1960-02-01

PRIVILEGE


Hon. J. W. Pickersgill (Bonavisfa-Twillin-gale):: Mr. Speaker, I am rising on a question of privilege affecting all hon. members of this house. Your Honour will recall that on Wednesday last I asked the Prime Minister if it was the intention of the government to introduce the necessary measure to allow parliament to express itself about the 50-50 payment to the farmers of western Canada before all the money had been spent. That will be found on page 394 of Hansard.
The Prime Minister, after suggesting that I had not been in the house when this matter came up, went on to say:
-it was made perfectly clear that no action would be taken by the government of Canada until parliament had acted.
The Winnipeg Free Press of Friday, January 29 contains a report from the Manitoba legislature about this exchange, which reads as follows:
Manitoba has a verbal agreement with the federal government to share equally assistance payments to farmers in the province, Hon. George Hutton, minister of agriculture, said Thursday.
He was answering a question from Nelson Shoemaker (Liberal-Gladstone). Mr. Shoemaker asked him to explain "why the Prime Minister in the House of Commons indicated no such undertaking has yet been given."
My point of order is this. Surely an agreement, even if it is a verbal agreement-and I asked the Prime Minister whether there was a verbal agreement, and he gave no answer-was action by the government, and this house was misled by the Prime Minister when he said no action was to be taken until parliament had had an opportunity to debate this matter.


Right Hon. J. G. Diefenbaker (Prime Minister):: The hon. gentleman, whom I heard on the radio yesterday, has just been out in Manitoba engaged in an autopsy on his party. There was no misleading of parliament in any way. The statement which I made is in accordance with the facts.


Mr. Pearson:: The facts speak for themselves.


John Whitney Pickersgill: May I ask the Prime Minister if there is or is not a verbal agreement?


Mr. Speaker:: Order. The hon. member will have an opportunity to ask that question at the appropriate time.



COMPANIES ACT


Mr. E. J. Broome (Vancouver South) moved: for leave to introduce Bill No. C-38 to amend the Companies Act (financial statements).
Motion agreed to and bill read the first time.



COMPANY DIRECTORS


Ernest James Broome: for leave to introduce Bill No. C-39, respecting company directors (directors' qualifications).
Motion agreed to and bill read the first time.



PUBLIC SERVICE


John George Diefenbaker: Mr. Speaker, before the orders of the day are called I wonder if we could revert to motions. There is an announcement I should like to make with the leave of the house.


Mr. Speaker:: Does the Prime Minister wish to revert to motions in order to make a statement?


John George Diefenbaker: Yes, Mr. Speaker.


Mr. Speaker:: Has the Prime Minister leave to revert to motions for this purpose?


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


John George Diefenbaker: Mr. Speaker, I wish to announce an appointment that I am sure will be of interest to all hon. members of the house. It will be recalled that the distinguished Auditor General, Mr. Watson Sellar, reached the compulsory retirement age since the last session of parliament. I wish now to announce that the government has appointed Mr. Andrew Maxwell Henderson to succeed Mr. Sellar in this important post. His appointment will be effective March 1.

Inquiries of the Ministry
Mr. Henderson is at present the comptroller and chief financial officer of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. He has had a long and successful career in business and in the public service. He qualified as a chartered accountant in Nova Scotia in 1929 and practised this profession in Halifax and later in Toronto until 1935. He was a business executive from 1935 to 1940 and again after the war until his appointment to the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation in 1957. During the war he served in the foreign exchange control board and as assistant to the chairman and comptroller of the wartime prices and trade board. During 1956 and 1957 he was chairman of the executive council of the Canadian Chamber of Commerce.



EXTERNAL AFFAIRS


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Lester Bowles Pearson: Mr. Speaker, I should like to direct a question to either the Prime Minister or the Secretary of State for External Affairs, and ask if they could confirm or otherwise the shocking report carried over the British Broadcasting Corporation in which it was stated that approximately 150 young student freedom fighters who participated in the Hungarian revolution of 1956 have been executed.


Hon. Howard C. Green (Secreiary of State for External Affairs):: Mr. Speaker, in addition to the radio report there was also a dispatch in this morning's Globe and Mail which I have seen. We have as yet no information on which to confirm or reject this report, but the report in itself gives us grounds for renewed concern.
Hon. members will recall that there was a similar report circulating last fall which aroused considerable feeling in Canada and in other western countries. The question was thoroughly discussed during the fourteenth session of the United Nations general assembly last fall. Hon. gentlemen will recall that a resolution dealing with the situation was brought before the assembly co-sponsored by Canada. At that time the Canadian representative, my parliamentary secretary, the hon. member for Oxford (Mr. Nesbitt) said that while the Canadian government did not necessarily believe all the rumours that had been circulating he could not deny that these reports had greatly disturbed the Canadian people. He appealed to the Hungarian authorities to allow some neutral investigation of the charges which had been made. He went on to say:
TMr. Diefenbaker.]
We sincerely hope that the alleged events, harmful to the good name of the government of Hungary in its treatment of young offenders, are not taking place as reported throughout the world. But we cannot be content with a silence that may imply damaging admissions. It is for the government of Hungary to move all of us from suspicion to satisfaction, from a sense of distress to a knowledge that puts conscience to rest.
This was the only practical action that Canada could take at that time, and we took it hoping that it might help prevent any further executions taking place. If we are able to get further information of course we will take whatever steps are possible. The Leader of the Opposition (Mr. Pearson) will realize that information on actions of this kind is extremely hard to get and, as I said at the beginning of my reply, we have had no additional information.



DEFICIENCY PAYMENTS


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. R. R. Soulham (Moose Mountain):: Mr. Speaker, I should like to direct a question to the Prime Minister. Will the Prime Minister comment on the answer given to the western farm delegation that waited on the government last Saturday, and also with regard to the question of deficiency payments to western farmers?


John George Diefenbaker: Mr. Speaker, a group of representatives of western agriculture met with the cabinet on Saturday and made a submission which was delivered by Mr. Wesson and about which several other members made additional representations. The whole question as set out in the terms of the submission received the fullest discussion.
In addition to the general discussion of the subject of deficiency payments, certain representations were, in the view of the government, restated in the nature of alternatives. These questions included the implementation of the two-price system for wheat. Under this proposal wheat sold in Canada for human consumption would be priced at levels related to the level of the domestic economy. I am quoting from the brief; second, provision for payment from the treasury to compensate for the exchange premium on the Canadian dollar; third, acceptance by the government of the responsibility of paying the storage charges on all grain in commercial storage positions; finally, acceptance by the government of the responsibility of subsidizing flour exports. The delegation made its representation in a very frank manner and the entire subject, not

only of deficiency payments as such but the four alternatives to which I have referred, was discussed.
It was pointed out that the view of the government with regard to the question of deficiency payments has not been altered as a result of representations made since that view was expressed in August, 1958. However, with the alternatives before us the delegation was advised that a final decision would be announced in parliament within a period of 30 days. That announcement, of course, will cover not only the whole problem of deficiency payments but as well the several alternatives to which I have made reference.


Lester Bowles Pearson: May I ask the Prime Minister whether the representations which were made on this occasion were the same as those made by representatives of the farm unions over a year ago, on which action was promised at that time?


John George Diefenbaker: Mr. Speaker, naturally there were further representations; otherwise the representatives of western farm organizations would not have been here. My answer to the hon. gentleman is that in addition to what was stated when the farm delegations were here, further elucidation and enlargement of representations then made and such additional ones as the intervening events made necessary were placed before the cabinet.


Mr. Hazen Argue (Assiniboia):: I should like to ask a supplementary question arising particularly out of that part of the Prime Minister's statement in which he said that the government has not changed its position since August, 1958. Does this mean that the government is still opposed to deficiency payments, as it was at that time, and that in spite of the presentation that was made on March 10 and the assurance that continued consideration was being given to this problem the government had already given its answer, and the consideration given was very little?


John George Diefenbaker: The hon. gentleman, with somewhat usual alacrity, has misinterpreted my remarks. The general view was expressed in August of 1958, and representations were made by a large representative group of western farmers in March. Since then continuous consideration has been given to these representations, now enlarged and expanded as a result of the meeting on Saturday last.


Hazen Robert Argue: Is the government giving any consideration whatsoever to introducing legislation which would implement its promise of parity prices, something which goes far beyond deficiency payments?
Inquiries of the Ministry


John George Diefenbaker: Mr. Speaker, the hon. gentleman of course realizes that government policy when announced will not be announced in answer to questions in the house, but will be placed before the house in the regular manner.


Hazen Robert Argue: Does that mean that the government is giving consideration to parity prices-


Mr. Speaker:: Order.



UNDERTAKING TO PROVINCES RESPECTING UNTHRESHED GRAIN

[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
John Whitney Pickersgill: I should like to ask the Minister of Agriculture whether Manitoba has a verbal agreement with the federal government to share equally with the provincial government in payments to farmers, as stated by the provincial minister of agriculture in the Manitoba legislature on Thursday last; and, if so, whether the minister considers that such an agreement is secret and cannot be revealed to this house.


Hon. D. S. Harkness (Minister of Agriculture):: I answered that question and dealt with it while we were debating the two bills which have already been passed by this house and when the hon. member and others were bringing up this other matter which was irrelevant, as it happened, to that debate.
The situation is simply this. If anything was to be done to assist the farmers whose crops were under the snow it was necessary for us to give some assurance to the three prairie provinces, and it was well understood by them that we would place before this parliament as soon as possible after its assembly, for approval or disapproval, the proposition we had made to them. On that basis they went ahead and put the scheme of assistance into operation.


John Whitney Pickersgill: Could I ask the minister whether there is or is not an agreement, as stated by the minister of agriculture of Manitoba?


Douglas Scott Harkness: I have explained the
situation. There is an assurance on our part that we will put this proposition up to this house for approval or rejection.


John Whitney Pickersgill: Does the minister say that such an assurance is not action by this government?


Lester Bowles Pearson: May I ask the minister how, in the absence of legislation or an estimate, the federal share of the money to be paid out under this agreement can be actually paid?

Inquiries of the Ministry


Douglas Scott Harkness: The answer is that it
cannot, and it is not being paid.


John George Diefenbaker: The answer appears to be that the opposition is opposed to any assistance.


John Whitney Pickersgill: Opposed? We asked for legislation three weeks ago.

On the orders of the day:


John Whitney Pickersgill: Mr. Speaker, I should like to ask the Prime Minister whether the government has given any other assurances to any provincial governments to share in expenditures made by those governments which have not been communicated to parliament and, if so, when the government intends to communicate such assurances to parliament.


John George Diefenbaker: Mr. Speaker, may I say to the hon. gentleman that it is difficult to understand a question such as that. He has been given the answer that no agreement was entered into with any of the provinces. From the nature of the questions he continues to ask there is every indication that the hon. member-certainly speaking for himself if not for those associated with him-is in opposition to any preliminary work being done in order to meet the situation that obtains in the provinces.


John Whitney Pickersgill: Mr. Speaker, I rise on a question of privilege affecting every hon. member of this house. The Minister of Agriculture in answer to a question said that the government had given an assurance to the government of Manitoba. The Prime Minister then rose and said there was no agreement with the government of Manitoba. What is the house to believe when the statement of one minister is immediately contradicted by the Prime Minister in express terms?


John George Diefenbaker: Mr. Speaker, the interest of the hon. gentleman in the field of legal semantics has been so recent, that apparently he does not understand the difference between an agreement and an assurance.


Mr. Speaker:: I think this argument over the construction of what has been done is a matter of opinion. It seems to me that if hon. members want to ask as to questions of fact and get information they are entitled to do so, but having got it there is no rule or practice of the house that permits argument over the interpretation of it.


Lester Bowles Pearson: On this point, Mr. Speaker, surely we are entitled to be protected from these personal observations by the Prime

Minister, and also from those by the Prime Minister drawing wrong deductions about our attitude on the substance of the legislation in question, as he has done twice this morning. This question has been put because the replies made in this house have been contradicted by the replies made in another legislature in this country. Surely, Mr. Speaker, we are entitled to try to get the facts of this matter without having^ the Prime Minister draw personal and political deductions.



RAPESEED


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. Reynold Rapp (Humboldf-Melforf):: should like to direct a question to the Minister of Trade and Commerce. Is the minister aware of a report in the press that a French purchasing mission is interested in the purchase of rapeseed to a total of about 100,000 tons? To meet such a demand would call for a considerable increase in the acreage for rapeseed. Because of the fact that there has been a decline in acreage causing lower production over the last few years, would the minister consider a favourable approach to the solution of this problem by eliminating the exorbitant freight charges on rapeseed?


Hon. Gordon Churchill (Minister of Trade and Commerce):: Mr. Speaker, I have seen the report in the press, and this is a very interesting development. I hope the purchase of rapeseed goes through. The suggestion of the hon. member with regard to freight rate charges on rapeseed will be investigated.



ATOMIC ENERGY


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Hon. L. B. Pearson (Leader of	the
Opposition): Mr. Speaker, I should like to give the Minister of Trade and Commerce an easier question. Has he had or does he propose to have any discussions with the minister of energy of the government of Ontario, Mr. Macaulay, regarding a site for the establishment of a second nuclear research station?
Gordon Minto Churchill: Mr. Speaker, I have had a most cordial relationship with the minister of energy of the province of Ontario, and I am prepared to discuss any of these problems with him at any time.


Lester Bowles Pearson: Perhaps I can put it this way. Is the report correct that he is about to discuss this matter with him today?


Gordon Minto Churchill: Not today, Mr. Speaker.



NATIONAL DEFENCE


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. Harold E. Winch (Vancouver East):: should like to direct a question to the Minister of National Defence. In view of the fact that the Bomarc B interceptor missile is reported to have failed for the sixth straight time at Cape Canaveral on January 29, can the minister state whether the government is going to persist in its plan to spend $125 million to build two Bomarc B bases in Canada?


Hon. G. R. Pearkes (Minister of National Defence):: Mr. Speaker, I anticipated that there might be some such question on the Bomarc tests, and over the week end I have been in touch with the secretary of defense of the United States. With the permission of the house I will read a statement which I received from the secretary this morning concerning these tests.


Mr. Speaker:: Has the minister leave to make this statement?


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


George Randolph Pearkes: Although the latest test of a Bomarc B missile did not result in the successful attainment of all the desired test objectives, the secretary's office today indicated its confidence that the basic missile design is sound. The secretary's office did express concern, however, lest false impressions be created as to the status of the development through lack of proper understanding of the total program and the status of the test program.
It noted that the Bomarc A missile has performed successfully in a large number of tests which have proved the soundness of the missile, its compatability with the SAGE system and its effectiveness against a variety of aerodynamic targets of different sizes and speed characteristics. Operational Bomarc A missiles are now on alert at McGuire air force base in New Jersey and Suffolk, New York.
The development of the B version of the Bomarc was initiated to provide a growth weapon system with double the range of the A version, which would have a greatly improved capability against high speed targets at altitudes down to sea level and which would incorporate various other improvements including the use of a solid propellant booster and a high performance ram jet engine. Early versions of the improved ram jet engine were used in the initial test
79951-0-354
Inquiries of the Ministry flights of the B missile. The solid propellant booster has functioned perfectly in all six tests to date. In the first five flights the ram jet engine failed to perform properly. However, the analysis of the test data revealed deficiencies in the fuel pump and mach control system. These have been corrected, together with other demonstrated weaknesses in the engine system. A successful test of the modified engine on the X-7 ram jet test vehicle two weeks ago provided encouragement that the engine difficulties had been successfully overcome.
In the latest test flight, the sixth in the B series, the solid propellant booster functioned perfectly, the sustainer ram jet engine ignited and performed successfully. Unfortunately a failure in a minor element of the guidance subsystem caused the missile to obtain erroneous attitude information and ultimately to fail in attempting to respond to the wrong data. The ram jet engine, which had been the cause of failure in the first five tests, performed remarkably well and operated successfully well beyond its design performance limits. The component failure in the guidance subsystem is believed to be of a random nature, and reflects in no way on the adequacy of the missile design. This basic subsystem has performed satisfactorily in the case of the A missile and the previous B tests.
Any failure is unfortunate but it is a part of any normal missile development program. The secretary's office indicated its confidence that the Bomarc B weapon system will achieve the potential which will make it a vital element in the air defence system which is being implemented for the defence of the North American continent.
With respect to the last part of the question, there is no intention of making any change in the government's program at the present time, and I do not confirm or deny the figure which was given by the hon. member with respect to the cost.


Harold Edward Winch: May I ask a supplementary question. In view of the latter part of the statement by the Minister of National Defence, will he advise the house as to why it is advisable to go ahead with an expenditure on bases until such time as they know they have a successful project? In view of the statement by the minister concerning the correctness of the design, would he propose that the next test be the shooting up of the design instead of the missile?


George Randolph Pearkes: The desirability to proceed with the construction of the bases from which the missile will be fired here in Canada arises so that completion of the site may conform to the date upon which it is expected that the

Inquiries of the Ministry missiles will be delivered to Canada. It is the intention that the sites will be ready when the missiles begin to arrive in Canada during the summer of 1961.
Hon. L. B. Pearson (Leader of the
Opposition): In view of the unimpaired confidence which the minister has stated the Canadian and United States governments have in this weapon, would the minister care to comment on the decision of the United States government to reduce its appropriations this year for that weapon?


George Randolph Pearkes: I have no knowledge of a reduction in the appropriations for the coming year. During the last year there was a considerable reduction in the appropriations, because a number of missile sites were removed in the southern part of the United States. They retained the sites on the periphery of the northern boundary of the United States and Canada.
It may interest the hon. member to know that in this year's budget-that is, the coming year's budget-the United States have included $421,500,000 for the Bomarc B project.
(Translation):



BOMARC MISSILE


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. Guy Rouleau (Dollard):: Mr. Speaker, last Friday I put a question to the Associate Minister of National Defence. I should like to put it to him again today, because he did not seem to understand it at that time. My question has to do with Bomarc missiles.
Could the Associate Minister of National Defence tell us if work has started on the launching sites for Bomarc missiles in the Mont Laurier district, according to the announcement made by the former member for Labelle following a cabinet meeting?


Hon. Pierre Sevigny (Associate Minister of National Defence):: Mr. Speaker, I must say in reply to the hon. member for Dollard that I had fully understood his question. Besides, I have the answer here and shall give it to him at once. Certain survey and location works were done in regard to the proposed building sites for the Bomarc but, up to now, construction has not yet started.
(Text):



ARTS, LETTERS AND SCIENCES NATIONAL GALLERY  INQUIRY AS TO REQUIRED DRESS FOR OPENING

[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. H. W. Herridge (Kootenay West):: Mr. Speaker, I would like to address a question

to the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration, and I do so on behalf of a good number of hon. members of this house of all parties and also on behalf of a number of people outside the house.
In view of the fact that the invitation to the opening of the new quarters of the national gallery of Canada in the Lome building specifies a white tie, and in view of the fact that on this account many persons interested in art and culture and in hearing the Prime Minister on this occasion, through lack of the designated accoutrements, will be unable to attend, can the minister explain the reason for the lowering of this undemocratic white tie curtain around the Prime Minister at this important event, and would the minister give consideration to changes in the required attire that would permit all those interested to attend?


Hon. Ellen L. Fairclough (Minister of Citizenship and Immigration):: Mr. Speaker, all arrangements for the opening of the gallery were made by the board of trustees of the gallery, and the minister had nothing whatever to do with them.


Herbert Wilfred Herridge: May I ask a supplementary question. Would the minister bring this question to the attention of the trustees immediately? It is causing considerable comment and discussion.


Lester Bowles Pearson: May I ask, does the minister not feel that in view of the fact that it is a ceremony which concerns the national gallery, a black tie would have been more appropriate?


Ellen Louks Fairclough: Mr. Speaker, the answer is no.



NATIONAL REVENUE


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. E. A. Winkler (Grey-Bruce):: I would like to ask a question of the Minister of National Revenue. In regard to the recommendations of the public accounts committee of last session, can the minister inform the house whether foreign goods, particularly textiles, must now bear clear labels indicating the country of origin and, for the purpose of choice, are mail order houses required to indicate in their catalogue whether the goods they offer and advertise are specifically of foreign or domestic manufacture?


Hon. George C. Nowlan (Minister of National Revenue):: Mr. Speaker, the hon. member was good enough to speak to me about this matter last week. I have checked the

details and can advise the house that the marking of imported goods order, which comes under the purview of the minister through the Customs Tariff, requires a very-wide range of imported goods to be marked. There are 44 different varieties of goods covered by this order, including clothing, wearing apparel, garments of all kinds, as well as knitted goods, cotton sheets, pillows, towels and washcloths, and so on and so forth, which have to have a mark imprinted or impressed thereon to the highest degree possible in order to ensure a legible and permanent mark.
With respect to mail order houses and the marking of goods, I know of no provision whereby that is required, nor do I know of a method whereby it could be administered.


Mr. Speaker:: May I make a suggestion in view of the time taken on this question. Standing orders do provide a procedure for asking questions which a hon. member wishes to have answered in the house. The question just asked would, however, be more appropriate on the order paper, and I would suggest that if the hon. member wants an answer in the house the course to follow is to put the question on the order paper, mark it with an asterisk, and then it will come up at the appropriate time.



UNITED NATIONS


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Hon. Paul Martin (Essex East):: May I ask
the Secretary of State for External Affairs whether Canada has been invited by the world bank to participate in the proposed new agency to be known as the international development association for loans to underdeveloped countries, affiliated with the bank, which as indicated by the press is offering loans to under-developed countries on terms said to be much more reasonable than those extended by private agencies to those countries. Has Canada been invited to join the agency; has the amount of contribution which Canada is expected to make been determined, and what is the government's view with regard to the proposal?


Howard Charles Green: Mr. Speaker, the Minister of Finance has the answer to this question.


Hon. Donald M. Fleming (Minister of Finance):: Mr. Speaker, at the annual meeting of the board of governors of the international bank at Washington last September and October a decision was taken to refer to the executive board of the bank proposals for the
Inquiries of the Ministry formation of an international development association, and to formulate articles of association for the purpose. There was no commitment at that time on the part of any country beyond a decision that the matter should be referred to the executive board for study.
Since that time the executive board of the bank have been meeting from time to time and have made progress with the task assigned to them. Their task has now been completed at the meeting of last week, and an announcement will shortly be made. It is clearly understood that no country not directly represented on the excutive board of the bank is committed by anything that has been done to enter the proposed association.
Canada, as is known, is very competently represented on the board of directors of the bank by the distinguished deputy governor of the Bank of Canada, Mr. Louis Rasminsky. I have, of course, been kept informed of the course of discussions at Washington, and it will remain a matter for decision, in the first instance by the government and then by parliament, as to whether Canada shall become a member of this bank and subscribe a portion of the proposed capital.



AIR TRANSPORT


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. Hubert Badanai (Fort William):: Mr. Speaker, I have a question for the Minister of Transport, but in his absence I will direct it to the parliamentary secretary. In view of recent crashes caused by planted bombs in commercial airliners, is the government giving any consideration to the dreadful mass murder hazard of planted bombs in Trans-Canada Air Lines aircraft? Second, is the government considering the curbing of the sale of fabulous insurance policies which can be purchased through slot machines at any Canadian airport and which, for financial reasons, might contribute to the temptation of suicide; and is the government taking any steps-


Mr. Speaker:: Order. The hon. member has put two questions and is now about to put a third. I think he might leave it at two.


Mr. C. W. Hodgson (Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Transport):: I will take that question as notice and give an answer tomorrow.

Inquiries of the Ministry FINANCE



BANK OF CANADA


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. Erhart Regier (Burnaby-Coquiilam):: would like to direct a question to the Minister of Finance. Has the minister noted the remarks of his fiscal agent, the governor of the Bank of Canada, to the effect that Canada is borrowing too much money from abroad and living dangerously beyond its means? If so, was this an expression of government policy, and would the minister reconcile this with the attitude expressed-


Mr. Speaker:: Order. The hon. member is introducing a very broad subject in the middle of the debate on the address in reply to the speech from the throne. This subject is one for argument rather than for questions, and certainly cannot be answered on the orders of the day. There will be ample opportunity available to the hon. member.


Erhart Regier: Could the minister say
whether or not the governor of the Bank of Canada expresses government policy with regard to this matter?


Mr. Speaker:: With deference to the hon. member it seems to me that what he is asking the government to do is to confirm or deny the opinion expressed by a civil servant in the course of an address. I should like to know from the hon. member why he feels that is a question which should properly be asked.


Erhart Regier: Because we had an answer only a week ago-on January 26-by the Minister of Trade and Commerce which in my opinion is in direct contradiction to the statement of his fiscal instrument on this matter of whether or not foreign investments are helpful, and I should like an explanation.


Lester Bowles Pearson: Is it not a fact that the governor of the Bank of Canada has a responsibility to the government; and when he makes a statement which seems to state policy in this field should we not be permitted to ask the minister whether he is expressing government policy in that statement?


Mr. Speaker:: My difference with the hon. member is that the speech made by the governor, as I read it, was not an expression of policy but a comment on the Canadian economy. If the minister is not prepared to argue that point of order, and is prepared to accept the question, I shall not insist.


Donald Methuen Fleming: With great respect, Mr. Speaker, you made one statement which I think is not

correct, if I may say so. You said the speech was made by a civil servant. Of course the governor of the Bank of Canada is not in any sense a civil servant. He is a public servant, but he holds a position which is not associated with the civil service at all.
May I say that the speech to which the hon. gentleman made reference was, I think, delivered two weeks ago. It has already been discussed in this house in the course of the debate which is now proceeding; reference has been made to it by several hon. members, and obviously this is not a proper question to be raised on the orders of the day. However, I think I may say something that is within the knowledge of all other hon. members of the house, namely that the governor of the Bank of Canada at no time purports to make statements of government policy.


Hazen Robert Argue: On this very point, would the minister not agree that the position taken by the governor of the Bank of Canada is diametrically opposed to the minister's own position?


Donald Methuen Fleming: That observation is, of course, just plain nonsense.


Lester Bowles Pearson: May I ask the Minister of Finance whether it is not a fact that if the governor of the Bank of Canada made statements which are not in accordance with government policy, the governor would then have to resign?


Donald Methuen Fleming: That is worthy of the comment I made on the last question. That is certainly a new theory on the part of the Leader of the Opposition; it is certainly not the theory which the hon. gentleman or his colleagues held when they formed the last government.


Paul Joseph James Martin: A supplementary question on this very important matter. Is the Minister of Finance not of the view that the statement made by the governor of the Bank of Canada is similar to views which he has expressed recently, but diametrically opposed to those expressed by his colleague the Minister of Trade and Commerce?


Donald Methuen Fleming: It is not to be
wondered at that the hon. gentleman, who has found this to be a matter of importance 14 days after the speech was first referred to in the house by his leader, should be all mixed up in his question and his approach to it.


Paul Joseph James Martin: May I ask the
Minister of Finance if he does not think that in a matter of this importance he owes the

country and this parliament a more responsible answer than the one he has just given?


Mr. Speaker:: The course of these questions has demonstrated that this question is one for debate rather than for the orders of the day.



ADMINISTRATION OF JUSTICE


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. Frank Howard (Skeena):: I wish to
address a question to the Minister of Justice. Can the minister inform the house what action the R.C.M. Police are taking as a result of the unwarranted and vicious attack upon Mr. Dick Greaves, N.A.M.E. and C.B.R.T. representative in Vancouver, which took place in Mr. Greaves' office on Saturday last?


Hon. E. D. Fulton (Minister of Justice):: It
was difficult for me to hear the hon. gentleman's question because of the rumblings of the volcano from Essex East which, I trust, is not about to erupt. If I understood the hon. member correctly he asked me about an incident involving an attack upon Mr. Greaves in Vancouver. I do not have the full report on that incident, but if I am correctly informed this took place within the city of Vancouver, and that area is not the responsibility of the R.C.M.P.; it would' not be the primary responsibility of the R.C.M.P. but rather of the city police force.
If there is anything the R.C.M.P. can do to co-operate in tracking down or bringing to justice anyone guilty of a criminal assault, they will naturally do it; but I think the first responsibility is that of the Vancouver police.



PUBLIC BUILDINGS


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. J. R. Tucker (Trinity-Conception):: Mr. Speaker, I should like to direct a question to the Minister of Public Works; it is as follows. Would the minister please advise the house whether his government paid its water bill to the town council of Carbonear, Newfoundland; because I understand the town council turned off the supply of water at the federal post office and customs building in that town because the water tax was not paid.


Mr. Speaker:: I think perhaps the hon. member's question is neither of the urgency nor of the type that could be answered by the minister, and I suggest it be put on the order paper.
Inquiries of the Ministry LABOUR CONDITIONS



UNEMPLOYMENT


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Paul Joseph James Martin: Mr. Speaker, with the permission of the Minister of Justice I should like to ask the Minister of Labour a question. Could the minister give us the latest figures he has from the national employment offices with regard to the number of people looking for jobs? Could he also give us the latest figure for the end of January showing the number of live claims for unemployment insurance benefits?


Hon. Michael Siarr (Minister of Labour):: Mr. Speaker, the unemployment insurance commission does not put out statistics on the number of people looking for jobs. What they put out is an operational figure showing the number of unplaced applicants. As far as live claims are concerned, the figures are compiled once a month. As yet they have not been compiled for the month of January. I have already given the latest figure for live claims as at the end of January, and the figure for unplaced applicants has already been transmitted to the hon. member in this house.


