1960-06-21

[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Hon. Paul Marlin (Essex East):: Mr. Speaker, I should like to direct a question to the Minister of Labour. In view of the fact that, according to the figures on unemployment released by the bureau of statistics last night, unemployment both in absolute and relative terms is higher than in the corresponding periods of 1959 and 1958 and, indeed, higher than in any corresponding period since the great depression-


Some hon. Members:: Order.


Paul Joseph James Martin: -is the minister now in a position to tell the house how the government intends to deal with this most disturbing national situation?


Hon. Michael Starr (Minister of Labour):: Mr. Speaker, in response to some of the statements made by the hon. member for Essex East I wish to say that in the opinion of the government the situation, as we have stated in the past, is always serious as long as there are people unemployed, but it is only half as serious as it was in the years 1935 to 1940 when the hon. member was a member of the government. According to this release there are 250,000 more people working than last month and 140,000 more people working than in the same period last year. The government is always looking at the situation and reviewing it. I am sure the hon. member will find that the government, in its efforts to look after the people of this country, will devise ways and means to rectify the situation, and when that is done an announcement will be made as usual.


Mr. Hazen Argue (Assiniboia):: I should like to ask a supplementary question. Would the minister care to inform the house what the government feels employment prospects are for the near future, and whether in the opinion of the government there is likely to be a reduction in the number of unemployed in the near future compared with a year ago?


Michael Starr: The hon. member has asked me to foretell the future and I decline to do that,
because I would not want to be quoted at this time, not knowing exactly what the situation may be.


Hazen Robert Argue: It is worse and it is going to get worse under this administration.


Paul Joseph James Martin: May I ask a supplementary question. In view of the admittedly serious situation, does the Minister of Labour not think this house ought to be given an opportunity of at least co-operating with an organization being set up in another place to deal with this particular problem? Is it not a disgrace that parliament is denied this opportunity?


Michael Starr: Mr. Speaker, I would say this. The sooner I see any evidence of co-operation from the hon. member for Essex East, the better it will be for the economy of this country.


Hon. J. W. Pickersgill (Bonavisla-Twillin-gale):: I wonder if I could put a question to the Prime Minister. Notwithstanding the arrangements that have previously been made, would the Prime Minister consider having the estimates of the Department of Labour called this week so that at least there can be a debate in this house on this most important domestic question?


Right Hon. J. G. Diefenbaker (Prime Minister):: The progress made in calling the various departments depends on the co-operation received from all parts of the house. I am sure that when it is appropriate to have these departments before the house, and when matters already before the house have been cleared away, then an opportunity will be given to the hon. gentleman to discuss these matters.



UNITED NATIONS


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. E. W. Brunsden (Medicine Hal):: May I
address a question to the Prime Minister. Has the Prime Minister's attention been drawn to, and does he care to comment upon, a recent statement by Vice President Nixon of the United States with respect to the establishment of a United Nations food pool?


John George Diefenbaker: Mr. Speaker, on a number of occasions in recent years I have advocated the

Inquiries of the Ministry paramount importance of making surplus food stocks available for consumption in parts of the world where food shortages occur or might occur. Indeed, in December, 1957 I advocated the establishment of a NATO food bank which, as yet, has not received the complete support of the various nations in NATO.
When I was in Washington on June 3 I discussed with the President of the United States, not this particular matter but the urgency of working out some satisfactory arrangement for the distribution and utilization of surplus foodstuffs.
The house will also recall that as a result of the food for peace conference held in Washington in May of 1959 there is now in existence an international body known as the wheat utilization committee, the establishment of which was designed to find means of utilizing food surpluses for beneficial purposes. This committee, on which Canada is represented, will have its next semi-annual meeting in Ottawa in this coming July.
The Nixon proposal is one that envisages the co-operation of the countries within the United Nations. Certainly the matter has been discussed on occasions in the past, but there has been no evidence of any support for such a plan from the U.S.S.R. or those countries adhering to the views of the U.S.S.R. However, the suggestion is one that deserves the fullest consideration, for all of us are desirous of assuring that surpluses shall be used to the end that poverty will be met and hunger assuaged in the parts of the world where today food is not available.


Hon. L. B. Pearson (Leader of ihe Opposition):: May I ask the Prime Minister a supplementary question. Has there in fact been any serious discussion at the NATO council of the proposal for a NATO food bank, and if so what has been the result of that consideration?


