making funds readily available, our policy has been to curtail funds in the hope that this would reduce the inflationary trend. I believe the government has to change its course completely, and that there should be available to the provinces, to municipalities and to industries, large sums of money which would enable this kind of economic expansion.
Second, I would suggest that now is the time for this government to consider special projects in its relationship with the provinces. I do not know why the government is waiting to go forward with a second trans-Canada highway. This surely is a place in which there is a need for additional services. Here is a place in which more people can be employed than we have employed at the present time. I would suggest that in addition to a second trans-Canada highway there should be an over-all road policy whereby federal money will go to assist in the construction of the main east-west and north-south roads in our country.
I would suggest that more money should be made available for hospital construction and that the Minister of Public Works should make available for house construction in this country the same funds that were made available last year. In other words, there should be no reduction in the funds for home building.
Third, I would suggest that to improve the possibility of employment in winter there may be need for special incentive, such as special tax incentive or perhaps special depreciation incentive in order to encourage industries to expand and to provide employment in the winter months.
As a fourth necessary measure to help to solve unemployment in this country I would suggest there is the whole question of a great expansion in Canadian trade. This government has tied its policy to GATT. This government has failed to use new methods in order to increase our international trade. We have a Canadian-Soviet trade agreement. There is no indication, so far as I know, that the Canadian government is going to take advantage of the fact that the soviet government has agreed to buy $2 worth of goods in our country for each $1 worth we buy in that nation. I suggest that here is a place for government planning and action. The government should take steps to buy from the Soviet union a larger quantity of

goods than we have bought in the past in order that we can expand twofold our exports to that country.
I would suggest further that now is the time for the government to consider steps to increase the incomes of Canadians, especially the incomes of Canadians whose incomes are low. If the government would bring about an increase in the old age pension from $55 to $75 a month I suggest that that injection of additional purchasing power in the hands of the elderly people in this country would be of assistance in increasing the demand for goods, thus resulting in a subsequent increase in employment.
I represent an agricultural area. The agricultural producers of Canada have often been criticized. However, there is one thing for which they have never been criticized, namely hoarding their money. If the government would do something to bolster farm income they can be assured that that income would find its way into the economy of our country and would be used to purchase farm implements, repairs, lumber and the other goods produced in our nation.
I would suggest to the Minister of Labour that he use his influence in the cabinet in order to provide an increase in the incomes of the western grain producers. I suggest that $100 million by way of deficiency payments would be an important contribution toward greater employment in our country.


Paul Joseph James Martin: They ought at least to see the farmers.


Hazen Robert Argue: The hon. member for Essex East says that they should see the farmers. Of course they should see them. I want to congratulate the Minister of Labour for seeing the automobile workers. The automobile workers were given a hearing and they obtained a royal commission but the agricultural producers on the prairies can no longer get even so much as a hearing.


John Whitney Pickersgill: Or an answer to their letters.


Michael Starr: We are on labour estimates, not on agriculture estimates.


Hazen Robert Argue: This is a great economic problem facing the Canadian nation. We are in a deep economic crisis which has resulted in widespread unemployment. We in this group- those of us in the opposition-are not satisfied with a country that has at this time a half a million unemployed persons and a government that does not take the problem seriously. I suggest that before this debate is concluded the Minister of Labour should be frank with the committee and should state to the committee the proposals and the program of the government to deal with this problem.
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Georges-J. Valade: Will the hon. member permit a question?


Hazen Robert Argue: Yes.


Georges-J. Valade: Will the hon. member give his reference when he spoke about the increase in retail sales?


Hazen Robert Argue: The increase in which?


Georges-J. Valade: The increase in retail sales. Will the hon. member give the source of his information?


Hazen Robert Argue: Those figures are all taken from the dominion bureau of statistics daily bulletin. The figures for department store sales were taken from the D.B.S. daily bulletin of July 7 and those for chain store sales were taken from the D.B.S. daily bulletin of July 8.


Georges-J. Valade: May I be permitted to ask, as a supplementary question, whether the hon. gentleman is relying on the Financial Post as a substantial and reliable source of information for these figures on retail store sales?


Hazen Robert Argue: Not at all.


Mr. Campbell (Stormont):: I should like to endeavour to clarify several misunderstandings so that we can get down to a serious discussion of a serious problem. Time and time again I have heard comment on or reference to-in fact I have heard it ad nauseam-the Prime Minister's statement: "As long as I am Prime Minister no one will suffer from unemployment". I want to make it clear that those are the exact words he used but that he did not at any time state that there would be no unemployment if he were prime minister. Obviously the only way in which to guarantee that there would be no unemployment in any country is to reduce that country to an anthill or a slave state.
Incidentally, I should like to comment that some few weeks ago I was talking to one of the Victorian Order nurses in Cornwall who has done a magnificent job there over many years. She mentioned to me that, as is obvious, when there is unemployment there is great demoralization of the people concerned but that, nevertheless, she had noticed that there was nothing like the absolute destitution- and mind you, it was bad enough-that she had experienced in the depression when she had previously been there, although I certainly do not wish to minimize the seriousness of it or the plight of those who are without jobs.
However, I think it is perfectly obvious to any reasonable and sincere person that the Prime Minister, in saying what he was saying at that time and what he has said on several occasions, was announcing his own social and political philosophy, namely

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that personal and human rights were to him far more important than property rights. I think it is because of that fact that he has done such things as raising the old age pension and extending the period of unemployment insurance benefits. On other occasions the Prime Minister has stated that just as soon as our productivity would increase sufficiently to warrant further relief to our elderly people, something would be done to relieve them. Since our productivity has increased-and the Leader of the Opposition has admitted this on more than one occasion-I feel quite convinced that something will be done before long to alleviate and assist the position of our elderly people.
The hon. member for Laurier several weeks ago in this house brought to our attention the critical unemployment situation in our respective hometown of Cornwall. I must say in all fairness that he did not exaggerate the problem which exists there and I must also thank him for his assistance although I doubt if it was given entirely on philanthropic grounds.


Lionel Chevrier: It was, I can assure the hon. member.


Grant Campbell: Thank you. However, he mentioned the problem in Cornwall was acute, and I believe he also mentioned the discontinuance of the seaway construction and the closing down of Canada Cottons in that area.
That is true, but there are other factors which he did not mention. He did not mention, for instance, that the textile industry, especially in that area, had been in grave difficulties for over 30 years. He did not mention that this government has done more than any other previous government to alleviate the problems of the textile industry despite the fact that its hands were tied by the previous government, by GATT and by other international arrangements. Also he did not mention that a great many people had been thrown out of work in Cornwall by the curtailment of operations on the Cornwall canal, and perhaps many of his good friends are in that category. He did not mention the difficulties of the people of Cornwall in attracting new industry to the area, despite their great initiative in forming the industrial development corporation which he mentioned to take over the property of Canadian Cottons and provide floor space to attract new industry at very advantageous rates. He did not mention, for an obvious reason, that he more than anyone, the former minister of transport and head of the seaway authority,

is responsible for the Cornwall canal now being on the United States side. I do not think I need to say anything further about that at this time.
Since the last war our country has been confronted with the unprecedented situation that although our production, exports, and incomes have all been increasing, unemployment has also been increasing. This happened after the initial post-war years when everything across Canada was booming and we could sell everything we produced to the war devastated countries of the world before they were able to restore their own industrial establishments. But since then we have had this peculiar situation of increasing production, increasing income and so on, yet at the same time increasing unemployment. This so-called structural unemployment is doubtless partly due to automation, or to what is euphemistically called the rationalization of industry.
I believe that much can be done by the judicious manipulation of tariffs to increase the degree of processing of raw materials for export and to expand secondary industry. Secondary industry, however, is not a complete answer. Howard Smith Paper Mills, in my own home town of Cornwall, has spent some $12 million on a huge new machine which will tremendously increase its production of fine paper, but will not substantially increase employment, although those whc might otherwise be discharged are retaining their jobs.
Nor are massive public works any final solution as they were in the old days of horse-scrapers and wheelbarrows. The former minister of public works, Mr. Winters, once stated that the Canso causeway, which cost $23 million, employed only about 150 men at the height of construction.
The United States writer Galbraith, in a book called "The Affluent Society", contends that increasing automation will produce more consumer goods than we could possibly use. We all want two cars in our garage, but a third car would be more trouble than it is worth. Therefore, he contends, we must concentrate on producing more social capital, such things as more schools, hospitals, libraries, concert halls, parks, conservation, and the elimination of air and water pollution. In other words, we must emphasize those things that make life more liveable. The recent dominion-provincial fiscal conferences should result in more money being made available to the provinces and municipalities for the kind of local public works that will make more jobs and make our towns and cities better places in which to live.

Although the opposition on a previous occasion in this house when this matter was under discussion made about 25 specious suggestions dealing with unemployment, they all boil down to additional training facilities and the appointment of various committees to study the problem. The Senate, as we know, has recently set up a committee under Professor John Deutsch of Queen's University to make exhaustive inquiries into this problem, and we also know, as mentioned by the preceding speaker, that the Prime Minister has set up a royal commission to look into the problem of the automobile industry.
The Minister of Labour has also announced that the federal government, he understands, will pay 75 per cent of the cost of training programs undertaken by any province. Although trades training might assist younger and more mobile cotton workers in Cornwall to find employment elsewhere, I doubt if any industry is prevented from expansion by the absence of skilled help. A determined industry can always hire, train, or import any trained skills required. Mind you, I think the question of vocational training is very important, especially in some areas; but I do not think in itself it will do much to increase the over-all number of jobs available.
Although it is a dull subject which even our grandfathers worried about, I believe that tariff changes are fundamental to increasing employment. Shortly after the last war we had unlimited markets until the war-ravaged countries could reconstruct their industrial establishments. The dilemma which now confronts any federal government is that certain provinces, particularly the central and industrial ones, want the federal government to raise tariffs to protect our automobile, textile and other industries while the rest of Canada wants it to lower tariffs to help sell our raw materials, such as wheat, minerals, timber, and fish. It is the dilemma of conflicting interests in such a diverse and wide country as Canada with many divergent interests and industries. I think it is obvious that we must increase tariffs and quotas against countries like the United States, where we cannot increase our markets, and at the same time decrease them against other countries such as Japan, the British West Indies, perhaps parts of South Africa; in other words, any countries where we can sell more raw materials and more of our other products.
For instance, the United States only purchases from us what she cannot produce at home or buy cheaper elsewhere. That is a fundamental and very obvious fact. Even if we did raise obstacles to the sale of its refrigerators, magazines, et cetera, in Canada,
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it would not cut the size of the Chicago Tribune in half just to spite Canada, especially when the publishers of this newspaper themselves own one of the largest Canadian paper mills.
I think it is fundamental first of all to appreciate that although we need not fear economic reprisals from the United States, we must realize that whenever it becomes cheaper to substitute southern pine for Canadian spruce in the manufacture of newsprint the United States will have no compunction in doing so. I think the uranium industry knows this only too well.
On the other hand, Japan could utilize all the raw materials that this country could produce, provided that she could sell enough to us to pay for it. The economy of the West Indies federation is complementary to, rather than competitive with, ours and could provide us with a much needed tropic hinterland. If we were really serious about finding markets for our minerals, fish, timber, wheat, et cetera, no Canadian would go to Florida when he could go to Bermuda nor would we buy a single orange from California when they were available from Jamaica
A vast potential market also awaits us in South America's emerging middle classes. Latin Americans are very conscious that Canada is partly a Latin country and the legacy of goodwill towards us created by generations of devoted French Canadian missionaries in those countries should not be neglected.
I believe the answer to our unemployment lies in a drastic revision of our whole tariff structure with whatever changes in GATT and other international commitments may be required. The only alternative, although one which is in contradiction with that idea to some extent, would be to join the European free trade area or some broader Atlantic alliance. If we do neither of these things Canada faces increasing economic integration and eventually political integration with the United States. Certainly the people of Stormont, many of whose ancestors have, like my own, fought the country to our south on three different occasions to preserve Canada's independence, would never consent to our country becoming another Alaska and the greatest objection would doubtless arise from our citizens of French Canadian ancestry who would face not only assimilation but cultural annihilation.


Lionel Chevrier: I am sure the hon. member for Stormont will not resent my taking a moment to deal with three of the matters he has raised. I assure him that any intervention I make in connection with the constituency of Stormont is, as I said the other evening, in order to be of assistance to that

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constituency which I represented in the house for so many years. But I do wish to bring to his attention two or three points in connection with the matter the hon. member raised.
The first is that while it is true that the textile industry has been in difficulties for some years it was the present administration which promised to alter that situation, adverse as it was to the textile industry; it was the Prime Minister who made the statement in Cornwall that he would do away with the dumping of foreign goods which was taking place in the same manner as he had succeeded in dealing with the dumping of agricultural products. There can be no doubt about that. Notwithstanding that statement, the Canada mill, the Dundas mill and Glengarry mill closed down, putting out of work 2,500 people since 1957. I thought I should make that position clear.
The hon. member raised repeatedly the question of the canal being on the United States side of the line and said that this was responsible for the loss of jobs. There is one thing which should never be forgotten and it is that there were three international agreements dealing with the St. Lawrence seaway, the first in 1932 which provided for a canal in Canada and a canal in the United States-the Canadian canal under that agreement was at Crysler island and was, therefore, not in the constituency of Stormont- the second in 1941 when there was an agreement which provided for the two canals being on the United States side of the line and, third, the application which was made in 1952 and which resulted in one canal in Canada at Iroquois and the other canal at Barnhart island opposite Cornwall.
The point I wish to make is this: appreciating and anticipating that position, a plan was prepared by the Department of Transport to look after those people who might be put out of work as a result, and the hon. member has never seen me rise here to contest that plan, because as far as I know the Minister of Transport has put that plan into effect. It has not given jobs to everybody but, to use the words of the Minister of Transport, it has come very close to doing so.
Finally, I wish to say that the position on the Cornwall canal from the point of view of beauty and charm is, as the hon. member for Stormont knows in a horrible condition. I say with deference that were I on the other side of the house I would not permit that situation to continue for one moment because I was the one who as president of the crown corporation promised the people in the Iroquois and Cornwall areas that this condition would not exist, and I would carry out that undertaking. If the member for

Stormont would make representations to the Minister of Transport I am sure he would remedy the terrible situation which now exists along the banks of the Cornwall canal and, in doing so, give the people of that area a great deal more work than they have today.


Grant Campbell: Perhaps I could ask the hon. gentleman one or two questions with regard to what he just said. Did the former minister of transport contemplate two parallel seaways existing at one and the same time while the traffic pattern had not been formed? We still do not know what the eventual traffic pattern will be in this area. Further, does the former minister think-


Charles Edward Rea: Order. Will the hon.
member please take his seat while the chairman is standing? We are discussing labour items and not the question of where certain canals should go. I recognize the hon. member for Burin-Burgeo.


Mr. Carter:: Mr. Chairman, there is no doubt that unemployment is the most difficult and serious problem facing our country at this time. The fact that there are 80,000 people more out of work this year than were out of work at this time last year indicates that the problem is getting worse. The seriousness of the situation is underlined by the fact that this high degree of unemployment is being experienced at a time of year when job opportunities should be at their peak, when we are enjoying relative prosperity and a stable economy.
In my own province of Newfoundland there are 1,500 more people out of work now than there were last year at this time, and that is a serious handicap to the economy of our province where unemployment in peak periods is as high as one third of the labour force.
Whenever I think about this problem of unemployment I am haunted by the thought that should war break out tomorrow this problem would disappear. In a short space of time money and credit would be made available, our resources would be utilized and even though their labour would be directed into unproductive channels, men would be put to work. Employment would increase and instead of worrying about unemployment we would probably then be worrying about inflation. But war would be only a temporary solution. It would afford only temporary relief and it would be achieved at a tremendous cost of human sacrifice, sorrow and suffering, together with a great destruction of wealth and a vast increase in our burden of debt. With the return of

peace there would be a short period of reconstruction and rebuilding, repairing the devastation, and then again we would be faced with unemployment.
That has been the pattern that has repeated itself over and over again during the past 50 years. Short of war, everyone seems to have his own particular favourite solution to this problem. Organized labour for many years has striven to at least alleviate the unemployment problem by introducing shorter working hours, a shorter work week and by urging retirement at age 65. The present government as its remedy has put forward a program of public works, of winter works projects, of housing construction and of vocational training and education.
Of all the elements in this program education is the only one which makes any permanent contribution. I say that because we know from an analysis of the problem that the greater percentage of the unemployed are people with little education and no skills. I welcome the extension of the program of vocational training which the minister has put forward. I should like to suggest to him that a special provision be made in this program for the training of cooks. There is a shortage of cooks, I believe, all across the country. There is certainly a shortage of them in my own province. We need them for our ships and lumber camps.
As for the other parts of the minister's program, each one of them creates just about as big a problem as it solves. The trouble with public works is that they do not produce any wealth. While they may provide temporary employment they also result in a permanent increase in fixed costs. The same is true of the winter works program. Our chief complaint in that connection relates to the basis on which the federal contribution is made. An analysis of the figures put on the record earlier this year indicates that the largest proportion of federal funds goes to the richer provinces where unemployment is least severe and the poorer provinces which suffer the greatest hardship and the highest proportion of unemployment get the smallest share of these funds. If the minister is going to introduce this program this year I would suggest that a new formula be evolved which would allow these funds to be distributed on the basis of need rather than on a mathematical basis of 50 per cent of shared costs.
The housing program, too, has its disadvantages. It is not good for the housing industry to be turning the housing tap on and off for the purpose of adjusting our unemployment problems. Under those conditions the industry is diverted from its true
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purpose. When it runs in fits and starts it cannot do adequate planning. In many cases it also results in the construction of houses which remain unsold.
For those of us who subscribe to a free economy it must be evident that there is something wrong with our free enterprise system when we have unemployment of this magnitude. Man was created with certain basic needs of food, clothing and shelter. Free enterprise exists to supply those needs. When we consider that two thirds of the world's population involving hundreds of millions of people lack even the bare necessities of life and many millions of others are in an only slightly better position-there are many hundreds of thousands even in our own country who have only the bare necessities-it will be seen that society must find a solution of this problem.
There is ample scope for our free enterprise system to find employment for the increase in our labour force. The question must naturally arise that if money and credit can be found and made available for the needs of war, why cannot the same thing be done about the needs of peace, which are human needs? I think the answer to that is that private enterprise responds to our demands and our demands are related not to our needs but to our wants.
It must be evident that free enterprise is not really free, because we have needs, we have the surplus manpower and materials required to meet those needs, yet the machine does not go to work to fill those needs. It does not do that because somebody controls the credit which sets the machine in motion, so that the people who control the credit really decide what wants are going to be filled. This is a matter which I think should be inquired into. Until we face this problem honestly I do not think we are ever going to discover the flaws in our free enterprise system which must be corrected if the system is going to function as it was meant to do.
Our socialist friends would solve this problem by changing the system. They would change the free enterprise system to a state controlled enterprise system. In support of that we see countries in the world like Russia and China where no unemployment problem exists. But the unemployment problem has been eliminated by means of work camps and various forms of slave labour such as we hear exist in China. People in these countries have secured employment but only by sacrificing their freedom. None of the remedies tried so far, and which I