Paul Joseph James Martin: A supplementary question, Mr. Speaker. It is true that the minister gave us a figure last week of 755,000 unplaced applicants, but has he not received as at the end of last week a further figure which brings the situation up to last Thursday?


Michael Starr: No, Mr. Speaker.


Paul Joseph James Martin: Will the minister have that figure available tomorrow before we conclude the debate on the speech from the throne?


Michael Starr: I will make the figure available as soon as it is transmitted to me by the unemployment insurance offices, Mr. Speaker.


Paul Joseph James Martin: It is available now.


Michael Starr: The hon. member made an observation, Mr. Speaker, about which I wish to comment. I rise on a point of order. The hon. member said the figure is available now. If he has that figure I wish he would put it before the house and let us know what it is. It would also be interesting to know how he obtained that figure.


Paul Joseph James Martin: Mr. Speaker, the minister said that if I have this figure he would like me to give it to the house. I would be happy to do so, but I want to ask the minister if he does not agree-

Inquiries of the Ministry


Mr. Speaker:: Order. Is the hon. member asking a supplementary question?


Mr. Marlin (Essex Easl):: Mr. Speaker, I
hope you will allow me to ask a supplementary question. I ask the minister, on the basis on the statement made last week in this house by him that he received these figures every week, will he undertake to communicate to the house the figure given to him on Friday last showing the number of unplaced applicants, so we may debate this matter and see how serious this problem of unemployment in Canada is?


Michael Starr: Mr. Speaker, the last unplaced applicant figure I received was as of January 14. This figure was compiled in the unemployment insurance offices on January 26 and did not reach my desk until January 28. Now, the same procedure applies. I have received no later figure than the one I have given the hon. member.


Murdo William Martin: A supplementary question, Mr. Speaker. If the minister says he has not received the figure I, of course, believe him.


Donald Methuen Fleming: How gracious of
you.


Murdo William Martin: Will the minister make inquiries and see whether the unemployment insurance commission has not given him figures as of the end of last week? If so, will he make those figures available to the house tomorrow so we may determine whether or not unemployment is increasing in this country?


Michael Starr: Mr. Speaker, with great respect I wish to say it is not necessary for me to receive instructions from the hon. member for Essex East on the method of administration in the unemployment insurance commission.


Murdo William Martin: Mr. Speaker, I
rise on a question of privilege.


Mr. Speaker:: Order.


Murdo William Martin: Before rising,
Mr. Speaker, you have always considered it desirable to hear what an hon. member was going to say.


Mr. Speaker:: Order. I recognized the
hon. member for Timmins, thinking the hon. member for Essex East had gone far enough. If the hon. member for Essex East has a question of privilege I shall of course be glad to hear it.


Murdo William Martin: I should be happy to know in what respect Your Honour considers that the hon. member for Essex East has gone far enough.


Gordon Minto Churchill: You are insulting the Chair.


Murdo William Martin: The minister said he does not require any instructions from the opposition as to how he should conduct the affairs of his department. As an hon. member of this house I have the right to ask questions of the administration as to the number of people who are unemployed in this country. I should think you would agree with me, sir, that it was a violation by the minister of the privileges of a private member to say to that private member that he did not have the right to ask questions and thus-


Some hon. Members:: Shame.


Mr. Speaker:: I suggest to the hon. member that he can find no question of privilege in the comment that was made. It was a perfectly polite and proper comment for the minister to make, and did not reflect in any way on the character of the hon. member for Essex East. As to the question, if he would look over Hansard the hon. member will find that I have permitted at least five supplementary questions to be asked on this subject, and that follows innumerable questions asked previously on the same matter. I suggest that the hon. member has no cause for complaint and no question of privilege to raise.


Lester Bowles Pearson: Mr. Speaker, I should like to ask the Minister of Labour, entirely as a matter of clarification, whether he will explain to the house what he meant on Thursday, January 28, as reported at page 424 of Hansard, when he answered a question by the hon. member for Essex East (Mr. Martin):
Does he not receive figures every week?
He was referring to unemployment, of course, and the minister replied:
That is right.


Michael Starr: Mr. Speaker, at the time the question was asked it was in my mind that I did receive them quite frequently, and when the suggestion of one week came up I agreed with it. However, on checking it I find that it takes between 12 and 14 days before it reaches me.



NORTHERN ONTARIO


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Murdo William Martin: Mr. Speaker, I should like to direct a question to the Minister of Labour, and this may possibly be the last one of the day. Can the minister

inform the house whether the government is giving additional consideration to northern municipalities to enable them to participate in the winter works program?


Michael Starr: Mr. Speaker, under the municipal incentive program the federal government does not deal with the municipalities directly. We deal with the provinces, and whatever arrangements are made between the provinces and the municipalities in that regard lie within their jurisdiction.


Murdo William Martin: A supplementary question, Mr. Speaker. Could the minister inform the house if the participation of the northern municipalities is equivalent on a per capita basis to the participation of the southern municipalities?


Michael Starr: Mr. Speaker, that would require a very detailed answer. If the hon. member wishes to have that question answered I would suggest that he put it on the order paper and I shall endeavour to get an answer as soon as possible.



AGRICULTURE


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Hazen Robert Argue: Mr. Speaker, I should like to direct a question to the Minister of Agriculture. Has the Minister of Agriculture received a letter from the secretary of the Saskatchewan locker association, which points out that producers are now delivering all their hogs to the large packing plants in order to qualify for deficiency payments, thus placing a great hardship on rural licensed slaughterers? Will the government consider their suggestion that rural licensed slaughterers be recognized as graders for the purpose of paying deficiency payments on hogs?


Douglas Scott Harkness: Mr. Speaker, I have not received this letter so far as I am aware. The replies which were given to questions on three previous occasions have made the position quite clear.


Hazen Robert Argue: Mr. Speaker, I am sure the minister will receive this letter, but meantime I ask him this question. Will he give consideration to having rural licensed slaughterers recognized as graders so they may obtain their supplies of hogs in their localities and thus prevent the bankruptcy of small locker plants?


Mr. Speaker:: As I recall it the minister has answered the question a number of times 79951-0-36
Inquiries of the Ministry when the hon. member has raised this precise question, and it seems to me it is not in order to do it again.


Hazen Robert Argue: Mr. Speaker, on the point of order, this is a different aspect of the question; 157 locker plants on the prairies are in danger of bankruptcy.


Some hon. Members:: Order.


Mr. Speaker:: Will the hon. member address himself to the point of order? If he is asking a new question, it is not within my knowledge.


Hazen Robert Argue: It is an entirely new question, Mr. Speaker. The previous questions had to do with itinerant graders travelling from one locker plant to another to inspect hog carcasses. This is an entirely new question. Will the government give consideration to having rural licensed slaughterers, locker plant slaughterers, recognized as graders for the purpose of making deficiency payments? I think, in the context of the difficulties in the industry-


Mr. Speaker:: Order. If the hon. member will leave the question I will hear the minister.


Douglas Scott Harkness: Mr. Speaker, this is all part of the same question which I have answered, as you know, several times already. We have been giving the utmost consideration to means of ensuring that hogs delivered to small slaughtering plants will qualify for the deficiency payments.


Hazen Robert Argue: A supplementary question. Is it within the knowledge of the minister that locker plant slaughterers are now receiving no hogs whatsoever?



BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
John Whitney Pickersgill: I should like to ask the Minister of Trade and Commerce, in his capacity as leader of the house, whether the government will give first consideration to the legislation or the estimate providing for the 50-50 payments, so that an opportunity will be given to the house to find out whether the Prime Minister or the Minister of Agriculture is telling us what are the facts?


Gordon Minto Churchill: That subject matter will come up on Friday, Mr. Speaker.

The Address-Mr. Loiselle SPEECH FROM THE THRONE



CONTINUATION OF DEBATE ON ADDRESS IN REPLY

[Stage Direction]
The house resumed, from Friday, January 29, consideration of the motion of Mr. Emilien Morissette for an address to His Excellency the Governor General in reply to his speech at the opening of the session, and the amendment thereto of Mr. Pearson.
(Translation):
Mr. Gerard Loiselle (St. Ann):: Mr. Speaker, when the house adjourned on Friday at six o'clock, I had been dealing with unemployment and the growing number of unemployed, in both Montreal and throughout the province of Quebec, where there is more unemployment than anywhere else in Canada.
I could say much more about the matter, but having other problems to deal with, I shall content myself, before passing on to something else, to again ask the government the following question: if the ministers mean well and really want to solve the unemployment problem, will the government introduce legislation to solve that problem and allow members to discuss it?
(Text):


Mr. Speaker:: If the hon. member will allow me to interrupt him, may I ask the cooperation of the house so that the hon. member who has the floor, and who is having difficulty, may make himself heard.
(Translation):


Gérard Loiselle: As I was saying, Mr. Speaker, in order to give hon. members in this house further opportunity of expressing their views on that delicate question the effects of which are felt from coast to coast.
Mr. Speaker, may I add a few words on the contemptible way in which the government, and more particularly the Minister of Finance (Mr. Fleming), dealt with the recommendation of the civil service commission with regard to salary raises for civil servants.
It must be admitted that the Conservative government has made an outward show of dazzling honestly and strictness. Of their own free will, they appointed a special committee within the commission, which was instructed to make certain recommendations to the government. If the cabinet took the trouble to make such appointments, it surely trusted the civil servants who were chosen to this end.
The special investigation committee went thoroughly into the matter and submitted to the Minister of Finance a report recommending an increase. If the government was sincere.-and I hope it was, for once, in appointing those officers-why did it not accept the

recommendations of those in whom it had put its trust by conferring that task upon them.
On the other hand, if the government was not sincere, or lacked confidence in the officials so appointed, why did it want to create an impression of genuine interest in civil servants?
Anyone who knows what is back of the mind of the Prime Minister (Mr. Diefen-baker) and of the Minister of Finance and of the Minister of National Revenue (Mr. Nowlan), and especially of the former secretary of state who was obliged to resign merely because of delicate health, will scarcely be surprised at the government's disregard for the civil service. Since the government's sole concern is political, and thinks only of being re-elected, we readily understand why it pays little heed to a small minority of faithful public servants, when there are thousands of other voters who might be gained by means of glittering promises. However, the government is showing very bad judgment.
It seems to forget how very lucky it is to be able to rely on civil servants for the administration of the country while the ministers gad about the globe.
The Prime Minister, more particularly noted as a great traveller, and the Minister of Finance, without forgetting the Secretary of State for External Affairs (Mr. Green), should appreciate the fact that they can rely upon the loyalty and honesty unmatched anywhere else, of the civil servants to see to the good administration of this country, at least when they, the ministers, are gadding about.
Is it not just about the only time that the country can count on intelligent and sincere management with regard to the welfare of Canadian citizens?
By their arrogant behaviour towards the country's best servants, the Prime Minister and the Minister of Finance have created a feeling of frustration among public employees, and they are destroying the pride that civil servants had in working for the government.
Already, by its irresponsible and unfair behaviour the Conservative government has abetted the resignation of several top-flight officials who might have prevented the government's blunders.
At the same time, the Tories are managing to keep the best qualified Canadians from entering their country's service where they would be useful to their fellow Canadians.
I hope the Prime Minister and the Minister of Finance will show enough intelligence and enough practical sense-even if that seems a tall order-to correct their regrettable error

of judgment and to recognize at long last the devotion and loyalty of civil servants by soon granting them the raise recommended by the commission.
Mr. Speaker, before going on to another matter, I should like to place on record a statement made by the Prime Minister on November 13, 1945. This is by way of reply to the hon. members for Joliette-L'Assomp-tion-Montcalm and Sherbrooke (Messrs. Pigeon and Allard)-unfortunately they are not in the house this morning-who last week interrupted the hon. member for Nickel Belt (Mr. Godin). The statement made by the present Prime Minister has to do with the matter raised by the hon. members last week, as recorded on page 2809 of Volume II of Hansard. I quote:
On the other hand, I cannot see eye-to-eye_and
my sentiments so carry me that I must he restrained when I say this-with those who would deny the union jack a permanent and a prominent place on the flag of this country; and the place of honour on any flag is the upper quarter.
A little farther down, the hon. member went on to say:
Some say, why not compromise? X will compromise on anything, but, speaking for myself, not to the extent of the removal of the union jack from our national flag.
Mr. Speaker, I have placed this statement on record in order that the hon. members who interrupted the hon. member for Nickel Belt by referring to a statement made by a provincial premier on the matter of a national flag may familiarize themselves with the statement made by their own leader, the Prime Minister, regarding a distinctive flag.
Mr. Speaker, at this stage of my remarks may I be allowed to deal with a most important question, the matter of the sales tax, concerning which the Minister of Finance has already received delegations and made certain comments. I wish to refresh the memory of the Minister of Finance on a proposal in favour of which he has already been asked to intervene and has, in fact, received a brief from the promoters. I refer to the removal of the 11 per cent tax on confectionery.
In December 1958, the Canadian confectionery association submitted to the Minister of Finance a brief which was self-explanatory and showed the need to remove the sales tax on chocolate and confectionery.
In his budget speech last spring, the Minister of Finance stated:
I have received a number of requests for the exemption of particular products from sales or excise taxes. Because of the need for revenue, I find myself unable to comply with any of these requests this year.
79951-0-361
The Address-Mr. Loiselle
In this clear and definite statement, the Minister of Finance admits that the only justification for this sales tax lies in the income it provides.
That is the reason why the confectionery industry has not had its share of trade in this field, as is clearly shown by the following comparative figures for the United Kingdom, the United States and Canada. Per capita consumption in the United Kingdom was 26.97 pounds, in the United States, 16.47 pounds, and in Canada, 13.95 pounds.
Is a chocolate bar a luxury? I say it is not. It is a food product, and it is of such concentrated food value that it was placed in the ration packs of the armed forces during the last war. Even today it is found in the ration packs of defence production employees.
How many adults and children find chocolate bars a necessary and nourishing food?
I hope that, when he presents his next budget, the Minister of Finance will be proud to tell the Canadian people that from then on the candy industry will be exempt from this sales tax.
Mr. Speaker, during the few remaining minutes at my disposal, I should like to revert to a question which I already discussed in this house, that of the Champlain bridge in western Montreal. All the hon. members representing constituencies located in the city of Montreal recognize the necessity of building such a bridge which would be located on the edge of my constituency. However, my constituents are afraid that the traffic resulting from the construction of that six lane bridge will cause bottlenecks in the area.
I understand that the north exit of that bridge would lead right into the south entrance of Atwater tunnel, which is in my constituency. That tunnel is already too narrow and is inadequate for present traffic needs, especially at peak hours; and I am very much afraid that if the Department of Transport does not take necessary steps soon enough the Champlain bridge, now under construction, will not answer its purpose.
That is why I suggested in the past, and again suggest today that the north entrance and exit on the Montreal side be made high-level right up to Dorchester boulevard, and that agreements be entered into for that purpose as soon as possible between the city of Montreal authorities and those of the

The Address-Mr. Harkness
Department of Transport with a view to having the federal government absorb the major part of the costs.
Here is the situation in Montreal, Mr. Speaker: the bridges have been built by the provincial and federal governments and the cost of the approaches has to be paid by the city of Montreal which is evidently not in a position to carry such heavy charges. In my district, Victoria bridge is a nuisance. We have no complaint against the bridge itself, but there is about daily traffic conditions at the intersection of Bridge and Wellington streets.
I would not want the same thing to happen when the new Champlain bridge is opened in 1962.
For that reason, the order paper carries a question of mine concerning that bridge and that is why item 7 reads as follows:
Where is the exact location of the Champlain bridge exit in Montreal?
Item 8 goes on like this:
Is there an understanding with Montreal authorities to extend the exits to Dorchester boulevard? If so, what are the details?
I repeat that the matter should be supported by all members for the Montreal area, regardless of party affiliation, for all would be held to account if the situation is not settled before the opening of the bridge.
As regards the bridge outlets on Montreal island, there the department and the city should agree to extend them as far as Dorchester boulevard.
I hope, Mr. Speaker, that the Minister of Transport (Mr. Hees) will kindly consider this remark and that the government representatives on Montreal island will use their influence so that this bridge may serve the purposes for which it was intended.
(Text):


Douglas Scott Harkness: Mr. Speaker, I wish to take only a few minutes of the time of the house today for a specific purpose. When I spoke in the debate last week my time ran out just as I was about to start to explain the deficiency payment program for eggs and how it will operate. In view of the confusion which seems to exist in regard to this matter I think it is desirable and important that I should make an explanation to the house with respect to it.
In reporting on the egg situation I think it is important first to state the precise nature of the problem. In simple terms it is that over recent years the production of eggs in Canada has expanded to a point well beyond
[Mr. Loiselle.l
the amount which can be marketed in an orderly way in Canada or in such export markets as are available to us. This has not been a development of the past year; it has accumulated progressively since 1955. In that year 5.6 million cases of eggs were marketed by producers through egg stations. In 1956 the marketings were 6.1 million cases, but the market was able to absorb that quantity without any serious impact on prices.
In each of the next two years marketings were 6.7 million cases, and in 1959 they reached 7.3 million cases. Until October 1, 1959 the market was supported by direct government purchases at the support price. In 1957 the government purchases were 399,940 cases; in 1958, 354,000 cases; in 1959, to the end of September, 936,000 cases. Had purchases by the stabilization board continued throughout all of 1959 the total would have exceeded 1 million cases.
This increasing production has developed in spite of declining egg prices over the last three years. The average price received for eggs by producers in both 1955 and 1956 was 38.1 cents per dozen. In 1957 it was 31.4 cents. There was a minor increase in 1958 to 32.7 cents, but in 1959 the average price dropped to 29.2 cents. The fact is that technological advances in egg production have been such that it was evident that under any reasonable level of support, so long as the stabilization board offered a guaranteed market for any eggs produced the production of eggs, particularly by large commercial operations, would continue to expand. The government, therefore, reached the decision that it was necessary to discontinue supporting the market by purchasing eggs. In place of that a deficiency payment program was established.
While it was obviously desirable to discontinue the system under which the government was accumulating eggs in an unmanageable volume, of even greater importance in the interests of the industry itself was the necessity of cutting production back to more realistic proportions. In establishing the deficiency payment arrangement it was provided that producers would be eligible for up to 4,000 dozen grade A large eggs a year. This represents the production of a flock of about 500 laying hens. The establishment of this maximum brought charges from the more commercialized side of the poultry industry that the government was subsidizing inefficient production and holding back technological improvements. I think it is obvious that this is an unfair charge to lay against a department which devotes as much attention to research, to the improvement and efficiency of production, as does the Department of Agriculture.

The fact is, however, that the increase in production which has led to the present problem has come largely from the growth in highly commercialized egg operations. To continue to provide full support to them could only negate one of the main objectives of the deficiency payment program. This program is deliberately designed to protect the average farm producer against the impact of lower prices while the necessary adjustment in egg production is taking place.
The house will be interested in some figures on the registration of egg producers for deficiency payments. As of some 10 days or two weeks ago-I got these figures, of course, for a week ago-70,484 producers had registered. Of this number, 90 per cent have 500 birds or less and their entire production of grade A large eggs should be eligible for any deficiency payments which are made.


Paul Joseph James Martin: How many did the minister say?


Douglas Scott Harkness: The Address-Mr. Harkness
This historical price performance illustrates that neither a uniform support price throughout Canada nor regional levels supported by purchases by the board have prevented a pattern of comparative average prices between areas based purely on market considerations.
From this background the use of national averages, both for the support level and in determining the producer price, was considered to be the only sound basis for fixing the amount of any deficiency payment. It permits the normal, free play of prices between areas and makes it incumbent on those in each area, as I believe it should, to secure the best price available for eggs in Canada or outside the country.
It must be recognized that the egg market at present is going through a difficult period while an adjustment is being made to more realistic production levels. It requires only a relatively small reduction in laying flocks to achieve that purpose. There are indications of some increased marketings of laying hens. It is already evident that new hatches this season for future laying flocks will be lighter. Production should be more in line with demand within a few months, and at that time the industry will be in a much sounder position and should be able to look forward to better prices than have prevailed in recent years. In the meantime, during this transition period the deficiency payments will ensure that the average total returns received by the great majority of individual producers will be equal to the support price.
Now, Mr. Speaker, I think there is no question but that the matter of a deficiency payment program of this kind is a somewhat complex matter, and there is considerable difficulty in people grasping how it will work, its implications and so forth. I think perhaps these things could be made much clearer by a concrete example on the basis of what the prices have been during the first three weeks of January, for which of course we now have the figures, in order to illustrate how the deficiency payment system would work as far as that three-week period is concerned.
Up to this time we have really had no definite figures upon which one could quote concrete examples. The national weighted average support price is, of course, 33 cents a dozen. The cumulative weighted average price which producers received for the first three weeks of January was 19.3 cents.


Hazen Robert Argue: That is grade A large?


Douglas Scott Harkness: Yes, this is all grade A large. In other words, during the first three weeks of January the weighted average price producers received for their eggs was 19.3 cents. Thus, if a deficiency payment were

made at the present time for that first three-week period in January, the payment would be 13.7 cents a dozen. That is to say, as at the end of the third week of January the producers of eggs in this country had owing to them a deficiency payment of 13.7 cents a dozen.
Of course if the price for eggs goes lower than it was during the first three weeks of January, and remains lower throughout the remaining period of January, February and March, then the deficiency payment will be more than 13.7 cents. If the price of eggs goes up during February and March, then the deficiency payment will be less than the 13.7 cents. But in any event the price the producer receives will be brought up on the average of his return to 33 cents a dozen, which is the support price.
Of course this does not mean that each individual producer in any area will get 33 cents. The amount he gets depends on what he sold his eggs for to begin with, and the normal sort of differentials which have always existed in the past between the prices of eggs in one part of the country compared with another would operate. If one looks at egg prices at the present time one will see there is quite a range of prices which producers are receiving, going from Newfoundland to British Columbia.
The situation in regard to the use of regional average prices rather than a national average price can, I think, also be shown very well on the basis of prices during this first three-week period of January, as well as showing what the situation would be if a deficiency payment were being made for these three weeks only. If we had a regional support price in Manitoba instead of the national average support price-and this is what has been asked for by some of the egg producers in Manitoba, and also Saskatchewan-the regional support price would not be 33 cents but 27.7 cents, which of course is the average of the prices received there over the past ten years, which has always been lower than the average price in Ontario and Quebec. The regional support price in Manitoba, if it were on a regional basis, would be 27.7 cents. The average price received by producers in the first three weeks of January, as far as Manitoba is concerned, was 15.2 cents. Therefore the deficiency payment they would receive for this three-week period would be 12.5 cents, which is of course 1.2 cents a dozen less than they would receive by using a national average. Therefore, as far as that three-week period is concerned, the producers in Manitoba are better off under a national

average than under a regional average, and I think the same would apply throughout any particular year.
On a national average return in Saskatchewan, without going into the figures and taking up the time of the house, the return to the producers for the first three weeks in January would have been 1.3 cents a dozen more than if we had used a regional average.
In Alberta, as it happens, there is a somewhat different situation. On a national average basis the return would be .2 cents below the return on a regional basis for those three weeks. But taking the situation over any year I think there is no question but that the use of a national average is a much fairer and better method than the use of regional averages. Also, as far as the western provinces are concerned, I think they would be better off under that system than they would be under the use of regional averages.
The deficiency payment method of support for hogs will work in much the same way as I outlined a deficiency payment method for eggs would work. It will ensure that the great bulk of our producers will receive on the average the support price of $22.65 a hundred during 1959. We believe that the deficiency payment method of support for eggs and hogs on a limited amount of production will provide to the great bulk of our producers the minimum prices which they require, and at the same time will bring production down into line with what can be marketed. When that situation has been realized, egg and hog prices should reach satisfactory levels for our producers; and this, of course, is the ultimate aim of our deficiency payment programs.


Hazen Robert Argue: Mr. Speaker, before the minister sits down may I ask him a question. Is he giving any consideration to providing deficiency payments on grades of eggs other than grade A large since, as the minister knows, great quantities of other grades, and high quality grades, are produced?
I also have a further question. Would the minister consider making deficiency payments on the short period, the two or three-week period he has been speaking about, which I think would be much fairer than waiting for months?


Douglas Scott Harkness: In regard to the last question, it will cost a fair amount of money to mail out all these cheques and it would be quite unjustified to make a deficiency payment for a three-week period. It would really be calling on the taxpayer to pay money from which the producer gets no advantage, except that he gets his money a little earlier. We will, without question, make a deficiency payment in April to cover the months of January,
The Address-Mr. Leduc February and March, and on the basis of the price during January, that deficiency payment would run somewhere between 13 and 14 cents.


Hazen Robert Argue: It could be wiped out if the price goes higher. That was my point.


Douglas Scott Harkness: Yes, but if the price went sufficiently high-up to 50 cents a dozen, say-there would be no justification for making any deficiency payments. It would have to go up to some price like that in order to wipe out the need for deficiency payments; and if it did so there would be, as I said, no justification or need for a deficiency payment because the farmer would have received a good average price during that period.


Hazen Robert Argue: How about the question as to grades?


Douglas Scott Harkness: With regard to grades, the premiums we pay, whether for hogs, cheese, or anything else, as well as deficiency payments and support prices, have always been on top quality only. To do anything else would be just to encourage the production of low quality products which we could not market anywhere, really, except for manufacturing use or something of that kind.


Hazen Robert Argue: Does the minister think the grade A medium egg is low quality?


Douglas Scott Harkness: This is becoming a series of questions; but here again, if a man has the right type of flock and provides it with the right type of food and care, the only time he will get grade A medium and small eggs is during the first couple of weeks the birds start laying.


Hazen Robert Argue: What about grade B eggs?


Douglas Scott Harkness: Bad quality.


Hazen Robert Argue: No, just bad grading. (Translation):


Mr. Rodolphe Leduc (Gaiineau):: Mr. Speaker, at the beginning of my remarks, I should like, first of all, to congratulate both the mover and the seconder of the address in reply to the speech from the throne (Mr. Morissette and Mrs. Casselman). Those two members performed their task most remarkably, especially the hon. member for Gren-ville-Dundas (Mrs. Casselman).
I should like also to congratulate the Deputy Speaker of the house on his appointment to that important position. I personally know the hon. member for Quebec South (Mr. Flynn) and I know he has all the required qualifications for the efficient discharge of his important duties.

The Address-Mr. heduc
Last fall, a noteworthy event took place in my constituency. I refer to the official opening of the first section of the Gatineau parkway. In fact in October last, the Prime Minister of Canada (Mr. Diefenbaker) officially opened that first section of the parkway, which one day will extend throughout Gatineau park. It is a marvellous parkway, leading from Gamelin boulevard in Hull to a distance of twelve miles into the Gatineau hills. That project, initiated a few years ago, has now been completed by the government.
The house undoubtedly knows that the Gatineau park development project is part of the national capital development project. I am sure the house will want that project to be completed as soon as possible. I am also convinced that the government realizes the importance of the project and that it will complete the development of that park as soon as the country's financial situation permits.
I should like also to call the attention of the house to an important announcement made last fall, when the government accepted the recommendations of the national capital commission with regard to the removal of Union station and the railway tracks to a point a few miles away from the capital, that is, beyond the Rideau river in the vicinity of Hurdman's bridge.
This is a wise policy on the part of the government and I should like to commend it for that because, in the N.C.C. report, where reference is made to railway tracks, Mr. Greber states that the removal of Union station and of the railway tracks from the centre of the national capital is the key to the whole national capital development project. It is not necessary to be an expert town-planner to know that in removing the station and the railway tracks from the centre of the capital, traffic conditions will, at the same time, be improved. After the railway tracks are removed, the city of Ottawa and the national capital commission will be able to build driveways, new roads and new streets on the present site of those tracks relieving congestion in that area and, at the same time, taking care of the traffic problem in the downtown area.
The project will be of benefit not only to the city of Ottawa but also to the city of Hull, because important railway sections will be eliminated, a new railway station will be built and railway tracks on the interprovincial bridge will also disappear. This will help in no 

small way to solve the traffic problem in the city of Hull and even to beautify this city.
I do not want to miss this opportunity to say a few words about the building of a new bridge between Ottawa and Hull. A new bridge is all the more urgent because it would not only serve Ottawa and Hull, but also my own riding, as well the Papineau and Labelle ridings, and finally all the northern ridings such as Abitibi county, whose people must cross one of those bridges when they come to Ottawa.
I know that the government favours the building of a new bridge and I hope that an agreement can be reached with the authorities, either provincial or municipal, so that this bridge may be built soon.
The other day I read with interest the speech delivered by the hon. member for Pontiac-Temiscamingue (Mr. Martineau). I was particularly interested in the part of his speech dealing with the deepening of the Ottawa river.
This matter is of great importance for the industrial development of my constituency and area. The chambers of commerce, that is to say the western Quebec union of chambers of commerce, have asked the government to consider the scheme, and today I only wish to renew their representations and ask the government to give serious and thorough consideration to the matter.
The matter of deepening the Ottawa river is a highly important matter. If, after giving it serious study, the government reaches the conclusion that the scheme would not be economic, I would ask them not to undertake it, because we already have enough costly programs to support or, to use a popular expression, the government has enough white elephants on its hands without taking up another one. But I should like to point out that the situation of the Ottawa and Hull area, for the last few years, has substantially changed from the point of view of industrial development. Several of those industries in the area are kept going or have developed, thanks to the natural resources of my constituency and of those of neighbouring constituencies I refer to forests.
Several mills produce hundreds of tons of newsprint daily, and those products are exported abroad especially to the American market, but also to European markets.
Those are basic industries in the area. They have been there for generations. For, if we

The Address-Mr. Leduc
know how to take care of the development of our forests, those industries will be kept going indefinitely.
But there are not only wood products and by-products to be exported from that area. There are also the products of the mines. Various mines have been developed lately in the district, more particularly the Hull iron mine where iron ore is extracted. That mine is now in full operation and its iron ore will have to be sent either into the province of Quebec or to other parts of Canada, if not to other countries abroad.
It is therefore important that low cost transport facilities be available to those new mines. There is also in my constituency an important mine operated by the Aluminum Company of Canada, the Farm Point mine which produces lime and magnesium oxide. That mine operates the year round and is bound to expand with the development of Canada and especially with the expansion of foreign markets, provided they are accessible to it. For that reason, transport rates are an important factor in the success of that concern.
There are also in the Lievre region considerable asbestos deposits which could be developed. There again, if transport facilities were provided, and especially if the costs of transportation were reasonable, those deposits could be developed. Therefore, I hope that the government will take into serious consideration the possibility of deepening the Ottawa river. And as I said a moment ago, if following such a study it proves to be profitable for the region and the country to undertake this work, I shall most certainly support the government in the implementation of this project.
Mr. Speaker, before going on with the more important part of my speech, since it is two minutes to one, may I call it one o'clock.
(Text):
At one o'clock the house took recess.