John George Diefenbaker: There have been discussions on various occasions regarding a food bank, but there has not been that unanimity that characterizes the opinion of Canadians as a whole.



WORLD REFUGEE YEAR-ADMISSION OF REFUGEES FROM MIDDLE EAST AND HONG KONG

[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. Erharl Regier (Burnaby-Coquiilam):: would like to direct a question to the Secretary of State for External Affairs. Upon representations being made by a number of religious organizations in Canada, is the government giving any consideration to altering our participation in world refugee year so as to include refugees in the Middle East and in Hong Kong?


Hon. Howard C. Green (Secretary of State for External Affairs):: Mr. Speaker, there have been no such representations made to the department, certainly within recent weeks. If and when there were any change in government policy with regard to refugees it would be announced in the house in the usual manner.



WHEAT-ALLEGED EXCLUSION OF CANADA FROM MARKET IN INDIA

[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Hazen Robert Argue: I should like to ask a supplementary question. Can the Prime Minister say whether the Canadian government has under consideration any action for the disposal of surplus Canadian food, particularly wheat, and whether there was consultation before the United States obtained a contract for the sale of 587 million bushels of United States wheat to India over a four-year period, thus almost totally excluding us from that market?


John George Diefenbaker: I am not sure whether that is a proper question for the orders of the day. The matter of the agreement entered into between the United States and India I think was the subject of discussion on an earlier occasion. In any event, my information is that it will not have the effect which the hon. gentleman has ascribed to it, namely that Canada will be denied any market in India. Indeed, one of the bases for the agreement is the general assurance that Canada's exports to that country will not be diminished.


Hazen Robert Argue: I should like to ask a further supplementary question. Is the Prime Minister not aware that a spokesman for India said that although India would attempt to maintain its commercial purchases of some
400,000	tons of wheat, this amount might also be reduced?


John George Diefenbaker: I am sure that the Prime Minister has available to him sources of information that even the hon. gentleman has not available.


Hazen Robert Argue: You cannot sell any more wheat.



NORTHERN AFFAIRS


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. G. W. Baldwin (Peace River):: I should like to direct a question to the Minister of Northern Affairs and National Resources. Will he be good enough to comment on the

editorial appearing in last night's Ottawa Journal entitled "A Rare Bird for the Future". For the purpose of putting the record straight will he advise whether it is not correct that the whooping cranes referred to have their present nesting grounds in Wood Buffalo national park along the proposed eastern route of the railway to Great Slave lake, and that these rare birds would not be disturbed by a railroad constructed along the western route; which would not only make the whooping cranes very happy but would have the incidental effect of bringing much joy and relief to some 12,000 people in the Peace river area who have been waiting for over a quarter of a century for this railway?


Hon. Alvin Hamilton (Minister of Northern Affairs and National Resources):: I have seen the editorial in question, Mr. Speaker, and I immediately confirm the fact that the statement made about the choice of the route, namely that it should be the eastern route to keep away from the nesting ground of the whooping cranes, is not true. The whooping cranes, about 30 of them in number, nest in Wood Buffalo national park.
I should like to point out also that in a letter to me of June 1 the president of the Audubon society pointed out, his understanding, which is correct, namely that no route so far is in any sense "final or even accurate". I have no doubt that whatever route is recommended by the royal commission or finally chosen for the railway, it will be possible to establish it in such a fashion that ample protection will be given to the breeding ground of these rare birds. I want to assure the hon. member that I fully share his concern that these birds will not be imperilled.


Mr. H. W. Herridge (Kootenay West):: should like to ask a supplementary question. Will the minister inform the house whether he has received from the United States wildlife authorities any representations in connection with the preservation of these whooping cranes?


Francis Alvin George Hamilton: I shall be obliged to take that supplementary question as notice.



TRANSPORT


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. M. A. Hardie (Mackenzie River):: May
I ask the Prime Minister whether he has yet received the report of the commission studying the route of the railroad to Great Slave lake? If so, will he take the house into his confidence?
79951-0-327
Inquiries of the Ministry


John George Diefenbaker: I have not received the report, Mr. Speaker.



REPORTED DECISION OF RAILWAYS TO SUSPEND GRAIN SHIPMENTS TO VANCOUVER

[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. Harold E. Winch (Vancouver East):: Mr. Speaker, may I ask the Minister of Transport whether he is yet in a position to give any information on the reported cancellation of the loading of box cars to Vancouver?