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have just mentioned, has produced a satisfactory solution and in my opinion the reason is that we have not really got down to the basic cause.
Last night the hon. member for Vancouver East suggested that we face facts. I agree with him because I believe there is one fact that we constantly and consistently refuse to face. That fact is that the basic cause of our unemployment is human selfishness. That does not mean that we should start pointing the finger at each other because that statement applies to every single one of us. It is very easy, as some people do, to lay the blame upon the unions. I am not saying that organized labour and its unions are not selfish in some of their demands but they are no more selfish than management.
That is very evident when we note, for example, what happened in the case of steel. Some time ago there was an increase in wages in the steel industry which meant an increase of somewhere around $1.80 per ton in the price of steel. But what happened? The increase in price was not equal to the wage increase. The price of steel went up by about $4 per ton. That kind of selfishness is just as harmful to the economy as is the selfishness of unions.
The difficulty with wage increases is that they result in a sort of struggle between labour and management for a bigger share of profits regardless of what the effects will be upon the consumer who has to buy the product and the economy of the country as a whole. It is this struggle for profit, not profit itself, that is harmful. There is nothing wrong with profits. The only profits that are harmful are those which result from dishonest practices or from wrong motives. But the struggle to claim a share of these profits is resulting in an increase in automation much more rapidly than is good for our country at the present time because it means the disappearance of thousands of jobs which will never exist again.
It is easy to point a finger at some of the labour bosses who exploit the selfishness of the members of their unions but before we point the finger at them let us examine ourselves and see if we are not guilty of something of the same nature in our election promises. The trouble really lies in our basic motives. Free enterprise is not free because it is a slave to materialism. There is plenty in this world for everybody's need but there is not enough for everybody's greed. What is happening at the present time is that we are all engaged in a mad race through an economic jungle where every man is for himself and the devil take the hindmost. We are not dedicated to any great purpose either

nationally or individually. We have nothing bigger to live for or to work for than our own self-interests and that is not big enough for the challenge that faces us today.
We cannot expect to retain our selfishness and reap the fruits of unselfishness. We cannot serve materialism and expect to reap the fruits of the spirit. We cannot have our cake and eat it too. We have tried to do that over and over again and we have got away with it for quite a long time, as the figures which the hon. member for Laurier put on the record a little while ago indicate. We were able to get away with it partly, I think, because we were able to draw on the moral capital which had been built up by our ancestors.
But the situation today is different. Not only is our moral capital beginning to run out but a new factor has entered the picture with the advent of automation, and as a result of that factor there will never again be a situation which will be exactly comparable with the past. Regardless of what the situation may have been in various years in the past, the consequences have now caught up with us and we are faced with a choice. We are faced with the choice that either we must sacrifice our selfishness to our country or we will sacrifice our country to our selfishness.
Unemployment is a tremendous threat to our economy, as the hon. member for Assin-iboia has pointed out. If the problem is not solved there is a very great danger that our economy will collapse completely, and an economic break-down is always the forerunner of ideological penetration. We all know who are waiting and longing for that day to come so they can move in and take over our country. The proposals which have been put forward by labour and by government with respect to changing the system are in fact mere palliatives. They are like aspirin or mustard plasters. They merely deaden the pain; they do not cure the disease. I think we must stop kidding ourselves that a solution can be found in any of these directions because it is really a waste of time. There can be no permanent solution, no real cure, until we come to grips with the basic cause, and that cause lies in the selfish, dishonest and impure motives that govern each one of us. We need a new set of motives because our old ones have failed. Our greatest national need at the present time is moral recovery. Only then will we have the moral clarity to see what changes must be made, what adjustments are required in our industrial machine, what changes must be made in our monetary and credit systems and in our tariff policies. Only then will we have the

moral courage to make the necessary decisions and, to accept whatever sacrifices may be involved. What we need more than anything else at this time in Canada is a great moral purpose, something to which we can dedicate ourselves, individually and as a nation.
Unemployment is mainly a symptom of that deficiency. There is such a purpose. It is to remake the world. The communists are dedicated to this. They are dedicated to the building of a world with a godless materialistic society. But there is a bigger idea than that, and it is to rebuild the world so that we can have a society that will be free from fear, hate and greed. If we are prepared to commit ourselves to that, if we are prepared to make that our national purpose, one of the biggest contributing factors to unemployment will be eliminated. Then empty hands will be filled with work, empty stomachs will be filled with food and empty hearts will be filled with an idea that really satisfies, not only here in Canada but throughout the world.


Mr. Macdonald (Kings):: Mr. Chairman, in dealing with the estimates of the Department of Labour I should like to place before the committee a constructive proposal which would provide a great deal of employment throughout the maritime provinces. While I do not agree that the situation with regard to unemployment is nearly as serious as our friends opposite would indicate, I do feel that if this project were undertaken, perhaps as well as some others, it would serve to minimize some of the present unemployment in the maritimes now and in future years. I refer to the construction of a causeway between Prince Edward Island and the mainland.
I might say that this project has been mooted for a number of years; at least some kind of connection between our province and the mainland by way of a causeway, a tunnel, or even a bridge, has been mooted. The last two named have been deemed to be too expensive in initial cost and maintenance to be practical. It is generally considered that the causeway would be the most suitable. The terms under which Prince Edward Island entered confederation included the assurance of "continuous and efficient communication" with the mainland. This was a specific stipulation in the agreement. We feel at the present time that the causeway is the ideal means by which we can be provided with this efficient and continuous communication with the rest of Canada.
I might say that a great step in this direction was taken when the Borden government provided the ferry service between Borden
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and Cape Tormentine. Under present day conditions, this service is not good enough. We have three ferries operating in the summertime and they handle the traffic more or less adequately depending on conditions. However, as we all know, there are a great many disadvantages to a ferry service. For one thing, ferries are very expensive operations, and when the haul is short they are always operating at a loss. I know that the present government realizes our problem. As evidence of their good faith, they have given us a survey which, to date, has been very extensive. I might say that the previous government mentioned this project on various occasions. According to a letter received from the Department of Public Works, the former administration spent only $6,000 on a survey whereas, up until the present, this government has spent over $600,000. I feel this is a very good indication of their good faith in trying to decide whether or not this tremendous project is feasible.
This survey is continuing, and I might say that our people are quite satisfied that the government is doing everything it can in that regard. Just the day before yesterday I made a second trip to the national research council to see the model of the causeway set up there and discuss with the engineer in charge some of the problems that are being met. We are hopeful of good results. I should like to impress upon the government again the necessity for the construction of this causeway as a help in avoiding any increase in unemployment in the maritimes.
The causeway itself would be a very economical method of handling the transportation problems existing in that area. The story of causeways or bridges which have replaced ferry services is an interesting one. First of all, they give a very much improved service because they are available for use on a 24-hour basis and, in general, maintenance costs are quite low. This has been proven in the maritime provinces as a result of the construction of the Canso causeway and the Angus L. Macdonald bridge between Dartmouth and Halifax. In fact, I am informed that consideration is being given to the construction of a second bridge in Halifax because traffic has increased so much as a result of the convenience of the bridge. In general, as the graphs show, the revenues from ferry services rise very gradually and steadily, but in the case of the inauguration of causeways or bridges the revenues show an immediate sharp rise. I submit, Mr. Chairman, that such a project would be a very economical one in the long run.
Under the present set-up of the ferry service between Prince Edward Island and the mainland we have one icebreaker which is

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40 years old, and which will have to be replaced in the very near future. We have a second one which will have to be replaced in about 10 years. And the service really needs a third ferry. If we calculate the cost of a new ferry at approximately $10 million, we get some indication of the high capital outlay required within the next 10 years to maintain this ferry service. In addition, there would have to be extensive dock alterations which would run into several millions of dollars. Also, there are the continuous dredging operations which are required wherever ferry services are operated. The present service is operated by Canadian National Railways, and the deficits incurred are charged up to the Department of Transport. Recently I asked the department for a list of the operating deficits over the past ten years and I should like to place them on Hansard.


Charles Edward Rea: Order. I realize that the hon. member was trying to bring out the point that the building of this causeway would help unemployment. However, I think he should relate his remarks to that fact and not to the question of whether or not there have been deficits in the operation of the transportation between the island and the mainland.


John Augustine Macdonald: I was attempting to develop the subject in order to show the necessity of the project so that hon. members would be acquainted with the need of this project and the consequent employment its construction would provide. I wanted to show the economic feasibility. The engineering feasibility has not yet been decided. However, if it is not proper to continue on that course, I shall abide by your decision, Mr. Chairman.
This project would take possibly six or seven years to build and naturally if you have a large scale project such as this one which is going to take that length of time for its construction it is bound to provided a great deal of work for a great number of people in the area affected. We feel that it would provide much employment for people in the maritimes in the actual construction and in providing the rock and fill necessary and which must be obtained from the mainland. All in all we feel it would have a great effect on the economy of the area. Not only in the construction itself, but in the increased economic activity which would result from the fact that the causeway is there, we feel it would be of great assistance to the general economy of the area in particular, by increasing employment opportunities. I strongly urge that the government proceed with this project if it is deemed to be feasible from an engineering point of view. If this is done,

I am sure that a great deal of work will be provided for a large number of people in the maritime provinces.


Lester Bowles Pearson: In the general discussion so far of the first item in the estimates of the Department of Labour practically all hon. members who have spoken have devoted the major part of their remarks to the subject of unemployment. That fact is understandable because, as has been pointed out by other hon. members, unemployment is our No. 1 domestic problem with the exception, of course, of national security itself. There are a great many other important matters that come within the jurisdiction of my hon. friend and no doubt we shall have an opportunity, when we reach the individual item to bring some of these matters to his attention. Meanwhile, the subject has been unemployment.
Previously, and in this debate, we have criticized the minister and the government for what we consider to be their inadequate action to deal with this problem. If we do that we do not minimize the devoted efforts that have been made by the officials of the department. We do not underestimate the complexity and the difficulty of the problems that confront them and the minister to whose sincerity and devotion in his work we have in the past paid our tribute and are glad to do so today. He presides over a department which, in our complicated industrial society should be, if it is not, one of the most important departments of government. We made this point in the debate last year, and I say this in no political sense, because this matter goes beyond the time of the minister's administration. In the development of our political governmental structure we perhaps have not given the Department of Labour the importance or even perhaps the resources that it should have in order to do the job we ask it to do. That job is becoming more and more important, particularly in this field of employment. When I say that, I do not underestimate its importance in other fields, especially in the field of industrial disputes.
Throughout the present session we on this side of the chamber have warned the government about the unusual and growing level of unemployment in this country. That warning has been repeated today and it was repeated yesterday. We have been pressing for immediate, effective and realistic action in order to deal with this problem. The minister may recall that during the debate on the speech from the throne, I referred to that matter as did some of my colleagues. I dealt with it during the special debate on unemployment which we initiated and again

during the budget debate at the beginning of April. We on this side at that time, and earlier, warned the government against at least the possibility and perhaps the probability of a slow-down. In that warning we ventured to put forward some suggestions that we thought would be helpful but I am bound to say, as has already been said, that our suggestions do not appear to have been taken seriously. We thought they were practical and we thought they were concrete.
Having said that, I should also say that the government now appears to be creeping up on one or two of them. The reaction we obtained to those suggestions at the time- and that reaction has been referred to in this debate-was too often that of jibes and charges-and I am not thinking of the minister particularly in this regard-that we were fomenting an atmosphere of gloom and doom. As my friend the hon. member for Laurier repeated this afternoon, we were told by the Minister of Finance during the budget debate that this unemployment difficulty would disappear with the coming of spring. The Minister of Finance based his optimism apparently and his financial policies reflecting that optimism on the following expectation, and I quote from page 2674 of Hansard. I may say that this was during the budget debate. He said this:
X expect that the forces of expansion will continue during 1960, and that the rates of increase we have experienced in 1959 should be maintained throughout the year.
He stated at that time that he was basing his forecast on an increase in the gross national product in 1960 of about 6 per cent. On this occasion he did not make any allowance for a change in the price level. Those were his predictions and they have an important bearing on this employment situation because if the employment policies or, even more, if the unemployment policies of the government are based on an optimistic prediction, we can begin to understand why nothing effective has been accomplished in that particular field. The facts do not bear out this prediction. I think it was my friend the hon. member for Assiniboia who this afternoon made that apparent by quoting from the dominion bureau of statistics publication National Accounts, Income and Expenditure, first quarter, 1960, page 1. Perhaps I can put the third paragraph on the record again. It reads:
The advance in gross national product moderated in the first quarter of 1960. Apart from the third quarter of last year, the increase of 1 per cent was the smallest quarter to quarter gain in the value of production (seasonally adjusted) since the expansion began following recovery from the 1957-58 recession.
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That is from the bureau of statistics official publication. We now also have official evidence that in the second quarter of this year economic conditions have not improved materially as compared with last year. There is some evidence of improvement in certain sectors and some evidence of decline in other sectors. These latest bureau of statistics figures are very disturbing to anyone who is worried about this economic position and its effect on employment, because these figures do show that the number of jobs is lagging behind the increase in the work force even though-and members on the government side are continually reminding us of this-the employment figures themselves are up.
In June, 1959 the labour force was 6,287,000. In June, 1960 it was 6,454,000, the highest figure I suppose we have reached. That was an increase from June to June of 167,000. But the significant and not so encouraging feature is that the persons with jobs were
6,053,000	in June, 1959 and 6,154,000 in June, 1960, an increase of only 101,000. In other words, the increase in employment is not keeping pace with the increase in the labour force.
If that is the situation there is bound to be serious unemployment, and all you have to do to get the figures for the unemployed is to deduct the persons with jobs from the figures for the labour force, and you get 300,000 unemployed in June, 1960 as against 234,000 in June, 1959, an increase from June to June of 66,000. In terms of percentages it is an increase from 3.7 per cent in the labour force in June, 1959 to 4.6 per cent in June, 1960. And all this at a time when the increase in the labour force was not as great as it would have been if we had had the kind of immigration we have had in recent years.
If you take the figures for the first six months in 1960, even on the lowest measure of calculation you get 7.5 per cent of the labour force without jobs and seeking work. That is higher than in the corresponding period of 1959 when it was 7.1 per cent. I hope the minister will not accuse me of being unduly pessimistic if I say that in the projection of that trend, unless it is stopped, the average for this year may well be worse than it was in 1959 when it was 5.6 over the year.
On June 30 the jobless claims for unemployment insurance were 35 per cent above last year. These figures are bound to give us cause for concern as we approach mid-summer and will soon be into autumn and winter, and there are other statistics which add to this anxiety. I will anticipate the minister's criticisms. He may say I am picking out a few of the depressing statistics, and I admit they are the ones that worry us. But if

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you read the current issue of the Financial Post, you will have to admit that there are some indices which are discouraging. The retail trade in May declined by 3.1 per cent. Building permits in the same month were down by 9.3 per cent. Industrial employment in May was below the level for May over the last four years. Railway car loadings, always an important index of general economic activity, in the week ending July 14 were down by 5.4 per cent.
They are some of the indications of the difficulties which are faced by the Canadian economy in the summer of 1960, difficulties which are bound to reflect themselves and are reflecting themselves in terms of unemployment. We say that this situation, signs of which appeared many months ago, requires special action, and needed action many months ago. If the government does not think the kind of action which we are talking about is required, we hope the minister during the course of this debate, or the Minister of Finance when we examine his estimates some time in the future, will give us the information on which he is basing his more optimistic view of the situation.
If we turn to the non-official but qualified economic forecasters we get some even more disturbing predictions. There is a firm in Toronto, a highly regarded firm of economic forecasters, Becket Associates-the minister probably knows them-and their analysis for July, 1960 refers to the "contraction in Canadian business activity continued to widen last month", that is June, and talks about spreading declines in business activities. And this at a time, according to the government, when we are in the midst of full recovery from recession. We are in the midst of expansion and have every reason for economic optimism.
If that is true, what is the situation likely to be if we find ourselves in the months ahead in the midst of a recession? There have been changes in the nature as well as in the volume of employment, and some of these changes in the nature of employment do, I think, have a bearing on our unemployment situation. More women are coming into the labour force and staying in the labour force, which has both social and economic importance. I think the regional character of mu' unemployment difficulties has been accentuated in the last year or two, although we always had it, and I will say something more about that later. Certainly the situation now is worst in those areas where it is most difficult to solve. Furthermore, employment, particularly male employment, is becoming more and more dependent on certain industries, on the service industries, on

the construction industry, and less and less on manufacturing. That also has its significance for government policy.
Mr. Chairman, one out of four of our jobs today still comes from manufacturing in this country; but in 1959 there was 5 per cent fewer jobs in manufacturing than in 1957. This shifting nature of employment can easily be illustrated by a few figures, and I hope the committee will pardon me if I put a few of these figures on the record.
During the decade 1949-59 employment increased in this country by 19 per cent. But construction employment-and by the very nature of it, construction in this country is a seasonal employment to an extent probably not exceeded by any other kind of employment-increased by 30 per cent during that decade. Employment in the services industry increased by 39 per cent, while employment from manufacturing increased only by 11 per cent, which shows that manufacturing is losing its former significance in the economy as a producer of jobs. During the same 10-year period employment in agriculture was down 65 per cent.
Something else should be studied, and that is the nature and extent of our growth generally and whether it is enough to take care of our increasing labour force. If we allow for inflation and the increase in the population the increase in gross national product per capita in constant dollars from 1949 to 1959 was 16 per cent. That is the per capita increase in constant dollars in that decade.


Mr. Browne (Si. John's West):: When the hon. member speaks of per capita income in terms of population is he taking into account the fact that during this period the population varied and increased?


Lester Bowles Pearson: It is perfectly true the population increased and so did the gross national product. It works both ways-more people, more income.


John Ferguson Browne: And you take it each year?


Lester Bowles Pearson: Yes. From 1956 to 1959 the gross national product per capita in constant dollars has actually gone down 3 per cent. The effect of this on employment must be perfectly obvious. It seems to me to mean that if any recession should come it is likely to be more severe and more difficult to meet in terms of unemployment than the last one, so surely measures similar to those adopted in 1958, such as they were, will be even less effective next time. We should be planning for something else. This does not necessarily mean that a recession is inevitable but certainly we should be planning against that possibility, and we shall not be able to do

this if the problem is not appreciated in parliament in terms of recent developments and unless there is an understanding of its nature and its causes. That is why we on this side of the house say we should be having the kind of examination which would enable the government to cope effectively with the economic difficulties which may be ahead.


Paul Joseph James Martin: In this house.