[Stage Direction]
AFTER RECESS

The house resumed at 2.30 p.m.
(Translation):
Rodolphe Leduc: Mr. Speaker, I now wish to discuss a general subject which is of great importance for the people generally. I refer to the tight money situation and the high rate of interest.
In addition to being a general subject of conversation, the matter is of particular interest for people who are broke because, in most cases, those are the ones who have to borrow and who must, therefore, have to pay a very high rate of interest. The matter is also of concern to the money lender, because he is happy whenever he can loan money easily and, more important, at a high interest rate.
The government claims it has no tight money policy, and I think it is sincere in making this statement. However, I think it would be much better if the government did have a policy on credit restrictions and on high interest rates.
In an editorial published on Tuesday, December 8,	1959, the Montreal Gazette
quoted certain excerpts from a speech delivered by Mr. Arnold Hart, president of the Bank of Montreal, to the general meeting of shareholders. I quote:
(Text):
Money is tight. And the tightness is causing many difficulties. But the Canadian economy simply could not endure another rush Into inflation.
On a recent tour of the United Kingdom and Europe, Mr. Hart was impressed with the way the countries overseas have faced their monetary problems. They have taken "the drastic, unpopular, but necessary steps to achieve stability of costs and prices."
North Americans must note their example and their challenge. If North America places itself on a "high cost plateau", it will be living in expensive isolation from the trade of the world.
(Translation):
Mr. Speaker, I also would like to quote the remarks of the Hon. John S. Bourque, minister of finance of the province of Quebec. During his budget speech last December, Mr. Bourque said, as published in Le Droit of December 10, 1959:
The minister of finance, Mr. Bourque, stated today that the Canadian government's monetary policy at this time, poses to public authorities problems which seem extremely difficult to solve. Provincial government, municipal corporations, as well as school boards have experienced very great difficulties in the long term financing of their necessary development work.
Credit restrictions, went on the minister of finance, are a source of concern for the management of our public institutions. From the point of view of our municipalities and schools the development of our social communities has created issues which have to be settled and solved.
The hon. Mr. Bourque, in his budget speech in the legislative assembly, stated that Canadian municipalities are trying to get the federal government to establish a fund to supply them with low interest loans through which they could more easily meet their obligations.
The present situation increases the problems thrown into the laps of the provincial governments

The Address-Mr. heduc which, unfortunately, do not have the necessary powers to solve them permanently.
Mr. Speaker, I completely agree with the hon. minister of finance of the province of Quebec. I am sure that all the hon. members are well aware that our municipalities and school boards are in a difficult position when it comes to negotiating loans needed to finance their administration.
In his speech in the debate on the address in reply to the speech from the throne, the hon. member for Levis (Mr. Bourget) has put on the record a list of municipalities and school boards that had to borrow money in 1959 at an interest rate ranging from 6 to 7.89 per cent.
I should like in my turn, in order to complete the picture, and with the consent of the house, to put on the official record a document showing a series of issues worth a few million dollars put on the market in 1958 by certain municipalities and school boards of the Ottawa-Hull district, and prove that, during this period, not one of those municipalities or school boards had to pay an interest rate higher than 6 per cent.
All these loans had been granted at rates varying from 5 to 6 per cent, and, I noticed in the table that, in my own riding of Gatineau, in 1958, two school boards managed to borrow at 5 per cent. Moreover, in the constituency of Papineau, a school board also succeeded in obtaining a loan at 5 per cent. These were the lowest interest rates of a whole series of issues.
May I have this table inserted in the record?
(Text):


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: Has the hon. member leave to insert in Hansard the list of municipalities to which he has just referred?


Mr. Palleil:: Will the hon. member indicate the source of the list?
(Translation):


Rodolphe Leduc: The source?
(Text) :
It was published in the Ottawa newspaper Le Droit, and was prepared by J. F. Simard, Limited, 18 Rideau street, Ottawa.
(Translation) :
This table shows the interest rate, the term of the loan, the yield, and, also, the provincial grant award in each case. It is similar to the one tabled by the hon. member for Levis, whose figures were for 1959. This one is for 1958 and serves to show the difference

between today's rates of interest and those asked in 1958.
(Text):
Mr. Pallet!: I gather it is not from an official source of any sort but is a list that has been put together by the particular newspaper.


Paul Joseph James Martin: On a point of
order, Mr. Speaker, the hon. member has clearly complied with the rules of the house. He was asked who was the author. The table was put out by a company in Ottawa and published by a very reputable newspaper.


Gordon Minto Churchill: I do not think it should
become the practice of the house to agree to the tabling of documents like this which are just summaries in newspapers. If it were some official or government source it would be a different matter, but otherwise we would have the tabling of a multiplicity of information of this sort compiled by newspapers or other organizations across the country.
(Translation):


Mr. Denis:: Mr. Speaker, the purpose of his request is simply to save time; in fact the hon. member could very well read the article from start to finish.
(Text):


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: Unless the house gives consent to the hon. member he cannot have this document inserted in Hansard. Of course I suppose he can quote from it to a certain extent, but without the unanimous consent of the house he may not have leave to have it inserted in Hansard.
(Translation):


Rodolphe Leduc: Mr. Speaker, I do not intend to read the whole table, for I know that hon. members read the newspapers.


Azellus Denis: Mr. Speaker, on a question of privilege.
I believe the hon. members have agreed that the hon. member for Gatineau should produce the list. I do not think he has heard the assent given by the hon. members sitting on the other side of the house.
(Text):


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: I have only heard objections from the other side. If the house is willing to give consent, of course the hon. member may do so.


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


Rodolphe Leduc: The tables are as follows:

(Translation):



AS A GILT-EDGE INVESTMENT

[Stage Direction]
We recommend the following stocks . ..
Ontario Catholic School Boards:
Interest Maturity
Budgetary
provincial
Yield	subsidy
$ 99,500 Catholic School Board No. 1 Armstrong, Beauchamp, Hilliard & 2 Henwood (Timislcaming District)	
54.500	Barry's Bay Catholic School Board (County of Renfrew)	
45.500	Cornwall Catholic School Board (County of Stormont)	
47.000	Catholic School Board No. 3, Cache Bay Township (District of Nipissing)	
38.500	Deep River Catholic School Board (County of Renfrew)	
124.000	Espanola Catholic School Board (District of Sudbury)	
40.000	Glackmeyer Catholic School Board Nos. 3 and 7 (District of Cochrane)	
19.000	Gloucester Catholic School Board No. 1 (County of Carleton)	
65.000	Haggart Catholic School Board No. 2 and Shackleton No. 3 (District of Cochrane)	
61.000	Korah Township Catholic School Board 3-5 (Sault-Ste-Marie)	
59.000	Massey Catholic School Board (District of Sudbury)	
3,500 Nepean Catholic School Board No. 12 (Ottawa suburb)	
110,500 Neelon Catholic School Board No. 1 (District of Sudbury)	
41.500	Catholic School Board No. 1 O'Brien (City of Kapuskasing)	
52.000	School boards 2, 3, 4, 7, 9, Sandwich West (near Windsor)	
52.000	Catholic School Board of St. Clair Beach (Essex county)	
30.000	Catholic School Board No. 1, Spragge, (District of Algoma)	
280.000	Sarnia Catholic School Board (Lambton county)	
66.000	Timmins Catholic School Board (District of Cochrane)	
(1) This issue is entirely paid by provincial and federal grants.
Ontario Municipalities
$ 12,000 Hanmer township Corporation (District of Sudbury, Ont.)	
6%	1965-1977	6.00%	90%0%	1961-1978	6.00%	75%6%	1975-1978	6.00%	01%6%	1961-1978	6.00%	75%5i%	1967-1976	5.50%	79% (1)6%	1961-1978	6.00%	89%0%	1959-1978	6.00%	87%6%	1959-1978	6.00%	57%6%	1959-1978	6.00%	90%55%	1965-1978	5.75%	89%6%	1961-1978	6.00%	87%55%	1976-1978	5.75%	65%6%	1961-1978	6.00%	75%55%	1967-1978	5.75%	80%53%	1965-1978	5.75%	50%6%	1961-1978	6.00%	90%6%	1961-1963	6.00%	90%53%	1959-1978	5.75%	00%6%	1959-1978	6.00%	50%6%	1962-1968	6.00%	
>
fd
Quebec Catholic School Boards
27.500	Ile-du-Calumet School Board (Pontiac county)	
137,000 Gatineau School Board (Papineau county)	
39,000 Papineauville School Board (Papineau county)	
49.500	Ste-Cecile de Masham School Board (Gatineau county)
5%
4i%
Wo
5%
4J%
5%
(*) This provincial percentage grant is based on cost of construction, and is payable in the first years of the issue.
Percentage of provincial grant on issue (*)
1965-1978	5.00%	84%1969-1977	5.00%	36%1962-	1968	4.75%1969-1978	5.00%	40%1963-	1968	4.75%1969-1978	5.00%	66%
On our own account, we are offering the above-mentioned securities in $500 and $1,000 denominations, subject to previous sale and confirmation. We pay expenses on all orders.
18, Rideau St. Ottawa, Ont.
J. F. SIMARD CO. LTD. Stock brokers
Tel. CE-6-5800 and CE-3-1311
cn
[Stage Direction]


The Address-Mr. Leduc
[Stage Direction]
The Address-Mr. Leduc
Mr. Speaker, I said a moment ago that I was not going to read such a long list of loans, but I should like to establish a comparison between loans granted to a nearby municipality, the municipality of Buckingham. I have here a copy of the newspaper Le Droit of December 17, 1959, in which we read that the Buckingham school board had floated debentures to an amount of $346,000; they were sold last December at an interest rate of 7.727 per cent. In the same article, it is said that in December 1955, the same board had sold bends for a total of $755,000 at 3 J and 4 per cent, that is a 15 year series at the price of 97.69, or a net cost of 4.165 per cent.
That goes to prove, Mr. Speaker, that interest rates went up considerably these last few years and it is precisely the interest rate which at the present time concerns provincial and municipal governments as well as school boards.
I could give many examples. I could tell of a particular case where a school board in my constituency sold debentures last August for the construction of a sixteen room school. The board needed $321,000. An architect was asked to draw up the plans. The board invited tenders, and last August let the contract for the construction of the school. But when the board went to the bank for a loan to finance the construction pending the sale of debentures, the bank flatly refused. That is when the school board approached the municipal affairs commission of Quebec because the school board did not want to sell its debentures last September, since the bond market was too unfavourable. Well, the official of the municipal affairs commission of Quebec could only suggest to the school board to wait until March or April of 1960 to place its debentures on the bond market.
Mr. Speaker, the debentures were not sold and the building is not going up because the school board does not have the money to finance the project.
That is the type of situation which is causing concern among the population, and not only the public organizations, but individuals and businessmen too. Businessmen and small tradesmen who have to borrow money today have a real hard time to find a lender, especially one who would be ready to loan money at reasonable rates. I know people who have paid 7, 8, 9 or 10 per cent interest on a well secured first mortgage loan.

Mr. Speaker, that money is hard to come by. I have read some remarks made by the governor of the Bank of Canada in a speech he made at Winnipeg; and with your permission, 1 should like to quote just one excerpt from that speech, which appeared in the Gazette of Wednesday, January 20, 1960. Mr. Coyne is reported to have made the following statement:
(Text):
Mr. Coyne devoted most of his time and attention to Canada's balance of payments position. And he made it clear that he was alarmed, even horrified, by the prospects of a deficit which will be about as large as the $1.3 billion figure chalked up in 1956 and repeated in 1957.
This sort of thing, he said sharply, might be all very well for a poor, underdeveloped country living "close to the poverty level" and trying desperately to raise living standards in a hurry. But a rich, proud country like Canada? Unthinkable, said Mr. Coyne.
-he said, "We have for at least five years been living beyond our means on a grand scale. Perhaps we have comforted ourselves with the thought that we were by this means increasing from year to year the total productive capacity of the Canadian economy by a sufficient extra margin to enable us before long to balance our foreign accounts, live within our expanding means and even at some time begin to pay off our foreign debt. But this has not happened. Exports are rising but imports are rising faster. We are not producing ourselves out of our import deficit but are getting in deeper."
(Translation):
Mr. Speaker, the governor of the Bank of Canada suggested to his listeners that the remedy consisted in living within their means. It is all very well to tell us to live within our means, but it seems to me that the government should start by setting the example. Now, if we are having monetary difficulties at present, it is precisely because of the government's monetary policy.
The country has been living beyond its means and the government since coming into power has spent much more than it could afford. Since the government came into power shortages have been piling up and, to make up those shortages, the government has to borrow money. The federal government is monopolizing the money supply, and that is the chief reason why provincial governments, city councils and school boards can no longer borrow, at reasonable rates, the money they need to finance worthwhile projects.
Through its trade policy, the government has also put the country in a serious predicament. During the election campaign, the government denounced our trade imbalance with other countries. What is the situation today? The government was supposed to solve this problem by diverting to European

countries our trade with the United States. The situation today is that our exports show a deficit of more than $1,300 million and, to make up for this deficit, the government has to spend its own money.
The government monetary policy results in deficits, therefore, the government should adopt, at least today, a policy designed to reduce to some extent the value or the premium of the Canadian dollar. At present, the 5 per cent premium-that is, the 5 per cent difference between the Canadian dollar and the American dollar-constitutes an export tariff equal to the difference in value between the Canadian dollar and the American dollar.
Such tariff places our exporters at a disadvantage; and that has considerably affected the export of our products.
We all know that Canada is a country which produces much more than it can consume, since it has to export at least 75 per cent of its production. Well, in order to be able to export those products, a foreign market is absolutely necessary. To find a foreign market, Canadian products must necessarily be in a position to compete with those of other countries on world markets. Now, I said that the high rate of interest on money helps increase not only the cost of living but the cost of products we have to consume here and that we should be exporting.
I would ask the government, which has competent economists at its disposal in the field of financial administration, to gather those people together, to take their advice, and thus be in a position to give the country a policy which will save us from disaster. Because we are now headed for ruin, and if the government does not take the necessary steps as soon as possible we shall run into disaster.
Some hon. Members:: No, no.


Azellus Denis: Oh yes, oh yes.
(Text):


Mr. G. W. Baldwin (Peace River):: Mr. Speaker, I am delighted to have this somewhat belated opportunity to extend my congratulations to you upon your selection to the post which you occupy. Those of us who knew you realized that you possessed the ability required for this position and you have, I have noted, had some opportunity during the course of the last week or ten days to display this talent and to indicate that the choice was an excellent one.
The Address-Mr. Baldwin
I should like also to congratulate the hon. member for Rimouski (Mr. Morissette) and the hon. member for Grenville-Dundas (Mrs. Casselman) who were respectively the mover and seconder of the address in reply to the speech from the throne. I feel that this was a most excellent choice, the blending of the scholarly and informative tone of the mover of the address with the wit, wisdom and human touch of the seconder. This showed that the choice was well made. I should like to say also although I have not the flair of my colleagues from the province of Quebec for this sort of thing, that it is a pleasure for us to have a member who is as pleasing to the eye as she is to the ear.
I listened with interest to the comments and observations of the opposition speakers in this debate. I want to make some comments with regard to the contributions made by hon. members from the official opposition. It is rather difficult at this stage of the debate because, in the first place, I do not think they have made too many points that merit any reply; and second, by this late date most of the speakers from the government side have dealt more than adequately with what the opposition speakers have had to say.
However, there is one fundamental weakness which I suggest appears in the type of criticism the opposition speakers have had to offer, what I would call the "yes, but" treatment. They very transparently give lip service to some legislation or some principle which they are not too happy about but which they are afraid to oppose. Therefore they say there is something wrong with it; that this is wrong or that is wrong, and then they detail a long, tedious and minor list of complaints not very relevant.
I think an example of that is the treatment accorded to the farm legislation recently enacted in connection with assistance to certain distressed areas in western Canada. It was true enough that the hon. members ended up by voting for these bills, but I felt from where I sat that they did so with reluctance and dislike, and were in fact dragged kicking and screaming to record their approval. I would suggest that in my opinion, if events had transpired differently on March 31, 1958 and, unfortunately for this country, the members sitting in the official opposition had formed the government, there would have been no legislation to provide assistance to the farmers of western Canada.
So far as the C.C.F. group is concerned, one distinct impression is obtained. The remarks of their party bring home to a listener a
566	HOUSE OF
The Address-Mr. Baldwin phenomenon apparent in so many western countries, namely the intellectual and policymaking bankruptcy and physical collapse of the socialist parties. In saying this I do so without in any way intending not to give full credit to the achievements of this party under their leaders in the last three or four decades, but I think we have to remember that this was a movement that arose and grew during, and probably because of, a transition in human progress and development; that is to say, the merging of the sharp lines of distinction in society to a larger, more homogeneous group with barely perceptible lines of distinction either socially or economically. The very fact that this has occurred at all, and that it occurred under the aegis and stimulus of our system of individual incentive, which is a proposition the socialists said was utterly impossible, has consequently branded them as false prophets and has destroyed the very pith and substance and the heart and soul of their movement.
I do not intend to suggest that this withering away of class lines and the general improvement in the welfare of the people has yet run its course, though certainly under the administration of the late Liberal government it was grinding to a halt. There is still much to do, and undoubtedly since June 1957 great progress has been made along those lines.
In this regard it is of interest to examine certain remarks made by the hon. member for Skeena (Mr. Howard), who in this debate took the opportunity to reiterate his indictment of our system of life. True enough, Mr. Speaker, it would be a very brave or foolish person who would suggest that all was for the best in the best of all possible worlds. Ours is a system of trial and error, and inevitably there will be mistakes and errors, some injustices and some inequities. As a matter of fact, when any amendment or act of parliament is passed it is an admission that there is prima facie, a defect in the existing law which needed to be attended to, or that an improvement required to be made.
But how much worse would the people and economy of this country have been if they had been held tight by the doctrinaire rigidity and strait-jacket control of our socialist friends. In any event, I think the hon. members of the C.C.F. party have come face to face with the facts of life about their continued existence. They realize that they are probably coming apart at the seams. All one has to do is read the newspapers and see what is happening in the United Kingdom. When you hear of the convulsions, the rumblings and the dissensions in the Labour party of the United Kingdom you realize exactly what is happening.


For this reason these knights in shining armour, probably like the Chevalier Bayard, "sans peur et sans reproche", but most certainly "sans program" and "sans future", are striving in every way to find a new policy which they hope will permit them to move over a little further to the left and replace the official opposition. Their method is obviously to say something about everything. The reflection of this is shown in the great list of resolutions, questions and bills which appears on the order paper of this house under their names, all in search of some popular cause which they hope will halt the decline and fall of the C.C.F. party.
As a private member I regard with some apprehension the deluge of words which will descend upon our heads during the course of this present session. In my innocence, Mr. Speaker, I would have thought that at the conclusion of the last session there would not have been one single member of the C.C.F. party who had an unuttered thought left about a single matter. It appears I was wrong. In any event, the measure of their desperation is shown by the fact that the variety and multiplicity of the subject matters they are dealing with is equalled only by the shallowness of the treatment they are according them.
There are two exerpts from the speech from the throne about which I would like to comment; in fact I shall direct the rest of my remarks to them. I think they should probably be taken out of context and read together. The first extract appears on page 2 of Hansard for January 14, and is as follows:
Economic and technical assistance to the less developed nations of the world continues to be needed both on humanitarian grounds and to provide the economic basis for peaceful and orderly progress in those nations.
The second quotation is a little further on:
The growing exports of various countries are presenting us with both increasing opportunities for trade and problems of competition.
May I say that I would like to see something more of an air of urgency, with apt words setting this out to describe this situation. I think the urgency of the first proposal can best be illustrated by paraphrasing what was said by a great United States president:
This world will not long endure with the majority of its inhabitants barely existing on starvation rations and the rest more than well fed.
To this end the economic and technical assistance which has been mentioned is of the most vital importance to the future peace and security of the world. But for this to be so I think we must keep steadily and clearly before us the fact that alms are distasteful, and that nobody likes relief. I hope

it will be accepted and stated in suitable language that what we expend now, as well as in the future, is not in such a category but is instead what might properly be called an investment in our friends and neighbours; those who are now, and who we hope will in the future, be our business associates and trading partners.
To keep in perspective what this might mean to us at a later date I want to refer again to the second statement from the speech from the throne:
The growing exports of various countries are presenting us with both increasing opportunities for trade and problems of competition.
I would remind you that "the growing exports of various countries" referred to in the extract are to a great extent exports from countries many of which a few short years ago lay exhausted by the extraordinary demands and effects of a great world war. These nations showed themselves capable of a remarkable recovery. True enough they had the assistance of the Marshall plan; they were in the happy position that they were able to replace the plant which had been bombed and destroyed with a plant which was new in its entirety.
That, of course, has been a tremendous advantage to them; but I would suggest there is surely no doubt that they have shown themselves capable of a tremendous recovery, and we must anticipate that in the same way the fierce, explosive forces which have led to the political emancipation of so many new nations already formed, and so many others now struggling to be born in Africa and Asia, must in a similar way lead in a very short time-a period much shorter than any of us contemplated-to a rapid and tremendous expansion of economic growth in those countries. I suggest that this economic expansion may in turn produce a tremendous surge of consumer demand which might well prove to be the great motivating factor in these countries over the next quarter century.
I perused a thoughtful and provocative article in the Christian Science Monitor a few days ago which suggested that the increasing awareness and pressure of consumer requirements in all the communist countries could be one of the most potent factors in compelling an acceptable form of coexistence. While I recommend this article to the house for consideration and examination, it is only with qualifications because this is an oversimplification of a very complex problem.
It would be foolish for us at this time, even believing this to some extent, to drop our guard or relax our defence. It would be equally futile not to recognize that we must expect, in the immediate future, a savage measure of economic competition from those
The Address-Mr. Baldwin communist countries. Nevertheless, as an increasingly large number of their people become exposed to the mellowing influences of a better standard of living we can expect that this, more than anything else, will enable something to be worked out, if for no other reason than that the alternative is probably too appalling. Thus the challenge will be not only to meet new competition, but also to meet the insatiable demand of the many hundreds of millions of people in this world for the goods and services which increased trade would provide for them, and a better way of life.
We must, however, take care that in trying to meet this demand we do not place any formidable obstructions in the way of free trading relations between nations.
The extent to which we in Canada can meet this potential challenge will be determined by the prudent and careful mobilization and use of our resources, and in this regard the wisdom of the present policy of national resource development initiated by this government is to be highly commended. There are many facets to this problem, and many areas are affected, but I naturally prefer to view it in the light of its application to the northwest part of Canada because I come from there, I know the area and I realize that it contains a reservoir of many of those commodities which the world will require before too many years have passed; also, I think, because it reflects the famous complaint of Cecil Rhodes-"so much to do, so little time".
I would emphasize that the particular district I have in mind is not necessarily restricted to my own constituency. As a matter of fact it probably embraces parts of four or five constituencies. It includes all that part of Canada lying west of the pre-Cambrian shield, east of the Rocky mountains, north of the 55th parallel of north latitude and extending to, and including, parts of the Great Slave lake area, a region containing some 200,000 square miles of territory.
This is a natural economic and geographic unit containing a substantial list of resources which grows in kind and in quantity with each inventory that is made. For example, the natural gas discoveries made in those portions of the provinces of Alberta and British Columbia and in the Northwest Territories suggest beyond any doubt that this area contains what may well be the largest reserves of natural gas on the North American continent. I have heard figures given by experts, not without substantial confirmation in so far as lumber and pulp are concerned, showing that the potential of the area is probably at least 200 million board feet a year and that it may well be as much as

The Address-Mr. Baldwin 300 million board feet, with pulpwood for at least three mills plus another at the city of Grande Prairie, plans for which are now reaching fruition, and others depending on the quality of the timber which will be available when steps are taken for the construction of the reservoir for the Peace river dam.
The waterpower to be developed on this great river at Hudson Hope canyon is rated at about five million horsepower upstream benefit. I pause here to suggest to those responsible for the negotiations for the development of additional sources of power in the west that nothing should be done which would improperly or unduly delay or prejudice this great scheme. I say this holding no brief for any group or organization which is concerned with this power development.
I think the interests of this country will be served by the integrated development of more than one source of power. Recently I read reports in the United States press of a meeting of the American association of mining and metallurgical engineers in San Francisco. At that meeting a number of papers were read by experts who met to discuss the situation with regard to the Paley report which, as hon. members know, was a report to the president of the United States with regard to materiel on the North American continent. These learned authorities concluded that so far as natural gas and electrical energy are concerned the Paley report had underestimated consumption and overestimated the resources which could be developed. In the result we are at the present time a considerable distance behind the timetable envisaged in the Paley report.
I would also commend to the government's attention the excellent analysis made by Dr. John Davis with regard to the suitability and the probability of developing the production of enriched uranium in Canada which pointed naturally to the fact that in his opinion this great source of waterpower, the Peace river, is one of the logical and potential areas where this development could take place.
With regard to agriculture, figures recently have been released following a helicopter survey conducted by the Alberta government. There is one small district alone in the northern part of my constituency where, before the figures were released, it was generally estimated that there were 300,000 acres of arable land available for development. Today, following that report, it has been established that there are over two million acres. This is not land that is going to be placed in wheat production. This is land capable of producing the forage crops, the grasses; broom grass, fescue and alfalfa. All these are products which are and will be required in our economy.