Hon. George H. Hees (Minister of Transport):: I checked with my office, and I received a telegram dealing with that matter. Since it comes under the jurisdiction of the Department of Labour I passed it along to my colleague the Minister of Labour (Mr. Starr).


Harold Edward Winch: In view of the answer of the Minister of Transport, can he inform the house what the cancellation of the loading of box cars has to do with the Minister of Labour?


George Harris Hees: The telegram I received, to which I thought the hon. member was referring, was a telegram dealing with jurisdictional matters concerning a union agreement, as I remember it; and that being a labour matter-


Harold Edward Winch: No.


George Harris Hees: Well, then, if that is the case I did not receive the telegram to which the hon. member is referring.


Harold Edward Winch: It was sent on the 17th.



HEALTH AND WELFARE


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. W. H. McMillan (Welland):: I should
like to direct a question to the Minister of National Health and Welfare. Is the Department of National Health and Welfare engaged in research on a live virus polio vaccine? Also, is this oral vaccine to be made available in Canada? If so, to what extent?


Hon. J. W. Monieilh (Minisfer of National Health and Welfare):: Mr. Speaker, the answer is yes to the first part of the hon. member's question, as trials of this vaccine have been in progress in Canada since February of this year. Members of my department are directly associated with this continuing project, which is receiving federal assistance through national health grants.
No live polio virus vaccine is licensed in Canada at the present time. Following a review of recent information, the national technical advisory committee on live poliomyelitis vaccines on June 20 recommended limited

Inquiries of the Ministry and well supervised field trials of live polio virus vaccines which have received the necessary approval of this department. My department will continue its co-operation in the planning of such trials and study of applications for assistance under the national health grants program. Any decision as to use for the public will depend upon the findings.


Hon. Paul Hellyer (Trinity):: May I ask a
supplementary question. I wonder whether the minister could tell the house, if he has the information with him, how many of the considerable number of cases of paralytic polio reported so far this year in Canada are of the people who have previously been vaccinated with the Salk vaccine.


Jay Waldo Monteith: No, I do not have that information available, but I would be glad to procure it and give it to the hon. member.



ATOMIC ENERGY


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Lester Bowles Pearson: Mr. Speaker, I would like to ask the Secretary of State for External Affairs whether the Canadian government has been notified of the intention of the government of the United States to carry out an underground chemical explosion in Nevada on July 12 and, if so, whether Canada has been invited to send an observer.


Howard Charles Green: No, Mr. Speaker, we have had no such notification.


Lester Bowles Pearson: May I ask the Secretary of State for External Affairs a supplementary question arising out of his reply to my question a moment ago. Is he aware that observers from the U.S.S.R. and the United Kingdom have been invited to this underground explosion on July 12 in the United States?


Howard Charles Green: No, I have had no such notification.



CANADIAN BROADCASTING CORPORATION


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Hon. Lionel Chevrier (Laurier):: May I ask
the Minister of National Revenue whether he has had an opportunity of looking at the report in Le Devoir which I sent him yesterday, and whether he can answer the question I put to him at that time.
	,


Hon. George C. Nowlan (Minister of National Revenue):: Yes, Mr. Speaker, I was waiting for an opportunity to rise to my feet.
I have read the report in Le Devoir and the officials of the board of broadcast governors are at present conducting hearings in Halifax. However, I have consulted with their counsel as well as counsel for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation and I am informed that there is nothing in the statutes or in the regulations which precludes an application on behalf of a government or government agency or crown corporation for a television or broadcasting licence.
Of course, if such application is made, it has to be in exactly the same manner as any other. First it has to be approved by the Department of Transport. Then there has to be a public hearing by the board of broadcast governors, and a decision will then be made as to the appropriateness of granting such licence.


Lionel Chevrier: I thank the minister for his answer, but that was not the question I put to him. That was my second question which he has just answered. The question I put was this. A statement was made by the premier of Quebec in which he stated that if Rene Levesque returned to the C.B.C., the Quebec government would establish its own radio station in Quebec. That is the report contained in Le Devoir which I sent to the minister, and I asked the minister if he had any comment to make.


George Clyde Nowlan: I have no comment to make on that other than what I have just said. Whatever the government of Quebec or the premier of Quebec decides to do is a matter of responsibility for that organization, not for me. I have simply said what would happen in the ordinary course of events if such an application were made.