Lester Bowles Pearson: Yes, in this house by a parliamentary committee. We have already put on record some of the causes of unemployment, and I think my hon. friend from Laurier mentioned some of them this afternoon but it is just as well to remind ourselves that unemployment in this country is not due to any one factor, to any one situation or to any one cause. There is the normal classical cyclical unemployment about which we know a good deal through past experience; an experience which has been so unhappy that it may perhaps hamper the efforts which we should be making to meet the other kinds of unemployment which is other than cyclical.
There is frictional unemployment where people are changing their jobs because there is a declining need for their skills, and moving from one area to another hoping that their skills may be useful in a new area. The minister has indicated that the government is doing something about this problem through retraining programs. We on this side press him to do more in this important field. Perhaps the minister has studied what has been done in Belgium, a country which has made great progress in retraining programs with less by way of resources than we have. Then there is seasonal unemployment which, of course, presents a particular problem to a country such as Canada. In addition, there is technological and structural unemployment. An electric power plant is built and the coal miners find themselves out of a job.


Donald MacInnis: They are not going to be out of a job in New Brunswick.


Lester Bowles Pearson: I hope not.


Donald MacInnis: Mr. Robichaud said so.


Lester Bowles Pearson: When the Canso causeway was built the ferry operators were out of a job, at least for a while. Today we might find 40 men running electronically a huge plant which used to employ 400. That is automation. Today in our economy there is often little relationship in certain industries between the value of a plant's production and the number of men it employs. That certainly has its effects on the employment picture. Then there are international causes. Some of
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our extractive industries in particular are dependent to a great extent on decisions taken in countries other than our own, although that situation may change as time goes by. We all have examples in the last 12 months in our minds of what can happen in terms of unemployment when another government lets us down as we have been let down by the United States in connection with the uranium industry. Then there are fiscal and economic causes-tight money and that kind of thing.
As hon. members will realize, we cannot solve this problem by any single approach because there is no single cause. No single remedy will do the job.
Economic instability, which causes unemployment, may arise, not only from the basic factors of the economy but also from a particular imbalance in certain regions. It is possible for full employment to be achieved within reasonable limits at a national level while some areas still experience serious unemployment. Our past experience shows that unemployment, when it arises, is always unevenly distributed through the country. Certain regions are more affected than others. This dissimilarity indicates that full employment cannot be ensured simply by a national program applied uniformly throughout the country. If we should try to follow this line of action exclusively a considerable degree of inflation would be reached before an adequate level of employment was achieved in the more depressed areas.
The limitations of a general approach to full employment applied uniformly throughout the country are particularly serious when we consider that our economy is not now and is not likely to be a homogeneous unit. The diversity in the basic factors of Canada's economy and in the conditions of its development have produced very different economic regions with different regional problems. These regions differ in such respects as the composition and the distribution of their population, their natural resources, their industrial structure, their climate and the degree of their economic development.
The actions of these forces produce different types of adaptation to economic change and evolution in our development. Some regions may show signs of decline while others experience a period of growth and development. Given areas may be quite sensitive to short run fluctuations while others remain relatively stable throughout the trade cycle. Different regions are not affected to the same degree by seasonal variations and the direct impact of irregular factors is often local.
Finally, in all these regional reactions there is a time lag which presents special problems.

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If we combine all those elements we get a great variety of regional behaviours. Perhaps I may be permitted to refer to these elements as divisive elements in the economic sense. When combined we get a great variety of regional behaviours so we will not solve this problem by a single national approach to all these regional problems.
It is well recognized that in certain cor-cumstances a public investment program may be essential to achieve a high and stable level of employment. However, such a program must meet several requirements in order to be effective. It does not seem to me that a public investment program, although it is essential in times of recession, which was put into operation on a national basis without taking into consideration these regional differentiations and difficulties would be successful for the kind of thing we have in mind. As I have just said, we all recognize that in certain circumstances a public investment program may be essential to achieve a high and stable level of employment. I think that (all governments in democratic countries, however capitalistic they may be in their orientation, agree on that. However, in a country like Canada if a program of this type were going to be effective in terms of employment it would have to meet several requirements.
Among those conditions which should be taken into consideration two particular requirements deserve our attention although at first sight they seem evident: we must know when to invest and what is the best kind of investment. A program applied in a haphazard way or one applied evenly throughout the country-even if it were not planned -might involve a tremendous amount of expenditures and yet not be very successful in dealing with the employment problem. If we want to obtain the most effective results with a minimum of expenditure-and that is what we are all after, I suppose especially the Minister of Finance-we must determine the strategic areas of the country where economic fluctuations are first felt and be prepared to act quickly in those areas. Some of those areas spring to mind at once and I do not need to name them.
Moreover, we must also be very careful in selecting the type of investment which is designed to have the most constructive results for the purpose we have in mind. The decision depends primarily on the economic structure of the area where government intervention seems desirable.
All these considerations that I have mentioned to the committee lead, I think, to a very important conclusion. If we want as a nation to deal effectively with the employment problem and at the same time to

minimize the expenditure of public funds we must arrive at a regional formulation of certain national policies, and in order to arrive at such a formulation we must know in greater detail and much more concretely than we do now the different structures and the peculiar behaviour of our economic regions. On this side of the committee we say that if the board on economic development and automation, which we first advocated three years ago and which we still recommend, were to accomplish only that it would render a tremendous service to the country. If the minister can tell us that this is being done by some other source we would like to hear about it.
There are other things, too, that have to be considered carefully. I will only mention them because I do not want to delay the committee. We have to consider the effect of monetary policy on this regional formulation of our problems. I know and the minister knows that at this moment there is a regional approach to monetary policy being investigated in the Atlantic provinces by a royal commission. It would be interesting to know if the Department of Finance has any liaison with that commission.
There is also the question of fiscal incentives on a regional basis for economic development and employment. All of this means planning, planning for the benefit of the individual without depriving him of his initiative, and planning for the development of our country at the same time. I hope I will not be accused of being a socialist if I say that planning for employment is more and more necessary as our economic society becomes more and more complicated, planning with the purpose of giving the individual the opportunity for work, to make life better for him, to give him a better chance for development only if the individual has a better chance for development are we going to have the right kind of national development.
This means for the individual material development, material betterment. I know, and if I did not know I would undoubtedly be reminded, that man cannot live by bread alone; but he must have bread and he must have work by which he can earn that bread. I agree that he should rely primarily on himself to get that bread and even the cake that we like to have to supplement our bread. But the state also has a responsibility to make that possible and the responsibility of the state lies in the creation of sound policies, the creation of an economic climate which will give the individual citizen the best opportunity to look after himself through work under decent conditions and at a fair wage.

The state also has the responsibility of providing by social security legislation a cushion between the citizen and catastrophe, to help him in circumstances where he cannot help himself or support himself. That is why we have pensions, unemployment benefits and such things. They are a recognition of the social responsibility of the state to all its members.
All of this intervention-if you like-by the government, supplements in an essential way but I hope it will only supplement and not replace the primary responsibility of the individual himself and then of his community. This planning is needed now more than ever before especially in terms of unemployment which seems to be facing us now as a problem of almost endemic proportions. It is needed now more than ever before because of this situation and because the state is becoming an increasingly complicated mechanism where the individual is often at the mercy of forces outside his control or indeed, at times, outside his understanding.
Big corporations, big business, big unions, big demands to be protected and assisted, have made big government unavoidable, even big labour departments unavoidable. That is especially true as big, revolutionary changes are taking place. It would be very nice and comforting, as was mentioned by one speaker this afternoon, I think, if we could leave all these things to the free play of economic and social forces inside the state. That is not possible because for one thing the play is no longer free. Of all these responsibilities in planning that I have mentioned, the greatest and perhaps the most difficult-I think the minister will agree with me-is planning by government to keep people at work, planning for full employment and all that means.
I think the effort of the government in this respect has been inadequate. I think greater and more effective planning is needed. I think that planning should be as much social as economic. It has to take into consideration what I have already referred to, the revolution of automation which, as the minister has mentioned, is as important in this decade of the twentieth century as the industrial revolution was in the eighteenth century and almost as difficult for people to understand. We know what happened because of the lack of understanding of the industrial revolution in the eighteenth century. There was unrest, trouble and confusion then, and the forces of democracy and progress were held back because of that fact.
The revolution of automation of the 1960's extends far beyond the problem of jobs although that is an essential part of it, and if
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labour is to accept this revolution it must be explained to labour. I was glad to hear the minister say something about this in his opening statement. Labour must somehow feel that government and industry can combine with the worker through his trade union to cushion the impact on him of these changes.
Similarly, there is the problem of the older worker, I was going to say something about that but I will save it for another time.
If the government is going to do these things, Mr. Chairman, if it is going to plan for these things, if it is going to make this effort and made it more effectively than we think it has, it would have been a good thing to have had an advisory board of the kind we have mentioned to help the government during the last three years. I think it would have been a good thing also to have had a parliamentary committee working on this problem this session. We tried to get that and, as members know, we were unsuccessful. The other place was more successful. It has set up a committee dealing with this problem, a committee whose work is, I think, commending itself to the government. If that can be done in the other place, would it not have been much better if it could have been done on a joint basis or even done on a House of Commons basis alone?


Donald MacInnis: Is the Leader of the Opposition sure that the members of his party could attend its meetings inasmuch as they have been complaining that there are too many committees?


Lester Bowles Pearson: Oh, yes, we would attend as we are trying to attend all the committees which have been set up in the last few weeks of the session. We first asked that this committee be set up in March. That committee could have been set up in March, 1960. It could have had the same kind of expert staff which the committee of the other place has been fortunate enough to get, and it would have been a good thing if that had been done.
This problem has to be attacked not on one but on many fronts and it certainly should be attacked on the parliamentary front. I repeat that that attack has not been made effectively by the government and that is our main charge against the government in this field.
We have talked a lot about the responsibility for this matter. The responsibility rests on every level of government, municipal, provincial and federal and it rests on every individual too, every trade union leader, every business leader, every member of parliament. But there is a very special responsibility resting on the federal government of our country and the minister himself has accepted this responsibility because when he was talking

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about this problem on January 22, 1959, he a peasant farmer so I have had some exsaid, as found on page 194 of Hansard:	perience with several aspects of life where
The responsibility in these matters is ours.	at times unemployment has existed.
We ask the government to discharge that responsibility.


Herbert Wilfred Herridge: Mr. Chairman, first of all I must say that I thoroughly enjoyed the interesting speech by the Leader of the Opposition to which we have just listened. However I should like to bring to the attention of members of the committee that for the first time this afternoon we heard an official denunciation of the classical doctrine of Liberalism which is that the economic forces of the country should be permitted free play. I am delighted to have heard that statement.


Lester Bowles Pearson: Mr. Chairman, may I ask the hon. member whether he does not realize that the classical definition of Liberalism ended many decades ago?


Herbert Wilfred Herridge: I do, Mr. Chairman, but it has taken the Leader of the Opposition and his predecessors several decades to admit it publicly in the house.


Lester Bowles Pearson: You are talking about the
nineteenth century.


Herbert Wilfred Herridge: I wish to bring to the attention of the committee a few ideas recollected in solitude after I woke this morning to milk cows that were not there. I do not have a research staff or the facilities enjoyed by members on the government side, those on the cabinet benches, the Leader of the Opposition and other hon. gentlemen on his side. We have to search for our own information.


Lester Bowles Pearson: You have the Canadian Labour Congress.


Herbert Wilfred Herridge: Not this member.


John Whitney Pickersgill: May I ask the hon. member whether they have first and second class members in his party?


Herbert Wilfred Herridge: No. I should explain, Mr. Chairman, that we have specialists in particular subjects. Members of this group deal with certain subjects. However, I wish to have my say regardless of that because I represent the people of Kootenay West.


Mr. Henderson:: Don't let them rattle you.


Herbert Wilfred Herridge: I have had considerable experience in various walks of life which I think permits me to speak on these questions with some degree of objectivity. Many hon. members would not realize it but I have been a member of a trade union for nearly 20 years. I am also a microscopic employer and


Mr. Hellyer:: Did you say you were a pleasant farmer?


Herbert Wilfred Herridge: I trust I am, and pleasant in other ways as well. However, before going on with the meat of my address resulting from my research in solitude, I must say that I always listen with interest to the remarks of the hon. member for Burin-Burgeo and I could well understand his approach. I listened to him with great interest, particularly to his reference to the moral aspect of the question as far as meeting the problem of unemployment is concerned.
I was interested in his admission that we live in an economic jungle. That is just what democratic socialists have said for years, and it is because we live in an economic jungle under a so-called system of free enterprise that democratic socialists aim to bring some law and order in the economic and social life of that economic jungle. I was very pleased to hear him admit that.
I have said before, and I emphasize again because I think it should be emphasized, that we are faced with a difficult unemployment problem at the present time, for particular reasons.
So far as the world situation is concerned, we are faced with the political dictatorship of communism on the one hand and the economic dictatorship of monopoly capitalism on the other. We, as democratic socialists, believe we have a middle course for remedying this situation through the recognition of democratic principles and the use of free parliamentary institutions. We believe that the state has a responsibility for unemployment and is the only authority that has the power to rescue the casualties of free enterprise and unrestricted monopoly capitalism as it exists today.
Before proceeding to the few other remarks I wish to make, I want to say personally, how delighted I was to listen to the progressive and sensible approach to this problem by the leader of the official opposition. I am sure, first of all, that no thinking person would try to make political capital out of the distress of fellow Canadians or take political advantage of their distress. I am sure that all the members of this committee face this peculiar, and in one sense, modern development in the spirit of working together to find a remedy for the situation. Here we have an abnormal and continuing unemployment which concerns us all and, so far as we are concerned, not only on account of those who are in need but also because of the

great social waste which is involved. Surely we must recognize that it results from the greater increase in our productive capacity as a result of automation than the increase in employment opportunities.
The situation we have at present is, I believe, unique in Canadian history, that is unique in the sense it is a continuing situation during the summer months. Here we have, if my figures are correct and I have only been able to check them hurriedly, the highest total investment in the construction industry this year; we have for early months of this year, the highest total exports from this country. I understand there has been an increase in industrial production, an increase in total employment, an increase in employment income and an increase in corporation profits. Yet while that situation exists we have this unusual paradox of continuing constant unemployment on a large scale.
I am not going to repeat the things that have been mentioned by my colleagues who have dealt with this subject prior to me. I agree with what the leader of the official opposition said when he mentioned that this is a problem that will require co-operation between the federal government and other groups. While, in our opinion, the federal government must give leadership if it is going to solve this problem, we shall require cooperation between the federal and provincial governments, organized labour, organized farm movements and all organized sectors of the community. We believe that that cooperation is essential. However, I am not going to take much of the time of the committee now. We believe that the first thing that is essential is to have a study made of the situation to get the facts with respect to the causes of unemployment, the rate of unemployment and the nature of unemployment. Then we believe it is necessary for this government to accept responsibility for giving leadership in the development of an over-all national plan.
I was particularly interested to hear the leader of the official opposition use the word "planning" quite boldly today. I have heard it used on a few occasions in the past by members of the Liberal party, but rather timidly, in an undertone as it were. I say, for the first time in my experience in this house, the official Leader of the Opposition used the word "planning" boldly and with emphasis. I congratulate him on that account. We believe this planning is the responsibility, in the first instance, of the federal government. Then we believe that as a result of that planning there must be some public agencies or institutions established. This would be the result of the co-operation in
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the planning, in obtaining all the facts and information, between the federal, provincial and municipal governments and the other bodies I have mentioned. These institutions or agencies must be established so that we can devise an investment policy which will provide for large scale investment in socially desirable projects, self-liquidating projects, if you like, such as the Mica creek dam on the Columbia river, such as schools, hospitals, highways and housing. All of these are socially desirable investments because they are self-liquidating as a result of the profits they return in social services or in revenues to federal or provincial governments.
Then we believe there must be credit provided to financial these socially desirable projects. We recognize, as did the leader of the official opposition, the necessity for careful planning in fiscal policy. I say that if we are going to avoid inflation, credit will have to be used and planning will have to be given effect to, with some measure of control of profits and possibly some control of prices, as a result of negotiations between the various interests concerned. Credit will have to be provided for the carrying on of projects undertaken by the federal government, by the provinces, by municipalities and by cooperative institutions or organizations that undertake projects of this kind at the regional or local level. Then our fiscal policy and our taxation policy will have to be such as to provide tax incentives to private industry and to those wishing to undertake private developments at a time when they will have the greatest impact upon the unemployment situation.
I was very interested in what the leader of the official opposition had to say about diversification. We are all for diversification in planning projects. In my opinion, with complete centralization of power democracy will go out the window. We want diversification, of power and action, and that is why we suggest this planning as a result of cooperation and consultation between various authorities and groups in our society. Then we have to give consideration, as the leader of the official opposition said-I agree with him wholeheartedly-to the national and provincial aspects. There will also have to be regional diversification and some local activity. I also say, Mr. Chairman, that we have not yet really exploited to the full the goodness in people's hearts in local communities or attempted to mobilize this to meet the problem. I know this would not apply to the same extent in the large centres because the problem is much greater, but I know that with some organization and with some co-operation in the smaller centres between labour and management under a plan

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the problem could be taken care of locally. I am sure of that therefore, I suggest that is the next thing that is required.
In addition to the program I have just mentioned which would provide for those who are now trained and capable of undertaking employment in industry today we must recognize the fact that we have a large number of young people coming out of our schools. In many cases they are not willing to undertake academic studies, they are not concerned with university training since they have not, shall I say, that type of mind, but they would make excellent artisans, technicians and employees of that type.
We are getting short of skilled workers in some trades. From my own experience I know that good bricklayers, and good plumbers are in short supply particularly in the small communities in Canada because there is a tendency for them to go to the larger centres. On that account I think it is necessary for us to undertake a great expansion, first of all in the retraining of adults for other occupations, and that is possible up to a certain age with good effect, and then an increase in our training facilities for the younger people. I mention this matter with some particular knowledge and particular interest because it is one of great concern to the people in the Kootenays and to the people in the interior of British Columbia.
You notice, Mr. Chairman, that I can never make a speech without mentioning the Kootenays. I have always believed in acting as an advertising agent as well as an advocate of the people for the district I represent when I speak in this house. In any event, this is a matter of great interest to the people of the Kootenays because we are without any institutions of this kind and we have increasing numbers of young people coming out of our schools-a good percentage of whom are not going on to high training-who are denied the opportunity to secure this training as artisans, technicians and so on because of the cost involved in going to the large centres.
I suggest that is one aspect of the problem that must be given serious consideration and that any investment in this respect would be a good investment for the future. I believe this retraining is needed to meet the changing requirements of industry and the services in this country and to a certain extent the changing circumstances and requirements of agriculture.
In concluding my few brief remarks may I say this. When that is done I suggest that it is necessary to have an informed public and to have their co-operation. We must inculcate or promote a sense of personal responsibility for meeting the problem of unemployment.
[Mr. Herridge.l
Before taking my seat I want to say that we recognize the concern on the part of the minister with regard to this problem and we recognize that he has done certain things in an effort to remedy the situation but to a very limited extent. Therefore we suggest that much more is required if we are to solve this continuing problem now and in the days ahead.
Finally may I say this. There are two aspects of public policy that require public understanding and co-operation. One is the utilization, development and conservation of human resources and the other is utilization, development and conservation of natural resources. Those two programs require an informed, intelligent and co-operative public. I suggest that the leadership first must come from the federal government in order to secure this understanding and this co-operation in a program designed along the lines I have suggested.