In that regard I am very happy at this time to pay tribute to the excellent way in which the hon. member for Humboldt-Melfort has consistently advocated the cause of the rape-seed growers in this country. It may be that in moving around, by a process of intellectual osmosis we pick up some of the better points of our neighbours. In any event I am happy to endorse and confirm what he has said on previous occasions about this commodity.
I have some figures which I will offer to the house and which in my opinion are quite significant. I will offer an analysis of the information I have obtained. We have in a few short years become the world's largest exporter of rapeseed. According to the 1958 statistics, taken from a circular of the United States department of agriculture dealing with world exports of fats and oils dated October 8, 1959, we have, within a decade, come to a position where we now export twice as much rapeseed as any other country in the world.
The importance of this lies in the fact that there are tremendous markets still available all over the world. The very timely article which my genial friend read this morning was a clipping from the Saskatoon Star Phoenix of last Wednesday which indicates that the French government is contemplating sending a mission to Canada to make certain enquiries. It is significant to remember that France was, after us, the second largest exporter of rapeseed.
It has been estimated by competent officials in the Department of Trade and Commerce-and I have taken some steps to confirm this-that we might in due course be able to put into production of rapeseed a total ranging between 1 million to 1J million acres. That will immediately take out of the production of wheat, a commodity which will be in surplus for some years, and place into the production of rapeseed, a commodity for which we have a market, a considerable number of acres. It could mean that we would have between $25 million and $35 million poured into the pockets of farmers at a most timely period during the farm year. For that reason I would commend to the government that it give very serious consideration to trying to replace the production of wheat with the production of rapeseed in appropriate areas.
As I said before, these resources exist. The problem is to work out without delay an acceptable and realistic method to make the best use of them. One needs only to survey the world population situation, in respect of which we are told that in 40 years the total will double to almost 6 billions, to appreciate the need for far-sighted planning. Take, for

instance, the United States, popularly regarded as one of the "have" nations, whose only problem with regard to agriculture appears to be the disposal of its high surplus. Yet there are interesting figures given in pamphlets and papers of the United States department of agriculture which contain projections of population and agricultural production from 1955 to 1975 and which suggest that at the conclusion of 1975, in order to keep pace with a normal increase in population, the United States alone will require agricultural production from 150 million additional acres of new agricultural land but they can see their way clear to actually bringing only approximately 25 million acres into production. That leaves them in the position where they will be required to find additional production by means of technological advances and scientific improvements in their agricultural industry.
Apropos of that I should say it has been brought to my attention that in the United States alone, one million acres each year are taken out of agricultural production as a result of the growth of cities and their suburbs. It is a truism to say that some of the most fertile agricultural land in the North American continent is in close proximity to the cities which usually grow up near that land. The land being taken out of production is, therefore, some of the best producing land on the continent. I suggest that while we have today what appears to be overproduction, this is a situation which may not be of too long duration.
This is the second of the two anomalies which beset and perplex the free governments of the west. First there is the attempt to balance on the razor edge between recession and inflation. Despite the lengthy statements we have heard from hon. members of the opposition with respect to the present situation I am confident from what I have heard and seen that this country has accepted the program of the Minister of Finance in his efforts to find a solution to this problem.
Second, there is the moral as well as the financial problem posed by our having too much in a world where many people have too little, not because they do not want more but because they cannot buy it. I am firmly convinced that finding the right answer to this conundrum is of the greatest consequence. Within the limits of fiscal ability in Canada, our duty as well as self interest must compel us to expand and gear up our national production plant to a point somewhat beyond what appears to be our capacity to absorb or to dispose of through normal commercial channels. We are in a unique position to do this, with a strong and stable industrial economy and a
The Address-Mr. Baldwin vast underdeveloped area waiting to be wakened and brought to life. But if we are to take advantage of the situation labour, industry, capital and government must work together in the closest harmony. Sacrifices must be made, risks accepted and rewards shared to an extent greater than what is presently acceptable if we are to take this tide in our affairs at the flood.
To conclude, I wish to list what I believe are some of the fundamental problems and issues and desirable solutions in connection with northern and national development. In the first instance the development of our resources must primarily and fundamentally be for the benefit of the people, on the simple basis, that the ultimate objective of any scheme of development must be for the benefit of mankind as a whole.
If Canada's progress is to continue evenly the time has now come when we must devote some attention to the problem of the decentralization of population and industry, not by interfering with existing establishments but by reasonable attempts to direct new immigration and even people who are native Canadians into these outlying areas. It seems to me we are too young a country to have already developed that middle aged spread which results from the undue concentration of people and industries into too small an area so that before too many years have passed we will find our problem of transportation, amongst others, will be increased accordingly and compounded. I think we are too virile a nation to accept as our motto, "Life, liberty and the pursuit of indolence". To avoid this, we must pursue our own course and our own destiny of national development and not become a pale and anaemic replica of our great neighbour to the south, and I say that without in any way disparaging that great country.
Our method of development must be such as to create opportunity for the ordinary man and our young people so that they will have access to the natural resources, to settle and establish themselves. It is not good enough to permit those great resources to be developed and exploited by a few greedy, grasping corporations and people. I saw something of this issue during the course of the summer when I appeared before the royal commission inquiring into the railway to the north. This commission is still sitting and, of course, the main issue is sub judice. But, I think, on a collateral issue I am entitled to say that I was shocked to find that here were the railway companies, large corporations, and the mining industry combined to advocate a measure of development which so far as I could see definitely had no place in it for the smaller individual. If there is to be an
570	HOUSE OF
The Address-Mr. Baldwin unearned increment resulting from the development of great public works at public expense it is essential that that unearned increment should be to the advantage of the many.
Apropos of this, I suggest that many of these resources, of which I have spoken, particularly minerals, are non-recurrent resources in the nature of capital assets, and it is the duty of the generation which does the development today to do so by a plan which, wherever possible, replaces the assets in the area from which they have taken them with people, with settlement and with industry. Anything less than this can only result in distortion, in a further accentuation of that present distortion in our national growth and economy of which I have already spoken.
The hon. member for Parkdale (Mr. Maloney), who made a very good contribution to this debate, dealt with the question of immigration and related it to the development of the northwest of Canada. There is indeed a most valid connotation between these thoughts. The whole broad picture of North American settlement consists of a series of moves from settled east to the open west, from the Atlantic to the Pacific, each move based on periods of intensive immigration combined, of course, with the natural movement of population resulting from industrial dislocation and both movements aided by the spirit of adventure and the desire of people to have access to new country. This no longer necessarily holds true today. The establishment of social justice at its present level, the slowing of immigration, and the dulling of the spirit of adventure, have sensibly diminished almost to a trickle the number of people who are strained through the industrial east and the few large centres west of the great lakes to the north country. Most of those who do come are civil servants and those who do not intend to make a permanent home there and do not make any permanent contribution to the country.
In 1929 and 1933 I was privileged to see what I believe to be the last great immigration of people in the old tradition, when thousands of people came to the Peace river country to found a new life in the country. They came by all kinds of vehicles to the extremities of the frontier. They went by rivers hundreds of miles to found new homes for themselves. These people, in the pattern of which I have seen so much, were people who came before, preceding rather than following the amenities of civilization, the roads, the telegraph lines, the utilities and schools, all these things to which we have become accustomed. I fear that we shall not see the like again; and if we intend to speed up and accelerate the program of national develop-


ment in a true sense, then it is time for us to translate into action measures to try and eliminate the disparities in the standards of living.
Finally, I think that we have now arrived in this country at the point where problems of development in areas where there is divided jurisdiction should be treated in a different manner than formerly. If you take the country I mentioned before, you find the jurisdiction divided between three agencies, namely the government of Canada as represented by the Northwest Territories council, the Department of Northern Affairs and National Resources, the government of Alberta and the government of British Columbia. As a result there has been in the past a failure to integrate development which has proceeded too often by fits and starts, by stops and reverses. There has been no opportunity to take an over-all, comprehensive bird's eye view of the problems which must be dealt with. Too often people of the Department of Northern Affairs and National Resources cannot see anything south of the 60th parallel; too often the provincial governments of Alberta and British Columbia have been unable to integrate their schemes of development.
As I said before, the country is an integral unit, an economic and geographic unit, and its progress and development have been hampered-


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: Order. I am sorry to interrupt the hon. member but I must inform him that his time has expired.
(Translation):


Mr. J. T. Richard (Ottawa East):: Mr. Speaker, at the beginning of my remarks, I should like to associate myself with several other members who congratulated you on your appointment to the high function of chairman of the committees of the whole. With them, I recognize that you have the necessary talent and culture to fulfil your task. That is why I am happy to assure you of my co-operation during your term as Deputy Speaker.
I should also like to congratulate the mover of the address, the hon. member for Rimouski (Mr. Morissette), already known for his brilliant scholastic record and already reputed as an economist and businessman. While I do not share his views, I can tell him that he has made an excellent speech and that we hope to hear him more often in the future.
(Text):
I should also like to congratulate the hon. member for Grenville-Dundas (Mrs. Cassel-man) in her absence. It is easy to be partial to the hon. member for Grenville-Dundas and

I am not trying to find words to excel those of others who have preceded me, but her elegant charm and disposition have made this house much more attractive. She is making a case, along with the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration (Mrs. Fairclough), and the hon. member for York-Humber (Miss Aitken) for the fact that we should have more lady members in this house, although their presence so far has not improved the parlour manners of some members in this house.


Mr. Bell (Carleton):: The hon. gentleman had a lady opponent once.


Jean-Thomas Richard: Yes, of the other party. I agree with the hon. member for Niagara Falls (Mr. Houck) that this debate should be shortened and the length of speeches reduced. It is a fact that any subject mentioned in the speech from the throne will be the subject of discussion when legislation is introduced at a later date and I think that members will have sufficient time to deal with specific matters then. But since it is the practice for everyone at this time to be an expert on all subjects I will not deviate from the rules of the House of Commons.
The speech from the throne, Mr. Speaker, was delivered in two stages, one delivered by His Excellency the Governor General and the other a little later through announcements by the Prime Minister (Mr. Diefen-baker). In both cases matters were left out which are most important, namely unemployment, defence, monetary policy and social legislation.
I do not want to deal at length with the problems of trade and unemployment because they have been discussed by many speakers. I want to say, however, that our trade situation needs to be overhauled. We should consider seriously the formation of a free trade area in North America and the West Indies. Too many of our tariffs operate against Canadian consumers. We cannot long stand enormous deficits such as we have had in the past year and we must do something to meet the threat of the European common market and Russian trade ascendancy.


Gordon Minto Churchill: Do you mean free trade with the United States?


Jean-Thomas Richard: There is a difference between totally free trade and a free trade agreement with the United States.


An hon. Member:: Explain.


Jean-Thomas Richard: I do not pose as an expert but I will give an example where our tariffs do not work very well. We have an automobile tariff in this country which is used by United States companies as
The Address-Mr. J. T. Richard an excuse to sell cars made in Canada at a price which includes the tariff and the sales tax.


Mr. Graffley:: How would a free trade agreement solve that?


Mr.   Ball@Carleton: Does the hon. member for Essex East (Mr. Martin) agree with you?


William Heward Grafftey: Explain what you mean.


Jean-Thomas Richard: The same manufacturers would make the cars here and sell them at the same price as they are sold for in the United States.


Richard Albert Bell: Has the hon. member cleared his views with the hon. member for Essex East?


Jean-Thomas Richard: I am speaking for myself and on this side of the house I think I am entitled to have my own opinions on several matters. Like hon. members who were on the other side of the house some years ago, I express my own opinions on certain subjects in an individual way.
Our exports are dependent at the present time to a great extent on the shipment of uranium, lumber and wheat, and already we know that in a few years our uranium shipments could decline very greatly and that we will suffer from aggressive competition by Russia in the wheat and lumber markets. We have priced ourselves out of world markets and have consequently imposed on our own citizens prices which they cannot bear.
The man who is squeezed is the little man, the small businessman and the low wage earner. The cost of living has gone up steadily and his profits or wages are not keeping up to the same level. There are hundreds of thousands of people in this country who are not protected by union agreements, who have no security and no one to defend them. While I am quite in agreement that we should do all we can to help people who are suffering in other parts of the world, I think the time has come to look closely into the problems of our own underprivileged classes in Canada. These people are also suffering from the tight money policy. They are the ones who pay the high interest rates to loan companies and the high prices for merchandise on credit. They are the people who have no money to make a cash deposit on a home. They are the people who are in need of more welfare assistance including a fully comprehensive health insurance plan.
We heard an announcement last Monday, Mr. Speaker, that a committee on defence will sit during the present session. I trust that this committee will discuss the policy as well as the plans which our country has for the defence of Canada. At the present

The Address-Mr. J. T. Richard time it is fair to state that we have no policy. We have a very well trained group of men and women in our armed forces but they are disarmed. They have no weapons, whether missiles, ships or planes, to wage a modern war or to defend against modern war. The government is building Bomarc bases when it is doubtful that the Bomarc will ever be used. The F-104G will not be available for some years to come and by that time may be much more obsolete than the Arrow would have been. As far as our navy is concerned, there is only the promise that we will train some of our men on a borrowed submarine. We have no choice other than to disarm at the present time and to be in favour of disarmament. No wonder we are taking the lead in this regard. In the meantime we must rely entirely on the decision of the people of the United States to defend their country on Canadian soil. There is very little comfort for those civilians who might be caught in a surprise attack because our civil defence is disorganized and the only consolation we have received is a suggestion that individuals should build their own shelters, the do-it-yourself plan.
While speaking in the debate on the address in reply to the speech from the throne last Monday the Prime Minister effectively answered a question I put to him earlier in the day and announced the formation of a royal commission, along the lines of the Hoover commission in the United States, to investigate the operations of the civil service of Canada. I view this with some misgivings because we who live in Ottawa have recollections of another similar investigation conducted by the union government after the first world war which spread fear and distrust among the civil service of the time and did nothing to enhance the prestige of the government or the operations of the civil service. Then, in the early part of the thirties, we had another investigation which only resulted in cutting wages and the firing of hundreds of civil servants. I can only hope that the personnel of the commission will be chosen from outstanding and able Canadians, that the inquiry will not necessarily follow the pattern in the United States and that the investigation in the several departments will not be of a type that may be likened to an inquisition. Above all, civil servants should be assured that their jobs are not at stake.
The determination of civil service salaries is, under law, a joint responsibility of the civil service commission and the government of the day. Section 11 of the Civil Service Act states:
The commission shall, from time to time, as may be necessary, recommend rates of compensation


for any new classes that may be established hereunder. and may propose changes in the rates of compensation for existing classes.
Although the commission proposes, it is the cabinet and parliament which dispose because the section goes on to say:
Proposed rates of compensation shall become operative only upon their approval by the governor in council, and, where any increased expenditure will result therefrom, when parliament has provided the money required for such increased expenditure.
Throughout the years, Mr. Speaker, the never ending process of civil service salary determination has resulted in the development and acceptance of certain principles which should guide those involved in the process, including the government itself. Succeeding governments have enunciated these principles. The Prime Minister said in May, 1958:
For many years it has been generally accepted that two main principles should guide the determination of salaries in the service. First, the salaries must be enough to do the job, that is, to attract enough of the right kind of men and women into the service and keep them in it. Second, they must be fair as between civil servants and people outside the service, the taxpayers if you will, which means that the salaries we pay for any class of work should be comparable with those paid by private employers for similar classes of work, taking into account the other terms of employment that are necessary to make a fair comparison. I think these principles should continue to guide us.
He also said on this occasion:
We are fortunate in having in the commission persons of outstanding ability and longstanding records of outstanding work as career civil servants with a wide variety of experience.
Fulfilling its responsibility under the Civil Service Act, in June, 1959 the commission recommended an increase for most classes of civil servants, averaging about 8 per cent. The recommendation for increase was based on a comparison of civil service salaries with those prevailing outside for similar classes of employment as of October 1, 1958. The recommendations included a suggestion that the increases be made effective and retroactive to the date on which the comparisons were made. It did not include, of course, or take into account any gains which will have been made by private employers since October 1, 1958.
Then, on July 9, 1959, in answer to a question the Minister of Finance (Mr. Fleming) informed the House of Commons that he had received the recommendations of the civil service commission, but that the matter was still under discussion between the civil service commission and the minister. Then, on October 13, the Minister of Finance, without prior warning, told the joint action committee that the government would not implement the commission's recommendations. He

stated in the press release issued on the same day that, even apart from financial considerations, the government was not prepared to accept the commission's recommendations. Following a prior announcement by the Prime Minister in May, 1958, which I have quoted,
I believe that the civil servants of Canada had a right to expect last year that the recommendations of the pay research bureau, which was established by the present government, and the civil service commission, should have been granted and made retroactive to October, 1958.
The figures contained in the report of the dominion bureau of statistics on industry salaries, as of October, 1958, show the average weekly salary to be $93.74 as compared to $72 for civil servants. Comparable studies of individual salary classes have already been placed on Hansard by the hon. member for Hull (Mr. Caron), and I shall not repeat them at this time. The government owes it to its employees, to take the necessary steps to grant the recommended increases immediately.
I should repeat that since October 9, 1958 wages in industry have increased. Even if the increases were granted, civil servants' salaries would still lag behind industry.
The government in reaching its decision seems to have decided to accept the political risks involved in the interests of a better balanced budget, yet it seems doubtful that it is really in the public interest to hew to a policy which identifies the government as a cheap employer and scares away from government service those persons who feel that their skills are of a high standard and worth the going rates. The enunciated principles of pay determination in the public service are the only principles by which Canada can maintain a high calibre civil service. Civil servants do not want to strike, nor should they strike, but I believe that the government will have to consider immediately granting to civil servants bargaining rights such as exist in industry. Surely, employees of the crown are entitled to settle their grievances in the same manner as municipal employees, and to talk across the table to their employer without fear or favour when it comes to a matter of wages or conditions of work. I should like also to remind some members of this house that all civil servants are not in Ottawa, but that less than a third of the total number live in this area. Most government employees live in other parts of the country. In my opinion, it would be well for many other members of this house to reassess their thinking.
I should like to say a word on behalf of pensioned civil servants, widows and dependents of deceased civil servants. A year ago the Minister of Finance announced a plan giving a supplementary payment to a
The Address-Mr. J. T. Richard certain group of pensioners. This was a step in the right direction, but hardly enough because the cost of living has gone up since that time. I should hope that the minister would find a way to increase these pensions by at least half the amount already granted. The cost of the plan has been very low. It is not a permanent charge since it applies only to a limited number of civil servants who retired before a certain date.
May I be allowed now, Mr. Speaker, to say just a few words about trading stamps.
I agree with what was said by the hon. member for York-Humber (Miss Aitken) during this debate. She said that we in this parliament believe in free enterprise and in the minimum of government interference with the rights of individuals to buy and sell in the open market. I agree with her also when she said that the women of this country are not easily fooled; that they are as intelligent as the merchant who is selling to them and as intelligent as the women of other countries. They are as shrewd and as astute buyers as you will find anywhere. I think that is a well deserved tribute to the women of our country, and I was glad to hear the hon. member for York-Humber say these things during her speech a few days ago.
I should like to say a few words now about the national capital plan. I hope that the Minister of Public Works (Mr. Walker) will find time to give this matter his immediate attention. He should find excellent sites on Sussex street for the erection of some fine buildings. There is a very sore spot now right next to the Connaught building where the income tax department is lodged in a wooden shelter. This should be torn down as soon as possible and replaced with an edifice in keeping with the area. I ask the Minister of Public Works also to state formally that the government is ready and willing, at any time, to put up a very substantial share of the cost of erecting a bridge between Ottawa and Hull. I quite agree that we have had no assurance from either of the provincial governments to date that they are willing to share in the expense of erecting such a bridge. However, may I repeat that in my opinion the whole cost of the bridge, excluding the approaches, could well be borne by the federal government.
I should like also to ask the Minister of Public Works to instruct the national capital commission and Central Mortgage and Housing Corporation, in co-operation with the city of Ottawa, to plan the development of the lower town area around Sussex street in such a way that the residents will not be displaced. As Minister of Public Works I trust also that in the distribution of moneys to be made available for housing loans he will draft

The Address-Mr. J. T. Richard regulations which will encourage the money to be used for the construction of homes within the reach of those who need them most. There are too many of the loans just now directed to the construction of houses which cost $16,000 or more. The man who really needs a house today is looking for a home which he can buy at a price ranging between $7,500 and $12,000, with a minimum deposit of about $500. He cannot find such a house at the present time.
In the speech from the throne, it was announced that certain revisions would be made to the Expropriation Act. For 12 years I have been the lone voice in this house speaking once a year about the antiquity and inequity of the Expropriation Act in its application. I hope that the amendments which the Minister of Justice (Mr. Fulton) will introduce will not make it easier for the government to expropriate at a cheaper price. There are certain expropriations which, of course, are necessary. However, it must be realized eventually that expropriation in itself is not only a hardship to the owner but an impingement on his civil right to property. Expropriation should be exercised with great fairness, even favouring the party expropriated. I am thinking particularly of those expropriations that have to be made for the national capital plan. I trust that we will have an opportunity of looking at the contents of the bill at an early date before it is discussed, and that it will reveal that a thorough assessment has been made of the rights of citizens who are involved in expropriation proceedings.
I cannot close without another plea for a Canadian flag, Mr. Speaker. Our 100th birthday is an excellent time to step forward with a distinctively Canadian flag, one which has meaning for all our citizens and under which we can all unite. It could be a symbolic fulfilment of nationhood. During the session of 1950, on April 17, I had the privilege of introducing a resolution to that effect. Strange as it may seem to some of the new members, in the presence of the three leaders of the parties in the house at the time, the Right Hon. Mr. St. Laurent, the Hon. George Drew, and Mr. Coldwell, the motion was agreed to unanimously, but nothing came of it. Other similar motions since that date have been talked out. I am sure that if a referendum were held at this time throughout the country the great majority of our people would favour a truly distinctive Canadian flag. At the same time, we should formally recognize "O Canada" as our national anthem. It is now sung everywhere in this country, and when it is played at large gatherings and meetings all Canadians stand up with pride. Let us, Mr. Speaker, pledge ourselves to give 
Canada a flag and national anthem on the one hundredth anniversary of confederation.


Mr. E. L. Morris (Parliamentary Secretary to the Postmaster General):: Mr. Speaker, in rising to participate in this debate on the address in reply to the speech from the throne I would wish that I might be possessed, if only for a few moments, of that characteristic felicity of phrase which has been so evident throughout your term, sir; and also, if I may say so, in the speech of the mover of the address in reply, the hon. member for Rimouski (Mr. Morissette), and in the speech of the seconder, the hon. and gracious member for Grenville-Dundas (Mrs. Casselman).
It is my wish, Mr. Speaker, to speak for a few moments about a matter affecting the whole House of Commons having to do with provincial representation in this House of Commons. The British North America Act of 1867 provided that in respect of representation in this house the province of Quebec should enjoy 65 members, and that the other provinces would be entitled to a number of members representing the quotient resulting from dividing the population of Quebec by 65, and then taking each of the separate provincial populations and dividing it by the quotient so resulting.
The act also provided that on the completion of the decennial census of 1871, and at each subsequent decennial census-the next is to occur in 1961-the representation of the several provinces should be readjusted from time to time provided that the proportionate representation of the provinces as prescribed in the act was maintained. This formula, namely the province of Quebec having the fixed number of 65 members, and to each other province a number being assigned as its population compared with the division of the quotient of 65 into Quebec's population, prevailed in 20 general elections, until and after the 1945 federal general election.
In the session of parliament in 1946 the House of Commons adopted a resolution which stated that the effect of the provisions of the British North America Act relating to representation had not been entirely satisfactory in that proportionate representation of the provinces according to population had not been maintained, and that a more equitable apportionment of members to the various provinces would be effected if readjustments were made on the basis of the population of the provinces taken as a whole. Accordingly, the British North America Act was amended in 1946 to provide a new rule to regulate the representation in the House of Commons. Representation was therein fixed as follows.
The membership assigned to each province shall be computed by dividing the total population of

the provinces by two hundred and fifty-four and by dividing the population of each province by the quotient so obtained.
This rule, Mr. Speaker, employed in the redistribution of representation made in 1947, was effective in the general election of 1949.
From 1867 to 1945, and inclusive of the general election in 1945, the province of Quebec had 65 members in the House of Commons. Ontario's membership varied as its population varied, from 82 rising to 92; but at the end of the term in 1945 it was perhaps coincidental that Ontario's representation in the House of Commons was identical, 82, with its representation at the time of confederation, and that Quebec's was identical with 65.
The effect of the revision of 1946 which provided the rule that the membership should be computed by dividing the total population of all provinces by 254, and then dividing the population of each province by the quotient so resulting, was to increase Ontario's representation by only one seat, to 83, Quebec's representation from 65 to 73, Nova Scotia's from 12 to 13, and British Columbia's from 16 to 18. Alberta remained unchanged at its then figure of 17; Saskatchewan declined from 21 to 20, and Manitoba declined from 17 to 16.
After the completion of the last decennial census in 1951 it became apparent to the then members of parliament that, as a result mostly of a wartime shift in population, a substantial reduction in the representation of the province of Saskatchewan would take place if the 1946 rule continued to be imposed. Accordingly, in an effort to eliminate sharp reductions from one decennial census to another, the British North America Act was again amended to provide representation on a changed basis. Rule 1 of subsection 1 of section 51 was amended to read:
-there shall be assigned to each of the provinces a number of members computed by dividing the total population of the provinces by two hundred and sixty-one and by dividing the population of each province by the quotient so obtained-
Rule 3 said:
Notwithstanding anything in this section, if upon completion of a computation under rules one and two, the number of members to be assigned to a province is less than the number of senators representing the said province, rules one and two shall cease to apply in respect of the said province, and there shall be assigned to the said province a number of members equal to the said number of senators.
Rule 5 said:
On any such readjustment the number of members for any province shall not be reduced by more than 15 per cent below the representation to which such province was entitled under rules one to four of this subsection at the last preceding readjustment of the representation of that province, and there shall be no reduction in the rep-
The Address-Mr. Morris resentation of any province as a result of which that province would have a smaller number of members than any other province that, according to the results of the then last decennial census, did not have a larger population.
Mr. Speaker, the principal effect of these new rules is that representation of any province shall not be reduced by more than 15 per cent at any one readjustment subject, however, to the qualification that the rule shall not operate in such manner that the representation of a province with a smaller population shall be greater than any province with a larger population.
Subsequently parliament enacted a new measure. "An act to readjust the representation in the House of Commons, 1952." Section 2 provided:
Eighty-five members of the House of Commons shall be elected for the province of Ontario, seventy-five for the province of Quebec, twelve for the province of Nova Scotia, ten for the province of New Brunswick, fourteen for the province of Manitoba, twenty-two for the province of British Columbia, four for the province of Prince Edward Island, seventeen for the province of Saskatchewan, seventeen for the province of Alberta, seven for the province of Newfoundland, one for the Yukon territory, and one for Mackenzie district of the Northwest Territories, thus making a total of 265 members.
It is this basis which was utilized in the elections of 1957 and 1958.
The application of the rule of proportional representation since confederation has produced a strange result in the Atlantic provinces. Frequently in the past, and in this parliament, members from the Atlantic provinces, happily for us, joined frequently now by hon. members from other provinces, have spoken eloquently and persistently about some of the so-called disabilities of the Atlantic provinces. Generally speaking, all political parties have acknowledged to some degree or other that the Atlantic province area inherited from the British North America Act a sequence of disabilities. We are not agreed as to the nature of these disabilities, nor are we agreed as to the extent of them, but all political parties in Canadian history have at one time or another acknowledged the presence of some adverse effect of confederation upon the Atlantic provinces.
In the working out of the basis of representation in the House of Commons, we in the Atlantic provinces feel that not only are we asked to support whatever degree of disability has come to us through confederation but that we have also, in fact, been asked to bear it with fewer and fewer members.
It is now said it is likely that the decennial census of 1961 will produce a further diminution in the representation of my province- Nova Scotia-and that we will return 11
57S	HOUSE OF
The Address-Mr. Morris members instead of 12. Already the provinces of Prince Edward Island and New Brunswick are required to have recourse to the arbitrary standard of the number of senators as a means of determining the number of members in the House of Commons. Prince Edward Island would not be entitled to four members in this house if any other rule were applied. My own constituency of Halifax has a population nearly two and a half times that of the entire province of Prince Edward Island, but Prince Edward Island, thankfully, can have recourse to the rule which says that its representation shall not be diminished below the number of senators, and because it has four senators-two of these seats acquired at the time of its entrance into confederation from Nova Scotian senatorial representation, and two from New Brunswick, because this was the formula arrived at in 1867 when Prince Edward Island entered confederation, that these four senators would be drawn two from one province and two from another-it must have a minimum of four members.
I say it brings no great credit to successive governments since confederation that the only areas in this whole country which have suffered a diminution in membership have all been in the Atlantic provinces so-called. In 1867 when Nova Scotia joined confederation we had 19 members. In 1872, 1874, 1878, 1882, 1887 and 1891 we had 21 members. We have gone steadily down since then. We are down now to 12 and they say we shall go down to 11. However, we cannot go below 10 unless you change the rule of a floor as to numbers dependent on the number of senators. New Brunswick had 15 members at the time of confederation, which number rose to 16 and is now down to 10. Prince Edward Island had six members starting in the general election of 1874. The number never rose above six and the province has had four seats since 1904, a number which was supported during part of that time by the number of its senatorial seats. Newfoundland has seven members and its representation could be reduced by one; it would amount to six based on the number of its senators.


Mr. Browne (St. John's West):: Our population is growing too fast.


Edmund Leverett Morris: The Minister without Portfolio (Mr. Browne) interjects that the population is growing too fast. We are delighted to hear that the Newfoundland membership will be seven. We would be delighted if it went up to 20, or 30 or 50. The point I am making is that the historic Atlantic provinces area shows a tendency which flies in the face of his observation. The policies deriving from confederation-the things we


have done as a nation-have produced a diminution in our population relative to the rest of the country, so our representation has declined. In 1867 Nova Scotia and New Brunswick together had 34 members; now they have 22. The burden of my case is simply this; to some degree or other, we in the Atlantic area have suffered the disabilities of confederation, and subtly and stealthily the things we could do to contend with these disabilities have been restricted because our representation in the house itself is being gradually taken away from us.
Our request from the Atlantic area is: do not talk to us about diminishing our numbers. Give us back the members with which we entered confederation. Oh, the hon. member for Bonavista-Twillingate (Mr. Pickersgill) may smile. It is amusing for him, perhaps, to know that the diminution of which I have been speaking took place under Liberal government. But it is not amusing to us, to those who have to contend with it.
In the Atlantic provinces area we have many forces with which to contend. I do not suggest that a change in the Representation Act, chapter 334 of the acts of 1952, is going to be made as a result of this one speech, but I do say that this should be done. In the last session, the hon. member for Port Arthur (Mr. Fisher), about whom I shall have something to say in a moment, drew to the attention of this house that we were going to suffer the loss of yet another member. I wish to say simply this; we do not wish to suffer the loss of another member. We would like to have back the seven members we have lost. If the province of Saskatchewan, or any other province, enjoys a sufficient representation, then we agree with this. But we do not think that the drop in representation should be so precipitate as to reduce it by more than 15 per cent in one decennial period. What, in the long run, is the difference between a slow wearing away and an accelerated wearing away in a 10-year period?
Mr. Speaker, may I have the unanimous consent of the house to place on Hansard for the convenience of hon. members a table showing the representation in the House of Commons as at federal general elections from 1867 to 1958. I might say that this is an exact copy of the table which appeared in the Canada Year Book, page 50, with the single addition that I have entered the year 1958, since the representation was identical with 1953 and 1957.