PUBLIC WORKS


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. Hubert Badanai (Fort William):: I wish to address a question to the Minister of Public Works. Has the minister received a letter from the city of Fort William containing a resolution urging the government to give serious consideration to the construction of breakwater facilities for the protection of the McKellar and Mission islands, where large tracts of industrial property face lake Superior within the limits of the city of Fort William? If so, will the minister be good enough to give the house an indication of the government's intentions?


Hon. D. J. Walker (Minister of Public Works):: So far I have received no such letter, but when I do I shall be very happy to give it my earliest consideration. As and when any determination is made of the matter, or if the government feels an announcement should be made, one will be made in due course.



POST OFFICE DEPARTMENT


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. Adrien Meunier (Papineau):: I should like to address a question to the Postmaster General. I want to know whether the hon. gentleman has an answer to the question which was put to him on Friday last by the hon. member for Maisonneuve-Rosemont.


Hon. W. M. Hamilion (Postmaster General):: I have inquired about this, but I have received no such telegram as the one referred to by the hon. member for Maisonneuve-Rosemont.


Lionel Chevrier: I should like to ask a supplemenatry question to that asked by the hon. member for Papineau of the Postmaster General concerning a question which was asked in this house by the hon. member for Maisonneuve-Rosemont on June 17, in which he inquired whether the Postmaster General had received a telegram dated June 9 from Sherbrooke, Quebec, with regard to political activities on the part of a rural mail driver.
In his answer to the question the Postmaster General said this morning that he had not received the message. Well, I have the message here, and it is dated June 9. My supplementary question is, how is it that since June 9 the Postmaster General has not seen this message?


Francis Alvin George Hamilton: My
information from my own staff, Mr. Speaker, is that this message was not received in my office. If the hon. member will send it to me I will be delighted to have it.


Lionel Chevrier: I am sending it to the minister now.


Francis Alvin George Hamilton: Send it.


Lionel Chevrier: I wish the minister would make some comment on it. It is dated two weeks ago.


William McLean Hamilton: now have the document which the hon. member for Laurier sent across to me, and I am
79951-0-327J
Inquiries of the Ministry more convinced than ever that it is quite possible that this so-called telegram was never received by me or by my office. I notice that what is said to be a telegram appears on a letterhead which reads "Association Liberal du Comte de Compton". It purports to be a copy of a telegram, but in the light of some of the activities of the hon. gentleman's associates over the last few weeks in a certain province in Canada it is quite possible this telegram never reached me, and was merely printed for political purposes.


Lionel Chevrier: A supplementary question. May I ask the Postmaster General, in the light of his answer, if it is the policy of his department to dispense with and fire people without an investigation.


Mr. Mcllraith:: Yes.


William McLean Hamilton: No.
Since this government has come into power, Mr. Speaker, we have changed that previous Liberal policy.


Lionel Chevrier: On a question of privilege; the Postmaster General-


Mr. Speaker:: Order.


Lionel Chevrier: The Postmaster General is quite wrong, because the Minister of Agriculture-I am rising on a question of privilege.


Mr. Speaker:: Order. Will the hon. member state his question of privilege.


Lionel Chevrier: Yes. The Postmaster General said that since this government has been in office it has changed the policy of firing people for political reasons, and I say now-


George Harris Hees: Without investigation.


Lionel Chevrier: I am saying now that not only is that not so, sir, but that the Minister of Agriculture fired a constituent of mine without the slightest investigation.


Some hon. Members:: Order.


Lionel Chevrier: I say that the Minister of Agriculture fired a constituent of the hon. member for Laurier without any investigation.


Some hon. Members:: Order.


Mr. Speaker:: Order. The hon. member has raised a matter as a question of privilege, but it does not seem to affect the privileges or conduct of any member of the house. Therefore I would think that it is more a matter of controversy and argument.


Hon. D. S. Harkness (Minister of Agriculture):: Mr. Speaker, on a question of privilege which does affect a member of this house, the hon. member for Laurier has just
5178	HOUSE OF
Inquiries of the Ministry made a statement which is absolutely incorrect. The man to whom he has referred was discharged for due cause after an investigation which showed serious irregularities on his part.


Lionel Chevrier: Mr. Speaker, I think I am as familiar as the Minister of Agriculture with the facts of this case.