John Whitney Pickersgill: Before the hon. member takes his seat, may I ask him a question?


Herbert Wilfred Herridge: Yes.


John Whitney Pickersgill: May I ask the hon. gentleman where he has been in the last 15 years? I have in my hand a pamphlet called "Employment and Income", with special reference to the initial period of reconstruction, which was issued by Mr. C. D. Howe when he was minister of reconstruction at the end of the war. I have just been looking through this pamphlet while the hon. member was speaking and I find that the words "plan" "plans" and "planning" occur on practically every page of this blue book, planning which gave this country full employment from 1945 to 1957.


Mr. Bell (Saint John-Alberi):: Why did you
not do something about it?


Herbert Wilfred Herridge: In reply to the hon. member for Bonavista-Twillingate may I say this. What he says is correct. There is a measure of planning in the pamphlet but I just want to mention that we did not hear it mentioned in the same terms in the House of Commons and with the same emphasis as was placed on it by the leader of the official opposition this afternoon. This planning was from the top. What we listened to this afternoon was not only the suggestion that governments should plan but that they should plan in cooperation with the people or the rank and file. That was the interesting aspect that appealed to me when I mentioned the planning referred to in the speech of the leader of the official opposition.


John Whitney Pickersgill: I just commend the whole pamphlet to the attention of the hon. gentleman because that is precisely what it says. It says that it cannot be done by the federal government alone from the top. It appeals for co-operation and it even suggests lines of co-operation between provinces, municipalities and public bodies of every kind.


Thomas Miller Bell: You did not
do much about it.


Donald MacInnis: Will the hon. member permit a question?


John Whitney Pickersgill: Yes.


Donald MacInnis: Will he tell the committee how the plans of Hon. C. D. Howe for the Atlantic provinces come into the picture?


John Whitney Pickersgill: I want to say-


Donald MacInnis: I prefer that you give to me a direct answer to the question I just put to you.


John Whitney Pickersgill: The hon. member is so fond of answering his own questions that he always seeks to answer them as well as to ask them. But if he will allow me to answer him, I would ask him what would have happened-


An hon. Member:: That is not an answer.


John Whitney Pickersgill: As a matter of fact, Mr. Chairman, I believe I am a member of the committee. What I should like to ask the hon. gentleman is what would have happened to the community in which he lived if the stimulus to the economy of that area which was given to it during and after the war had not been given to it? What would have happened if a Liberal government had not provided the coal subventions which have kept the coal mines alive for so many years, which coal mines have started to close down only since this government came into office?


Mr. Muir (Cape Breton North and Victoria):: That is not true.


Donald MacInnis: The hon. member asked me a question. Instead of answering he asked what would happen. He should have asked what did happen. I can place on the record, and I have it here, information showing that 34 coal mines closed under the government of the hon. member; that is to say 34 coal mines closed in Cape Breton in that time.


Robert Muir: And they did nothing about it.


John Whitney Pickersgill: What about the subventions?


Some hon. Members:: Six o'clock.
At six o'clock the committee took recess.
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The committee resumed at 8 p.m. (Translation):


Jean-Paul Deschatelets: Mr. Chairman, I should like to make a few brief remarks on the first vote of the estimates of the Department of Labour, although, of course, I reserve the right to put questions when we get to other items of the estimates.
At the outset of my remarks, may I emphasize the fact that, as a result of poor organization of the business of the house, great demands are being made upon us; indeed some of us have had to attend a committee meeting between 6 and 8 p.m.
At all events, as a representative of a riding made up mostly of workers, I feel it is my duty to make a brief review of developments since the beginning of this session with regard to the problem of unemployment which is particularly serious.
The Department of Labour is nothing less than the orphan of the government. It has been the most neglected department, at a time when its problems were certainly heavier than those of the other departments, at least on the domestic front. I do not mean to reflect on the personal qualities of the Minister of Labour (Mr. Starr), nor on his engaging personality, acknowledged by one and all; but the fact remains that his department has been held up to scorn by his colleagues in the cabinet.
So little regard have they had for the Department of Labour that it has been the last concern of the government, and the Minister of Labour, forsaken by his colleagues, helpless in the face of the existing needs in Canada, would have had every reason in the world-and we would have admired him all the more for it-on such a question of principle, to resign from the cabinet which had so badly let him down.
Mr. Chairman, it is very easy, very simple, to go over what has happened since the start of this session. There has been more unemployment than at any time since the thirties. In the speech from the throne, as soon as we arrived in Ottawa, the government failed to attach the necessary importance to the unemployment situation. Indeed the unemployment referred to in the speech was seasonal unemployment. This was first evidence of a lack of vision. As soon as we had arrived, in January, a major problem was being underestimated.
Some time later, during the session, and more particularly during the budget speech

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on March 31, 1960, when the Minister of Finance (Mr. Fleming) was passing moratorium or agreement with his creditors, he gave the matter of unemployment just 16 lines in a budget speech that lasted a little over two hours. And if hon. members remember, the only reference made at the time to unemployment, which was then the worst we had had since the thirties, was this statement by the Minister of Finance:
I have confidence, however, that employment will increase as the spring season will give rise to new job opportunities and as economy will keep on expanding.
There has also been legislation involving a winter works program. You will recall that, at the time, the government allowed the opposition to deal with unemployment in general, as well as with the winter works program. We said, at the time, that the winter works program was inadequate, and events proved we were right. Fifty thousand persons at the most, in the whole of Canada, were given temporary employment under that program, while at the time there were about 800,600 unemployed in Canada.
Eight hundred municipalities, at the most, were able to undertake such projects, assuming the largest share of the financial burden when, if I remember well, there are a little over 14,000 municipalities in Canada.
Quite recently the government again announced a winter works program for the coming winter, and again today a restricted program is announced, which will definitely not meet the needs that will be felt next winter.
In other words, the government policy on employment is a resounding failure. However, the opposition has not been chary of advice.
It will be recalled, for instance, that the hon. member for Essex East (Mr. Martin) put forward at least ten concrete and serious proposals deserving of consideration.
And if my memory serves me right, on the same evening when those ten proposals were put forward, the Minister of Labour said that opposition members were spending their time making barren criticism, and were not suggesting anything at all. The very next day, the hon. member for Laurier (Mr. Chevrier), summarizing the opposition's recommendations and suggestions, offered the government 25 concrete suggestions and proposals which, we believe, would have provided some relief to the unemployed.
I referred just now to the new winter works program. Already, the press in general has expressed the view that this measure

would again be inadequate and, at this point, I would like to read a few words from an editorial of La Presse, of July 28, 1960. I quote:
Since it has been decided to again provide the same type of help, it would seem that we are likely to run into the same problem next winter.
It must further be recognized that this assistance. which is quite a burden on municipalities, is of benefit to only a small minority of the unemployed. Two years ago. it meant jobs for some 30,000 people. Last winter the number rose to 50,000. However, it represents only 2,000,000 working days, or an average of 40 days per worker. And the total of 50,000 did not quite represent 10 per cent of the 560,000 unemployed found in Canada in March 1960.
Mr. Chairman, you will recall that on many occasions we called for a thorough investigation, by the committee on industrial relations, into the whole question of unemployment and employment in Canada. Nothing was done.
Every suggestion we made with regard to unemployment was rejected. And when we consider the events of the past session, we note with amazement that the industrial relations committee is perhaps the only house committee that has not or has hardly met at all during this session. I wonder what explanation can be given in this respect.
Here is a government that likes to boast of having set up standing house committees, of having put members to work; yet the key problem, acknowledged by most Canadians during Gallup polls as being of greatest concern to them, is precisely the one that was not considered by the industrial relations committee.
We did all we could to warn the government. All we could do was to tell the government: here is an urgent problem, one of vital importance to most Canadians. But nothing has been done.
In this regard, Mr. Chairman, I do not want to frighten my hon. friends opposite, nor unnecessarily cause them to lose sleep o'nights, but I wish they would ponder this thought.
Of late, there have been elections in several provinces of this country. There has been, for instance, a provincial election in Quebec. I hope my hon. friends will realize that the major reason for the clean-up that has happened in the province of Quebec was precisely the fact that the former Union Nationale government had stated that unemployment did not concern them. The people of Quebec preferred to entrust the administration of their business to a Liberal government that was

unafraid to say: we shall resolutely carry out our obligations with regard to unemployment.
In the case of New Brunswick, I am fully aware that special emphasis was placed on certain local issues that were thoroughly gone into, such as the hospital insurance question, but I am certainly convinced that if New Brunswick voters showed such concern for matters like the payment of hospitalization insurance premiums, it was first of all, because they were dissatisfied with a government which had not done what was required to fight the unemployment problem.
Under Conservative administration, Mr. Chairman, the Canadian unemployed-and we can say so today when we are about to leave- have been forgotten, abandoned, left high and dry. And in the light of the Prime Minister's famous promise, which, indeed, was the reason why a great number of Conservative members were elected, I say that the jobless have been misled by the government, because after having been elected, this administration refused to stand up to its obligations in the face of unemployment.


Louis-Joseph Pigeon: May I, Mr. Chairman, ask the hon. member for Maisonneuve-Rosemont (Mr. Deschatelets) a question?


Jean-Paul Deschatelets: You may.


Louis-Joseph Pigeon: Does the hon. member recall the speech he made on March 15, 1955 as recorded in the French edition of Hansard of that date, page 2175, when he said:
Mr. Speaker, the Liberal members from Quebec are rightly of the opinion that the unemployment problem cannot be settled through speeches.


Jean-Paul Deschatelets: Mr. Chairman, I did make the comment referred to by the hon. member for Joliette-L'Assomption-Montcalm (Mr. Pigeon), and 1 repeat it now: the unemployment problem cannot be settled through speeches, nor can it be settled by promises such as the ones you made.
Now, Mr. Chairman, the latest available figures disclose that on June 30, 1960 there were about 300,000 Canadians claiming unemployment insurance benefits.
Therefore, by whatever system we count them, there are 300,000 persons now unemployed and claiming insurance benefits.
If the Minister of Labour had allowed an inquiry into unemployment, he would have learned from his own experts, that about one third of the unemployed registered at our employment offices, have never actually registered because they are not entitled to benefits.
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In any case, according to figures coming from unemployment insurance sources,
400,000	Canadian citizens are now reported to be out of work.
I already said it, and I repeat it tonight, those figures represent men with dependents, wives and children, so that in considering this over-all figure of 400,000, we can assume that today, at the end of July 1960, there are at least 700,000 unemployed in Canada, people unable to look after their families, or pay for the medicine they need, people who cannot, like their neighbours or the rest of the population, live a normal life within our economic structure.
Mr. Chairman, I read the statement made by the Minister of Labour when he introduced his estimates. I hope all our unemployed in Canada will read it; however, it would be very interesting to ask young people who have finished their studies in June, what job opportunities are being offered them today.
We could also ask tradesmen about their job opportunities at this time. And I hope I will not be telling the Minister of Labour something he does not already know when I say that, less than a fortnight ago there were a little over 600 plumbers in the city of Montreal who were looking for work and were unable to find any.
The minister referred to a new piece of legislation designed to promote the building industry in Canada. Before he prepares that piece of legislation I hope he will get in touch with his officers in the Montreal area because they will be able to tell him that, at this time, hundreds and thousands of workers in the building trades cannot find any work.
I was quite amused last night when the Minister of Labour asked the hon. member for Hull to mention the name of one unemployed worker in Hull who was looking for a job. I hope the minister's remark will receive all the publicity it deserves, and if so, I would advise him to hire additional secretaries right away, because his office will be flooded with applications within a few days.
On that subject, I should like to renew at this point the appeal I made early in this session to all unemployed, urging them to register as soon as possible at their nearest unemployment insurance office. I think that is a civic duty, because Canada's unemployed, whose number and needs are being denied, have a duty to prove to the federal

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government that even in the midst of July, we are faced with greater unemployment than in any comparable period in previous years.
Mr. Chairman, there has been reference to responsibility. At this point, I want to pay a tribute to the new premier of the province of Quebec who has recognized that, when it comes to unemployment, all levels of government have a responsibility and that they must try to find a solution. But, since the matter of the government's responsibility in the field of unemployment has been discussed already may I quote again an excerpt from a speech the Minister of Labour made on March 3, 1955 which we find on page 1694 of Hansard:
Neither the municipal nor provincial governments can exert a great deal of control over the causes of unemployment, which are basically economic. The federal government is the only government which under the powers it possesses can exert control over those causes of unemployment.
I feel it is at this time that the municipal and provincial governments should adopt a policy of doing nothing about the present situation in order to force the federal government to take the responsibility which is rightly theirs.
In that respect, Mr. Chairman, now that I have again put on record views expressed by the minister of labour in 1955, to the effect that it is a matter of federal responsibility, we could make a distinction which, I believe, is important. I think that seasonal unemployment is a responsibility to be shared equally by the provinces and of the federal government. There is also technical unemployment due to changes in industry and production methods. I also believe that in this field both the provincial and federal governments share equal responsibility. But in the field of cyclic unemployment, that is unemployment which is the result of monetary restrictions and fiscal problems, there is no doubt that it comes directly under the jurisdiction of the federal government, which has much greater fiscal powers and revenues than the provinces or the municipalities.


Mr.   Chairman@: I am sorry to interrupt the hon. member, but his time has run out.


Louis-Joseph Pigeon: Mr. Chairman, I have a suggestion for the Minister of Labour. May I first ask him whether the Department of Labour is considering the possibility of amending the Unemployment Insurance Act in order to make the benefits available to agricultural workers? At present, as they have for years, farmers in this country are having a hard time finding farm labour, in view of the fact
[Mr. Deschatelets.l
that job seekers are not interested in farm jobs because this type of work disqualifies them for unemployment insurance. Therefore I ask the government to consider the feasibility of providing for this, and I should like the minister to state his opinion on that point when he has the floor.


Jean-Paul Deschatelets: Mr. Chairman, may I add a few words to complete the statement I was making a moment ago. I shall be very brief. I shall only repeat what the Canadian people generally are beginning to think. In other words, what is the opinion today of the average Canadian citizen on this government, particularly in relation to the failure of the means it has taken to solve the unemployment problem.
Mr. Chairman, the Canadian voters, as indicated by a recent Gallup poll, are disillusioned and concerned, because they find that the country is run by visionaries, idealists and dreamers.
In the course of this session, we have discussed all kinds of problems arising out of the imagination of the Prime Minister and his ministers; we have discussed the death penalty, we have discussed the bill of rights.
As for me, just before leaving the House of Commons, I wish to register on behalf of my constituents, people of the working class, their disappointment, their disapproval on the lack of action on the part of this government with regard to one of the most important domestic problems we face today.
Because of this situation, most Canadian voters today want a change in administration as soon as possible. They want a government headed not by dreamers, visionaries or idealists, but by men of action who will take drastic measures, if necessary, and who will fulfil their obligations whenever it is in the interests of Canadians.
(Text):


Hédard-J. Robichaud: Mr. Chairman, the question of unemployment has occupied the house for many hours in the last three sessions of parliament and particularly during the present session. It is my intention this evening, during the few minutes at my disposal, to bring once more to the attention of the minister and the government the present condition of the unemployment insurance fund, but before doing so I should like to place on the record again the statements which have been made in the past by the present Prime Minister, the leader of the government, concerning unemployment. In doing so I wish

to quote his exact words as reported by the press of the country. M'y interpretation of the Prime Minister's remarks will be somewhat different from the interpretation given to the Prime Minister's declarations last evening by the hon. member for Bromo-Mis-sisquoi-I mean Brome-Missisquoi. Judging by his actions in this house on many occasions, I think the hon. member needs a lot of bromo.
Topping the Prime Minister's list of campaign promises was his promise to spend $286 million in the first six months of 1958 to provide works projects for the nation's increasing number of unemployed. As reported in the Winnipeg Free Press of February 3, 1958, the Prime Minister said that his government would not allow the possibility of deficits in the national budget to stand in the way of providing works projects to try to take up the slack in employment.
I would ask the Minister of Labour today, what concrete measures have been introduced since 1958 to take care of the serious condition of unemployment? The facts are that on June 22, 1957, the day after the Conservative government took office, the number of persons without jobs and seeking work in this country, as reported by the dominion bureau of statistics, was 162,000. On the same date the number of applicants for employment registered at the national employment office was 266,000. Today, after over three years of Conservative government, the figures at the end of June for persons without jobs and seeking work is over 300,000, while the number of applicants registered for employment is over 400,000.
Again, as reported in the Ottawa Journal of February 15, 1958, the Prime Minister stated on the previous day, February 14, in a speech in his own town of Prince Albert:
"We are defeating the problem," he said. Figures for the last few weeks showed a slower rate of increase in unemployment.
If they were defeating the problem of unemployment at that time, it has been a long and losing fight for the present government. Answering a question which was addressed to him at the time, where did unemployment come from, the Prime Minister had this to say:
In the first place because we tied our economy too closely to the United States, losing our markets everywhere else. Second, because small businessmen were strangled by the tight money policy of the former government.
What did we get from the present government? A few months after assuming office,
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returning from a trip to the United Kingdom, the Prime Minister made his famous declaration on the diversion of trade; that is about all we got from the government, a speech from the Prime Minister on the diversion of trade. In so far as the tight money policy is concerned, there again we know what conditions were in this country, particularly during 1959. In the same speech in Prince Albert the Prime Minister stated that unemployment was 379,000 in February, 1955, and 308,000 in February, 1956, and this under a Liberal government. It is true that this was under a Liberal administration, but in February, 1958 the number of persons without jobs had risen to 538,000 and in February 1959 it was 559,000. Those registered for jobs at the unemployment office in February, 1959 totalled 798,000 and in February, 1960, 817,000.
Under a Liberal administration, in the month of June, 1955, according to a report given by the Canadian statistical review, the number of people without jobs and seeking work had dropped to 157,000; in June, 1956, it was 117,000; in June, 1957, 162,000. This, Mr. Chairman, was under a Liberal administration. The following year after the Conservatives took office in June, 1958 the number of persons without jobs and seeking work was 370,000; in June, 1959, 234,000; in June, 1960, 300,000. The number of persons registered at the national employment offices is still more revealing. Under a Liberal administration, in June, 1955, they numbered 231,000; in June, 1956, 189,000; in June, 1957, 266,000; but after the Conservative government had taken office the number registered at the national employment office rose in June, 1958, to 506,000; June, 1959, 308,000; and this year, June, 1960, 401,000.
The Prime Minister said:
Did they talk about that then? Did they act?
We have a government today that is not only refusing to talk about unemployment, but a government that is refusing to act and the results are there to show it. On that occasion, the Prime Minister made his famous declaration:
As long as I am Prime Minister, no man or woman is going to suffer from unemployment so long as public works will provide them the assistance they require.
This was at a time when the Prime Minister was speaking about a huge public works program which would total $1,185 million. What has been the result of this