Mr. Speaker:: Has the hon. member leave to have the table referred to by him incorporated into the Hansard record?


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


Edmund Leverett Morris: The table is as follows:



REPRESENTATION IN THE HOUSE OF COMMONS AS AT FEDERAL GENERAL ELECTIONS 1867-1958

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1925	1935	19531874	1887	1896	1908	1917	1926	1940	1957Province or Territory	1867	1872 1878	1882 1891	1900 1904	1911	1921	1930	1945 1949	1958Ontario	82	88	88	92	92	92	86	86	82	82	82	83	85Quebec	65	65	85	65	65	65	65	65	65	65	65	73	75Nova Scotia	19	21	21	21	21	20	18	18	16	14	12	13	12New Brunswick	15	16	16	16	16	14	13	13	11	11	10	10	10Manitoba	-	4	4	5	5	7	10	10	15	17	17	16	14British Columbia	-	6	6	6	6	6	7	7	13	14	16	18	22Prince Edward Island	-	-	6	6	6	5	4	4	4	4	4	4	4Saskatchewan	-	-	-	-	4	4	10	10	16	21	21	20	17Alberta	-	-	-	-	7	12	16	17	17	171-	-	-	-	-	-	1	1	1	1	1	1	Mackenzie River, N.W.T	1Newfoundland	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	7	7TOTALS	181	200	206	211	215	213	214	221	235	245	245	262	265
cn
The Address-Mr. Morris
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The Address-Mr. Morris
Mr. Speaker, may I thank hon. members in all parts of the house for agreeing to having the table included.
I should not have made any plea for any change in representation in this house unless I had considered what it might be that members of parliament might be doing here. Certainly if we had 12 members from Nova Scotia who did not perform any useful purpose for Nova Scotia there would be little point in asking that they be returned to their original number. I therefore recently reflected on the functions of a member of parliament as we on this side of the house conceive those functions to be. In doing so I have been interested in observing the itinerant views expressed on this matter by the hon. member for Port Arthur who I note has recently been described in the press as the poor man's Socrates.
I should like to discuss for a few moments the impressions expressed by the hon. member for Port Arthur relating to members of parliament. We were all at home in our constituencies doing those grubby little things which I know the hon. member finds unequal to membership in this house when we read that we in the House of Commons are all phonies. This was a remark attributed to the hon. member in an address at Victoria College. But our verbose friend did not confine himself to describing members of the house as phonies. He went a little further and said that we had a phony British North America Act. He said, further that we had a phony constitution. He then went on to say there were some phony aspects to the royal tour. The royal party will be overjoyed at hearing that. He said that members of parliament who went out to their constituencies and had pictures taken with the royal couple were engaging in a phony activity. He said that he stayed away. I for one did not stay away. I thought the royal couple performed a valuable service in visiting my constituency and I doubt if many hon. members feel differently. I did not, however, have my photograph taken with the royal pair.
The hon. member concluded his remarks by saying that a university education enables one to spot people who are phony. I thought to myself how thankful I must be that I have had a university education because now I can spot phonies. Apparently we all stand indicted. In the view of this hon. gentleman we are all phonies with a phony constitution, hosts to phony royal visits and having a phony stance. But we are not quite finished with this dialogue of penance. Apparently members of parliament are something more than phonies.
Last Thursday the hon. gentleman divested himself of a few more views. He said that
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last session he had raised in the house a grievance-as we all recalled-and	had
spoken for higher salaries for members of parliament. I remember the hon. gentleman's speech very well. I recall how surprised I was at learning that the century of the common man was to be ushered in by professing socialists who were decrying the fact that an annual salary of $10,000 was not sufficient. This is not unlike Stanley Knowles launching the new party of the common man by organizing a dinner in the Chateau Laurier at $50 a plate. This is going to be some century, and I want to be around to witness the era of the common man in which his spokesman in this house cannot get by on a salary of $10,000 a year.
But the hon. gentleman said also that he had some second thoughts, that he now recognizes that there are some nuances in connection with the inferior salary. There probably are some nuances in connection with the salary of members of parliament. One of the nuances he mentioned was that in his opinion most Canadians thought members of parliament were overpaid. That would be a nuance if it were true. I might say that if the Canadian people do not think so it is not, in my opinion, in any way attributable to the fact that the hon. gentleman has refrained from trying to inculcate this suspicion among them. His going around the country describing members as phonies would scarcely encourage people to give us a bigger salary. But there is more to it than this. We cannot be confined just to phonies.
Last Thursday the hon. gentleman informed us that he finds our present parliamentary procedure decadent, so we all stand indicted as a generation of vipers. We are phonies, people caught up in a decadent system. And finally-this is perhaps the harshest touch of all-the hon. member told a member of the parliamentary press gallery during the last recess that an examination of the records of the library of parliament would reveal that this is one of the most illiterate parliaments Canada ever had. So you go down to the parliamentary library and you count up the number of entries in the charge book against your name and if you have not a certain number of entries you are illiterate. According to this hon. gentleman, who says he has a university education and is now in a position to spot phonies, we are now to measure literacy in this country among members of parliament solely on the basis of the number of books that have been charged to our names on the record of the library of parliament.
I cannot resist commenting that I come from a part of the country that was well established at a time when Port Arthur was

just a small, pleasant, leafy Ontario town and there we do not measure literacy on the basis of how many books you take out of the library. We do not even measure university education on that basis nor do we conceive the purpose of a university education to be to equip one to recognize phonies. I thought at the time I heard about the hon. gentleman's philosophy how nice it must be to be a total ideologist, a man who has a doctrinaire answer for everyone, a criteria for literacy.
I urge my fellow hon. members of this house who do not want to be tagged as phonies, illiterates or as decadent by the hon. member for Port Arthur to rush into the parliamentary library. To them I say, do not order any particular books, get them by the pound. Make sure that at the end of the session when you go home you have more books charged out to your discredit than you have ever had before. Go back among your people and say, "I have been talking to a university graduate and this how you measure literacy."
The hon. member during the recess must have encountered a number of nuances because he announced that he was not going to come back here. I notice he did not answer the Leader of the Opposition (Mr. Pearson) when that question was put to him the other day. The hon. member did not take that opportunity to confirm his intention. However, during the recess he did announce that he was not coming back, that he would not run again. "Atlas Shrugged". He had been to Ottawa, he said, and if I may paraphrase:
In the house, the M.P. is expected only to stay awake and be ready to pound his desk when his leader makes a speech. Most of his energy and practically all his thought is to be devoted to attending the fall fairs in his riding, mouthing greetings to local Kiwanis clubs-
How the Kiwanians will love that. I continue:
-and shaking hands with home town voters.
So, if you do anything other than contemplate the great problems of the world when you are elected as a member of parliament you are not doing your job at all but are just politicking. No sense of duty is allowed to creep into the hon. member's suspicion. There is no sense of realization that there are other hon. members of this house with small children and families whom they dearly miss but who remain here and do their job out of a sense of duty.
Duty is a sweet word which has apparently gone out of the social vocabulary. He wants us to be turned into a nation of government workers. He announced between sessions of parliament that he did not think this imposed socialism on the Canadian 79951-0-37J
The Address-Mr. Morris Labour Congress was a good idea. He had some quotations to that effect. He repeated them the other day. He spoke in the house in this debate of other people who have an idea of the party, and then he went on to say, as reported at page 439 of Hansard:
I do not argue that this has gone down to the grass roots yet.
What we are witnessing here is the laying on of a political party. Somebody gets the idea when he is defeated for the House of Commons, and so he goes out and says to the labour movement, "Here, I am going to lay upon you a political organization, not from the grass roots up but from the top down," and then they come into the House of Commons. I must say, because I stand indicted, I am decadent, I am obviously illiterate; I do not take as many books out of the library as the hon. gentleman. I come here and I sit down; I come from a province where representative government started in this country, where responsible government started in this country, and I am to be told that I do not know what parliamentary democracy is. What it is, I am told, is the laying on of a political party upon unsuspecting, unwilling millions of workers.
I say to the hon. gentleman this: you want us to be turned into a nation of government workers, evangelizing every corner of this land with the latest information on subjects such as hog raising, pedagogy, vegetable canning, road making and carpet laying. You want us to become a nation of civil servants waging eternal war upon hookworm, patent medicines, white slavery, foot-and-mouth disease, cholera infantum, adultery and rum.
You want us to have civil servants running around chastising Canadians for having these things and I say we want no part of it; we want no part of an imposed party organization. Too many phonies in parliament, too many phonies outside parliament, think that parliamentary democracy is held in the close embrace of a few wizards who have spent a few years in parliament and who profess knowledge of parliament and its ways and then go out and lay upon people an imposed political organization. Those people managed to wreck the only evidence of a C.C.F. party we had, and they will probably wreck the labour movement as well. You want to impose a socialist party; we had an imposed party of another kind. Then, I say, if I disagree with this, surely the test of illiteracy is yet to be seen.
Mr. Speaker, who am I? A crude Tory backbencher stands revealed in all his shame as a phony, a phony who happens to love parliament, who has a fondness for the constitution, who has an affection for the royal
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The Address-Mr. Pickersgill family, who has a university education bought for him by the sacrifice of his parents. Who am I to say what is a phony? I stand indicted. I am a member of a decadent assembly; I must bow to the superior intelligence of those dreamy socialists who know all things. I am obviously illiterate because when I love a book I read it, as my finances allow I buy it; I cherish it and I do not make entries in the parliamentary library record in order to impress myself upon itinerant socialists. But, Mr. Speaker, now that I stand revealed as all other members on all sides of the house are for what we are, phonies, decadent and illiterate, may I say that speaking for my province, I understood that the people of Upper Musquodoboit sent me here to look after their troubles, because if I do not look after them and if I do not get a mail service at Sheet Harbour I can tell you for sure that the hon. member for Port Arthur will not get them for me because he says he cannot even grub for his own constituency. He has got to be working on the world level.
When we retire at night in the backwoods of Nova Scotia unversed, unsung, unrepresented and unheralded, we sometimes keep by our bed two volumes, one of which is the bible, well-thumbed from Tobias to Mark and Matthew.
According to the standards of literacy recently endowed upon this House of Commons, if you take the bible out of the parliamentary library you must get some other books as well. It is not sufficient to guide your life any more by the bible. Socialist standards of literacy require you to read it with a reasonable degree of unconcern and judge its lessons against other books. But we in Nova Scotia, being illiterate as we are, get our sustenance out of the bible; we get a little technical comfort from the sayings of Sam Slick of Slickville, the itinerant watchmaker who, you might say, espoused a Conservative trade in a Liberal way. My idea of a degree of literacy is founded on one remark of Sam Slick. I know it will be new to the nation but I rise to do the very best I can to reveal the best I can. It is this. I might say I give it verbatim and unexpurgated. Sam Slick said one day: "Whenever you make an impression on a newspaper man, stop. Your reasonin' and the details may ruin you."
John Whitney Pickersgill: Mr. Speaker, I hope the senior hon. member for Halifax (Mr. Morris) will not expect me to follow him in his grubbing in Upper Musquodoboit, but I am quite ready to match him wharf for wharf any time he wants to.


I have risen today, to support the amendment moved by my leader. I do not intend to read it all because it is repeated every day in the Votes and Proceedings, but I want to draw attention particularly to one part of the amendment, and I am leaving out the words that I do not intend particularly to deal with:
This house is of the opinion that the failure of the government to provide full and accurate information, is a major cause of the confusion and uncertainty that prevails-
I am going to have something to say about this failure to provide full and accurate information about the public affairs of this country that has characterized the government of this country since June 21, 1957, and which is growing worse with every television appearance of the leader of the government. But before I say anything about the appearances of the leader of the government, that is to say, the nominal leader of the government, I wish first to say that I intend to deal with the real speech from the throne.
The real speech from the throne for this session was not delivered by His Excellency in the other place, and it was not written by the Prime Minister (Mr. Diefenbaker). I hope it will be no disrespect to His Excellency if I speak of the real speech from the throne which, with his usual modesty, was written by the Minister of Finance (Mr. Fleming) seeing himself as prime minister and to make doubly sure, with his usual modesty, delivered by the Minister of Finance apparently envisaging himself as Governor General, before the Canadian Club of Toronto. With his usual modesty the Minister of Finance described that speech as a report on the state of the nation.


Donald Methuen Fleming: No, he did not.


John Whitney Pickersgill: Would the hon. gentleman like me to apprise him of his words? I have the text that he issued right here and he will find that he said in that speech that it was the last opportunity he would have before the session of parliament opened to report on the state of the nation.
I do not intend to follow the Minister of Finance through all the 22 pages of this speech because I prefer to make my own. But I do intend to give to hon. members my own interpretation and I think it will be found to be a very accurate summary of the speech that was made to the Canadian Club on January 12 by the Minister of Finance reporting on the state of the nation, apparently envisaging himself as the head of the government. This will be my interpretation of what the minister said there. I do not want anyone

to say I am quoting the hon. gentleman because I am not doing that. But what he said in effect was that this country had gone through the longest and most expensive financial spree in its history; that he, the Minister of Finance was now having the worst hangover a minister of finance had ever had, and the worst part of that hangover was that he had discovered that Walter Harris had been right all the time.


Donald Methuen Fleming: This is certainly your interpretation. It is about as far from fact as day is from night.


John Whitney Pickersgill: It is my interpretation which has been shared by practically the whole press of this country, as I will show the hon. gentleman before I finish. But there was one phrase in that speech that simply doubled me up. Nobody but the Minister of Finance, with that bubbling sense of fun of his, could possibly have uttered this phrase, but here it is. "Consistency", said the Minister of Finance, "what a gem thou art." After swallowing everything he said in 1956 and 1957 and saying most of the things Mr. Harris was saying at that time he said, "Consistency, what a gem thou art."
The minister of course has a Churchillian touch-I mean the great Churchill of course- that is not given to most of us in this house, and he ended his speech like the great Churchill standing on the beaches. I cannot forbear giving the house the minister's climax:
The message which I should like to convey to Canadians at the threshold of this new year and decade therefore is a challenge in simple terms: Work and save.
Work and save. Three quarters of a million Canadians are saying to the government today, give us work and we will do the saving. "Consistency, what a gem thou art."


An hon. Member:: What does Joey say?


John Whitney Pickersgill: "Work and save", says the Minister of Finance, but what does the Minister of Trade and Commerce (Mr. Churchill), that lesser Churchill, say? He says, "Dry your tears, never mind saving; borrow from the United States, it will come out all right in the end." Consistency, what a gem thou art.
Going back again to the Canadian Club in Toronto and the real speech from the throne, I would say that anyone who reads this speech carefully will find that this speech, in so far as enlightening the public is concerned, was like trying to play Hamlet without the prince of Denmark. All the causes of our present tight money situation are given
The Address-Mr. Pickersgill except the real cause and that is completely left out. Does the minister say anywhere in that speech from beginning to end that during the period of economic advancement in 1956 the government of that day was paying off the debt? Does he tell us that in the year 1956-57, the last full year the Liberal government was in office, the net national debt of this country was reduced by $1 billion? What, in other words, did Mr. Harris do when there was a demand for credit from the banks? He paid off the national debt to the extent of $1 billion so that would be available for other Canadians to use.
But what is this minister doing in a similar position? I admit that he managed to pay off a very small amount of the debt up until March 31, 1958, out of Mr. Harris' savings, but when he had exhausted them he started in on this spree and since that time the debt of the country has been increased by $2 billion and is still being increased. That, is the real cause of the tight money policy. It is the real cause of high interest rates. It is that $2 billion borrowed in less than two years that has bid up interest rates. When the Prime Minister talks about the biggest borrower in the country, the Prime Minister and the Minister of Finance are the biggest borrowers in the country, overwhelmingly the biggest borrowers in the country, and they are directly responsible for the interest rates that everyone else has to pay, if indeed they are allowed to pay them at all.
I told the minister that I would repeat to him in slightly different language what he said in his speech. I said that he had said that Walter Harris had been right all the time.


Donald Methuen Fleming: I say you are crazy to say a thing like that.


John Whitney Pickersgill: I beg your pardon?


Donald Methuen Fleming: I say you are
crazy to say a thing like that. There is no resemblance to fact. Can you not stick to the fact once in a while?


John Whitney Pickersgill: When the minister has concluded all these extraordinarily erudite interruptions such as "crazy" and "nonsense" that are so dear to his heart, perhaps I might be allowed to continue. This is what the Victoria Times had to say about the minister's speech in Toronto, about the real speech from the throne, and lest you have any compunction about this, Mr. Speaker, may I say that I heartily endorse every word of it and make it my own, though I

The Address-Mr. Pickersgill hasten to add that I did not write it. The editorial is headed, "Mr. Fleming's Confession", and reads:
Mr. Fleming's remarkable speech in Toronto this week repudiates the original policies of the government and isolates its paramount problem in the session of parliament opening tomorrow. While the government secured election on a policy of easy credit, Mr. Fleming now demands credit restriction.
While Mr. Diefenbaker, only a few weeks ago. was attacking the private banks for lending too little money, Mr. Fleming now urges them to restrict their loans. While the former Liberal government was condemned, year in and year out, for forcing up interest rates, Mr. Fleming now blandly announces that these rates are likely to remain high for an indefinite period.


Mr, Fleming (Eglinton):: I did not.


John Whitney Pickersgill: I continue:
While Mr. Diefenbaker's famous vision involved capital expansion in all directions at breakneck speed, Mr. Fleming now asks Canada to moderate its investment lest it produce another round of inflation, followed by another business recession.


Donald Methuen Fleming: I did not do anything of the kind.


John Whitney Pickersgill: I continue:
And while the government, having promised to cut total spending, plunged immediately into record budgets and record deficits, Mr. Fleming now warns everybody to go easy because the nation cannot afford to maintain its recent pace.
That is characteristic of the kind of thing that has been said about the real speech from the throne, the report on the state of the nation of the Minister of Finance temporarily envisaging himself in the role of head of the government.


Donald Methuen Fleming: It is not a bit
characteristic of the press statements, the true press.


John Whitney Pickersgill: As a matter of fact, although I cannot do it with clarity I can just imagine the Minister of Finance in the role of prime minister. I can just imagine it. I say I could not imagine it with the clarity with which he does and I feel sure that if he ever attained it he would be a very bad one.
But we had also the spectacle a few months ago of the Prime Minister apparently thinking he was the minister of finance and that, sir, strained my credulity as I am sure it will strain the credulity of the house and the country quite beyond the breaking point.
When I came back from Newfoundland at the beginning of September-


Mr. Bell (Saint John-Albert):: You were there, were you?


John Whitney Pickersgill: Oh, yes, I was in Newfoundland. I went there just as soon as the hon. member's prolonging of the session enabled me to get there.


Mr. Speaker:: Order.


Mr.   Ball@Saint John-Albert: You promised to build a house there, too.


John Whitney Pickersgill: If it would comfort the hon. member for Saint John-Albert, I may say that while I was there I built myself a house, and it is a very nice house. If he would like to come and stay with me I would be glad to have him for a day or two.
Let us get back to the temporary Minister of Finance. The Prime Minister, speaking at Kitimat as reported in the Ottawa Citizen of August 25, said, and this is in quotation marks:
-Today the chartered banks had the greatest reserves in their history, a figure in the neighbourhood ol $7 billion.


John George Diefenbaker: That statement was not made, and it was immediately denied.


John Whitney Pickersgill: As a matter of fact, when I read that the Prime Minister had mistaken the debts of the bank for their reserves, when I read that liabilities had become assets in the eyes of this government and that the more national debt we have the richer we are, it looked to me as though the Prime Minister was trying to take the public, like Alice, through the looking glass. You remember when that happened that Alice, like the public, found it dreadfully confusing, until the white queen, like the Prime Minister, explained, that's the effect of living backwards; it always makes one a little giddy at first."


Donald Methuen Fleming: You should know.


John Whitney Pickersgill: The Prime Minister's budget speech came on T.V. I think we all recall the day, on October 1, after he had had a brief holiday, which so many of us begrudged him, that holiday in Quebec. I feel sure that the budget speech the Prime Minister delivered over T.V. on October 1 must have left the Minister of Finance very giddy as it did many others in this country. In that speech the Prime Minister told us, in the first place, that this was a report.
I am going to report to you on the state of the Canadian economy-
It is for this reason I call it a budget speech.
[DOT]-and those aspects which most closely affect the daily lives of the Canadian people.
What did we learn from the Prime Minister? We learned that this government had cured unemployment; that it had ended inflation. Then the Prime Minister began to talk about money and the speech really became interesting, informative and enlightening. Here is what the Prime Minister said:
But I have to be frank with you. Recovery has brought about a new set of difficulties.



19B0

[Stage Direction]
I should think it has.
The most complex problems have come with the amazing speed and strength of the phenomenal economic recovery in Canada. A question has arisen over individual commercial bank credit. Some call it "the tight money situation".
Then, the Prime Minister, after saying that they were not like the Liberals, and they did not do anything about it except increase the debt of the country by $2 billion- he did not say that; I do not accuse the Prime Minister of telling us the facts. The Prime Minister said:
There is no such policy today.
No such policy of tight money.
What has happened is in consequence of natural economic forces, resulting from the demands of the phenomenal economic recovery. Interest rates have gone up.
Even the Prime Minister could not deny that, but that was no fault of this government. In March, 1958, when the interest rate had temporarily gone down, the Prime Minister told us, "We got it down for you". He went right across the country saying that. When interest rates come down the Prime Minister does it, but when they go up it is the economic forces of the country and not the $2 billion borrowing of the Minister of Finance. Oh, no, they have nothing to do with interest rates, nothing whatever.
The commercial banks have restricted their lending operations-
As a matter of fact, I do not know whether the figures really bear that out, but the Prime Minister said they had restricted their lending operations.
-with the result to the average man that money is harder and more costly to get-
Certainly, more costly.
-than has been the case heretofore.
Then, he went on to give us the remedy. Here is the remedy, what the government is going to do about it.
I want to make this clear, and abundantly clear: It is not the intention of the government to stand by and see small businessmen, and farmers, and home-builders, and small borrowers-
You know, all the little people about whom the Minister of Transport (Mr. Hees) loves to talk.
-denied their opportunity to share in the new prosperity of Canada by reason of arbitrary credit practices.
The Prime Minister was careful not to define what the arbitrary credit practices were, but he went on to tell us what he was going to do about it. Listen to it.
There is no simple solution to the situation.
It never seemed to occur to this government that if they had not gone into the money markets and borrowed $2 billion that would
The Address-Mr. Pickersgill otherwise have been available to other people the problem would not have existed in the form in which it is now existing.
John George Diefenbaker: May I ask the hon. gentleman a question. I do not want to spoil his speech.


John Whitney Pickersgill: No, I would be delighted.


John George Diefenbaker: Will he explain why it is that interest rates in the United States as well are much higher than they have been for 25 years? Is this govermnent responsible for that?


John Whitney Pickersgill: I shall be glad to explain that in any free time I am given after my 40-minute speech,-


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh.


John Whitney Pickersgill: -if the Prime Minister is really anxious for an explanation and this is not just another of those 15 per cent diversions which are so characteristic of the Prime Minister when he does not like what is being said. The Prime Minister said that there is no simple solution, and the fact the problem exists somewhere else is not going to solve it in Canada.
I've given thought to this;-
Just imagine the Prime Minister getting into his plane with books on economics and finance under his arm and he is going to study something about this economic business in all its aspects, and about the banks' reserves being higher than they have ever been before-


John George Diefenbaker: Mr. Speaker, I have
already said that I did not make that statement. I denied it the next day.


John Whitney Pickersgill: If the Prime Minister says he denied that statement the next day then I, of course, accept the denial at once. I made a very careful search of the newspapers before I made this speech and I noticed no denial of this statement. I would be very much obliged to the Prime Minister if he would show me the denial in print.
I've given thought to this; my colleagues and I have applied more days of study to this than to any matter before us.
Can you not see them, sir, hour after hour over there in the east block studying the interest rates and wondering if they could borrow another billion before the country went completely broke.
I have consulted with leaders in all walks of life. We are trying to arrive at a fair solution, but we are not going to take hasty action. I shall not be stampeded.
I assure you that there must be no runaway inflation in Canada. This danger, I believe, however can be avoided without denying the right of small businessmen and small borowers and farmers and the like-

The Address-Mr. Pickersgill
Whatever "the like" is.
-to share in Canada's growth.
My fellow Canadians, this is a time for confidence and faith. It's a time for the fullest consideration and the widest possible consultation. It's a time to explore all avenues to ensure a proper distribution of credit among the people who are entitled to share in it.
Perhaps one answer-
Perhaps it is not.
-is for the banks to reconsider their lending policies and rearrange their outstanding loans to the end that some large borrowers-
Like the Minister of Finance.
-will be taking less so that smaller borrowers can get more.
Whatever the final answer may be, it will only be determined after the fullest and most careful consultation and thought. I assure you this, that the government does not intend that the prosperity resulting from the economic recovery shall be for the benefit of the few, and to the frustration of the many.
Having put the banks in their place and solved the problem of the small borrowers, the Prime Minister went on to the next television show, instalment two of his budget speech. Instalment two of his budget speech was even more extraordinary than instalment one. This was his speech on what we old-fashioned Liberals, who were responsible for it, called social security, but what has been re-christened by the Prime Minister in order, no doubt, to give some people the impression that it is something new, and called social justice. What are we told by the Prime Minister?
I do not want to overburden you with statistics-
I may say he certainly did not, as I shall show in a moment-
-but there are times when the exact figures must be brought forward to give positive proof of the truth.
Direct payments to individuals by the dominion government on social justice account were $1,500 million last year, compared with $1 billion in the last year under the Liberals.
That statement is approximately correct. Perhaps I might even be unfair to the Prime Minister is saying that; it is correct. It may not be correct to the last dollar but it is correct in substance. But what the Prime Minister did not say, evidently for fear of overburdening us with too many statistics, was that of the $500 million increase since the fiscal year 1956-57, approximately $133 million was the direct result of those increases in all the social security payments recommended by Mr. Walter Harris in his budget in 1957. Nor did he say that $160 million of that figure was the cost for one year of the hospital insurance plan which my hon. friend for Essex East (Mr. Martin) piloted through this house and which was on the statute books before this government came into office. Nor did the Prime Minister say that $100 million


of this increase of $500 million was due to the increase in the population of Canada of those persons receiving those benefits, and with the immigration policy of this government, I doubt if the Prime Minister would take much credit for the increase in population.
Out of this whole amount of $500 million the Tory share is $106 million and the Liberal share, $293 million. Those were the statistics which we were not to be overburdened with. Those statistics were the estimates taken from the budget speeches and I think they will be found accurate as approximations; and that is all they are, as the Prime Minister's figure also was.
The other matter that the Prime Minister did not overburden the listeners with, was the fact that this government was responsible for increasing taxes to pay for this additional "social justice" to the tune of $352 million a year. That is the other side of the picture; but of course, that did not matter, it was not relevant. Let us see what the Prime Minister said about this. Let us see what he told the Canadian people. He said:
We have made-
I presume he means the government have made.
-in the last two and a half years, the greatest increases in Canadian history in the overall level of social justice benefits to every Canadian family in need of such assistance. We have done so in every category within the jurisdiction of the federal government and in many under the jurisdiction of the province, by joint action.
In two and a half years the Prime Minister claims the figure was $500 million, and of that $500 million, $293 million were due to the Liberals and $106 million to hon. members opposite. That is the kind of stuff the people are told. He was not content with that; he went on to say:
When we took office two and a half years ago we found the most astonishing evidence, far beyond what we had expected, of the shocking result of the careless inaction of the Liberal administration in its last years in office in this whole field of social justice.
What was that careless inaction? To increase the benefits by $293 million in the last year the Liberals were in office, and all the present government has done is to increase them by $106 million and send the Canadian people the bill for $352 million. Those are the real facts which were not included in the Prime Minister's budget speech of November 12.


Donald Methuen Fleming: They are some of the bills you left unpaid, and you blame us for the deficit.


John Whitney Pickersgill: The Minister of Finance can make his speech afterwards and no doubt will.

Let us see what else we were told in the budget speech. I would not have time under the rules to deal with them all, although I would love to; but the other big thing this government did was in respect of payments to the provinces. The Prime Minister also told us about that. He did not overburden us with statistics on this question either. This is what he said:
In 1955-57, the last year the Liberals were in power, dominion government contributions to the provinces-
I might say that I would not have used the word "contributions", because there are many of these items that the provinces have a right to, and they are certainly not contributions from the federal government. The word I would use is "payments", but the Prime Minister said contributions. Continuing:
-not including payments to individuals, amounted to $689 million. For the present year the amount will be $1,212 million-an increase of 76 per cent. This extra assistance to the provinces has been of tremendous benefit not only to them but to the municipalities as well.
There is no doubt that that is true, no doubt whatever. The Prime Minister's figure is also true. But let us have a look at that figure. It represents an increase of $523 million. That is the same figure the Minister of Finance gave in the budget in one of the tables he prepared.