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh.


Lionel Chevrier: I say now-


Mr. Speaker:: Order.


Lionel Chevrier: I am rising on a question of privilege.


Mr. Speaker:: I will hear the hon. member if he has a question of privilege.


Lionel Chevrier: The question of privilege is that the statement made by the Minister of Agriculture is totally inaccurate.


Mr. Speaker:: If the hon. member will permit me, there seems to be a very sharp difference of opinion between the Minister of Agriculture and the hon. member for Laurier. Each says that the other is inaccurate, and I suggest that the matter be dropped there.


Lionel Chevrier: I should like to rise on a question of privilege.


Some hon. Members:: Order.


Lionel Chevrier: The Minister of Agriculture-


Some hon. Members:: Order.


Lionel Chevrier: Just a moment.


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh.


Mr. Speaker:: If the hon. member wishes to raise a question of privilege I must hear what it is, and I hope the house will give the hon. member a chance to state it. So far I have not heard anything which seems to involve privilege, and I hope the hon. member will not abuse the privilege of rising on a question of privilege.


Lionel Chevrier: I do not generally abuse the privileges of the house, but the Minister of Agriculture raised a question of privilege and I think I should be allowed to reply. My reply is that the individual concerned, one Mitchell, was fired without any investigation after the Department of National Revenue found that there was absolutely nothing against him, and he was fired by the Minister of Agriculture.


Mr. Speaker:: Order. The hon. member is making statements of fact, and there is no procedure by which such a matter can be dealt with at this time of the day. It is quite true that there is a difference of opinion, but


I see no question of privilege with which the house should occupy itself.


Herbert Wilfred Herridge: Mr. Speaker, speaking for a group that is snow white with respect to patronage, I wish to protest that the rules do not provide for a pot calling the kettle black debate at this stage in our proceedings.
(Translation):



NATIONAL DEFENCE


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. Romuald Bourque (Outremont-St. Jean):: Mr. Speaker, I should like to direct a question to the Associate Minister of National Defence. I apologize for not giving him notice of it.
In the June 20, 1960 issue of Le Devoir, a correspondent complained that, at the entrance of the French Canadian cadet camp at Farnham, the Department of National Defence has erected a 20 foot square bill board with a message written in English only.
Would the minister tell us if his department intends to erect a similar bill board carrying a message in French?


Hon. Pierre Sevigny (Associate Minister of National Defence):: Mr. Speaker, in reply to the question of the hon. member for Outremont-St. Jean, I must say that I shall look into this matter and give him an answer at the next sitting of the house.
It is certainly not the intention of the present government to show anything but the fullest regard for bilingualism, and I can assure the hon. member for Outremont-St. Jean and all members of the opposition that the present government will, at all times, see that bilingualism is respected, whenever possible.
(Text):



INDIAN AFFAIRS


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
John Whitney Pickersgill: I wish to address a question to the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration. I wonder whether the hon. lady has received any information at any time from any source to the effect that before the vote was taken for the surrender or the sale of the Sarnia Indian lands, the Indians were told by a representative of the company that they would receive an immediate instalment payment of $100 at the conclusion of the meeting.


Hon. Ellen L. Fairclough (Minister of Citizenship and Immigration):: 1 received
some information to the effect that after the sale was completed the Indians asked for a payment because it was so near Christmas. That is about all the information I have without searching the files.


Mr. Speaker:: I wonder whether the hon. member would consider dealing with this matter in another way. I suppose the estimates of the department have been concluded, but this is a record of what happened in the past and I believe it would be better if the question were put on the order paper.



ACREAGE PAYMENT PROGRAM


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Paul Joseph James Martin: I wish to direct a question to the Minister of Agriculture. Will the minister comment on a statement made by Mr. Anderson, director of the farmers' union of Alberta, that western Canadian farmers are stymied and stunned by the Prime Minister's claim in the House of Commons that no request had been received for an acreage payment program?


Douglas Scott Harkness: I have not seen this alleged statement which the hon. member has mentioned; therefore I am in no position to comment on it. I do not think it would be appropriate for me on the orders of the day to be commenting on all the statements made by various people throughout the country, in any event.