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program? Is it still in the vision stage or has it turned into a mirage? I have another statement made by the Prime Minister, Mr. Chairman, as reported in the Toronto Star for February 15, 1958:
Canada, he said, was experiencing unemployment because its economy was so tightly tied to that of the United States which also was suffering from an economic decline. No Canadian government could exert influence over the United States economy. But the Liberals were partly to blame for binding Canada's economy so closely to that of the United States.
I ask the Minister of Labour, what change has been made now that we have a Conservative government? Then in a national telecast, as reported in the Montreal Star of February 19,1958, the Prime Minister said:
"As long as I am Prime Minister of Canada," he said in a live telecast, "everything than can be done-everything without regard to limit-will be done to the end that no one will suffer."
It is about time, Mr. Chairman, that the Prime Minister started converting some of his promises into action. Mention has been made in this house on different occasions of the winter works program for which we were asked last year to vote $15 million to cover the share of the federal government. Under present conditions, when our municipalities are overburdened with heavy taxes, at a time when the cost of money is at the highest point in our history, this is no time to call upon our municipalities to go deeper into debt in order to participate in this meagre assistance being offered by the federal government. The federal government offers to pay 50 per cent of the cost of wages, and that barely covers the extra cost of undertaking such projects during the winter months.
I could go on, Mr. Chairman, to repeat many more of the statements made by the Prime Minister concerning unemployment. What this government has done during its three years in office has been to dissipate the $500 million surplus left by the previous administration. They have forced this country into additional debt of over $1| billion. I want to come back, Mr. Chairman, to the position of the unemployment insurance fund. As I said, this administration has dissipated the unemployment insurance fund which was left by the previous administration. In his remarks yesterday the minister said that in the present estimates we would be called upon to vote a sum of $52,000,000, an increase of $13,500,000, to cover the federal contribution to the unemployment insurance fund. This amount will be far from sufficient to save this fund from depletion. When this
[Mr. RobichaudJ
government took office in June of 1957 the unemployment insurance fund was $852 million and according to the latest figures given in this house as reported on page 7019 of Hansard for Wednesday, July 27, as of June 30, of this year the unemployment insurance fund had decreased to $296 million. I would ask the minister whether in this last figure there is included the $10 million lost to the unemployment insurance fund in the last bond transaction.
Under present conditions and notwithstanding the increase in contributions of close to 30 per cent which was forced by this government on the workers of this country effective as of September 1 of last year the fund of the unemployment insurance commission will soon be depleted. I recall that during a committee meeting-I think it was in 1955-the officials of the unemployment insurance commission admitted that at any time the unemployment insurance fund fell below $500 million it would be in a dangerous condition. According to the figures for last year, with less unemployment and with fewer registered for unemployment insurance benefits than we have this year, the unemployment insurance fund from the end of May to the end of November increased by only $42 million. We can foresee that this year, during the present season, notwithstanding this extra contribution, the unemployment insurance fund will be increased by $60 million or $65 million at the most between June 30 and the end of November of this year; and from November on when we shall likely have, owing to lack of policy of the present government, more unemployment than we had last winter, the unemployment insurance fund will be gradually depleted.
I foresee a situation in which at this time next year the fund will be at a figure of approximately $150 million and when there will be in the fund barely sufficient money to cover the operations of the unemployment insurance commission for a further period of six months to eight months. This is therefore the time for the government to take action. This is the time for the minister to advise this house what are the plans of the government toward the unemployment insurance fund. I know that the minister cannot make this committee or the country believe that the fund is not in a serious position. The time has come for action and we expect that before the estimates of the minister are passed by this committee between now and tomorrow the minister will explain to the committee the policy of the government will regard to safeguarding this insurance fund for the labouring class of this country.

Before resuming my seat I would ask the minister this question in view of the statement he made in the presentation of his estimates on May 15 last year to the effect that amendments to the Industrial Relations and Disputes Investigation Act would be up for discussion during the present session. I would ask the minister to advise the committee now when he expects to bring in the amendments to this act.


Michael Starr: Not this session.


Hédard-J. Robichaud: The minister told us previously it was not going to be done during this session. We know that it is too late now, although he made the direct statement last year that these amendments would be presented to the house for study during the present session.


Jacques Flynn: Shall vote 164 carry?


John Whitney Pickersgill: No, Mr. Chairman. Before it is carried, if no one else in the committee wishes to speak, there are one or two things I should like to say because of some of the observations that were made just prior to six o'clock by the hon. member for Kootenay West who appears to have slept, like Rip Van Winkle, if not for 20 years, at least for the past 15 years; or, if not, to have been suffering from temporary amnesia when he was speaking. He suggested that my friend the Leader of the Opposition had taken an entirely new line, had departed from the traditions of the Liberal party in the twentieth century in what he said this afternoon. I think I can show the hon. gentleman very quickly that, far from doing that, what the Leader of the Opposition is doing is following in the footsteps of a leader of the Liberal party who gave a new orientation to this party which had the effect of giving us the kind of full employment we enjoyed in all the years after the war up until the time the present government came into office.
Some hon. Members Oh, oh.


John Whitney Pickersgill: The hon. gentleman suggested that the advocacy of planning-and I do not mean planning in the sense some of the hon. gentleman's friends mean it-and economic planning at that, was something new for the Liberal party. May I say this. In the city of London, on May 30, 1945, in a nation-wide broadcast during the election campaign at that time, Mr. Mackenzie King said this:
The achievement of full employment and social security will require no less careful planning, skilful organization and wise direction than has been needed in achieving a maximum war effort. In peacetime, the planning and direction of government must be exercised in such a way as to increase, and not to decrease, the opportunities for individual freedom and initiative. At the same
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time, individual freedom and initiative must not be directed to purely selfish ends. These great qualities must be harnessed for the service of humanity. It is the aim of our policies of full employment and social security to reconcile the maximum of individual freedom with the greatest possible measure of mutual aid in the attainment of human welfare.


Thomas Miller Bell: Is the hon. member prepared to identify the ghost writer of that speech?


John Whitney Pickersgill: Mr. Mackenzie King had no need of ghost writers. If the hon. gentleman will go back to the end of a previous war he will And in a volume written by Mr. Mackenzie King many years ago-because I recognize the hon. gentleman's insinuation, I may say-many years before I knew Mr. Mackenzie King and while I was still a school boy, similar sentiments expressed in perhaps somewhat different language because that was prior to the days of broadcasting.


Thomas Miller Bell: The hon. gentleman is too modest.


John Whitney Pickersgill: I would suggest that that is the kind of planning for which the Liberal party stood then and for which it stands now.
I should also like to draw to the attention of the hon. gentleman, because of another observation he made, something that Mr. King said in his last broadcast in that same campaign. It was a national broadcast which the hon. member for Carleton will well remember because it was a broadcast that was made in reply to Mr. George McCullagh when at the last moment he was substituted for the hon. gentleman's leader in their last national appeal before the election of 1945. I just recall that interesting bit of history although it is, I confess, somewhat irrelevant to the minister's estimates. But what I would read now is not irrelevant at all; it is completely relevant. This broadcast was delivered from Ottawa and in it Mr. King said this:
The Progressive Conservative party has loudly proclaimed that it is the party of private enterprise, of capitalism; the C.C.F. has equally loudly proclaimed that it is the party of public ownership, of socialism. The Liberal party has never accepted extreme positions. We do not believe that more employment and prosperity will be created by the mere fact of changing the ownership of property from individuals or corporations to the state. Nor do we believe that our free way of life is threatened by the ownership and development by the nation of certain great undertakings. For the Liberal party, the test is what will best serve the general interest, rather than special interests, whether those special interests be the interests of a financial oligarchy or a particular class.
Let me remind you that Liberal governments have been responsible for great national enterprises such as the Canadian National Railways which have served vitally in the defence of freedom in this war; like the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation which our Conservative opponents now seem prepared to hand over completely to private

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interest; like Trans-Canada Air Lines whose opportunity to develop civil aviation in the public interest has been safeguarded by the present government, despite every effort of our Tory opponents to hand this great national development over to private interests.
The Liberal party believes that the largest part of the employment required must be provided by private undertakings, and the present government is taking vigorous steps to encourage private and corporate enterprise; but, we are equally convinced that, in certain fields, the public interest calls for public enterprise in national development. In those fields, we have not, and, in the future, will not hesitate in the general interest to promote bold action by the state.
Lest hon. gentlemen say that that is a statement made before an election, we know what happened afterwards. We know that between 1945 and 1957 there was a condition if not of full employment, in many cases of overfull employment. It is true that in the winter of 1954-55 and 1949-50 there was a recurrence of seasonal unemployment, but there was no summer through that whole period when there was not full employment. And it did not all happen by chance.
It should not be forgotten that at the time Mr. Mackenzie King made those statements and talked about the planning done by that government at that time he was talking about the problem which was right on the edge of being faced by that government and was putting into useful peacetime employment two million men and women who had been in the armed forces or employed in war industry, the most colossal undertaking in the shifting of employment which had taken place up to then in the history of this country. And that was not done by chance; it was done by planning and by Liberal planning.
So I assure the hon. gentleman that if he has awakened from his slumbers or his amnesia is over he will find there has been a great deal of Liberal planning throughout these years.
Mr. Chairman, one only needs to recall some of those things which have been undertaken. One only needs to recall some of the things which over the years we have been responsible for, such as the St. Lawrence seaway, to mention perhaps the most spectacular of them all; at every stage when the economy needed the extra push and stimulus which it received when there were in the government of Canada men of foresight and forethought and planning. Because all the vision in the world is not much use if you have not got the administrative skill and the practical knowledge and the capacity for executive action that is required to turn visions into realities.


Paul Raymond Martineau: Would the hon. member permit a question?


John Whitney Pickersgill: I would be delighted.


Paul Raymond Martineau: Would the hon. member tell the committee where all these supermen have gone now?


John Whitney Pickersgill: Of course, time takes its toll and it is ten years since Mr. Mackenzie King went to his rest; but it will be many, many years before the imprint he made on this country is forgotten. As for Mr. St. Laurent, who succeeded Mr. King and who served this country as prime minister with incomparable skill and administrative capacity, and a capacity to make decisions and get things done and not play politics and play constantly to the gallery, he served this country in the highest office past his seventy fifth birthday, and the last time he asked for the judgment of the people he got more votes than hon. gentlemen opposite.


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh.


John Whitney Pickersgill: If hon. gentlemen would like me to go on with my biographical catalogue I would be glad to, except that I do not think the Chair would like it because I see the chairman looking rather sternly at me.
Now I want to make a comparison. I have here in my hand the latest blueprint for full employment of the present Prime Minister of Canada. We have not heard much from the Prime Minister about full employment since March. That was in the day when this government still believed that the unemployment would end with the coming of spring. A month later they began to have their doubts and since then they have talked very differently.
What did the Prime Minister say in the broadcast of March 3? I have read these words in the house before and perhaps it will be worth recalling the circumstances when the Prime Minister made this speech. On the evening of March 3, within two hours of the time that a debate on unemployment concluded in this house in which he did not deign to take part, he went on the air and this is what he said:
And as you know, there was the unemployment problem which we inherited.
Two years afterwards the Prime Minister was still talking that nonsense. But we do not hear much more about that today because whatever this government may have inherited in the winter of 1957 and 1958, and the hon. member for Laurier has put figures on the record today which make a mockery of that statement, I do not think even the Prime Minister's colossal gall would be sufficient to persuade the people of this country to believe that that inheritance has

persisted up till now, particularly when we remember that last autumn the Prime Minister and the Minister of Finance and the Minister of Labour were all telling us that the recession was over and that everything was rosy in the garden.
If everything was rosy in the garden last October and November it is pretty difficult to blame the not very rosy situation in the summer of I960 on inheritance from the former government. Whatever this government did inherit, if they are any use at all surely in three years they could do something about the situation they inherited, but the plain fact is that hon. gentlemen opposite simply move from one excuse to another. They blamed the Liberal inheritance as long as they could.
What are they trying to do now? They are trying to fob off the whole unemployment problem on the new premier of Quebec. They have to find somebody else to blame all the time. But one cannot get away from the plain fact which was put on the record by my hon. friend from Laurier and underlined so ably by my hon. friend from Gloucester just now. The fact is that the level of unemployment since this government won the election of 1958, when we were told that as long as the present Prime Minister was head of the government no one would suffer in this country through unemployment has been 50 per cent higher and most of the time 100 per cent higher. I am referring to percentages not to absolute figures; if you take absolute figures their record is very much worse. Let me go on a little further with the Prime Minister's program for full employment of March 3, 1960:
As you know, there was an unemployment problem which we inherited. I do not want to see a single day of unnecessary suffering-
"Unnecessary suffering." Hon. members know the comment I made the last time I referred to this, and it is worthy of repetition, particularly as I have been quoting Mr. Mackenzie King this evening. We have gone from "no one will suffer" to "no unnecessary suffering but suffering if necessary". In two years that is the progress which has been made.
"I did not want to see a single day of unnecessary suffering, and neither did my colleagues. The result was that we had to spend hundreds of millions of dollars to provide work from housing and public works and other projects.
If that was the right thing to do in 1958, why is it not the right thing to do in 1960? Why has the government dropped these ideas. Remember that great visionary press release which came out of the east block with all those projects, half of which were, of course, simply in the estimates which had been 79951-0-458
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prepared by the preceding government and most of the rest of which have not been started? That, I suppose, is the hundreds of millions that were spent. What is happening now?


An hon. Member:: No money.


John Whitney Pickersgill: But here is what he had the gall to say; here is what the Prime Minister had the colossal impudence to try to tell the Canadian people on March 3. He said: "We planned for a deficit." When you think of what the Prime Minister said in 1957 in that election campaign about how wicked it was to overspend in the way the Liberal government was overspending and how wicked it was to be paying off public debt in the way the Liberal government was paying off that debt, and how he was going to reduce the expenditures of this country by half a billion, how he was going to reduce taxes and still balance the budget, what a change in thinking this represents. Hon. members will recall that promise of a budget made by the Minister of Finance in June, 1957-the one he got ticked off for by the Prime Minister who was over in London because there was a clash in the plans-that was before Mr. Roblin discovered this was a Fleming government and not a Diefenbaker government, and perhaps before the Minister of Finance discovered it, either. Anyway the Prime Minister said they planned for a deficit. Secret plans, probably, or, as my leader says, hidden plans. Perhaps we shall be able to discover it and produce it damatic-ally on some occasion when we get back into power although I do not think the Liberal party will need to resort to histrionics of that kind.


Mr, Palleil:: At that stage it will be an antique.


John Whitney Pickersgill: It was an antique when it was produced. The Prime Minister went on to say: "We had to borrow money." Well, that is certainly an understatement. For 12 years, to enable this country to expand, the previous government paid off the debt of this country and made those funds available for the development of this country-and in two years this government put all that debt back. So when they say they had to borrow money they hardly exaggerated, and perhaps the climate they created then may have had a lot to do with the fact that winter is now extended into July. In 1958 winter went into June. It is winter in July now, and seasonal unemployment is an affair of all four seasons.

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That, of course, is an achievement of this government. The Prime Minister went on to say:
We were, of course, criticized for this, but when I thought of the families of the unemployed I knew for me there was no other course, deficit or no deficit.


An hon. Member:: What is wrong with that?


John Whitney Pickersgill: What we are entitled to know in a debate on unemployment is whether this is still the policy. Is the blueprint for unemployment now what the Prime Minister said on March 3 or what the Minister of Finance said in the budget, because they are diametrically opposed to each other. The Prime Minister said: "I knew there was no other course for me". Presumably if he knew it then he still knows it today. Presumably this is not something which is entirely in the past. Presumably if it was a good thing to have a deficit in 1958 it is an equally good thing in 1960. But that is not what the Minister of Finance says, although it is what the Prime Minister told the public in a broadcast entitled "The Nation's Business". One cannot blame the people of this country for being confused when this confusion exists right at the top.
Now I come to the Prime Minister's blueprint summed up in one sentence. This is it: "In the same circumstances I would make exactly the same decision again". We have the same circumstances. Where is the decision? What is the decision? What is the government's plan for dealing with unemployment?
I feel sorry for the Minister of Labour. No one can reasonably expect the Minister of Labour to have a plan for dealing with unemployment. As the hon. member for Essex East said earlier in the session, this is not a job for the Minister of Labour, it is a job for the whole government. We should be told by the government, by the head of the government, what the plans are, and those plans should be something much more significant and much more fruitful than the expansion of the winter works program to include a few town halls and the installation of a few street lights. As nearly as I can gather these were the additions which were made to this winter works program in the announcement made the other day before the federal-provincial conference began.
Everybody has said that we desperately need more vocational training in this country, more technical training; that one of our difficulties is that despite the heavy unemployment we have there are still unfilled jobs because we have not competent Canadians in the right places to fill them. What do we find? We find in the estimates

this year that the vote for vocational training has been cut down by over $1 million. It may be that this vote will have to be increased by virtue of the announcement made by the Minister of Labour the other day; I assume that did represent a change which would cost something. But I can say that that was not adequate, either.
What should be done today is what the Mackenzie King government did at the end of the war. At that time we had all these young people coming out of the armed forces many of whom had to go and fight for their country at the time they should have been getting their education. What did the federal government do? It paid for the education of every one of them who wanted it and was capable of taking it.
I do not expect the federal government to provide the vocational schools but they can help provide them. I do not expect the government to run them. The government did not take over the universities or technical schools at the end of the war. I do say, however, that when you have a problem as big as this one and when it has developed to the degree it has in certain provinces that simply have not the provincial revenues to bear themselves all of the burden and that if they do provide the training for these people may find that the people leave the province to secure jobs in another province, it is a national task.
Instead of paying 75 per cent the government should do as the Leader of the Opposition and several other hon. members on this side have suggested over and over again. The government should take over the problem of paying the cost for those persons who are unemployed and who are capable of benefiting from training of such a kind that will make them really employable.
There are a great many other things one could say about this subject but there have been a great many things said already. What I started off to do was to have a small and amicable quarrel with the hon. member for Kootenay West who is one of the most amiable hon. members in this chamber, and I was just led on from one thing to another.
I hope that the Minister of Labour who I think probably agrees with me-although I am not going to test cabinet solidarity by pressing him too far on this point-notwithstanding the fact that this is a Fleming government-will do his best at the treasury board in order to be in a position to do a little better than he is proposing to do about vocational training.


Herbert Wilfred Herridge: Will the hon. member who is the distinguished archivist and historian of the Liberal party permit a question?


John Whitney Pickersgill: Certainly.


Herbert Wilfred Herridge: Can the hon. gentleman point to any lines in Hansard which indicate that the Right Hon. Mackenzie King ever spoke about planning in the terms that the Leader of the Opposition did this afternoon?


John Whitney Pickersgill: I do not think I could do that offhand, good though my memory for that kind of thing is. However, given 24 hours notice I think I would have no difficulty in satisfying the hon. member on that point. I would hazard a guess that if the hon. member would look at the debate on the setting up of the department of reconstruction which was done in 1944-there would be many other places to look but that is the most obvious one I can think of-he would find precisely what he is looking for.


Mr. Macdonnell:: Mr. Chairman, I am sure we have all shared to some extent in the enjoyment that has been evident in the chamber in the past few minutes while the hon. member for Bonavista-Twillingate was having a fine time painting word pictures in which he described the Liberal party as having all the wisdom that has existed from the time the world began while we poor people who somehow or other managed to persuade the Canadian people to employ us again were characterized as just a lot of newcomers who go from one stupidity to another.