John George Diefenbaker: Does that not account, too, for the extra expenditure we made for the year?


John Whitney Pickersgill: That is another point, and I do not particularly appreciate the Prime Minister's diversion at this stage. Of this $523 million, $23 million was not a payment to the provinces at all, as I pointed out during the budget debate. It was a payment to municipalities and universities, and many of these universities are private institutions and are certainly not provinces. There was $500 million paid to the provinces, and of that $500 million the Minister of Finance-and I am using his figures-broke it down in this way: "Unconditional payments have increased by $195 million."
Let us have a look at these unconditional payments. Of the $195 million, $105 million was the result of the changes that Walter Harris recommended in 1956 to this house, which was voted when we were in office. The Tory share is $90 million. That is the unconditional grants.


Donald Methuen Fleming: But who found the money to pay them?


John Whitney Pickersgill: The taxpayers of Canada found the money.
The Address-Mr. Pickersgill


Donald Methuen Fleming: And you blame us for having a deficit in meeting them.


John Whitney Pickersgill: The other part is the unconditional payments, and they have increased, according to the figures of the Minister of Finance, by $307 million. The Liberal's share of that is $210 million and the Tory share is $97 million. Those are the facts, and the Minister of Finance will find it quite impossible to controvert them, because they are from his own statistics which he produced in this house.
I have not said that the figures which the Prime Minister used were not correct. They were correct, but they were not complete. They were manipulated-a good parliamentary word these days-to give an untrue picture to the Canadian people. That is what happened, and how was it done? It was a very simple and plausible device, and it will no doubt be done again. They took the last full year we were in office, in which the payments provided for in 1956-57 which came into effect on April 1 of 1957 were not made, and they treated all the payments in 195758, practically all of which were the result of action taken by this parliament on the recommendation of the former Liberal government, as though they had been initiated by this government. I cannot think of any more thoroughly dishonest performance which has ever-


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh.


Mr. Speaker:: Order. I am sure the hon. member did not intend-at least, I hope he did not intend-to give the impression, or make the imputation, of dishonesty?


John Whitney Pickersgill: Oh no, sir. I am sorry the hon. member for Fort William (Mr. Badanai) is not in the house, because he heard me say this outside the house; I see he is here and I am now going to repeat it right here, and he will remember that I said it before. Oh no, sir, I do not think the Prime Minister did this at all. I do not think the Prime Minister knows what the figures are. I do not think the Prime Minister spends enough time in his office to find out what they are.


John George Diefenbaker: Mr. Speaker, so far I have enjoyed this speech with all its pantomime-


Some hon. Members:: Order.


Mr. Speaker:: Is the Prime Minister rising on a point of order?


John George Diefenbaker: Yes, I cannot allow even the hon. member to make a suggestion of dishonesty. It is a most unusual statement, and one that cannot be made having regard to the dignity of parliament.

The Address

Mr. Pickersgill


Some hon. Members:: Withdraw.


John Whitney Pickersgill: I did not impute dishonesty to the Prime Minister or to any other member of this house. I was scrupulously careful to say that the figures the Prime Minister gave were correct. I am not now imputing dishonesty to the Prime Minister of any deliberate character, and if I have said anything which offends the Prime Minister's dignity I happily withdraw.


John George Diefenbaker: That is simply no withdrawal and I ask for a withdrawal.


Mr. Speaker:: I understand that the hon. member who has the floor

the hon. member for Bonavista-Twillingate-when I questioned his intention in the use of the word "dishonesty" indicated that he did not intend to impute dishonesty to any hon. member.


John Whitney Pickersgill: No sir. I said that I did not think the Prime Minister knows the facts. I think that if the Prime Minister had known the facts he would never have made that speech.


Some hon. Members:: Withdraw.


Mr. Speaker:: Perhaps the matter would be very simply disposed of if the hon. member would say specifically that he withdraws the word "dishonest".


John Whitney Pickersgill: I withdraw unequivocally any imputation of dishonesty which I may have made to the Prime Minister or to any other member of this house. I did not say at any time, and I certainly did not intend to say at any time, that the Prime Minister deliberately distorted the facts. But I do say that when the facts such as I have put before the house now are presented in the fashion they were presented in the broadcast, the picture they gave is not a picture of the facts as, in fact, they are.
There is one other thing I should like to draw to the attention of the house in the very few minutes that remain. I refer to some remarks of the Prime Minister made, this time, as leader of the Progressive Conservative party at a testimonial dinner given by the Progressive Conservative associations of the Montreal area in his honour on May 8, 1959. Perhaps the exuberance of this expression may be partly explained by the nature of the occasion but it is, I think, an index of the sense of reality which characterizes everything done by this government that the Prime Minister's words, as reported in an official release from his own office, should have been as follows:
I have no hesitation in asserting at this time that I believe the government has accomplished more in these two years-
[Mr. Diefenbaker.!

That is, the two years they had been in office; it was not quite two years but it was close enough.
-than any other government in any time in our history. The tacts are on the record.
And then-I wonder this did not choke in the Prime Minister's throat:
One of the faults of our party when it has been in office is to take its good works too much for granted.
If ever a Prime Minister in the whole history of this country has boasted about the things which have been done, the things that might be done or the things that someone ought to get done but which never seemed to get done, it has been the present Prime Minister. When one thinks that in the two years after Mr. St. Laurent became prime minister of this country the union with Newfoundland was completed, Canada became a member of NATO, we entered into the Korean war, the supreme court was made the final court of appeal in this country, this country got the right to amend its own constitution in federal matters without any interference, and the trans-Canada highway project was started-and I just wrote down these things from memory without looking up the other important things that were done in those really important two years-and compares them with the record of broken promises and the disillusionment of today, one can only think that when the Prime Minister said what he did he was blinded by the vision and by this propaganda which seems to be dedicated to the cult of the half truth and the diversion; always the package, as my hon. friend the Leader of the Opposition (Mr. Pearson) said, never the contents.
This is something new in our history. I do not think it is improving parliamentary government or any of those things to which the Prime Minister said he was dedicating himself a few years ago, and it seems to me the arguments I have made would justify every hon. member of the house in voting for my hon. friend's amendment.
(Translation):


Mr. Noel Drouin (Dorchester):: Mr. Speaker, I should like to congratulate you for the dignity with which you discharge your functions in this house, and on the great kindness with which you listen to us.
Mr. Speaker, I should like first to congratulate most sincerely the hon. members who, with such eloquence and dignity, have proposed and moved the address in reply to the speech from the throne (Mr. Morissette and Mrs. Casselman).



I, 1960

[Stage Direction]
I also convey my heartfelt congratulations to the hon. members appointed to the cabinet and those who were chosen as parliamentary secretaries, and also the hon. member for Quebec South (Mr. Flynn) on his appointment as Deputy Speaker of the house. To the hon. members who were recently introduced into this house, I wish a useful political career; may the Lord bless them.
I should like now, Mr. Speaker, to make a few humble remarks on the speech from the throne and on government administration.
I want first to recall in this house the message which the Prime Minister (Mr. Diefenbaker) addressed to the nation in March 1958, promising a nation-wide program whereby the Conservative government would undertake to develop our natural resources for the benefit and welfare of each individual in Canada.
Let us see how those words were appropriate and the extent to which Canadians have benefited by the achievements of the Conservative government. We witnessed the unfolding of an absolutely new policy, wisely focused on an objective hitherto unknown in the political and economic fields.
Never before, Mr. Speaker, under previous governments, had the name of Canada been heard of across the sea in so far distant countries; never before had our country occupied a more representative place among the nations spread over five continents; never before had the name of Canada been mentioned with so much respect by the countries behind the iron and bamboo curtains.
The Conservative government of Canada has played a magnificent role in the British commonwealth. Our representatives at the NATO conferences were brilliant; our Minister of Finance (Mr. Fleming) and our Minister of Trade and Commerce (Mr. Churchill) have been shrewd and enlightened in the trade missions they had been entrusted to carry out by the government throughout the world.
Mr. Speaker, never before has the development of our natural resources and of northern Canada been extended so much to the benefit of all Canadians. Never before in the history of our country were so many houses built for the welfare of our people. That is an excellent way of using our raw materials for our own benefit; that is an efficient way of fighting communism. When a country enables a man to become a home owner, that man gives up the idea of sharing it with his neighbour.
79951-0-38J
The Address-Mr. Drouin
The Progressive Conservative government is well named. It succeeded in promoting progress while remaining on friendly terms with our neighbours. It has given the world a lesson in economy, peaceful relations and co-existence.
Mr. Speaker, with all due respect to the members of Her Majesty's loyal opposition, I am sorry to tell them that they are lagging far behind, they are lost in the mists of time.
When I hear them forcefully stating old and nonsensical theories, I wonder what heavy price the country had to pay through their fault in the past in some of the most expensive aspects of national defence.
Though forewarned by non-partisan military experts, the quondam government inconsistently squandered the taxpayers' money for the sole purpose of granting contracts to their friends. I cannot understand why those hon. gentlemen should cling to such antiquated theories at the very moment when our Soviet friends, through the mouth of Mr. Khrushchev, let us know that manned bombers are obsolete, that they have become inefficient and problematic for those who pilot them, at the very moment when Russia has made a success of its "guided missiles"-at the very moment when Russia is demobilizing 1,200,000 men.
We in this house and all over Canada had the privilege to appreciate the foresight and intelligence the Prime Minister has shown during the 1959 session, when he and his cabinet decided to give Canada appropriate means not of offence but of defence, which on a peaceful basis suited this country in respect of its geographical and economic position.
Mr. Speaker, I am fed up with hearing those hon. members revile, here in this house and in the newspapers, about matters they themselves have so lamentably and shamefully bungled. That is why Canadians have placed them on the left-hand side of this house. It seems to me that this lesson should teach them caution.
We were in a position to note, under the then government, the repeated efforts made towards centralization, the better to tear up our confederation.
We have witnessed the incompetence of the Liberal government and its malicious tendencies, when with an unacceptable formula, it sought to invade by the most direct route, the field of education. We still see
[Stage Direction]
The Address-Mr. Drouin the Leader of the Opposition (Mr. Pearson), for whom I have much sympathy, very unwisely attempting to give us a program of action precisely in the field where his own government had failed for more than twenty years. I have sympathy for hon. members in the opposition. But they are so mixed up, that, frankly, if they were so unfortunate as to drown, I would be the first one to go and look for them, but up and not down stream.
The Leader of the Opposition tells us that we must have a flag. Of course, Mr. Speaker, we must have a flag and I think it is urgent for Canada to have a distinctive flag; but his government never gave us one.
(Text):
Mr. Brassard (Lapointe):: You promised one. (Translation):


Noël Drouin: He also tells us that we should bring home the constitution and, in attempt to justify his failure to do so, he tells us that a certain province which he has not the courage to name, put obstacles in his way.
(Text):


Augustin Brassard: Everyone knew about it.
(Translation):


Noël Drouin: Yet, everyone knows, and has known for years, that the greatest man in the province of Quebec whose name has gone down in history-I am speaking of the Hon. Maurice Duplessis-a name which holds a large place in our hearts-had expressed the ardent wish that the constitution be brought home. I think the Leader of the Opposition is placing the cart before the horse when he first wants a flag, and then a repatriated constitution.
Mr. Speaker, can you visualize Canada, which still lacks the power to turn to its own source when it is a matter of amending the constitution, i.e. the very basis of our statutes and still has to suffer the humiliation to go and ask the London government's permission? It seems to me that, unless this is done, a national flag would float with less glory and could not be hoisted on the highest mast. Should we not, Mr. Speaker, admire the wisdom and foresight of the Prime Minister (Mr. Diefenbaker), who has imposed upon himself the delicate and difficult task of bringing our constitution home, so that Canada may officially become an adult nation? As I respectfully submit to this house, then will be the time to carry the flag which would be ours proudly and very high and to salute it with a national anthem which

conjures up a glorious past and promises fulfilment of the greatest aspirations for Canada and all Canadians.
Mr. Speaker, allow me a short digression to tell the house how our friends in the opposition are forced to resort to acrobatics. Of course they have a heavy task, in attempting to disguise truth. What a job for them.
Hoist with their own petard.
Please excuse me, Mr. Speaker, that is something Shakespeare said before I did.
I should like to refer to the speech made in this house by the hon. member for Drummond-Arthabaska (Mr. Boulanger), as recorded on page 485 of Hansard for January 28, 1960. At that time, the hon. member claimed that the government's policy had been disastrous for agriculture. He devoted a full page of his speech to tell us one thing and then in another page, the hon. member took great pains to tell us quite a different story. The hon. member said the country was going to the dogs, that corporations were on the brink of ruin, that business was in the dumps. Mr. Speaker, here is what the hon. member said:
The farm industry today is going through the worst crisis in its history, whereas in every sector of industry and trade, there is talk of profits and prosperity.
If we compare existing conditions in various sectors and more particularly in industry and agriculture, we find a very great difference.
Reports published in newspapers show that the profits in industry have increased considerably.
At that stage of his remarks, the hon. member gave us a list of profits made by some Canadian corporations.
Mr. Speaker, I have had some interests in the industrial field, and a good many of us have owned industrial firms. We know that when an industry makes profits, it is a good thing to keep it going, it is a good thing to keep its workers on the payroll, it is a good thing to enjoy prosperity. So the hon. member for Drummond-Arthabaska told us clearly and quite candidly-and for that I sincerely thank him-that Canadian industry is prosperous.


Augustin Brassard: At that time, he was referring to agriculture.


Noël Drouin: Mr. Speaker, I now wish to talk about agriculture. I congratulate the Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Harkness) on the adoption of a measure which will benefit the country. By reaching to the core of the problem, he will place Canadian agriculture

again on a sound basis. But there still exists a deficiency at the present time in one area of agriculture especially in the province of Quebec, namely hog and chicken breeding.
The dairy industry is faring reasonably well. The beef market is excellent. However, when a farmer wants to try hog and chicken breeding, he is faced with a disastrous anomaly. That sector of agriculture has become the exclusive field and trade area of farm industrialists; in other words, it has become a trust. A group of farm industrialists are exploiting this genuine landowner. The measure introduced by the Minister of Agriculture and adopted in this house will offset that situation and no doubt will do justice to the real farmer, the genuine landowner.
Mr. Speaker, there is one thing the Liberals would rather not hear, yet it seems necessary to refresh their memory on their shortcomings. I refer to the legacy left to us by those great prophets of 1935, who had sworn to settle the depression affecting America at that time. Yet in 1939, the depression was just as bad, and then they settled it in their own way. They prematurely declared a quiet and easy-going war, in which no one was to fight except on a voluntary basis, as they had promised. So they corailed all the unemployed and enlisted them, and that was the beginning of the period of Liberal prosperity.
The taxpayer's money was misspent, under the pretext of war, in all kinds of miscalculated risks. While one group was buying farm products at fantastic prices, another one was extolling the virtues of the Liberal administration. This went on throughout the European war, during the Korean war and during the reconstruction period in Europe. Then, in 1956, the great prophets were in a jam. Our national dollars had reached about seventeen billion dollars, and amortization was costing us in the neighbourhood of six hundred million dollars a year. Canadian markets were lost, economists had submitted reports which our friends here had carefully hidden, trying to make the people believe that everything was going fine. It is easy, Mr. Speaker, to have money in the bank and be debt-ridden at the same time. Such was the heritage left to us by the Liberal government in 1956. The opposition very well deserves to sit on the left-hand side of this house.
Mr. Speaker, I should like to refer here to the visit made by the Prime Minister throughout the province of Quebec, in
The Address-Mr. Drouin the fall of 1959, in order to ascertain, on the spot, our particular problems there. I had the privilege of welcoming him with his charming wife in my native parish of St. Maxime, county of Dorchester, where he very kindly accepted to inaugurate public buildings which, for the first time since confederation, allowed a federal government to make the county of Dorchester conscious of its existence.
Mr. Speaker, speeches from the throne since 1957 have always been full of virtues and fruitful for all Canadians; now, in 1960, a department of forests will be set up which, I am sure, will render immense services to the country, while respecting provincial rights. In acting wisely and cautiously, the government has discovered horizons which were unknown until today, in the field of both domestic and foreign policy.
If we wish to maintain our high standard of living, Canada will have to make its way further into the British commonwealth bloc, not forgetting the importance of more rapidly improving its production system, in order to lower its costs, so that we may get our share of the world markets.
It is imperative that there should be perfect co-existence within that group of countries totalling 650 million people, distributed over 14 million square miles. It is the duty of the government and of each individual to show the qualities and virtues still possessed by the capitalist, democratic and free world of the west. The spiritual and physical qualities we may be able to contribute to the commonwealth will offset the seven-year plan offered by Mr. Khrushchev to communist countries in the far east. We must win the economic war, and Canada is an enlightened torch-bearer among the nations.
Mr. Speaker, we have been able to realize how wise the Conservative government was in reducing the national defence budget at the right time and in increasing Canadian farm loans, something which will be of great help to our farmers, who will be able to further mechanize their farms and reduce their production costs.
(Text):
The speech from the throne, Mr. Speaker, is both prudent and fruitful. It will allow Canadian unity to be realized to the fullest, rich rewards of the honourable and glorious history which Conservative administrations

The Address-Mr. Hardie have written in the beautiful pages of the history of Canada. As I draw to a close, permit me to cite the words of the Prime Minister (Mr. Diefenbaker), spoken at the dedication of the Jacques Cartier park at Quebec city on the very site at which Jacques Cartier wintered in 1535:
Some 400 years ago a great man came here to plant a great cross and to found a great race which shall not perish.
These indeed are words which are truly Canadian. If in 1759 two great soldiers, by the eo-mingling of their life blood, were writing a new page in the history of our country, so as to unite under the banner of military honours the pride of two great peoples to whom posterity has granted equality, then two centuries later in 1959 the Prime Minister, by an act has fused for all time that bond of friendship by praying Her Gracious Majesty, Queen Elizabeth II, to appoint as her Governor General in Canada a great Canadian soldier, not only a Canadian of French origin but also a Roman Catholic.
I wish to thank you, Mr. Speaker, for your courtesy in having heard me not only in the language of Bossuet but also in that of Shakespeare, which I, as a stranger to its use, find rich and attractive in the same measure as I find it is possessed by those of our citizens who use it as their mother tongue.
May I conclude by saying that in that admixture on the one hand of the patience, the calm and the courtesy of the Anglo-Saxon with, on the other, the hospitality, the courage and the sense of honour of the French, we have in the result the total character of our Canadian citizens who go forward toward the goal of their most noble aspirations.


Mr. M. A. Hardie (Mackenzie River):: Mr. Speaker, last week we saw an amazing and very significant display by our one-man government. We witnessed a two-hour performance, and performance is exactly what it was in the most showy meaning of the word, a performance that violated the basic principles of our parliamentary system. We witnessed in brief a complete abdication of the responsibilities of government.
It has been the practice in past throne speech debates for the leader of the opposition to lead off with criticism of government policies as contained in the speech from the throne. The prime minister usually replied with a rebuttal of these criticisms and a defence of his government's policy. In support of this argument I should like to refer all hon. members to the speeches made by the former prime minister of Canada, Right Hon. Louis St. Laurent, in 1955, 1956 and 1957 in defence of his government's policy.


This, Mr. Speaker, has been the common practice, but one important difference in this parliament from others in the past is the fact that in former years the government had a policy to defend. If this government has any policy it is one, as the Leader of the Opposition put it, of fumbling and bumbling. But to give the Prime Minister (Mr. Diefenbaker) credit, he was clever enough to realize that there was no defence for his policy. Instead of trying to defend it he resorted to the unusual and unprecedented practice of devoting more than half his speech to a criticism of the opposition. The end result, as one commentator pointed out so aptly, was that parliament today is left with two critics, two opposition leaders but no prime minister.
Oh yes, the Prime Minister did offer a half-baked defence of government policy but as usual there was only one problem with his defence of that policy. The defence offered by the Prime Minister, and I am thinking now particularly of the field of national defence, was completely incorrect, irrelevant and designed solely to accomplish exactly what the Prime Minister accused the Leader of the Opposition of doing, to play politics with a vital subject.
Let us look at exactly what the Prime Minister said and did in his remarks on the subject of national defence. First of all, he concentrated on trying to create the impression that it was the Leader of the Opposition and not the government that was confused in its defence thinking. To accomplish this end he employed one of his favourite tricks. He took two quotations from the remarks by the Leader of the Opposition, two totally compatible quotations, and attempted by them to build a flimsier than straw argument that the Leader of the Opposition was confused and uncertain.
The two quotations referred to were, first, that Canada should not in any event accept nuclear tactical weapons until we knew more of their effect on the atmosphere and, second, that we should not accept weapons from the United States unless their tactical use was under complete Canadian control. These two quotations, according to the Prime Minister, constituted confusion. He did not bother to be specific as to just what conflict of ideas existed in the two statements. Of course, as we all know in this house and as the Canadian people are coming to know more each day, the Prime Minister is never too specific. He said in defence of his government's policy, as reported on page 137 of Hansard, and speaking about the Leader of the Opposition:
During the intervening months since last session, he indicated fully the degree of the confusion of his views and the uncertainty of his remedies in this particular matter.

What uncertainty did the Prime Minister have in mind? The Leader of the Opposition said first that we should not accept nuclear tactical weapons until we know more about their effect on the atmosphere and radiation. When and if we did accept such weapons, he said, we should insist that they be under complete Canadian tactical control. I ask hon. members, does this reflect uncertainty and confusion? Is it confused and uncertain thinking to check first to see what product you are buying and then what control you are going to have over its use?
Surely even the Prime Minister, if he would for a moment throw off his political cloak and be honest with the House of Commons, would say that there is nothing wrong with that. But the Prime Minister's remarks on this occasion were made as usual to mislead the house and to mislead the Canadian people. He tried to create the totally incorrect and irrelevant opinion that the Leader of the Opposition was confused and uncertain in his defence thinking.


Mr. Lambert:: Mr. Speaker, I do not think the hon. member is in a position to indicate that the Prime Minister misled the Canadian people and I would ask that those remarks be withdrawn.


Mervyn Arthur Hardie: If you will just listen for a moment you will find out how he tried to mislead the Canadian people.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: Order. I would ask the hon. member to discuss the point of order raised by the hon. member for Edmonton East. I am not too sure of the words used by the hon. member who has the floor but he knows very well of course that he cannot accuse the Prime Minister or any member of the house of misleading the public.


Gordon Minto Churchill: On the point of order, there were two expressions used by the hon. member. First, he suggested that the Prime Minister was not being honest with the house and, second, he used an expression about misleading the house. Both are out of order.


Murdo William Martin: Mr. Speaker, I think it is quite possible for any hon. member to mislead the house as long as he does not do it deliberately.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: The hon. member will probably wish to correct any misunderstanding and I am sure he will indicate precisely to the house that he did not intend to say that the Prime Minister deliberately misled the public or the house and that he did not mean to intimate that the Prime Minister was not being honest with the public.
The Address-Mr. Hardie


Mervyn Arthur Hardie: I said, Mr. Speaker, that the Prime Minister's statements in this debate did mislead the public. I will not use the word "mislead".


William Heward Grafftey: Then withdraw.


Mervyn Arthur Hardie: Withdraw what?


William Heward Grafftey: Be a man about it.


Gordon Minto Churchill: I suggest that the use of the expression that he was not being honest with the house involves greater fault than the other expression about misleading.


Mervyn Arthur Hardie: Mr. Speaker, on the point of order, I said that if the Prime Minister were honest with the house he would say there was nothing wrong with what the Leader of the Opposition had said. I did not say he was dishonest.


Gordon Minto Churchill: The inference is there.


Mervyn Arthur Hardie: The inference surely is not there.


Murdo William Martin: Government members are pretty touchy.


Mervyn Arthur Hardie: In any event, Mr. Speaker, the failure of the Bomarc in its sixth test the other day has given all the more reason for uncertainty in the minds of the Canadian people. The Minister of National Defence (Mr. Pearkes), reading today from a statement issued by the United States department of defence, has not explained away the uncertainty surrounding the participation of Canada in the building of two Bomarc bases.
Mr. Speaker, enough for the Prime Minister's remarks as a critic and an opposition leader. But what about the statements he made when he momentarily forgot himself and acted like a member of the government? While in this state of mental relapse he concentrated on two points.


William Heward Grafftey: Order. On a point of order, Mr. Speaker, the hon. member who has the floor is continually using unparliamentary language and I demand that he withdraw from the record the words "momentary mental relapse." It is unfitting and unparliamentary and I demand that the hon. member withdraw these unparliamentary words.


Mr. Habel:: Get the rules.


William Heward Grafftey: There is a point of order, Mr. Speaker. I would request that the hon. member withdraw the expression "momentary mental relapse".


Mr. Depuiy Speaker:: I should like to have the hon. member raising the point of order explain this point of order. Was this expression used about some member of the house?

The Address-Mr. Hardie


William Heward Grafftey: It was directed, sir, toward the office of the Prime Minister of this country. I think it is unfitting and unparliamentary language to be used.


Mervyn Arthur Hardie: There is nothing unparliamentary about what I said. If this young fellow is so touchy about the Prime Minister-


William Heward Grafftey: On the point of order, Mr. Speaker. I have asked that this expression be withdrawn and taken from the record. I should like a ruling.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: I do not believe that these words have been defined as unparliamentary, in so far as I can find in looking at Beauchesne.


Joseph-Alphonse-Anaclet Habel: The hon. member has a lot to learn about the rules.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: I do not believe, in the way they were used, the words are unparliamentary, and I would allow the hon. member to continue with his speech.


Guy Rouleau: Do you want to appeal from the Speaker's ruling?


Mervyn Arthur Hardie: I suppose you have noticed, Mr. Speaker, that in the last minute or two many interjections have been made from the government side of the house. We find there have been a great number of maiden speeches made in this house by way of interjections.
I was going to say a few minutes ago that the Prime Minister tried to justify the cancellation of the Arrow program by reference, in his argument, to what the soviets had done. However, the Leader of the Opposition, and rightly so, tried to pin down the government on whether or not under present United States law it was possible for the United States government to turn over such nuclear weapons to another country without retaining control over them. What answer did the Prime Minister give? It was not a direct one, but I suggest the Prime Minister reverted to his favourite weapon, the halftruth. He did not confirm or deny that the United States government would have control over these weapons. He insisted that they would not be used without Canadian permission. But, what the Leader of the Opposition wanted to know was, could they be used by Canadian forces for the defence of Canada without United States permission. The Prime Minister did not answer that question. I suggest he did not because the answer is no.
Canadians cannot use these weapons without first receiving United States consent.
On the second point, the justification of what the government calls its defence policy, it is interesting to note that the Prime Minister laid great emphasis on the fact that


recent soviet military decisions justified the cancellation of the Arrow program without bothering to apply the same argument to the Bomarc missile. I ask, Mr. Speaker, what is the difference? The Arrow was designed to provide protection against manned bomber attacks. The Prime Minister said the soviet decision to cease the production of manned bombers justified the decision to cancel the Arrow. At the same time, we are committed to the Bomarc, which is also designed to meet this very same threat, the manned bomber. Surely, if the soviet switch to missiles from manned bombers justifies the cancellation of the Arrow program it must also raise serious doubts about this country's acquisition of two Bomarc bases and the millions of dollars being spent by this government on them.
What we must conclude, then, from the government's own admissions and statements is that Canada is spending this money to stop a threat that has all but disappeared. If the manned bomber threat is so rapidly disappearing, why substitute anything for the Arrow? The government says it cannot justify an expenditure of X millions of dollars on the Arrow, then how can it justify spending Y millions of dollars on a missile to do the very same job which it claims no longer exists.
We should tell the United States that if they feel the construction of two bases in this country is necessary for continental defence, we will allow them to construct and maintain the bases under a political agreement which would fully protect our rights, of course. If these bases are to be built because the United States feel they are essential, then they should be constructed and maintained as a United States responsibility. This country's full sovereignty can be protected simply by including a political agreement to cover the bases containing the same provisions that guarantee this country's ultimate control and sovereignty over the D.E.W. line. This is a procedure followed in the United Kingdom.
In so far as sovereignty is concerned, this government seems to feel the need for creating large smokescreens. The operation of bases by the United States government under these conditions would, in fact, give us a greater degree of sovereignty than we have under the present arrangements. At least under a political agreement the United States government would be controlling only United States forces, not Canadians. The practical effect, Mr. Speaker, I suggest would be no different at all. Under the present system I am certain that when the President of the United States decides it is time to launch missiles and aircraft, they will be launched despite what the Prime Minister of Canada may think of the

matter. The only way to deal with the situation is through genuine collective control of armaments as suggested by the Leader of the Opposition, a suggestion to which, as has been customary in this parliament, he has as yet received no reply from the government benches.
At six o'clock the house took recess.