INCOME TAX ACT

[Stage Direction]
The house resumed, from Monday, June 20, consideration in committee of Bill No. C-68, to amend the Income Tax Act-Mr. Fleming (Eglinton)-Mr. Flynn in the chair.
On clause 1-Estate tax and succession duties applicable to certain property.
Mr. Benidickson:: Mr. Chairman, I wonder whether the Minister of Finance-


The Chairman:: Order. I am sorry, but I am told that the hon. member for Burnaby-Coquitlam had the floor when we adjourned last night.


Erhart Regier: Mr. Chairman, as 1 indicated last night, this is a major amending bill. We are asked to pass 33 clauses, which in itself constitutes a major overhaul of the Income Tax Act. I believe it is only right when we are on clause 1 in the committee stage that we should be able to ask the minister to give
Income Tax Act
the reasons why amendments have not been brought forward with respect to other parts of the Income Tax Act.
As I indicated yesterday, I should like him to explain why he has not seen fit to amend the definition of taxable income. We would like to know why capital gains were not considered worthy of being classed as taxable income. We would like to know why the minister did not deem it advisable to amend the act so that corporations, like individuals, would be liable to a graduated income tax rather than to a flat levy as is now the case. Why did the minister not deem it advisable to reduce the allowances permitted for depreciation and depletion? Why did the minister not deem it advisable to amend the act so as to curtail the wide-open expense allowances companies are permitted to pay, especially to their senior executives, which allowances in turn companies are able to claim as expenses, the amounts therefore not being liable to income tax?


Mr. Fleming (Eglinton):: There is nothing in clause 1 of the bill nor, indeed, anything in the bill at all relating to these subjects. Therefore I think we should address ourselves to the bill. When it becomes the policy to introduce measures dealing with these subjects the house will be acquainted with that fact.


Erhart Regier: On a point of order, I think the committee is well aware that there is hardly ever anything at all in clause 1. Very often it only contains definitions of words. However, clause 1 is the only place where we can ask for a reply on the part of the minister if he has not deemed it advisable to reply on second reading of the bill. It has been a traditional privilege to allow more latitude on clause 1 than on any other clause, and I believe the minister owes the house and the country an explanation as to why other amendments were not introduced.


Paul Theodore Hellyer: The hon. member for Kenora-Rainy River will be back in a moment. He wishes to speak on clause 1, and I would ask the minister to agree to hold it open until he returns. In the meantime we might pass on to other clauses.


Donald Methuen Fleming: We could let clause 1 stand and go on to clause 2.


Jacques Flynn: Shall clause 1 stand?


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.
Clause stands.
On clause 2-Idem.


Paul Theodore Hellyer: While we are waiting, would the minister explain the operative parts of

Income Tax Act
this clause? I know that the hon. member for Kenora-Rainy River has underlined some parts of it with respect to which he intended to ask questions. Is there something the minister can say by way of explanation?


Donald Methuen Fleming: I thought the request was that clause 1 stand so that we could go on with the other clauses, not that they should all stand. Clause 2, as the note makes clear, proposes an amendment which is designed to ensure that a taxpayer may not receive a benefit under both sections 15 and 37 of the act. It is just to prevent an unintended double benefit being used by a taxpayer.


[Stage Direction]
Clause agreed to.
On clause 3-Transferred property.
Donald Methuen Fleming: On clause 3 there is an amendment of which I gave notice on Friday last. It appears in Votes and Proceedings for June 17. I would ask my colleague
the Minister of National Defence to move this amendment.


Mr. Pearkes:: I move:
That Bill C-68, an act to amend the Income Tax Act, be amended by striking out lines 27 to 33 on page 33 thereof and substituting therefor the following:
(2)	Section 20 of the said act is further amended by adding thereto the following subsections:
"(10) Where property of a corporation that was depreciable property of a prescribed class has, on the making of a receiving order or the filing of an assignment for the benefit of creditors of the corporation, become vested in a trustee in bankruptcy, the property of the corporation of that class shall be deemed, for the purpose of this section and regulations made under paragraph (a) of subsection (1) of section 11, to have been disposed of by the corporation at that time for an amount equal to the undepreciated capital cost thereof to the corporation immediately before that time, and to have been acquired by the trustee at that time at a capital cost equal to that amount.
(11) Where a corporation that has become bankrupt has received an amount in a taxation year from a trustee in bankruptcy as or on account of any surplus remaining to which the corporation has become entitled after payment in full of its creditors with interest and other costs, charges and expenses as provided by law, the lesser of
(a)	the amount so received, or
(b)	the amount, if any, that would have been included in computing the income of the corporation for that or a previous year by virtue of subsection (1), if the amount or the aggregate of the amounts received by the trustee as proceeds of disposition of property of the corporation that was depreciable property of a prescribed class had been received by the corporation, immediately before becoming bankrupt, as proceeds of disposition thereof, shall be included in computing the income of the corporation for that year."
(3)	Subsection (5b) of section 20 of the said act as enacted by this section is applicable in determining the undepreciated capital cost of property at any time after the coming into force of this section, subsection (5c) of section 20 of the said act as enacted by this section is applicable in respect of any direction made after the coming