John Whitney Pickersgill: Oh, I did not say that.


James MacKerras Macdonnell: There are very few advantages in growing older but perhaps one is that your memory goes back a little and I should like to bring up one or two points to add to the pleasant picture we have had painted for us by the hon. member for Bonavista-Twillingate.
The modesty of the hon. member is something that I always respect but when he has added to that additional qualities, when he is speaking not only for himself but for Mr. Mackenzie King and Mr. St. Laurent, then the hon. member for Bonavista-Twillingate reaches heights to which one can hardly follow at all.
I should like to remind the hon. member of one or two things. According to the hon. member the people of Canada were very fortunate that after world war II we were blessed with a government which did certain things and by its own efforts and wise planning produced for us 15 years of prosperity and after that, sad to relate, when they were defeated and the present government took office, everything began to go wrong.


Lester Bowles Pearson: A very fair description.
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James MacKerras Macdonnell: I am glad the Leader of the Opposition thinks I have been fair in describing what was said by the hon. member for Bonavista-Twillingate. In refreshing the memory of the hon. member I should like to go back to world war I. Many people have forgotten that there was a first great war, but there actually was, and I should like to recall what happened thereafter. It is important that we remember in our more sober moments that wars have actually taken place. It is good to remember that wars always leave the same situations. They succeed in diverting the working population from the usual things of life to things which we do not use in ordinary times and they leave a tremendous gap to be filled.
That happened in the 1920's. Those who have taken the trouble to learn about the twenties will recall that we had a grand time in that period. We thought we had discovered the secret not only of full employment but of perpetual prosperity, and it went on and on. I do not know if the government of that time took all the credit for it but at any rate we did not hear as much about it.


Paul Joseph James Martin: Because we had unemployment after world war I.


James MacKerras Macdonnell: Then after world war II we had a similar situation. There was a world wide shortage and we enjoyed prosperity. I will not say that the government of the day did not help it along. I had a considerable respect for the government of that day although sometimes I succeeded in controlling myself and did not come out and express it. I never said that all the things that that government did were wrong. I am quite sure that I sometimes agreed that it was right. But the picture painted this evening by the hon. member for Bonavista-Twillingate of the government of that period being possessed of all highest wisdom, going from one wise action to another, from victory to delirious victory, is a little more than I can stand.
Then the hon. member brought us to the situation that existed at the beginning of 1957. I think the phrase used was that we "inherited" some unemployment. What was the situation? We had taken over from a government that had been in office for many years. There was some unemployment. I doubt if even the hon. member for Bonavista-Twillingate would argue that everything was perfect in 1957.


John Whitney Pickersgill: No, nor even in 1956.


James MacKerras Macdonnell: I imagine that under pressure the hon. member would say that

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what we did in 1957 as an immediate palliative in a difficult situation was very good. Then the hon. member brought us to 1958 and 1959.


John Whitney Pickersgill: If the hon. member would permit me to interrupt, I should not like to let that statement pass unchallenged.


James MacKerras Macdonnell: Is the hon. member rising to ask me a question or to make a speech? I think I can speak better without the hon. gentleman competing with me.


Lester Bowles Pearson: The hon. member is a spur.


James MacKerras Macdonnell: When the hon. member brought us to 1957 I became very interested in his remarks. I often wonder if we do gain in political controversy by refusing utterly to be realistic and by just going all-out and painting extravagant pictures which any, shall I say, fair-minded or independent-minded person, would find very tiresome.
In 1957 we took measures which I think were very effective for the time being. Then in 1958 it looked as if things were very good. We described the situation as best we could and indicated that things were better. We may even sometimes have over-stated it a little. But I would remind the enthusiastic hon. gentleman that we are next door to a nation ten times as big as ours and what was happening here was happening there. I would also say that even though we were disappointed by what happened during 1959 and during the early months of this year, nevertheless the same thing happened in the United States as well. This picture that the hon. gentleman depicted of us as a lot of people who stupidly could not recognize what was going to happen and then suddenly found themselves with a task on their doorstep which they were not fulfilling was to me just the sheerest fantasy, just political enthusiasm running wild.
Let us be perfectly clear about the matter. Statements have been made by the Prime Minister and by the Minister of Labour about things that are being done. They are not all being done before the end of next week but they have been indicated and are being done. Much as I respect the speech made this afternoon by the Leader of the Opposition, and I did respect it, I do not know that it contained any great new earth-shaking remedies that we have overlooked and which would suddenly set the situation right. As a matter of fact, we know that we live in a world full of difficulties. We are not the only people in difficulty, and so I would ask the hon. gentleman to sleep on this and to come back in the morning and tell us what he really thinks about it all.


John Whitney Pickersgill: Would the hon. member permit me to ask him a question?


James MacKerras Macdonnell: Don't make it too hard.


John Whitney Pickersgill: It is a very easy one. The hon. member referred to extravagant language. I wonder what he would think about this sentence in a speech made on March 3, 1960:
When we look at what has been achieved In the short space of time, we can only regret that this policy was not put into effect a good many years ago.
This was the Prime Minister talking about development.


James MacKerras Macdonnell: The Prime Minister does not set himself up to be a wizard and to be able to foresee everything that is going to happen. A great many things have already been foreshadowed by the minister. I would also remind the hon. member that with respect to the difficult situation that is developing, which we admit, we are not the only ones who have been taken by surprise to a great extent; the United States and other countries have as well.


Paul Joseph James Martin: Does the minister intend to reply to the various requests that were made, notably the one just made by the hon. member for Bonavista-Twillingate, for a statement of the government's policy designed to deal with the present unemployment situation?


Michael Starr: If the hon. member would take his thoughts back to what I said in my opening statement he would realize that I listed the measures to be taken which were announced within the last week. In addition, I announced another measure to be taken with respect to home improvement loans under which the chartered banks have agreed to make money available for that purpose. I also referred to the closing sentence in the announcement the Prime Minister made last Saturday when he mentioned "other measures" that are now under consideration, and as decisions are arrived at announcements will be made. There is no question of the government sitting idly by and being content to rest on the announcements already made within the last week or so. Rather, other measures are now being considered and as soon as they are ready to be anounced announcements will be made.


Paul Joseph James Martin: Mr. Chairman, I simply want to say that I followed carefully the statement the minister made when he introduced his estimates. I recall the character of his speech. It was largely devoted to a review of the department's general activities. The minister did not say the government had a program under consideration at all.


Mr. Thrasher:: Read Hansard and you will see.


Paul Joseph James Martin: The minister
mentioned that the government had announced an acceleration of its housing program. He mentioned that there was going to be further financial assistance of a limited kind for vocational training. He referred to the liberalization to a limited extent of the winter works program. But he surely does not expect the committee to believe that enunciation represents a vigorous program to meet the problem of unemployment which is now serious, which was serious during the winter and serious last autumn. Surely the minister owes the committee a better explanation than the one he has given now and earlier.
I am going to ask the minister whether his department prepares for him an annual forecast some time in the spring or during the year of the unemployment or employment outlook for the coming months. Although we have not learned latterly of the terms, recommendations and analyses of the economic survey or hidden report, we do know that the Department of Trade and Commerce has such a survey made annually. We were told about it by the Prime Minister in the revelations he gave the house regarding this confidential document in 1958. We know that the Bank of Canada prepares a report and undoubtedly the Minister of Finance has such a report prepared for him.
The minister should tell us if there is such a report prepared for him. If there is, should he not table that report, should he not tell us what the employment and unemployment outlook seem to be for this summer, next fall and next winter in the judgment of his officials? We will be called upon shortly to provide moneys for the maintenance and support of a research branch in the Department of Labour, a research branch that is well manned and composed of competent individuals. These gentlemen are engaged for the purpose of assessing the situation. Has such a report been prepared? If there has been, does the minister not think that the house should be informed about its contents? Is there any reason why that report should not be made available? If the Prime Minister thought it was proper to reveal the contents of the economic survey prepared in the Department of Trade and Commerce, surely when we are discussing unemployment we should know from the Minister of Labour whether the kind of prognostications, for instance, made today by the Leader of the Opposition, are valid.
Are these exaggerations? Are these indications of the future sound? If they are sound, then we have a right to ask the minister
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and the government to outline a program that will be capable of mitigating the severity of unemployment as revealed in these foreshadowings of the future. How can we properly assess the capacity and the validity of the government's program to meet this problem unless we know whether the suggestions as to the future made by hon. members of this party are warranted?
Is there such a report prepared for the minister? If he feels it is a confidential document and that it cannot be given, are we not entitled to have from the minister, if not the actual report, its conclusions, its assessments, its portrayal of the situation? Is the Minister of Labour to be regarded as having satisfied the obligations that are his at the moment unless he gives us at least some general indication of what is contained in such a report, if there is such a report? If the minister says there is no such annual report prepared for him then, of course, that ends it, but I cannot conceive that in the Department of Labour, particularly having in mind the research branch, that that kind of foreshadowing is not given by the departmental officials.
We are entitled to know whether there is such a report, whether it is pessimistic, whether it is optimistic. Does it indicate anything that will confirm the suggestions made by the research organization to which the Leader of the Opposition referred, a body which has indicated that we are going to be confronted with levels of unemployment certainly comparable to what we have had during the past year and the previous year and the previous autumn?
Are these prognostications wrong? They are public. They have been made by these various bodies, and do they confirm the assessment made by my hon. friend's officials? Does the government, if such a report exists, accept the assessment made by these officials, if it has been made? Does the government think they are exaggerated or does the government agree with them? Surely we are entitled to know whether, in the opinion of the government, unemployment is going to be lower or higher in the ensuing period. If we are going to have a high level of unemployment, now in these last days of this session we are entitled to know from the minister what steps the government is now taking; not what steps it is considering taking after the damage has been done, but what steps the government is going to take in anticipation of meeting this problem. Surely that is not an unfair demand to make of the minister.
Then it seems to me we are entitled to know from the minister if these projections into the future are close to the mark, close

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to the estimate made, and whether the government is going to be prepared to answer the question which I asked the Minister of Labour when I spoke following his statement yesterday, and that is if unemployment is likely in the autumn and next winter to be as serious as last winter. Will the government call parliament together so that these plans and these programs can be considered or is the government going to allow this problem to drag until the next session of parliament is called? This is a proposition that was put to the Prime Minister, and one with which I do not believe he has sought to deal. It is one for which he has the responsibility to deal.


Michael Starr: That is nonsense.


Paul Joseph James Martin: My hon. friend says it is nonsense, and I regret he says that.


Michael Starr: I say that, if I might interject, because the hon. member has made this charge that I have the responsibility for calling parliament to deal with these matters; that I should make that announcement. The hon. member well knows that if he wishes that information he should inquire of the Prime Minister.


Paul Joseph James Martin: I did not say the
minister was responsible for calling parliament together.


Michael Starr: That is exactly what you said, that I should announce parliament will be called.


Paul Joseph James Martin: The minister is a member of the government and he can tell us whether it is the intention of the government, as the result of a collective decision made by cabinet, to call parliament together to deal with this problem if it reaches the serious proportions which have been suggested.
I should like to ask the minister another question. What organization has been set up in cabinet itself to consider this problem? I am not asking the minister to tell us what discussions have taken place in cabinet. This question was put on another occasion and the Prime Minister said that was an improper question, but the Speaker did not agree. It is surely open to us to ask whether the cabinet is organized to deal with this problem. Is there a cabinet committee? Who is the chairman of that committee? Is it the Minister of Labour? Is it the Minister of Finance, or has the chairmanship of that committee been assigned to the Associate Minister of National Defence? Is that the case?
If that is the case, why is it the case? Are we now tying the unemployment problem

to national defence? Is that the policy of the government? Is the Minister of Labour himself a member of that committee? Is the Minister of Finance a member of that committee? These are questions which I feel the Minister of Labour himself must answer if he is to satisfy some of us who are now dealing with this problem.


Michael Starr: I do not believe it is possible to satisfy the hon. member for Essex East at all.


Paul Joseph James Martin: My hon. friend says it is not possible to satisfy the member for Essex East. I will say this to the minister. What the minister has said thus far on this problem has certainly not satisfied the member for Essex East. It has satisfied no one in this party, and I am of the opinion it has not satisfied a substantial portion of the Canadian public, because the government in this discussion has sought to underplay and to underestimate the severity of this problem, if we are to judge by the reactions we have had from the minister.
I have one more observation to make. The other day the Prime Minister announced the establishment of a royal commission to examine into the conditions that exist now in the automobile industry. This was pursuant to a request made by the united automobile workers, who made representations to the government a month ago, one week after representations had been made by the management of the various automobile plants in Canada. It followed representations that had been made by the parts manufacturers in that industry. It took the government some time to make the announcement, in spite of the fact that as soon as the representations had been made for the establishment of a royal commission or a reference to the tariff board the Prime Minister intimated his sympathy and support for such a proposition. The Prime Minister thought perhaps the royal commission would be the best vehicle.
Having decided on this course the government should not feel it is discharging its responsibilities as to unemployment in that industry or, for that matter, in allied industries. The government should not feel this device, in itself, is capable of resolving the problem of unemployment generally. The royal commission is a long term project and it is not going to deal with the situation at once. Are we to wait until such a body reports before we have some statement of policy from the government, for instance with regard to the excise tax on automobiles, which the Prime Minister told us during the course of the election campaign would be

removed because of the severity of unemployment. We have had no comment whatever from the minister on this particular subject, notwithstanding the fact it was announced by the Prime Minister as a method of dealing with unemployment in Canada. It is one thing to make an assessment, one thing to make a study of a problem, but these studies take time and they are not to be regarded as vehicles which enable the government to continue its program of procrastination, delay and lack of solutions.
I say these things to the minister. I say that my colleagues regard the minister as an unfortunate prisoner in this situation. We do not blame him personally, but he is the Minister of Labour, and to whom else can we address our remarks if we are not to address them to the minister on these estimates? He is the member of the government who has the responsibility in connection with what the people of Canada regard as the foremost domestic problem, possibly apart from national defence, although the problems there have international tones as well. So, as we get into the estimates that are now going to be discussed, we will be afforded an opportunity of dealing with certain aspects of the problem, but the minister still has an opportunity to rise in his place and examine this problem as it has been examined by the Leader of the Opposition today.
The speech made by the Leader of the Opposition today is one that I know will commend itself to the Minister of Labour. The Minister of Labour will hold it out as a model for all members in opposition, and I will agree with him. The point is that speech made by the Leader of the Opposition is the kind of speech, in part, that should be made by the Minister of Labour. He is the one who should make an analysis; he is the one who should lead in this problem instead of waiting to be prodded into replies, and replies which so far have not revealed that this government has a program consistent with its assurances or which is capable of dealing in a vigorous, fundamental way with a problem that is of great concern to the great majority of the people of our country.


Michael Starr: Mr. Chairman, the hon. member for Essex East evidently does not want to accept the statement that has been made by the Prime Minister. As he well knows, being a former privy councillor, no announcements are made until whatever the government wishes to undertake in the way of a particular [DOT] project has been decided on definitely. I cannot make the matter any clearer to him. I doubt greatly whether he will be satisfied with anything at all, knowing him as I do.
Supply-Labour
Then to reiterate the words of the Prime Minister on July 23 as reported in Hansard at page 6817, we find the following:
-and that further projects and plans to meet the unemployment situation will be announced in due course.
The hon. member for Essex East has ridiculed some of the projects that have been put forward. He has called the municipal winter works program a bagatelle.


Paul Joseph James Martin: That is right.


Michael Starr: He has said it is not the fulfilment of the recommendations of the Canadian federation of mayors and municipalities.


Paul Joseph James Martin: Not fully.


Michael Starr: I should just like to point out to him that in the submission of the Canadian federation of mayors and municipalities of April 9, 1959 under the heading of "Unemployment and municipal winter works" this sentence is to be found at page 4:
The municipalities are of the view that the municipal winter works program has justified itself and they commend the dominion government for initiating the program.


Paul Joseph James Martin: I do not quarrel with that statement.


Michael Starr: Then again on page 6, in paragraph 4, they say this:
They are also strongly of the view and urge that the range and nature of eligible projects be broadened and extended to include inside as well as outdoor local works, including construction repairs and maintenance on municipal buildings and institutions, water-works and sewerage disposal plants, parks and recreational facilities, maintenance and improvement of municipal sources of water supply and municipal dumps, work on traffic and street name signs, and similar municipal works and requirements.
We have done this in this new broadened program that we have announced, and the hon. member says that is not satisfactory.


Mr. Marlin (Essex Easl):: That is not sufficient, I said.


Michael Starr: That is not sufficient, the hon member says. I have here a letter from the Canadian federation of mayors and municipalities dated July 26 over the signature of His Worship Mayor S. L. Buckwold, president. He is the mayor of Saskatoon and president of the Canadian federation of mayors and municipalities. The letter reads as follows: Dear Mr. Minister,
The widening of the federally-assisted municipal winter works program to include additional types of construction projects which will be eligible for federal financial aid is along the lines of the recommendations made by the federation to the federal government in April, 1958.
The municipal governments will welcome the announcement that federal financial assistance is to be extended to the construction, repairs and maintenance of municipal buildings, as well as

Supply-Labour
outdoor winter construction and maintenance jobs. I am confident that many of them will avail themselves of the enlarged program that will now be possible with a resulting larger volume of local employment during the winter months.
The federal government is to be commended on the action it has taken with respect to this important matter.
Believe me to be
Sincerely yours.
S. L. Buckwold
President.
That letter in itself speaks entirely differently. I refer to the letter of the president of the Canadian federation of mayors and municipalities. That is contradictory to what was said by the hon. member for Essex East.


Paul Joseph James Martin: He does not say anything different.


Michael Starr: The hon. member for Essex East has said things that are not facts and at times there is some question as to the veracity of his statements.


Paul Joseph James Martin: Since my hon. friend has questioned what I have said or in other words has said that what I have said is untrue, let him point out one statement I made that cannot be backed up. What my hon. friend has now said is not different from what I have been saying. I said that this winter works program is a bagatelle, that it does not deal with the problem and the president of this organization does not say that it does.	#


Michael Starr: Mr. Chairman, just in order to cite one instance that bears out what I have said with regard to his veracity, here is a statement made by the hon. member. I refer to Hansard, at page 4134, in the second column at the bottom of the page. There we find the following stated by him:
In the Moncton Times of May 17. 1960 at page 14 I find these figures. I presume the editor got his information by calling the local regional office. The number of live claims reported in that area-
These are the exact words.
-for April 30, 1960-
And I want to draw your attention, Mr. Chairman, to the fact that the hon. member for Essex East says this with regard to the number of live claims reported in that area, that is the maritime area, by the regional office.
-was 714.000, as compared with 610,000 on April 30. 1959.
Then he goes on to say how much it represents. Mr. Chairman, that happens to be the total for all of Canada, not for that area.


John Whitney Pickersgill: It is an obvious misprint.
[Mr. Starr.)


Paul Joseph James Martin: It is an obvious misprint; anybody can see that.