[Stage Direction]
AFTER RECESS

The house resumed at 8 p.m.
Mervyn Arthur Hardie: Mr. Speaker, before we
adjourned for dinner I was pointing out to the house that the Prime Minister in this debate, other than to criticize the opposition, has given no answers to the questions of the Leader of the Opposition. He told us nothing in defence of his government's policy with regard to the subject of national defence other than to say that recent soviet decisions to stop production of the manned bomber justified cancellation of the Arrow. I suggest that since the Bomarc is a defensive weapon against the same sort of attack, the manned bomber attack, his arguments would hold true to justify the cancellation of the Bomarc program.
Naturally, the question arises as to what this country would contribute to western defence if both of these programs were cancelled. I suggest that there is a vitally important and much more economical role for a middle power such as this country. That role lies in the provision of conventional forces to be available for possible action by the United Nations, and to fill the growing breach between peace and nuclear catastrophe. With the major powers concentrating more and more on the development of mammoth-powered, high-cost, nuclear weapons, the need for conventional forces is rapidly developing, forces which could meet a local conflict without setting off the final destruction of the world. We could join other middle non-nuclear powers in filling that role. We could equip our army, air force and navy with the best of conventional weapons and do the research for such a program. We could develop and manufacture this type of weapon in Canada for the use, not only of our own forces but also the forces of other middle powers. In doing so we could make an infinitely more valuable contribution to western defence and even world peace than we are now with our pair of Bomarc pea-shooters.
Let us leave the production and operation of nuclear weapons to the major powers. We can still seek collective control over these
The Address-Mr. Hardie weapons, as suggested by my leader, without actually obtaining them ourselves. What possible good could the possession of a limited number of nuclear weapons, at least the limited number of nuclear weapons that we could afford, do for this country? Do they make our defences any stronger? I submit no. Do they increase our world status? I doubt that very much. About all they do in fact is tie up a substantial amount of this country's revenue, thus preventing us from making a contribution in fields far more suited to our international status.
Some hon. members opposite may suggest that such a change in policy would disrupt the North American alliance and weaken our relations with the United States and our other NATO allies. I doubt that very much. I think in fact the United States government would welcome such action on our part. I am quite certain that any concern over whether this country has nuclear weapons or whether missile bases in Canada are manned by Canadians, originates not south of the border but right here in Canada itself. I would be very much surprised if the United States government raised any objection to the suggestion that it take control of the Bomarc sites in this country under a political agreement. I have heard very little in the way of United States objections when similar agreements were signed with other countries, including some of our NATO allies.
On the other hand, by filling a need for conventional forces we would lighten the burden of the United States. We would permit that country to concentrate on other fields of armaments without having to worry about this vital question of providing for a non-nuclear conflict. In short, a switch from this current policy of "poor boy" participation in the nuclear club to one of constructive provision of less costly, but vitally conventional, forces would be of greater advantage to both ourselves and our allies, in my opinion.
Since the Prime Minister did not tell us what the policy of the government was in this vital matter, we did expect to hear a forthright statement from the Minister of National Defence. Why has he not entered this debate? Is the minister tongue-tied, or does he not know any more about the policy with regard to national defence than the Prime Minister? When are we going to hear from his associate minister (Mr. Sevigny) or from his parliamentary secretary (Mr. Chambers) ? These prize winners of the Prime Minister's talent caravan should have something to say in this debate. Mr. Speaker, enough about national defence.
However, the same sort of arguments have been put forward during this debate by other members of the treasury benches in support
594	HOUSE OF
The Address-Mr. Hardie of government policy in such matters as trade, tight money, agriculture and unemployment. The Minister of Trade and Commerce (Mr. Churchill), for instance, entered the debate but as usual said very little. Of course, there is still the possibility that the Minister of Finance (Mr. Fleming), who is now the official spokesman of the Department of Trade and Commerce, will enlighten us on trade and commerce; but I think the Minister of Finance is going to have his hands full in answering the charges of the hon. member for Bonavista-Twillingate (Mr. Pickersgill) this afternoon about tight money.
On the question of this government's lack of policy, and on the serious question of unemployment, the Minister of Labour (Mr. Starr) entered the debate the other day. He tried to leave the impression that the 755,000 people drawing unemployment insurance benefits in Canada today are really not unemployed. Does he realize that these people, along with others not able to draw these benefits, are suffering and looking to the government for leadership and solutions to this unnecessary and high percentage of unemployment?
What did we hear from the Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Harkness) relating to questions posed to him by the Leader of the Opposition and other hon. members on this side of the house? In particular, what did he say about the serious effect of this government's policy on the producers of hogs and eggs in this country? The Minister of Agriculture answered these charges by saying that we in the opposition did not know what we were talking about. I say to the minister that this type of rebuttal is a left-handed slap to the many people whose votes in the last election campaign gave his party the huge majority it now enjoys in this house today.
On his second appearance this afternoon, the Minister of Agriculture has still not given us any answers. The producers of eggs and hogs claim, and rightly so, that the legislation as it applies to eggs and hogs does not do what the government said it would do, namely that it would assist the industry of agriculture to realize fair returns for its labour and investment and to maintain a fair relationship between prices received by farmers and the cost of goods and services which they buy, thus providing farmers with a fair share of the national income.
This legislation was bailed by the government as the greatest ever. Listen to what the minister of northern affairs said during the last election campaign, as reported in the Regina Leader-Post of March 22,	1958,
when the minister spoke at Glenavon. This


article is headed, "Stabilization bill termed best ever", and this is what the minister had to say:
Speaking to farmers and businessmen, who in spite of snow blocked roads filled the Glenavon memorial hall to capacity, Mr. Hamilton said an example of the help the Tories would give to agriculture is the agricultural prices stabilization act which he described as "the best bill for the farmer that has ever been passed."
Again, the minister of northern affairs spoke in Wolseley, Saskatchewan, as reported in the Regina Leader-Post of March 21, 1958. He is reported to have said:
This bill will provide prices that will do more to give the farmer peace of mind, and enable him to operate more efficiently, than anything done to date in Canada's history.
In the same speech he said:
Let's get moving on the big things. Let western Canada give a western leader their support. John Diefenbaker is trusted by all people. He will not betray the trust.
I wonder, Mr. Speaker, what peace of mind the hog and egg producers have today? How much do they trust this government? Their feelings, I am confident, were expressed in clear and precise language the other day by the hon. member for Rosthern, (Mr. Nasser-den), a supporter of this government. This is what he said, as reported on page 470 of Hansard for January 28 last:
If I understand this program correctly, it is the most retrograde step that could be taken from an already established position. Moreover the arguments used are unworthy of an informed ministry.
These are words from a person who should know-a person representing an agricultural riding-in answer to the charge made by the Minister of Agriculture that the opposition did not know what it was talking about. What has happened to this great party which before the last election was asking the people of Canada to send Tories to Ottawa, men who knew the problems of the constituency and to whom people could look for advice? What does the Minister of Northern Affairs and National Resources (Mr. Hamilton) think now of the hon. member for Rosthern who lined up with the Liberals and the C.C.F. in denouncing this policy of the government? I would like to remind the hon. gentleman of the statement he made in Wolseley, Saskatchewan in the course of the same speech which I quoted a moment ago. Listen to this:
Mr. Hamilton took the C.C.F. and Liberal Walter Tucker to task for having joined forces at Ottawa to misrepresent the agricultural prices stabilization bill. "Whenever you see Tucker and the C.C.F. getting friendly, run for the bushes," he told the laughing audience.
The hon. member for Rosthern who replaced Mr. Tucker is now lining up with the

Liberals and C.C.F. Who is laughing now, and who is running for the bushes? I wonder what would happen today if the minister of northern affairs and the Minister of Agriculture were to go out to Saskatchewan and repeat the statements they made during the last election campaign? I am sure they would get a crowd all right, snow blocked roads or not, but I would be willing to wager that the people who attended would not be armed with smiling faces but with eggs. Yes, Mr. Speaker, eggs, eggs that might just as well be used for decorating ministers as for selling at the prices received today.


An hon. Member:: Not as bad as the one you are laying.


Mervyn Arthur Hardie: We have had the latest speech from the hon. member for-where is it?


An hon. Member:: You wouldn't know.


Mervyn Arthur Hardie: Today is the ninth day we have spent on the speech from the throne, yet to date we have received very little by way of answers to questions raised on this side of the house. The reason, I submit, is that the government does not know the answers, has no laid down policy on anything, and waits until a crisis develops before making a decision.
I should like now to deal with matters concerning the people of my riding. The speech from the throne has two paragraphs dealing with the north. The first is as follows- I am quoting from Hansard for Thursday, January 14, page 2:
My government is pleased that its national development program has stimulated a large increase in northern exploration. Last year's discovery of oil and gas in the Yukon is being followed this year by a score of new exploratory wells over a wide area of northern Canada. Coupled with a revival of mining activity, this makes it evident that private enterprise is now active in the opening up of the north. New oil and gas regulations will emphasize opportunities for Canadians to participate in the ownership of these northern resources.
The government is implying that its national development policy has stimulated a large increase in northern exploration and that, as a result oil and gas were found in the Yukon. But what has this government done to expect any credit for the oil and gas found in the Eagle plain or Peel plateau area? Absolutely nothing. The companies finding this oil and gas have been working in this area since 1952 on a concession given to them by the former administration. A great deal of work has been done by these companies since that time, but the interest in this area began in 1957. As proof of this I call as witness the present minister of northern affairs who, speaking of the rush for oil permits in the Peel and Eagle plain
The Address-Mr. Hardie plateau area, as recorded on page 22 of the report of the standing committee on mines, forests and waters for Monday June 9, 1958, said:
The rush started last summer when word got out that this company was drilling. There was some staking last summer. Whether it started in June or not is not the point. It was completely separate and apart from government policy.
The government says now that its own national development program has been responsible for stimulating a large increase in further exploration. That is not true. The real reason is that the company which has been doing this work since 1952 hit oil and gas in a well which it was drilling during the past summer. Naturally this has sparked more interest in the area. As the minister said in 1958, the increased interest in the area was due to the work of the company and the same holds true today, if not more so. I hope the minister will not try to tell us the road from Flat Creek is what stimulated this interest, because he knows as well as I do that this road will not be of any help to the present permit holders who are required by regulation to do work to keep their permits in good standing. This road will not be completed in that area before the time limit of these permits expires.
There is also the interest taken in the area north of the British Columbia border and in the Northwest Territories. This was also due to the work done by the oil and gas companies. I could give another quotation from the minister in support of this statement, but I see that my time is running out, so I will not do so. In any event, this interest just above the British Columbia border on the Northwest Territories side was sparked by a find of gas last year, and resulted in the government selling rights to a considerable acreage. I understand that gas had been hit in that area recently and I expect that as this news becomes more widely known oil and gas companies will seek to get acreage in that area.
As far as the applications for permits in the Arctic islands is concerned, any interest in this area was due to the report of a survey carried out by the Department of Mines and Technical Surveys in 1955. These surveys are continuing, and if the reports show that the geological formation of the Arctic islands indicates that there are areas where oil and gas may be found, private oil and gas companies will naturally investigate.
Let us not hear any more of this malarkey from the minister that he and his policies have in the last year and a half made it possible for oil companies to find gas and oil. One would think from some of the articles and press reports written that he put the oil
536	HOUSE OF
The Address-Hon. D. M. Fleming and gas in the ground. As far as the mention in the speech from the throne concerning new gas and oil regulations is concerned- the promise that new regulations will be introduced by the government this year-I wonder if we can depend on this announcement any more than we could on the announcement made by the Minister of Northern Affairs and National Resources on June 1 of last year to the committee on mines, forests and waters, when he stated that he expected these regulations to be approved by the cabinet during the first week of June of that year.
I submit that the real reason why the government has delayed bringing in the new regulations for so long has been to give an opportunity to a number of speculators who were able to obtain from the government applications for leases on millions of acres of ground, to sell acreage to companies who have the capital to do the work. We have heard a great deal lately from the minister in regard to low cost oil. Is this practice of allowing speculators to hold millions of acres on applications for permit with the sole intention of having oil companies pay through the nose for these rights giving us low cost oil?
When I read some of the statements the minister has made in regard to oil or gas finds in the north, he reminds me of a gypo stock promoter. The speech from the throne indicates that there has been a revival of mining in the north. Surely the Minister of Northern Affairs and National Resources is not going to tell us that he has made any changes in policy or in mining regulations or built any development roads. There has not been a new find in the Mackenzie district, Northwest Territories, since 1948 with the exception of Ray Rock which closed down last June nor has there been any mineral discovery since that made by the International Nickel Company.


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


Donald Methuen Fleming: Mr. Speaker, as this ninth day of the present debate draws to a close may I hope it is not too late for one to extend his very sincere congratulations to the mover and seconder of the address in reply to the speech from the throne for their most gracious speeches in opening this debate.
We are approaching the test in this house tonight of the confidence that the house has in the government. The opposition has challenged the confidence of the house. The debate has had a good many features to it.
I suppose I may be forgiven for turning back
[Mr. Hardie.l

to one of the earlier ones, the speech of the Leader of the Opposition (Mr. Pearson).
It was on January 18 that he delivered his long, laboured, bitter and critical speech. In his view nothing that the government had done was right, everything was -wrong. He singled out in particular five spheres of government policy and administration for special criticism. They were defence, agriculture, trade, employment and finance. It did not take the Prime Minister (Mr. Diefenbaker) very long to demolish that speech and attack and the Prime Minister indicated at the time that the ministers associated with four departments would in the course of this debate make statements. My colleagues the Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Harkness), the Minister of Trade and Commerce (Mr. Churchill) and the Minister of Labour (Mr. Starr) have already spoken and so far as I am able to do so I should like to make a statement to the house tonight in reply to the Leader of the Opposition concerning financial policy and administration.
The house will recall the scene on January 18. The stage was set. We were to see the new Pearson, the new man, the fighting tough man coming out of his corner slugging, taking on all comers. I welcome the Leader of the Opposition to his seat, Mr. Speaker, and I will repeat that sentence. On January 18 the stage was carefully set, painstakingly planned of course by the advisers of the Leader of the Opposition. We were to see the new Pearson, the new man, the tough fighting man coming out of his corner slugging, taking on all comers, rough, tough Lester.
The speech was to be replete with stinging accusations and harsh words. Why even the press releases were all prepared so that the headline material would be available to the press even before the speech had been completed. The headlines, of course, were to proclaim the speech a triumph. The Prime Minister was not even going to be given a chance to make his speech in the afternoon session.
Where were the headlines? There were no headlines for that speech of the Leader of the Opposition. They went, as we all well know, to the Prime Minister on his speech. But what I wish to draw attention to is the reaction of the Leader of the Opposition, the personal pique, the irritation, the choler that he demonstrated in the house and later in the week on the television program, plainly showing his personal irritation that he had been deprived of the triumph that was to be his.
There are so many things in the speech of the hon. gentleman that invite answer that I am going to have to proceed very quickly. Let me say in summary that I believe it is one of

the most misleading and irresponsible speeches ever delivered in the House of Commons. I am not taking time to dwell on the fact that it was full of sneers, snide remarks and superficialities, but I do wish to say something about the errors, the half-truths, quarter-truths and untruths that found their way into that speech.
Here let me deal as briefly as I can with just a few. I have picked out about 20 and I do not know if I will have time to go beyond that. Number one; turning to page 49 of Hansard of January 18 we find the hon. gentleman saying:
-in the cold and objective language of the report of the dominion bureau of statistics in the statistical review which came out a few weeks ago recovery and expansion have been less vigorous in Canada than in the United States.
In fact this is what that issue did say:
It must always be borne in mind that as the recession, itself, was mild in Canada, so the recovery and expansion has been less vigorous than in the United States. However, by the second quarter of 1959, the rate of expansion in relation to previous peaks was about the same in the two countries.
Number two; on page 49 the hon. gentleman said:
-the bureau indicated an increase in our gross national product during the year of 5 per cent in volume. To get it into perspective I should point out that in 1955-another year of economic recovery -the increase in the gross national product was 8.5 per cent and in 1956, 8.6 per cent.
The fact is that in the dominion bureau of statistics third quarter national accounts in which the D.B.S. mentioned the volume increase of 5 per cent they put it into perspective by saying this:
-this compares with... a postwar average for the years 1947 to 1958 of 4 per cent per year.
So you see, Mr. Speaker, the hon. gentleman's perspective was just a little cast in the shade there. Number three; at page 49 the hon. gentleman said:
I should also point out that there has been no increase-
Here he is speaking of the gross national product. I continue:
-in the third quarter of 1959, so it is a little premature to say that the battle has been spectacularly won.
The fact is that the dominion bureau of statistics in its third quarter national accounts points out the factors which contributed to a slowdown in the third quarter. Here are its words in that respect:
1. Of some importance in this country was the strike of 27,000 forestry workers in British Columbia which had a major impact on production and income in both forestry and in durable goods manufacturing.
The Address-Hon. D. M. Fleming
2. The repercussions of the (steel) strike on the United States economy have probably influenced climate and course of the business expansion in Canada.
Number four; at page 49 this is what we heard from the hon. gentleman on the question of unemployment:
The fact is that the average-
He was speaking of unemployment. I continue:
-is 348,000 and it is going up. These 348,000 unemployed are more than in the United States.
What are the facts now? If one takes account of the seasonal factors one might say that perhaps one third to two fifths of the total unemployment in this country is seasonal, and this is evident by our average levels in comparison with other countries. Despite this fact, our average is no higher than that of the United States, the hon. gentleman to the contrary notwithstanding. The rate in Canada for the 11 months for which the figures are complete has been running at 5.6 per cent. That percentage is almost identical with that of the United States. The United States total unemployment in December was 3,577,000.
Number five; the hon. gentleman said that the municipalities are finding it more and more difficult to raise the money to meet their own share-page 49. What are the facts? Mr. Speaker, if the house will give me permission to put a table on Hansard, I may say to you that it will show very clearly the municipalities are doing better in this respect than they did in the periods spoken of by the hon. gentleman. May I have leave of the house, Mr. Speaker, to put this table on the record?


John Whitney Pickersgill: Could the minister tell us what the table is?


Donald Methuen Fleming: A table of municipal borrowings from the year 1956 to the end of nine months of 1959, inclusive.


John Whitney Pickersgill: Can the minister indicate what the origin of the figures is?


Donald Methuen Fleming: Department of Finance, from government sources.


Mr. Speaker:: Has the minister leave to incorporate the table in Hansard?


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


John Whitney Pickersgill: Can the minister say
whether these figures have been published previously?


Donald Methuen Fleming: Yes, I think they are all available in public form. They go up to the end of nine months of 1959, the last date for which those figures are complete. They will show that whereas at the end of
598	HOUSE OF
The Address-Hon. D. M. Fleming 1956 outstanding bank loans of municipalities amounted to $117 million, at the end of the first nine months of 1959 they amounted to $227 million, and in terms of gross new issues delivered in 1956, bond issues, for the full year the total was $358 million. For the first nine months alone of 1959 the total was $338 million. Therefore, the facts are all against the Leader of the Opposition.
(Editor's Note: The table referred to above is as follows:)



MUNICIPAL BORROWINGS

[Stage Direction]
Outstanding	Gross New	Issues Delivered*	Bank Loans of	Payable in	Payable in	Municipalities	Canadian	Foreign	(end of year)	Currency	Currency	Total(in millions)	(millions of dollars)	1956 	117	251	107	3581957 	193	284	123	4071958 	217	339	148	4871959 	227	-	1958 (9 mos.)	213	107	3201959 (9 mos.)	231	107	338
'Excluding municipal bonds sold directly to provinces or guaranteed by provinces. Information is not available for 1959, but the totals are only a small part of total new issues.
John Whitney Pickersgill: Will the minister give the average rate of interest?


Donald Methuen Fleming: At page 50, the Leader of the Opposition-


John Whitney Pickersgill: Will the minister permit a question?


Donald Methuen Fleming: I am sorry; I will not have time for questions unless the hon. gentleman would like to ask them at the conclusion of my remarks. I shall be glad to answer any questions then. Number six, at page 50 the Leader of the Opposition says this:
Anyway, perhaps the minister has read this article by a man who certainly cannot be accused of any political affiliation or political or party prejudice. I refer to the article by Professor Neufeld in the Canadian Banker last autumn, and he is a real authority on the subject. Professor Neufeld said, and I am going to quote from page 663.
Then, he proceeded to quote from that page concerning an upward move in interest rates. I have looked into this. The article referred to did not appear in the Canadian Banker but in an English publication called The Banker. The quotation in Hansard is correct, but Professor Neufeld also had the following to say:
Events in the Canadian capital market in recent months have prompted some observers to talk with exaggeration of a "credit crisis".
This is an expression the Leader of the Opposition has used. You know, Professor Neufeld also said this before the quotation read into the record by the Leader of the Opposition:


Since that time-that is, late in 1958-the money supply has remained virtually constant: the government has had to finance its deficit by selling short term issues at prices demanded by the market. The final indication that this policy of competing for funds was not only the correct one but also a practicable one came last September when several new government issues sold well. While there is no doubt that the government will have to raise further money, it at least now has a firmer bond market in which to seek its funds. This improved market tone, together with the possibility that the government net cash requirements from the market may disappear in the first half of 1960, has made the problem of selling government issues considerably more attractive than it seemed a short while ago.
Before I leave the subject, it is worthy of note, I think, that Professor Neufeld says that the market determines the price and interest rates of short term issues, not as the remarks of the Leader of the Opposition would have led one to believe, that the government determines those interest rates. Mr. Speaker, it goes on and on.
Number seven; at page 50 the Leader of the Opposition says:
This monetary crisis, because it certainly was that as the minister will admit-
He refers to the Minister of Finance, Mr. Speaker. Let me say to him that the minister does not admit false and untrue statements of that kind. There has not been a monetary crisis. This country is in a very solid and sound financial condition and has been throughout this period.
Number eight; at page 51 the Leader of the Opposition said:
The government's decision to expand the money supply-
He is speaking about 1958. That was not a government decision; that was a decision taken by the Bank of Canada.


Mr. Benidickson:: Nonsense.


Donald Methuen Fleming: 
John Whitney Pickersgill: What did you say in 1956?


Donald Methuen Fleming: Here is what goes on. The testimony continued:
I think myself that the Bank of Canada Act is in this respect a very good act, and better than most, because it is clear. There is no alibi possible for the central bank.
On the other hand, there is no alibi possible for the government-
And here is where the Leader of the Opposition picks out his statement:
-because if government said:	well, we disagreed with what the central bank did, but parliament has placed the responsibility on them, so what could we do? The answer obviously is that the administration of the day, supported by a majority in parliament, can always alter the legislation.
I say to you, Mr. Speaker, that the Leader of the Opposition gave a very misleading interpretation of what was said by Mr. Graham Towers in his testimony.


Lester Bowles Pearson: Read page 51.


Donald Methuen Fleming: I come to number 10. On page 52, the Leader of the Opposition purports to quote the Prime Minister as saying:
In the fall of 1958, we increased the money supply by 12 per cent.
If he will be fair with the Prime Minister he will know that the Prime Minister when he spoke that way was not referring to the government but to Canada.
Number 11; at page 52 the hon. gentleman was referring to the Prime Minister, and he said:
He said then that there had been no freezing of the money supply by the government.
Yes, certainly, there had been no freezing of the money supply, because the government is not freezing the money supply. Only the Bank of Canada has power over the volume of currency in circulation.


An hon. Member:: That is the law.


Donald Methuen Fleming: If the hon. member wants the law amended let him and his
The Address-Hon. D. M. Fleming party come out from under cover where they have been hiding and say so.
Number 12; at page 52 the Leader of the Opposition says:
We have had in the past much greater demand for funds for much greater expansion under Liberal administration without such high interest rates and with less scarcity of funds. Let the Minister of Finance deny that statement if he can.
Let me put the facts squarely on the record. There was a greater demand for funds in the form of bank commercial credit in the period from the middle of 1958 to the summer of 1959, than there had been in any comparable period previous to that time in Canada's history. There is the fact.


John Whitney Pickersgill: Because of your $2 billion of borrowing.


Donald Methuen Fleming: Not because of our borrowing, Mr. Speaker.


John Whitney Pickersgill: You were sopping it all up.


Donald Methuen Fleming: We will come to that matter of borrowing if hon. gentlemen opposite can possess their souls in patience.
Number 13; as found on page 52 the Leader of the Opposition said that we had "$2 billion cash deficits in two years." We did not have $2 billion cash deficits in two years. If he knew what he was talking about when he referred to cash deficits he would have known, whether he was talking about fiscal years or whether he was talking about calendar years, that total cash deficits amounted not to $2 billion but to $1J billion. But he does not like fractions so $1J billion is the same thing as $2 billion to him. What is $500 million to him?
The next one is Number 14, I believe. I am losing track of these numbers. As found on page 53 he said of the government of which he was a member:
-we did put into effect monetary restrictions in a period of boom.
That is not true. It was the Bank of Canada that put into effect the monetary restrictions at the time to which he refers. So one can go on, Mr. Speaker.
The next one I have must be Number 15. As found on page 54 he said:
-in the last two years of his financial administration fiscal policy has not been flexible.
He is completely wrong there because the distinguishing feature of government fiscal policy in the last two and a half years has been its flexibility. We adapted it each time to the changing conditions and just as fast as conditions of parliamentary government with an annual budget would permit.

The Address-Hon. D. M. Fleming
Let us take the next one, Number 16. As found on page 60 the Leader of the Opposition said:
-the figure for our deficit in international payments for the first nine months of 1959 was $919 million. This, of course, is profoundly disturbing-
Yes, he told the truth, Mr. Speaker. In the first nine months of 1959 the deficit with the United States was indeed $919 million, but in the last full year of Liberal administration the deficit with the United States for the first nine months of 1956 was $1,204 million. Apparently that was not so disturbing.


An hon. Member:: You said you were going to correct it.


Donald Methuen Fleming: Number 17, again on page 60, the Leader of the Opposition said:
As the dominion bureau of statistics points out, -nearly 29 per cent-
He was speaking of the unfavourable balance.
-is now financed by inflows of other character, mostly of a short term character.
The dominion bureau of statistics publication, Canada's Balance of International Payments, third quarter, 1959, states:
In the third quarter some types of short term inflow continued, particularly in the earlier part of the period, but there were also outflows offsetting most of this group of inflows.
Number 18; on page 60 the Leader of the Opposition said:
Of this inflow of capital, 80 per cent is now coming from the United States and only 5 per cent from the United Kingdom, though in the preceding year, 1958, that figure was 15 per cent. There is a change in the wrong direction.
What are the facts? The statement of the Leader of the Opposition gives the impression, of course, that the United States figure is increasing while the United Kingdom figure is decreasing. The D.B.S. third quarter International Balance of Payments publication says:
Geographically slightly more than 80 per cent of the capital inflows in long term forms during the first nine months have come from the United States. This was also the experience in 1958. Net inflows from the United Kingdom represented less than 5 per cent of the movement in 1959 compared with about 15 per cent in 1958. A considerable part of the change reflected outflows from Canada for direct investment in the United Kingdom, although the completion in 1958 of repayments by the United Kingdom on the $700 million loan of 1942 was also an important factor-
One is left to wonder in the face of this fact whether the Leader of the Opposition is concerned about our investing in the United Kingdom or is lamenting the end of the repayments to Canada on the loan we made to the United Kingdom some years ago.


John Whitney Pickersgill: That is a diversion.


Donald Methuen Fleming: Number 19, page 61, and this is a fine example of trickery with words, the Leader of the Opposition said:
We have a merchandise deficit with the United States of $609 million. Last year for the same 11-month period we had a merchandise deficit of $288 million, so that has gone up and that is profoundly disturbing. Indeed, one of the things from which the government took the greatest satisfaction last year during a period of strong recession was the fact we had cut down our adverse balance of trade with the United States. Well, it has now gone up to $609 million.
Note these words, "It has gone up to $609 million". The fact is that the deficit with the United States for 11 months this year was, as the Leader of the Opposition said, $609 million. The total deficit with all countries for the first 11 months of 1958, as he said, was $288 million. But the deficit with the United States for the first 11 months of 1958 was $643 million. Thus the United States deficit has decreased this year and not increased unless decrease means to the Leader of the Opposition to go up. The fact is that it went down from $643 million to $609 million whereas the Leader of the Opposition says it has now gone up to $609 million.
Number 20, page 61, the Leader of the Opposition said:
Of those increased imports 14.5 per cent came from the United Kingdom. How much came from the United States? Of this increase in imports, 56.2 per cent came from the United States. '
What are the facts? This, of course, left the impression that we were increasing our share of imports from the United States. For the first 11 months of 1959 we increased the share of our imports from the United Kingdom, from other commonwealth countries and from other areas. The share of our imports coming from the United States decreased from 68.9 per cent to 67.8 per cent. In 1956, the last full year of Liberal rule, the share of our imports coming from the United States was 73 per cent.
I wish there were time, to dwell on more of these palpable errors, half-truths, quarter-truths and untruths in the speech of the Leader of the Opposition but time does not permit. I wish to deal now with something that I think is worthy of comment in the Canadian House of Commons. I refer to the sedulous, persistent efforts made by the Leader of the Opposition to destroy confidence. I do not mind if in partisan warfare the Leader of the Opposition wishes to do what he can to destroy confidence in the government. That is perfectly lawful and proper in a democracy, if that is the tactic that he chooses.
But, Mr. Speaker, when the Leader of the Opposition chooses at the same time to destroy confidence in Canada that is a very

different matter as far as we are concerned. In this respect I say that the Leader of the Opposition has followed a reckless and irresponsible course. Need I remind you, sir, of the things that he said last year? Here is a statement by him as found on page 40 of Hansard of last year. I have selected three sentences on that page:
-there is now decreasing confidence in the country, in the stability of our dollar, and this means danger. ... At the end of ... 1958 the Canadian investing public held less government bonds than at the beginning, $7,953 million as against $8,628 million. . .. The integrity of Canada's credit has never been questioned before as it is being questioned now.
That was not said by some external enemy of Canada; that was said in this house by the Leader of the Opposition.