John Whitney Pickersgill: If that is the best the minister can produce, it is not worth much.


Michael Starr: Mr. Chairman, no correction has been made of Hansard. It has been taken as a correct statement. He was misleading the house in what he said.


Paul Joseph James Martin: I rise on a point of order-


Michael Starr: Mr. Chairman-


Paul Joseph James Martin: -or on a question of privilege. The hon. gentleman has said that he questioned my veracity. That is an unparliamentary statement and I ask the minister to withdraw that statement at once. I am capable of making a mistake but my veracity will stand with that of the hon. gentleman any time.


Michael Starr: Mr. Chairman, I want to complete my case.


Paul Joseph James Martin: I have asked the minister to withdraw that statement.


Michael Starr: I cannot do so because I have more facts here.


Paul Joseph James Martin: Mr. Chairman-


Michael Starr: I was curious, Mr. Chairman-


Paul Joseph James Martin: Mr. Chairman, I have risen on a question of privilege.


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh.


Jacques Flynn: Order. Has the minister any comment to make on the point raised by the hon. member for Essex East?


Michael Starr: Yes, Mr. Chairman. My comment is that I have further proof that he was trying to mislead the house in the statement that he made.


Jacques Flynn: I was referring to the point of order raised by the hon. member for Essex East with regard to the discussion that was going on.


Michael Starr: I looked up the Moncton
Times-


Jacques Flynn: If the minister will permit me to do so I will indicate to him that of course it is not in accordance with our practice to intimate that an hon. member has not spoken the truth. A difference exists when one says that a statement was not true. That is permitted. However, I would . caution the minister that he was coming close to attributing to the hon. member an intentional misleading of the house, something which is entirely contrary to the rules. He might wish to indicate clearly that such was not his intention.



I960

Paul Joseph James Martin: Mr. Chairman, the point was not that I was misleading the house. The hon. gentleman said that what I said was untrue. He attacked my veracity.


An hon. Member:: He did not.
Another hon. Member: He did.


Paul Joseph James Martin: The hon. gentleman said that what I had said was a reflection on my veracity. That is what the hon. gentleman has said. I ask him to withdraw that statement, and according to our rules he must do so.


Michael Starr: If the hon. member objects to that statement, Mr. Chairman-


Paul Joseph James Martin: I am rising on a point of order.


Michael Starr: If the hon. member objects to that statement and if it is your wish that I should withdraw it, Mr. Chairman, I will gladly do so.
I refer again to what was said and I want to repeat it. At the beginning of the paragraph which contains these words "In the Moncton Times of May 17, 1960 I find these figures". I obtained a copy of the Moncton Times dated Tuesday May 17. At page 14 there is an article headed "Spring employment boom seem for Atlantic area". As I look through this whole column or this whole write-up I do not find one figure that was quoted by the hon. member who gave the impression that these figures appeared in the statement in the Moncton Times.
That leads me to believe that I would have-


John Whitney Pickersgill: Would the minister repeat the page reference in Hansard?


Michael Starr: It is Hansard for Monday, May 23, 1960, page 4134, the last paragraph in the righthand column.
That naturally leads me to look very closely at some of the statements which are made by the hon. member for Essex East. He wants to know whether there are any reports on the outlooks in the labour department. The hon. member for Essex East was a parliamentary assistant to the minister of labour at one time and knows whether there are any reports or whether there are not. Most certainly there is no need for him to ask for any interdepartmental report which may be in existence, and I do not say there is one, to be revealed to him just because he wants to know. The same thing applies to any matters relating to cabinet decisions. Surely it is not intended that I should break my oath in any way to reveal what is going on in cabinet, in the privy council.
Supply-Labour


Paul Joseph James Martin: No one suggested that.


Lester Bowles Pearson: Mr. Chairman, my hon. friend from Essex East brought up some important points and asked some important questions of the minister to which he did not receive a reply. The minister spent most of his time dealing with some statements which the hon. member was supposed to have made in the house last May. If he did make them the minister had an opportunity to deal with them at that time.
What we are doing now is trying to get from the minister an assessment of the position which is facing us in this country at this time in connection with unemployment and what the government is going to do about it. It does not help the unemployed of this country very much to have the minister go back to May and find that the hon. member for Essex East said something which the minister does not like and which my hon. friend will undoubtedly deal with when he gets up.
I ask the minister whether he feels that the assessment we have made of the position is a reasonable one and whether he feels we are facing a difficult and dangerous situation in respect of unemployment. I have a great deal more evidence which I could put on the record, not evidence from our side but evidence which has been submitted by objective experts outside the House of Commons, as to the dangers and difficulties which are facing us in the unemployment situation in this country at the present time.
We are asking the minister whether he feels that there may be trouble ahead next winter, whether he feels that this winter works program which he has mentioned, which he says will be increased, is adequate to deal with the situation which may face us. It is the only program-I think I am fair when I say this-that the minister has put forward in this debate to deal with unemployment. I think the maximum figure under that program last winter that I have seen was some
40,000	jobs.


Michael Starr: It was 51,000.


Lester Bowles Pearson: It was 51,000. That was as a result of co-operation between the federal government and the municipalities, at a time when we had hundreds of thousands of unemployed, and these 51,000 jobs were not all created by this particular arrangement. A good many of those jobs would have been in existence through the policies of the municipalities themselves. If we allow that half of those 51,000 jobs were created specifically by the plans of the federal government in co-operation with the municipalities I think we would be fair. That would mean that 26,000 extra jobs were provided

Supply-Labour
lor a few weeks or a month or two to deal with a problem which faced the country in terms of three quarters of a million people at that time out of work.
If the minister says there is to be an increase in that program this year and we may get another 10,000 or 15,000 jobs, does the minister think that will be enough to deal with the situation which confronts or may confront this country in the coming winter?


Michael Starr: No, I do not.


Lester Bowles Pearson: If the minister does not think so, perhaps he will indicate to us what other plans the government has in mind.
There is one other question. The hon. member for Essex East made some reference to the organization of the cabinet in respect to unemployment plans. He was not asking for the betrayal of any cabinet secrets. We know the minister cannot be asked to do that and that he would not do it; but we do ask the minister, is there such a thing as a cabinet committee on unemployment which has been working? Surely we are entitled to know that. Surely we are entitled to know if there is cabinet machinery which is specifically dedicated to this particular problem which has been set up by the government, what that machinery is and who is its chairman. Surely that is a fair and reasonable request to make of the minister.


Michael Starr: I have found the Leader of the Opposition to be a reasonable man at all times, unlike the hon. member for Essex East. Surely he can understand my position as Minister of Labour, that I can only announce the plans which have been formulated by the government. That is as far as I can go. In relation to the plans which have already been announced, I have quoted the words of the Prime Minister. I hope he can understand that nothing more can be said at this time on these estimates.
With regard to what has been done in the cabinet and whether there is a cabinet committee, the hon. member for Essex East knows that there is, and so does the Leader of the Opposition. They have read it in the papers and the hon. member has quoted the chairman of this committee. What else is there to know? Do they want to know where we meet or what hours we sit?


Paul Joseph James Martin: Who is the chairman?


Michael Starr: The same designated member that the hon. member referred to.


Paul Joseph James Martin: Why is not the Minister of Labour the chairman?


Michael Starr: The Minister of Labour is an active participant in that committee and there

is no reason why the hon. member should say the Minister of Labour should be chairman. We alternate on many of our cabinet committees, and some of us are chairman on one and some one others.


Lester Bowles Pearson: We have now learned-


Michael Starr: You knew it all the time.


Lester Bowles Pearson: -that the rumours we have heard that there is a cabinet committee on unemployment have a foundation in fact. There is such a cabinet committee and the chairman of that cabinet committee is the Associate Minister of National Defence.
If the minister will permit me I propose to deal with one other aspect of this winter works program which I meant to mention a few moments ago but forgot. This is going to be extended in some respects this winter and we hope it will result in some more jobs than those which were created by it last year. But there will be an increasing difficulty this winter, surely the minister admits, because of the fact that some of the municipalities- and my hon. friend who has some experience of municipal administration; he spoke about this last night-will be unable perhaps to take advantage of this program owing to their financial situation.
The submission by the federation of mayors and municipalities to the government of April 9, to which reference has been made more than once, contains this paragraph and I ask the minister to consider this as having a bearing on his new plan for winter works:
By and large, however, it can be said that the financial difficulties that municipal governments are experiencing do not arise primarily from the increased operating and administrative costs of municipal government, nor even from the costs of normal local improvement requirements. The difficulties arise consequent upon the inability of municipal governments to finance the high costs and carrying charges of urban renewal requirements and the requirements occasioned by rapidly expanding urban growth... The difficulties of municipal governments are more in the field of capital costs rather than in the field of actual operating and administrative costs.
Does the minister not think that these figures may prejudice the success of this new and expanded scheme of winter works he has been telling us about?


Michael Starr: That may be the case with some municipalities, I have no doubt. I have had experience with municipalities and their problems and I know the difficulties encountered but we are hoping that in the main it will not be so. We hope that interest rates will be lower-they are on the downward trend now -and we hope they will be lower still. However, new municipal work has been going on for years and I feel certain the municipalities will take advantage of this program and that it will be a more satisfactory program

than last year and that many more people will be given employment as a result. That is as far as I am able to know at this time.


Murdo William Martin: We are very interested in this particular aspect of the minister's estimates and I also would like to ask a couple of questions. Possibly they may seem to be in a similar vein but I will endeavour to make them a little more explicit and a little less wordy, perhaps, than the questions asked by the hon. member for Essex East and the Leader of the Opposition.
The minister mentioned with pride that the association of municipalities had expressed appreciation of the winter works program. I should like the minister to say, as the labour spokesman of the government, if the government believes that this winter works program is a cure for this unemployment problem or whether it is just a palliative.


Michael Starr: I have said time and time again, and the hon. member must know, that provision for 51,000 jobs is not a cure for unemployment. But we have announced other measures; we have announced the retraining of our unemployed people so that they may fill vacancies that now exist. We have announced an extended home building program; we have got the chartered banks to agree to making home improvement loans. Burther, I want to repeat what the Prime Minister has said, namely that further projects are under study and will be announced as soon as decisions are reached. Certainly the winter works program is not a cure for the whole problem but it should help substantially.


Murdo William Martin: I should like to ask the minister a further question and it is this: has this government given any thought to the problem of the slums, not as a big drive once in a while but as the object of a steady program of slum clearance? The slums grow and grow every day. In view of the unemployment situation has the government given any consideration to a clearance and rehabilitation program which will try to keep up with the growth of the slums on a national scale?


Michael Starr: That is a matter which comes under the Department of Public Works. I must say at once that I am not acquainted with all that goes on in that department and its complete undertakings. My understanding is that a number of slum clearance schemes have been entered into with municipalities, but that is all I know.


Paul Joseph James Martin: The Minister of Labour will, I am sure, regret what he said. I have attacked his policies vigorously; I have never attacked him personally as he has done tonight with one hon. member. As I said, we will not forget.
Supply-Labour
It is obvious from an examination of the record what was said on the day to which the minister directed our attention, May 23, 1960. He did not read the whole statement. In the paragraph above I was obviously dealing with the national situation because I said as reported at page 4134:
I was saying that normally we would have had the unemployment statistics for the last available month given to us last Wednesday or Thursday.
Then I went on and said:
The number of live claims reported in that area for April 30, 1960 was 714,000 as compared with
610.000	on April 30, 1959.
Now the population of New Brunswick is about 600,000 including men, women and children, those employed and those unemployed, and how anyone could draw the deduction as the Minister of Labour has done to the effect that I was saying this represented the total number of unemployed in that province is, of course, fantastic. I went on to say:
If that is any indication, then whatever figures may be released later this week or later still, will be an indication that the situation continues to be serious.
It is obvious I was referring to the national figure. For the minister to suggest that I was trying to convey the impression that
714.000	as compared with 610,000 represented the unemployed or the applicants in that province is just too ridiculous to deserve any further mention.


Michael Starr: I appreciate the hon. member pointing that out, but when he jumped into that last paragraph he did not start with the first sentence. He started with the second sentence. The first sentence reads as follows:
In the Moncton Times of May 17, 1960 at page 14 I find these figures.
Now there are no figures at all and we find that the figures the hon. member quotes here-he continues-
I presume the editor got his information by calling the local regional office.


Paul Joseph James Martin: Certainly.


Michael Starr: I continue:
The number of live claims reported in that area for April 30, 1960 was 714,000 as compared with
610.000	on April 3, 1959.
The record speaks for itself.


Murdo William Martin: May I just say to the minister that I hope he will not continue to make himself ridiculous. Does anyone deny that the local paper could call the local office and get the national figures? Does anyone suggest seriously that the figures for New Brunswick could be anything like that, when those are the national figures? I suggest to the Minister of Labour that by using the kind of argument he does now and as

Supply-Labour
he did a moment ago he reveals a complete bankruptcy of policy with regard to unemployment.


Michael Starr: It does not matter what the hon. member says about me personally-


Paul Joseph James Martin: I did not say
anything about you personally.


Michael Starr: I am just pointing out what the hon. member put on record in Hansard and led this house to believe. The hon. member had a copy of the Moncton Times on his desk a few minutes ago. He looked it up and did not find those figures and sent the copy away.


Paul Joseph James Martin: That is not a fact. Why does the minister persist in making statements which only reduce his stature.


Michael Starr: I do not want to be reduced to the stature of the hon. member for Essex East.


Paul Joseph James Martin: If I was there I would do something about it.


Lester Bowles Pearson: We have come to a sorry state of affairs if members of the house could be deceived by a statement which refers to
703,000	unemployed as applicable to a population as small as that of New Brunswick. If that is misleading hon. members they are, indeed, very easily misled.
But that is not what I got up to say. I wanted to repeat a point which I put to the minister a while ago. I have drawn attention to some of the difficulties and dangers of the unemployment situation which may face us this winter and, in doing so I have tried to avoid what the hon. member for Greenwood rightly deprecated a few moments ago, namely the language of exaggeration. The figures that I gave indicate that there is in our view the likelihood of a situation which may well be as bad as that which prevailed last winter. I ask the minister whether he agrees that that is a reasonable analysis of what might happen in the employment field this winter in the light of the indices which are before us now?


Michael Starr: Mr. Chairman, I certainly hope the situation will be much better than it was in the last two winters.


John Whitney Pickersgill: Mr. Chairman, I should like to ask the minister if he thinks his hopes are as well founded as the hopes he expressed to the Canadian people on "The Nation's Business" on February 4, 1960? I will place the hon. gentleman's words on the record and I think that all hon. members will judge the Minister of Labour by his own words and his own assessment made on February 4 this year over television to the Canadian people with respect to this situation. This is what the hon. gentleman said:

Today, the recession is over and the rate of inflation is at the lowest point in many years, and well below the average rate for the whole century.
The policies we adopted and the measures introduced were effective in beating the recession and in keeping up a level of economic activity that provided more jobs for Canadians than at any time in our history.


Donald MacInnis: Is that not all true?


John Whitney Pickersgill: More and more people to have jobs?


Donald MacInnis: Mr. Chairman, will the hon. member permit a question?


John Whitney Pickersgill: Yes, Mr. Chairman, but perhaps the hon. member should address his question to the author of those words.


Donald MacInnis: I should like to ask the hon. member if he is not referring to the very same minister he expressed the wish to have on his side not too long ago in this chamber?


John Whitney Pickersgill: Well, yes, I think-


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh.


John Whitney Pickersgill: -I think the hon. gentleman is right and I am not so sure the minister would not be a lot happier if he were on this side.


Donald MacInnis: Certainly you would be. We are talking about your happiness.


John Whitney Pickersgill: Perhaps the hon. gentleman could contain himself, if I may quote the Minister of Justice, and make his speech a little later.
Mr. Pallet!: The great interrupter objects to being interrupted.


John Whitney Pickersgill: No, not very much. I do not think that hon. members can really say I have ever objected very much to being interrupted.
I should like to go on with what the Minister of Labour said in the assessment he gave on February 4, 1960 with respect to the economic situation and the labour picture because these words must be measured. This was a minister of the crown with access to all these secret documents that we are not allowed to see, although hon. gentlemen opposite do not mind exposing the secret documents of other hon. gentlemen, that being their idea of honour. They keep secret their own records but they attempt to distort, take out of context, tear off the covers of documents belonging to other people. A more shocking breach of constitutional practice never took place in the history of this parliament than the Prime Minister perpetrated on January 20, 1958, and there are some of us who will never forget that.


Mr. Aiken:: You sure won't.


John Whitney Pickersgill: No, we will never forget that example of the way in which the Prime Minister gets his temporary effects, and for the benefit of hon. gentlemen opposite, I underline the word "temporary".


Mr. Kucherepa:: You have the date wrong. You are all confused.


John Whitney Pickersgill: I go back to the minister's words. The minister was telling the Canadian people about the recession being over, about the rosy world in which we found ourselves in February of 1960. The hon. gentleman went on to say:
There is no defeatist attitude on the part of this government. We will take whatever measures are necessary-
But they will not tell parliament what they are, not even in August. I continue:
-in order that the expansion of our economy will continue and that we will move ever closer to the goal of full employment.
Look at the statistics month by month. There is only one way to describe the way in which we are moving closer to the goal as it has happened since the minister used those words, and that is by reference to Lewis Carroll's "Through the Looking Glass". I continue:
In the meantime, we will continue to take steps to alleviate the situation of those who, through no fault of their own are temporarily unable to establish themselves in the labour market.
I think that latter phrase is gobbledygook for "get a job". I continue:
There was never any room in this country for pessimism. There is less excuse today than ever before.
This was in February, 1960. I continue:
Wherever you look, the outlook is optimistic.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear.


John Whitney Pickersgill: The following words are extremely interesting:
More Canadians at work. Labour income on the rise. Exports up. Automobile production setting new records.


Michael Starr: It has, too.


John Whitney Pickersgill: I continue:
Canadians spending more and earning more.


John (Jack) McIntosh: That is right.


John Whitney Pickersgill: Note these words:
Certainly in all this, no cause for alarm. There are many problems still to be faced. I would like to assure you of one thing. This government will continue to face up to the problems in the future as it has in the past.
That is exactly of what we are afraid. The government is facing up to the problems of the future exactly as it faced up to problems in the past. How does it face up to them? By turning its back on them and
Supply-Labour
pretending they are not there as it does with this one. The minister went on to say:
We will meet these problems as we met the recession.
You see, it was over by then. I continue: With the help and co-operation of the Canadian people, we will overcome the problems in the same way that the recession has been overcome.
There again, that is just what we are afraid of. We are afraid that the government is meeting this problem now in exactly the same way as it overcame the recession.
I assume that in making this assessment the minister was speaking honestly. I am not suggesting the contrary. I assume that the minister would not make this statement to the Canadian people without getting the advice of all the advisers of the government because that would have been a pretty dreadful thing to have done if he gave this kind of optimistic report and it was not justified by the advice he received from the economic advisers of the government. If the minister was so misled-so seriously misled -as recently as February of this year, what grounds has the minister for confidence that the hopes he just expressed to my hon. friend without giving any foundation for them-


Michael Starr: May I interject now? As a Canadian I have the greatest confidence in the future of this country even though the hon. member seems to lack it.


John William Kucherepa: The hon. member lost his confidence on June 10, 1957.


John Whitney Pickersgill: Mr. Chairman, it is not that I lack confidence in the country. I lack confidence in this government, and I may say that that lack of confidence is shared every day by a growing proportion of the Canadian people. Evidence on every hand has shown this in the last few weeks. But the fact is that I am sure this country will survive this government as it survived the last Tory government. But why, sir, why do we have to suffer these things once in every generation?


Mr. Pearkes:: Because you are so weak.


John Whitney Pickersgill: That is not a question I expect the minister to answer. That is a question I put to the Canadian people and I am confident how they will answer.


Mr. Bigg:: Why not blow that through a pipe line?


John Whitney Pickersgill: The question I do put to the minister, however, is the one put to him by the Leader of the Opposition and the hon. member for Essex East. It is a question to which I think the elected representatives of the people are entitled to have a straight and

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careful answer. That question is this. What is the assessment made by the minister's officials and the other economic advisers of the government who presumably join together to advise this cabinet committee of which we were told-I presume they do not act in the dark-what is their considered joint advice as to the prospects for employment for the coming months and for the coming year?


Mr. Bourque:: Mr. Chairman, last night in my argument 1 brought out the fact that on the basis of the 50 per cent that the government gives to municipalities for winter works programs a municipality would gain to the extent of approximately 8.70 per cent by doing a job in the winter instead of the summer. The government pays 50 per cent of the labour cost of any job and the minister told us the other day that labour represented 34 per cent in these jobs. I showed last night that municipalities would benefit to the extent of 8.70 per cent. Municipalities have to pay 5f per cent on their borrowings and very few municipalities are able to borrow money today at 5J per cent or at any cost.
At the end of 1958 the total outstanding debt of all the municipalities of Canada was $3,384,700,000. So far as taxes are concerned, the federal government collects 61.8 per cent of all taxes, the provincial governments 21.3 per cent and the municipalities 16.9 per cent. On the basis of these percentages it is practically impossible for any municipality to undertake any municipal works at the present time unless the federal government comes to its help. How can they undertake winter work programs under the 50 per cent plan when it will only give them an advantage of about 8.70 per cent and they have to borrow money at 5J per cent?


John Whitney Pickersgill: Surely, Mr. Chairman, the minister is going to tell us what in the judgment of the government employment prospects for the next few months are. Maybe the minister cannot tell us what they are going to do about it because they cannot make up their minds. We know that they cannot decide anything, but surely the minister can at least tell us what he considers the problem to be or whether he thinks there is a problem. In February there was no problem, according to the minister, but surely now even the minister realizes, with the kind of figures we had for June, that there is a problem which is not going to fade away by itself. Surely he has enough respect for parliament to tell us what the considered assessment of the government is as to the magnitude of the problem.


Michael Starr: Mr. Chairman, I hope there is no question about my respect for parliament. I think it has been above reproach, but that has nothing to do with the question the hon. member asked. I want to say to him, if this is the information he thinks he requires, that I have had no indication from the economics branch as to what the employment picture looks like for the coming fall and winter.


Paul Joseph James Martin: Has the minister asked the economics branch what is their assessment of the future?


Michael Starr: In certain discussions with them they have said it is too early to make a prediction yet.


John Whitney Pickersgill: Before the item carries, I see that the Minister of Trade and Commerce has just come into the house and I wonder whether I could ask the minister-


Some hon. Members:: No.


John Whitney Pickersgill: -who is a member of the government and under whose department a very celebrated document is prepared annually, which the minister will well recall, if he can give us a brief summary of the views as to employment prospects that would have been contained in that document.


Some hon. Members:: Carried.


J.-H.-Théogène Ricard: Carried.


Paul Joseph James Martin: The hon. member for St. Hyacinthe-Bagot says, "Carried". I would expect him, as the representative of a large industrial area, to join with the rest of us in trying to ascertain what are the prospects for employment in this country. The minister has said that the economics and research bureau has said it is too early to indicate what the situation will be in the future, but can the minister tell us what are the prognostications of the economics and research branch as to the situation for the balance of this summer and for the months of September, October and November.


Michael Starr: Are you asking me?


Paul Joseph James Martin: Of course I am asking the Minister of Labour.


Michael Starr: I have not received any report from that branch on the matter.


Paul Joseph James Martin: Has the minister sought to obtain a report for those months?


Michael Starr: No, Mr. Chairman.


[Stage Direction]
Item agreed to.
165. Economics and research branch including research grants and related expenses, $688,895.
Murdo William Martin: Mr. Chairman, this is the vote for the economics and research

branch. Last year the vote was $670,030 and the estimate for this year is $688,895, an increase of $18,865. Will the minister tell us why there is an increase?


Michael Starr: Yes. Will the hon. member be patient for a moment until my officials arrive?


Paul Joseph James Martin: While the officials are coming down perhaps I can lay the foundation for the question. The minister said a moment ago that he has not asked the officials of the research branch for an indication of what the unemployment picture is going to be in the future. He has said he has not asked them for an assessment of what the situation is going to be during the balance of this summer and for the months of September, October and November. Yet the Minister of Labour told us earlier tonight that the government was considering plans. How can the government consider plans for the future unless it has some indication of what the employment or unemployment prospects are? Surely the minister does not expect us to believe that there is such incompetence as is revealed in his answer to this question. Surely the Minister of Labour does not wish us to think that he has not ascertained from the research division what is their assessment of the picture in the next few months. If he has not, he has the officials in front of him now, and will they tell him so he can advise the committee before we pass this estimate?


Michael Starr: Of the increase of $18,865, $14,000 is for salaries.


Paul Joseph James Martin: New personnel?


Michael Starr: No, general increases.


Paul Joseph James Martin: How many people are in the research branch now?


Michael Starr: There are 131 plus 5 seasonal.


Paul Joseph James Martin: There are 131 people in the research division of the Department of Labour and yet the minister says he does not know from his conversations with these officials what the prospects for employment are in the next five months. Is that the situation?


Michael Starr: I am advised, as I have pointed out, that this is a very difficult situation to assess at this time, and any action taken by the government is being taken on the basis of the present situation and the experience we have had over the past two winters.


Paul Joseph James Martin: Does my hon. friend think that the research officials of his department would find this situation more difficult to assess than the staff of the Bank of Canada, who have surveyed the situation for the foreseeable future? Do the research
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people in this particular branch disagree with the concern of the Bank of Canada, as stated by the governor in three different cities of this country within the last five months?


Michael Starr: I am advised, and this bears out what I have said, that in their opinion this is a very difficult situation to assess. The same situation exists in the United States and to a greater degree at the moment. As a matter of fact, comparing the United States and Canada, 5.5 per cent of the labour force in the United States were unemployed in mid-June whereas in Canada the figure was 4.6 per cent. This is the dilemma with which the economists of the department are faced. There have been times in the past when their forecasts were out a great deal simply because of the difficult and conflicting matters that arose during the time of their assessments.


Paul Joseph James Martin: My hon. friend has said it is a difficult problem. No one has questioned that. What my hon. friend does not hope, I am sure, is to have this committee believe that the research personnel in his department has not made an assessment of the situation for at least the next five months. My hon. friend has said that forecasts can sometimes be proved to be wrong. Of course, that is true. We are not asking whether they are right or wrong, we are asking whether they have made forecasts, and what those forecasts are. What policy is the government devising on the basis of those forecasts?
My hon. friend mentioned the United States. I wish he had gone on and pointed out that they have made forecasts there for the next year. M'y hon. friend might now tell the committee, if he is aware of the committee of the United States Senate, under the chairmanship of Senator Eugene McCarthy, which conducted an inquiry in most of the major cities of the United States with regard to unemployment, and which published a record of its hearings, published its assessment of the problem and its recommendations, for everyone to read. My hon. friend referred to the United States, as though seeking to imply that they have not made an analysis of the future. Let my hon. friend, if he has not got this analysis in his own department, and I can hardly credit that to be the fact, examine the analysis made in the United States. Surely from that, it ought to be possible for him to make a judgment, and having made this judgment determine policies based on it.
I should like to ask the minister how many economists there are in this particular division?


Michael Starr: There are 43.

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Paul Joseph James Martin: Forty three economists and yet my hon. triend wishes to stick to the statement he made that he cannot get from them any forecast for the next five months? Is that the situation?


Michael Starr: That is the information with which I am supplied.


John Whitney Pickersgill: I should like to ask-


J.-H.-Théogène Ricard: Carried.


John Whitney Pickersgill: If the hon. member for St. Hyacinthe-Bagot would like to help the minister get his estimates through I suggest that he stop these ejaculations when an hon. member seeks to get information.
I was going to ask the minister, when I was so politely interrupted, if he thinks it is more difficult for his staff, or for other economists to make forecasts now than it was in 1957?


Michael Starr: I do not know why the hon. member refers to 1957. What happened then?


John Whitney Pickersgill: I should like to ask the minister if he thinks it is more difficult now to make forecasts of the employment prospects, more difficult in 1960 than it was in 1957?


Michael Starr: I have not checked on that aspect. I did not anticipate a question of that kind.


John Whitney Pickersgill: The reason I ask that
question will be obvious to every hon. member in this committee. In 1958 the Prime Minister took an estimate a year old and blamed the previous government because he said that estimate showed clearly what was going to happen a year later. Of course, as everybody knows, that is utter rubbish, but that is what the Prime Minister said, and that is the grave indictment he made of the former government, that they had hidden the forecast made a year before.
Now the Minister of Labour tells us, practically in August, that it is too early to make a forecast of prospects for next winter. Whom do we believe, this minister or his great leader who said that the Liberal government knew a year ahead what was going to happen in 1958? This is the kind of thing that is destroying the confidence of the people in this administration. I do not believe the minister when he says that his staff has not made such a forecast. I, of course, accept his word if he says they have not given it to him, but I simply do not believe that even this government or the minister would allow a department to employ 43 economists and make no forecast of employment for the next year or the next winter. I just do not believe it at all.


Michael Starr: I am afraid the hon. member, Mr. Chairman, will have to accept my word for it.


John Whitney Pickersgill: I do not think I do. I accept the minister's word at once that he does not know; I accept that. But I say I do not believe that his officials have not made such a forecast. I am quite prepared to believe that the minister has not sought to get it, and is not seeking to get it. I do not believe it is hard to guess why, but I just do not believe that this government has as yet made the public service so incompetent and inefficient that this forecast has not been made, because if that is so I do not know what these public servants are being paid to do.


An hon. Member:: You hired them.


John Whitney Pickersgill: There have been additions, we have been told, to the staff. There have been changes in the staff. As a matter of fact, I think perhaps I made a mistake in not taking issue with whatever hon. gentleman said that we hired them. They were hired by the civil service commission in precisely the same way as public servants are hired now. We had no more to do with hiring them than hon. gentlemen on the treasury benches have now, unless hon. members occupying the treasury benches are behaving in a different way than we did, and I do not believe they are in this particular instance.
I do say we ought to know for what this money is being spent. We ought to know whether this forecast is being made, because after all I was a public servant for a good many years and I was a minister of the crown for some years, so I am not entirely ignorant of how the business of this country is conducted. I know quite well that unless the minister or someone on his behalf or someone on behalf of the Prime Minister has told these officials not to make such a forecast, that such a forecast exists.


Paul Joseph James Martin: The minister has told us the number of economists in the department. He has said that, notwithstanding this display of talent, he has not been able to ascertain from any of their studies, whether or not he can tell the committee what the prospects of employment and unemployment are in the next five months. My hon. friend from Bonavista-Twillingate has asked for a forecast for the next year. I do not dissociate myself from that request, but I am asking for a more limited one. I hope to get from the minister some enlightenment as to his

understanding and appreciation of the situation. I think we are entitled to have this information, and perhaps by further interrogation, we may be able to get some declaration from the minister that will assist us in this matter.
The Minister of Labour heard today the prognostications made by the Leader of the Opposition, on the basis of reports prepared by competent individuals in voluntary and private organizations in this country. My hon. friend has no doubt read the reports of the Bank of Canada. My hon. friend, as a member of the government, surely knows the contents of the economic survey, the hidden report, prepared by the Minister of Trade and Commerce, and divulged to this house by the Prime Minister in 1958. What do these reports indicate? Is the minister not in a position, on the basis of that information, if he cannot get it in his own department which I do not credit, to tell us on the basis of these other reports in other departments what is the situation? Is that the situation? I am asking the minister.


Michael Starr: I do not know how many times I have to reiterate that I do not intend to go any further than I did originally by saying that there is no report for the next five months. It has not been brought to my attention, and I have been told that it is too early to make any forecast.


Paul Joseph James Martin: My hon. friend has not answered my question. I did not ask him for reports of his department; I ask him to tell us what are the prospects, on the basis of information which he, as a member of the government, has from the Bank of Canada and from the Department of Trade and Commerce. I am asking the minister to give us that information. I am not asking him to table these reports because the government obviously does not want to do that although it did not hesitate to do so when there was a political advantage in so doing. I am asking the minister again to tell us whether, as Minister of Labour in this government, he can give us this information. If he refuses to give it, he warrants the criticism that we level against this government when we assert this government has no policy.
Will the minister deny that reports were prepared in the Department of Labour for the summer months during the years immediately prior to his coming into office? Will the minister say that he does not know that his predecessors were supplied by their economics research division with such reports? If that was the case-and I challenge the minister to deny that it was the case-then did the minister decide to cause that kind
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of a report or assessment to be discontinued? Does the minister know that such reports existed? If they existed, why were they cut off? This is the only conclusion we can draw from what the minister has just told the committee.


Michael Starr: The hon. members know full well that reports come to the minister continually on a seasonal basis or whatever the case may be or however they may be necessary. Those reports were never made public. Those same reports come in to the minister and they are confidential reports. They were never revealed by the former minister who held the same portfolio as I hold nor do I intend to do so.


John Whitney Pickersgill: Until the Prime Minister did it.


Paul Joseph James Martin: We have made progress. The minister has now said that these reports exist but that they are confidential. That is at least something. I asked the minister this very question fully an hour and a half ago, and all that the minister did was to use language which indicated that these reports were not available.


Michael Starr: Oh, no.


Paul Joseph James Martin: My hon. friend says no, but that is the situation and Hansard will clearly indicate it. What I am saying to the minister is this. I am not asking him to table these confidential documents. Under the procedures of this house we have no right to have them except there is a strong precedent, based upon the action of the Prime Minister in January of 1958. But now that the minister acknowledges at last that those reports are being prepared by the economics research division, whose vote we are now considering, I ask him to tell us what those reports indicate. What are their prognostications? Do they say that the kind of foreshadowing made today by the Leader of the Opposition is wrong? Are they exaggerated? Is the situation in the next ensuing period a pessimistic or an optimistic one? Surely the minister, now that he acknowledges that these reports exist, and now that we must presume that he has read them, cannot refrain from telling the committee what are the prospects and what are his views as to the situation in the next ensuing period. The minister cannot refuse now on the basis of past policy to give the house this information.


An hon. Member:: Oh, yes, he can.


Paul Joseph James Martin: This is a free parliament. The information my hon. friend is being asked for is something which the

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people of Canada have a right to know before we vote this particular estimate.


Michael Starr: The only way in which reports can be confidential is if they are kept in confidence. If I revealed them to the hon. member they would not be confidential.


Mr. McMillan:: The minister went on a television program last February and he made an optimistic report with regard to employment. Can he tell us whether that report was based on any reports from any economists in his department?


Michael Starr: It was a report to the people from a person who has all confidence in the future of the Canadian economy. I always look with a great deal of optimism to the future of this great country.


John Whitney Pickersgill: In other words, what the minister is now saying is that he did not have any basis for that statement except his own optimism. In other words, he went on the program "The Nation's Business" and he made this optimistic statement that the recession was over; that everything was rosy; that they had overcome all the problems or nearly all the problems; and that they would soon overcome the rest of them; and he had no basis for it except his own windy optimism. Is that what he is saying?


An hon. Member:: Who is windy?


John Whitney Pickersgill: That is the only interpretation that I can put on the minister's words. I am not going to ask the minister whether this particular official or that particular official gave him advice. The question which I asked him and which I repeat is this. Did the minister get a concensus of views from the economic advisers of the government before he went on television and, on his responsibility as a trustee of the people of Canada, told the people that the recession was over, that the outlook was optimistic and that we had no further cause to worry.


Michael Starr: Mr. Chairman, I am a member of a government that was elected with an overwhelming majority by the people of this country and I will perform my duties to the best of my ability.


John Whitney Pickersgill: This is a new doctrine, Mr. Chairman. This is a new doctrine from the defenders of the rights of parliament. This is something new. They say, "We obtained a big majority, so the opposition have no right to any information".


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh.


John Whitney Pickersgill: They say that the people of Canada do not need to be told what the facts are; that they do not need to be told the truth; that the advice of experts and
professionals can be kept hidden from them; although advice a year old, because it was given to another government on a confidential basis, can be betrayed. That is the basis upon which the government operates, according to the minister, in conducting the affairs of this country. For a member of a government that was going to restore the rights of parliament, a government that was going to give to everyone in parliament an equal opportunity; that was going to uphold the rights of the opposition and the rights of the people to know how their affairs were being conducted, it seems to me that this is the most fantastic statement that we have yet heard from this fantastic government. It also seems to me that it is eleven o'clock.
Resolution adopted in committee of supply this day reported and concurred in.



BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE

J.-H.-Théogène Ricard: May I ask the house leader what the business is for tomorrow?


John Whitney Pickersgill: I greatly appreciate the help of my parliamentary assistant, Mr. Speaker, but perhaps in all the circumstances I should ask the minister about this matter. I think he told us he would throw some light on next week's program this evening.


Gordon Minto Churchill: We will carry on tomorrow with the estimates. If the Department of Labour is finished we will go on with defence. On Monday the chief legislative item to be considered is third reading of Bill No. C-58, an act to amend the Combines Investigation Act and the Criminal Code. If the committee on the bill of rights reports back to the committee, the bill of rights will be available for discussion on Monday. If there are any other items to be considered on Monday I will advise the house tomorrow.


John Whitney Pickersgill: Did I understand the minister to say that when the Department of Labour was completed tomorrow we would begin with finance?


Gordon Minto Churchill: No; defence.


John Whitney Pickersgill: I am sorry but I did not hear the minister.


Gordon Minto Churchill: If I said finance, what I intended to say was defence.


John Whitney Pickersgill: There is no doubt about it; it is defence?


Gordon Minto Churchill: No, there is no doubt. The order is the same.


J.-H.-Théogène Ricard: I wish to thank the minister.


[Stage Direction]
It being two minutes after eleven o'clock the house adjourned, without question put, pursuant to special order.

Supply-Items Passed [The following Item was passed in committee of supply]:

[Stage Direction]
A-Department-
General administration-
164. Departmental administration including a grant of $10,000 to Frontier college and the expenses of the international labour conferences, $1,118,255.
[Stage Direction]
Saturday, July 30, 1960