Some hon. Members:: Shame.


John Whitney Pickersgill: That is pretty cheap stuff.


Donald Methuen Fleming: In the same speech, page 41, he talked about reaching a "crisis of confidence", with rising prices, rising costs, rising deficits and, along with these, rising unemployment. That was the picture that he sought to paint of Canada in 1959. We well remember the way he gloried in gloom, the way he went about the country prophesying a deficit of over $1 billion. When the final figure was made known I am sure it was very disappointing to him to find that the deficit was only $609 million. He had taken the actual amount, you see, and just added the usual Liberal two thirds to it for good measure. And they are not through with this tactic yet.
Hon. members who listened to the speech by the hon. member for Laurier (Mr. Che-vrier) in this house last Thursday night will have observed that the hon. gentleman announced with great emphasis that the deficit last year was $862 million. He is just $253 million over the fact. That is, of course, I suppose the measure of leeway that has to be extended to those who make use of the Martin bureau of statistics. When they take figures and facts and apply surgery to them we well now know that it is manipulative surgery that they apply.
That was in the throne speech debate a year ago. But the Leader of the Opposition was not satisfied with the claim that he made then. When he came to take part in the budget debate last year you will find some of the comments he had to make on April 21 of that year at page 2912 of Hansard, when he addressed the Minister of Finance as follows:
I tell him and the government that the word of Canada-
Mark this, Mr. Speaker.
-does not mean as much now as it did.
The Address-Hon. D. M. Fleming


An hon. Member:: It is true, too.


Donald Methuen Fleming: If ever a member in this house made a statement that will redound to his shame as long as he stays in this house it was that statement, and it will redound to the everlasting shame of the hon. gentleman who uttered it. Here is one who is not an external enemy of Canada. This is the Leader of the Opposition saying to the world, saying to anybody who will listen to him that there is something wrong with the good name of Canada when Canada puts her name to obligations-


John Whitney Pickersgill: Ask any egg producer or any hog producer.


Donald Methuen Fleming: -that the word of Canada does not mean as much as it did.


Lester Bowles Pearson: I wonder if the minister would be kind enough to identify that sentence?


Donald Methuen Fleming: It is page 2912 of Hansard for April 21, 1959.


Lester Bowles Pearson: Will the minister identify to what I was referring? Was it the national gallery's obligation in connection with the purchase of pictures?


Donald Methuen Fleming: He was talking about confidence in Canada, both at home and abroad. I will say to him that no one has done more, in the way he has gone about his partisan tasks, to weaken confidence in Canada, both at home and abroad, than he has.
Then the Leader of the Opposition went on to deal with my forecast of a 7 per cent increase in the gross national product. He said that was far too optimistic a forecast and it had been dismissed by many experts. He had to admit himself in speaking in this house two weeks ago that the forecast of the Minister of Finance was not too optimistic and the figure forecast has been equalled with a 7 per cent increase in the gross national product.
In the throne speech debate this year he has some interesting things to say. At page 50 he announces we are still in a condition of recession. At page 49 he talks about the boom. He does not admit we are in a boom, he simply says we are acquiring some of the worst monetary evils of a boom. You see, signs of improvement hurt him; nothing is right, so he pursues his petty, unrealistic, carping course. He had something to say about deficits, but on January 19, 1959, he had a different tune about deficits. He said the previous administration did not hesitate to budget for a deficit when there was a threat of recession. What did we do? We budgeted
602	HOUSE OF
The Address-Hon. D. M. Fleming for a deficit when there was a recession. In 1958 we were meeting the problems of a recession, then at its low point, and were seeking to use fiscal measures to offset the decline in business activity and to stimulate recovery. We gave strong support to new housing construction; we increased substantially our own direct expenditures on capital projects; we reduced our own resources to increase those of the provinces and municipalities; we sustained and enlarged the general purchasing power of the Canadian public, both by tax reductions and increases in pensions and other welfare payments.
In 1959, one year ago, we were budgeting for a period of recovery. Our problem was to strike a balance. It was not yet a time for a severe application of fiscal restraint, but the situation did require a reduction in the stimulus which government fiscal policies had injected into the economic stream. We took a firm course designed to ward off the perils of inflation and to preserve the purchasing power of the Canadian dollar without retarding the forces of recovery, and we have succeeded.


John Whitney Pickersgill: Could the minister say from what he was quoting?


Donald Methuen Fleming: I was interested this afternoon in the intervention by the hon. member for Bonavista-Twillingate (Mr. Pickersgill). Of course, it just would not do for any act to be concluded without his entry. He condemned the Prime Minister and myself to silence between sessions of parliament, and then he proceeded to give the house some figures. I have not had time to analyse those figures. I have not a note of them but I can say to you if they came from the usual source of these Liberal figures, then I shall challenge them sight unseen.


John Whitney Pickersgill: They came from your budget.


Donald Methuen Fleming: He says of the increase in social security that we Liberals created this. Yes, they created some of them. They created the liabilities and left us to pay for them. If you want to add insult to injury, what better example could you have from Jumping Jack himself than the fact that after we are left to pay for them he says, you should not have had such a big deficit. I suppose anything could be expected from him. He was just back from Winnipeg where he had been licking the boots of the Winnipeg Free Press.
They have had something to say, about high interest rates. I wish there were time to refer them to the statements of Mr. Harris about rising interest rates made in this


house in 1956. Let me say very briefly that nobody on this side of the house enjoys paying high interest rates. They are slightly lower than they were. The treasury bill rate has been dropping gradually since last August. I am not making predictions about interest rates in the situation that exists in the world today, but I think hon. gentlemen opposite ought to be fair enough to acknowledge that the market in Canada, since our September offer, has been much stronger and there is much more confidence there.
The fact of the matter is that interest rates are up everywhere. There is a world-wide shortage of capital. The United Kingdom last week increased its discount rate by a full 1 per cent; the United States is paying the highest interest rates in 30 years, and this in the greatest reservoir of capital in all the world.


Lester Bowles Pearson: But well below the Canadian rate.


Donald Methuen Fleming: They are always below the Canadian rate. Has the hon. gentleman just discovered that fact now? They have been below the Canadian rates for a century because they have capital whereas we are short of capital.
May I ask leave of the house to place on the record two tables, one showing the interest rates on government securities from June, 1958 to December, 1959 inclusive, and table two, the average term to maturity of unmatured marketable government issues in Canada and the United States, month by month, from January, 1958 to December, 1959.


John Whitney Pickersgill: Before permission is
granted I wonder if the minister would be good enough to undertake, not now but tomorrow, to provide similar rates from 1955 onward so that we will have a fair comparison between what he calls the tight money policy of Mr. Harris and his own tight money policy?


Donald Methuen Fleming: I do not know whether I can obtain them by that time.


John Whitney Pickersgill: If the minister will get them this week, it will be all right.


Donald Methuen Fleming: As soon as it is possible to furnish him with them, I shall be delighted to do it.


Mr. Speaker:: Would the minister indicate the source of these tables?


Donald Methuen Fleming: They are a Department of Finance compilation from government records.


Mr. Speaker:: Has the hon. member leave to have these tables incorporated in Hansard at this point?


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.

(Editor's note: The tables above referred to are as follows:)



TABLE 1 INTEREST RATES-U.S. GOVERNMENT SECURITIES

[Stage Direction]
Long-Term
Bonds:
91-Day
Treas.
Bills
(Market
Yield)
%
1958-	June	.83
July	.91
August	1.69
September	2.44
October	2.63
November	2.67
December	2.77
1959-	January	2.82
February	2.70
March	2.80
April	2.95
May	2.84
June	3.21
July	3.20
August	3.38
September	4.04
October	4.05
November	4.15
December	4.49
3-5 Year	10 Years
Issues	or more
(Average of (Average of Selected	Selected
Issues)	Issues)
%	%
2.25	3.19
2.54	3.36
3.11	3.60
3.57	3.75
3.63	3.76
3.60	3.70
3.65	3.80
3.86	3.90
3.85	3.92
3.88	3.92
4.03	4.01
4.16	4.08
4.33	4.09
4.40	4.11
4.45	4.10
4.78	4.26
4.69	4.11
4.74	4.12
4.95	4.27

[Stage Direction]
Canada		United States	
Years	Months	Years	Months1958-January	4	6February	4	11March	6	2	5	0April	4	11May	4	10June	6	4	5	3July	5	2August	5	1September	10	6	5	1October	4	11November	4	9December	10	3	4	91959-January	4	9February	4	9March	10	0	4	9April	4	8May	4	7June	9	9	4	7July	4	5August	4	6September	9	6	4	5October	4	4November	9	5	December	9	6	
It will be quite clear from these records that interest rates in the United States have risen in the 91-day category more than fourfold in a year and a half, and in the three to five year period of issue by more than double; in the 10-year period by over 30 per cent. Table two will show also an interesting comparison of length of term of debt in these two countries and demonstrate the great advantages brought to Canada in terms of its
The Address-Hon. D. M. Fleming debt management by the great conversion loan of 1958 which almost doubled the term to maturity of Canada's debt.
I must conclude now, and I do so on this matter of confidence. Surely, Mr. Speaker, the real test of confidence in Canada's word, Canada's credit, is the way people buy Canadian securities, and here are the facts. The return to public confidence has been striking. The public's willingness to purchase government bonds is, in the last analysis, the best test of its confidence. In 1955 the general public's holdings of government of Canada securities were about $9 billion; by mid-1958 they had fallen to less than $8 billion; today the public's holdings of our bonds exceed $10,750 million, an increase of $2,750 million in fifteen months. In other words, in 15 months the public's holdings of Canada bonds have risen by 35 per cent. Moreover, the public has, in the same period, increased its holdings of other Canadian securities, whether provincial, municipal or corporate, by another $1 billion. This increase is in part a reflection of the more attractive interest rates prevailing; but it also demonstrates unmistakably the growing public confidence in the government's determination to resist inflationary pressures and to defend the value of our national currency.
The return of confidence in the bond market enabled the chartered banks to finance the enormous demand for commercial credit by the sale of their holdings of Canada bonds in exchange for new savings of the public.
Mr. Speaker:: Order. I regret to inform the minister that his time has expired.


Lester Bowles Pearson: Mr. Speaker, I wonder if the minister would permit a question?


Donald Methuen Fleming: With pleasure.


Mr. Speaker:: Order. If the hon. member who is rising to take the floor will permit the question; it will encroach upon the time of the next speaker, and I would ask him if he is agreeable.


Murdo William Martin: Mr. Speaker, I find myself in the very unenviable position of having to try to cram a forty-minute speech into twenty-five minutes. However, the Leader of the Opposition may ask his question.


Lester Bowles Pearson: I thank the hon. member; it is a very short question. In view of the fact that the minister challenged my figures about the deficit would the minister deny that the cash deficit for 1958-59 was $1,147 million, and that his own estimate of the cash deficit for 1959-60 is $850 million, a total of roughly $2 billion?

The Address-Mr. M. W. Martin


Donald Methuen Fleming: Mr. Speaker, the hon. member is mixing up some very different things. He talked on January 18 of a cash deficit, and my statement applied to the cash deficit.


Murdo William Martin: Mr. Speaker, due to circumstances beyond my control I feel tonight that I have to cut my speech to the bare minimum. Accordingly I will dispense with the normal courtesies at this time and restrict my speech to the main tenor of my remarks.
I should like to deal tonight with a subject that has been very carefully avoided by the government so far, with exception of the minister who took his seat just now, who mentioned it in passing. I refer to the problem of social security in this country. In order to deal properly with the problem of social security we should first have a definition of what it is. One of the best I have seen is the one in the universal declaration of human rights, adopted on December 10, 1948 by the general assembly of the United Nations. It appears in article 25 and is as follows:
Everyone has the right to ... security in the event of unemployment, sickness, disability, widowhood, old age or other lack of livelihood in circumstances beyond his control.
I should also like to go back as far as 1911 to Charles W. Eliot, president of Harvard University.


Mr. Speaker:: Order. I would request a little more attention from the house. It is difficult to hear the hon. member who has the floor.


Murdo William Martin: Mr. Eliot put it in this way:
A declaration of independence if it were written now, would among other things set forth that every citizen in a free state has an inalienable right to that amount of employment which will yield for him and his family a decent living: that every worker has a right to be insured against the personal losses due to acute sickness, chronic invalidism, injuries through accident, and the inevitable disabilities of old age.
As social security has developed over the years in various countries it has generally taken three forms. They are social insurance, such as workmen's compensation and unemployment insurance; public service, such as old age pensions and family pensions, to mention the two most prominent; and social assistance, such as old age assistance, blind pensions, mothers allowances, and many others. In addition to that there is any number of social services such as workmen's compensation for industrial accidents, industrial sickness, pensions, life insurance, group insurance, funeral benefits, bonuses, holiday pay, vacation pay, and many others.

Also, of course, there is a matter of medical care. Doctor Rosenfeld, the associate executive director of the community health association of Detroit, Michigan, describes medical care in this way:
The need for medical care may be described in terms of those services which in accordance with current medical concepts are required by the individual and the family to prevent illness, disability and death; to ameliorate pain and anxiety, and to assist the individual and the family to realize their maximum potentialities-biological, psychological and social.
It might also be opportune at this time just to look back and see just how social security has developed over the years. It goes back even to primitive tribes, when the tribes used to look after their own. From there it developed to private and religious charity. Then through the middle ages there were the guilds which helped in some way to look after their fellow men. The great depression of the thirties gave it a great stimulus and pointed to the need of much greater assistance than before; and the advent of world war II saw the development of the trade unions in this country who, when wages were frozen, proceeded to get fringe benefits incorporated into contracts and thus alleviate various hardships. There is one great weakness with this form and that is that while these fringe benefits are written in the contracts, it means that everyone is paying and only a few are benefiting.
Urbanization and industrialization forced the general public to believe that democratic government has a responsibility to its citizens. Doctor Altmeyer, former United States commissioner of social security, speaking to the Canadian Labour Congress on December 1 of last year, quoted no less a person than the former prime minister of Great Britain, Sir Winston Churchill. This again goes right back to 1911 when Mr. Churchill was at that time a member of the Liberal party in Great Britain and was responsible for the development of the famous Beveridge plan. He had this to say:
I do not agree with those who say that every man must look after himself and that the intervention of the state will be fatal to his self-reliance, to his foresight and his thrift. If terror be an incentive to thrift, surely the penalties of the system which we have abandoned ought to have stimulated thrift as much as anything else could have been stimulated in this world. The mass of the labouring people have known that unless they made provision for their old age betimes, they would perish miserably in the workhouse.
We have seen social security develop in other countries such as Great Britain, Sweden, Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia, and even in the U.S.S.R. where pensions are now being related to past earnings. However, one

thing I would like to make very clear. Freedom and security are synonymous. You cannot have one without the other. Another thing we should also keep in mind is that social security should provide a safety net and not a feather bed.
What is our present position in this country with regard to social security? The same Doctor Altmeyer had this to say, and I think his words are very wise:
Certainly one great lesson that countries have learned the hard way is that it is vitally necessary to plan and develop a long-range, unified, harmonious and balanced system in order to avoid gaps, duplications and anomalies. They have found that unless they do it is impossible to achieve the goal of providing maximum security at a minimum cost. Unfortunately in many countries specific needs and demands have been considered only as they happened to attract public attention. As a result action has been taken on specific measures separately and independently. The result has been that in the course of time an unplanned, chaotic, inefficient and costly conglomeration of measures has come into existence. Vested interests in the continuance of each separate measure cause great difficulties in the development of a rational social security program.
That, I would say, is a very good picture of what we have in Canada at the present time. We find at the present time, to use one small illustration, that we are squandering far too much of our medical dollar on institutional care. The reason for this is that with regard to health in this country we are flying on one wing. We have, after long delay, introduced a system of hospital insurance across Canada, yet what do we find? We find cases where doctors have to order their patients into hospital even though they could be treated just as well, and perhaps better, inside their own homes. Doctors do this because they know that patients cannot afford treatment outside hospitals. One might almost say that hospitals are being used as hotels. Certainly, they are the most expensive hotels one could find in the country. Mr. Altmeyer also has this to say:
Although the voluntary plans are attempting to cleave to the principle of community rating, this position will be difficult for them to maintain in the face of competition with insurance companies. Medical care insurance would not seem to provide an appropriate area for the free play of the competitive practices that are acceptable in commerce. It is an area in which governmental regulation would seem to be not only appropriate-but necessary.
The hodgepodge of various plans that we have across the country at the present time tends to raise the cost to all small groups; to women's groups, to older people and to those in dangerous occupations.
We have a multitude of plans both public and private. They are in certain cases very inefficient and, in most cases, they are certainly duplicating costs. They are confusing to us at home and they are overwhelming to
The Address-Mr. M. W. Martin visitors coming to this country. Such various and endless types of plan seem very impressive, but unfortunately far too many of our citizens find themselves being led into a sense of false security; when they come to use a particular plan which they think covers them, they find to their surprise that they are not covered in the way they thought they were. Another danger which has grown up as a result of this multitude of plans was pointed out by Mr. J. S. Morgan, professor of social work at the University of Toronto, in a passage of a recent book about Great Britain. Professor Morgan wrote:
So far, two stages in the development of the corporate finance of privilege can be discerned. First there is the use of corporate funds to supplement management incomes, to compensate the chosen for the tax encroachments of the state. There are many forms such aid can take; the provision of pensions, cars, expense allowances, interest-free loans, etc. the shape being determined by the provisions of the tax code. But the second stage goes much further. The country house and the flat in town are owned by the corporation but used by the individual; the chauffeur, the butler and the gardener serve the individual but are now maintained on the company payroll. The corporation owns its own cars, its yacht, its country club, even its aeroplane; but all are used by its senior employees.
I would submit that this situation would not be foreign to Canada.
As nearly as we can find from the figures available, at least with the research facilities open to us, of all the medical bills of last year, with all this multitude of plans, only 27 per cent of the bills were covered by these plans. For example, it is estimated that the drug bill alone accounts for 25 cents of every medical dollar. It seems, also, that both past and present governments have been obsessed with trying to leave health care in the hands of life insurance companies. I notice in the papers the other night that the hon. member for Hamilton South (Mr. McDonald)-whether he was expressing the ideas of the government or not, I am not sure-advocated that the government should give up all the insurance field and leave it to the insurance companies.


Mr. McDonald (Hamilton South):: On a point of privilege, may I say that all my remarks were not reported. They only reported half of my remarks.


Murdo William Martin: I am pleased to hear that. It is only half as bad as I thought it was.
Having lost the hospital insurance field the private insurance companies have shown frantic activity in the field of health insurance to block any further expansion of a comprehensive medical health plan for the Canadian people. One has only to pick up the tabloid called Responsible Enterprise which, I believe,

The Address-Mr. M. W. Martin is circulated among all hon. members, to see the kind of attacks which are made in regard to this field. I would suggest it is the opinion of many besides myself that this tabloid is misnamed, because instead of being responsible enterprise it is both irresponsible and reactionary.
In addition, the present costs of social security measures to the federal government are estimated to be $1,856,196,000. For example, the cost of old age pensions and family allowances comes to some $900 million. Figures available for eight of the ten provinces show that, in addition, the provinces spend some $170,523,637 in this field, ranging from a low in Nova Scotia of something over $5 million to a high in Quebec of nearly $68 million. But I wonder what we are getting

in exchange for every dollar spent? I know it is very difficult to make an estimate but I would suggest that if we are getting 25 cents value for every dollar spent in this field it would be a generous estimate.
I have here two tables, one is by Dr. A. J. Altmeyer and the other has been compiled by Mr. J. S. Morgan, both of whom, I believe, are very well qualified gentlemen. As time is slipping by I should like permission to have them made part of the record in Hansard.


Mr. Speaker:: Has the hon. member leave to incorporate these two tables in Hansard?


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.
(.Editor's Note: The tables referred to are as follows:)



CANADIAN SOCIAL SECURITY


[Stage Direction]
Contingency
Medical care:
a)	Hospital
b)	Medical and Surgicalc)	Pharmaceutical etc.-
Sickness-
Unemployment-
Old Age
Industrial injury or disease
Children
Maternity
Invalidity
(other than industrial) Death of breadwinner (other than industrial)
a)	Survivors
b)	Funeral etc.
Retirement
Universal Transfer or Contributory programmes
Hospital Insurance Nil Nil Nil
Unemployment Insurance Old Age Security Workmen's Compensation Family Allowances Nil Nil
Nil
Nil
Nil
Public Assistance programmes
[Stage Direction]
Indigent medical care x x
Unemployment Assist.
Old Age Assistance N/A
Mothers allowances Nil
Allowances to permanently and totally disabled
Allowance to Blind persons
Mothers Allowance x x
x The provincial and municipal programmes do, in varying degrees in various places, provide assistance on a basis of need for some of these types of contingency.

[Stage Direction]
The cost of social security expressed as a percentage of national income of certain specified
countries in 1954.
Australia	 8.1%
Austria	17.0
Belgium	 [ 16^2
Canada	 9.1
Czechoslovakia	 11.6
Denmark	 HI
France	 j " is!s
German Federal Rep	 19.2
Guatemala	 2.2
Italy	  14/7
Netherlands	 8.9
New Zealand	   12.5
Norway	 | 8^6
Peru	  1.9
Sweden	 11,2
United Kingdom	  10.0
United States	 5.2
Yugoslavia	' 11.2
Murdo William Martin: I would suggest that one of the reasons we are not getting much 
value for our money is because of the way we got into this social security program, stumbling blindly in the dark with no thought as to where we are going, how we are going to get there or what we want when we do get there. These programs have been brought about by world events and by political pressure at home. The government, unfortunately, has gone down the road of social security with both feet dragging and firmly braced. It sometimes seems that the government wants to prove itself right in delaying it so long. We have many gaps in our social security program. One of the main reasons is because far too many Canadians think that minimum standards and not minimum health and decency are what we are striving for.
I see that my time is getting short and I am going to have to by-pass some very important parts of this extremely significant

subject. I should like to go on now to consider just what we may hope to attain in the future and what will be needed then. The following are some of the questions I suggest we should ask ourselves. First, on what basis are, or should, family allowance rates be determined? Have we ever faced up to the situation? Since they were first inaugurated in 1945 have we considered what purchasing value they have today as compared to the purchasing value they had then?
Second, what grounds are there for different rates of benefit in the same circumstances of income need, depending upon whether the cause of need is a war injury, an industrial injury or disease, unemployment, desertion of the breadwinner, death of the breadwinner or sickness of the breadwinner? I do not want any misunderstanding about references made in this question to war injuries. I am a veteran myself and a war pensioner. I know that Canadian veterans have never asked the government for special favours. They have merely asked to be treated the same as people who did not have that time lapse in their normal lives.
Third, what grounds are there for differentiating the payments in respect of children in a family receiving aid as between the dependents of a recipient of unemployment insurance, the dependents of a sick breadwinner and the dependents of a veteran or a workman suffering industrial injury?
In the short time at my disposal I have tried to outline the magnitude of the job that lies before us. One of the things that has bothered me greatly, as I am sure it has anyone who has given any thought to this matter, is that far too many of the payments made under our social security systems-[DOT] and I say "systems" instead of "system" because that is exactly what we have-are based on law rather than on need. To qualify you have to meet certain standards. The payment, for example, may be $55 a month. There is no provision made in cases where the payment should be $45. Perhaps the need is for $100 but the law says so much and unfortunately that is what we have to accept at the present time. I say there is a big job ahead for the government in this field and certainly there is no need for smugness on its part when it considers the lack of an adequate program in this country. There is a staggering job to be done and I urge the government to get on with it.


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


Robert Matthew Turnbull McDonald: As this has been a long day, Mr. Speaker, may I have leave to call it ten o'clock?


Mr. Speaker:: The hon. member asks leave to call it ten o'clock.


Some hon. Members:: No.


Mr. Speaker:: Hon. members appreciate they are now applauding the Speaker. The hon. member for Hamilton South (Mr. McDonald).


Lester Bowles Pearson: Mr. Speaker, the applause is obviously going to continue for 10 minutes, so I suggest we let the hon. member start tomorrow.


Mr. Speaker:: Is it agreed?


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.



BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE

John Whitney Pickersgill: Before the house adjourns I wonder if I could ask the house leader, with respect to the announcement made on Friday, whether the government would be prepared to consider the postponement of the British North America Act amendments. I wonder if I could also ask the Prime Minister whether or not it would be possible to expedite the tabling of the correspondence with the provinces because we would appreciate very much an opportunity of considering the correspondence before that debate is entered upon.


Gordon Minto Churchill: I had intended to make that announcement tonight. The order of business which I gave on Friday would stand for this week with the exception of the resolution in the name of the Prime Minister dealing with the tenure of office of judges, and its effect on the British North America Act. This will be taken up at a date to be announced later.


Edmund Davie Fulton: As to the other part of the hon. gentleman's question, may I say that we have written to the provinces requesting their consent to the tabling of the correspondence. I expect it is a matter of formality, but we are awaiting their replies.


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

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

Mr. Martin (Essex East): 1.	Has the federal government been notified by the government of the United States that it is preparing a legal case against the Canadian Peat Moss Limited, of Vancouver, and other producers of peat moss in Canada?
2.	Has the Canadian government made any official objections to the United States government, or taken any action to protect Canadian companies from being subjected to United States laws?
3.	If so, what action has been taken in this matter?
Answer by: Hon. Howard C. Green (Secretary
of State for External Affairs):
1.	The United States government notified the Canadian government pursuant to the understanding reached in January 1959 between Hon. Mr. Fulton and Hon. Mr. Rogers, the United States attorney general, for consultation in certain anti-trust and anticombines cases, that the United States government was considering the filing of a civil anti-trust complaint naming certain United States companies as defendants and a number of Canadian companies including Canadian Peat Moss Ltd. as co-conspirators. Such complaint has since been filed.
2.	The Canadian government, on its initial understanding that the United States action would be directed against alleged anti-trust contraventions within the United States, advised the United States government that it had no comment to make upon the principle of the case at that stage but the Canadian government stated that it wished an opportunity for consultation as to the remedies which were being considered particularly should such remedies affect certain export operations of the Canadian peat moss industry. In the light of subsequent information, this aspect of the matter is now under discussion between the two governments.
3.	Answered by 2 above.


VOCATIONAL TRAINING ADVISORY COUNCIL
Mr. Marlin (Essex East): 1.	Has the Minister of Labour received a report from the Vocational Training Advisory Council respecting the vocational training program for unemployed persons under federal-provincial costsharing arrangements?
2.	What is being done by the federal government to encourage the fullest possible use of this program to provide new job opportunities for jobless persons with no formal training in a specific trade?
Questions
Answer by: Hon. Michael Starr (Minister of
Labour):
1.	This program was discussed at the last meeting of the vocational training advisory council held on December 3 and 4, 1959, and the views of the council, as recorded in the minutes of the meeting, have been received.
2.	The federal government is constantly urging provincial governments to make the greatest possible use of the federal-provincial cost-sharing program provided in schedule "M" of the special vocational training projects agreement for training of unemployed persons. A continuing program for training unemployed persons is in operation in the four western provinces and New Brunswick and Nova Scotia, as well as a number of courses in Ontario. During the present fiscal year 3,200 unemployed persons have been trained.
In addition to the continuing program, last winter a special program was set up for upgrading seasonally unemployed workers in Saskatchewan and is being repeated again this winter.
Alberta is establishing a similar program this winter in Edmonton.
Recently the unemployment insurance commission revised its program for referring unemployed persons to approved courses in private and public schools and the base of eligibility for unemployment insurance benefits while attending training programs was broadened.
Trade school facilities are being expanded in six provinces under our vocational and technical training agreement. These will make more training opportunities available for adult workers.


WITHHOLDING OF SALES TAX, ONTARIO
[Stage Direction]
Question No. 85
William Moore Benidickson: 1.	Is the Ontario government withholding sales tax on purchases by it and its crown corporations? If so, since when?
2.	What is the estimated amount to date of the Ontario sales tax holdback?
Answer by: Hon. George C. Nowlan (Minister
of National Revenue):
1.	The Excise Tax Act requires the Canadian manufacturer, i.e., vendor, to pay the tax and not the purchaser. Canadian manufacturers are permitted to sell goods, normally subject to tax, sales tax free to departments of the Ontario government where the goods are for use by the provincial department. Canadian manufacturers are required to pay sales tax on the sale of taxable goods to provincial crown corporations. It is not known whether or not these corporations are withholding payment of tax to their suppliers.
2.	Answered in 1, above.
610	HOUSE OF COMMONS
Questions


SKIM MILK CONTRIBUTIONS TO RELIEF AGENCIES
Mr. Boulanger: How many pounds of dry skim milk powder were given to international relief agencies during 1958, 1959?
Answer by: Hon. Howard C. Green (Secretary of State for External Affairs):
1958, 14,377,782 lbs. 1959, 49,886,600 lbs.

Tuesday, February 2, 1960