into force of this section, subsection (10) of section 20 of the said act as enacted by this section is applicable in respect of property of a corporation that became bankrupt at any time after 1959, and subsection (11) of section 20 of the said act as enacted by this section is applicable in respect of amounts received by a corporation as or on account of any surplus described therein after the coming into force of this section.


Jacques Flynn: Shall I dispense with the reading of the amendment? It is in Votes and Proceedings.


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


Jacques Flynn: Shall the amendment carry?


William Moore Benidickson: I do not have any objection to the amendment but on the other hand, as I mentioned during the debate on second reading of this bill, I am not satisfied with the reasons the minister gave for not having reached a decision such as is presented in this amendment either on March 31, when he introduced his budget resolutions, or on May 6, when he adopted the policy of putting into Votes and Proceedings his suggested amendments to the budget resolutions. If this amendment is consequential, why do we get it on a Friday night when many members are not, perhaps, going to go to their post office boxes on Saturday, and when everybody knows that this particular subject might have been debated yesterday instead of today?
I indicated yesterday that I thought the minister had a good policy in introducing into Votes and Proceedings as an appendix the proposed amendments to his budget resolutions. However, I feel that he has more or less forfeited the compliments that we would normally give to him in this respect by introducing this particular amendment, which comprises two pages, on a Friday night prior to a debate that might very well have taken place on Monday, without advance notice either to his colleagues in the House of Commons, to industry or to those who are concerned with matters such as are involved in this proposed amendment. I wonder if the minister would indicate whether or not this is a decision that was reached just last Thursday?


Donald Methuen Fleming: I will be pleased to deal with this point, and to deal with the kind of criticism in which the hon. member indulged last night in regard to notice. The hon. member has been in this house for 15 years, and I doubt very much whether in all that time he has seen the annual bill to amend the Income Tax Act passed without amendments being introduced in the committee of the whole, because these always arise. The only difference between what is being done now and last year and what was

done before is that previously, under my predecessors, there was no advance notice given of the proposed amendments. Now, in order to give the house as much notice as possible, I have been following the practice of giving notice of the amendments. I did that with respect to the amendments to the budget resolutions, and they appeared in Votes and Proceedings for May 6.
These three amendments to the present bill, Mr. Chairman, I gave to the house last Friday afternoon as soon as they were available. This bill was introduced on June 6. It was to have been proceeded with on June 13. The hon. member did not want to proceed then and asked that it be put over. We did not proceed with it. It was only called again on June 20. These amendments relate to matters that have come to our attention in that period, and notice has been given to the house as soon as it was possible to do so. As a matter of fact I came into the chamber late last Friday afternoon and asked the house to give leave to revert to motions so these amendments could be made a matter of record on Friday. At the same time I gave copies of the amendments to both parties in opposition so they would have an opportunity of reviewing them over the week end.
If the hon. member has not chosen to do his work on these amendments over the week end, all I can say is that I think the practice is one of which the house approves. The alternative, I suppose, is to revert to the practice that existed during the time the hon. member was a parliamentary assistant, and not to give any notice to the house at all but just throw these amendments, sometimes in technical terms, at the house just at the moment the clause to which they relate is called in committee of the whole.


William Moore Benidickson: The Minister of Finance has chosen to be rather nasty in this respect. I complimented the minister fully when I found that he was introducing a system of indicating his changes of mind from budget night before the time we would have a chance of debating the budget issues. I complimented the minister upon the fact that on May 6 he introduced as an appendix to Votes and Proceedings notice of amendments indicating his change of mind since March 31, when he introduced his budget, and in so doing gave notice to those affected as taxpayers of his intention to move these amendments.
What I complained about and continue to complain about is that the minister did not continue the good job in this respect. Why did he not, between May 6 and now, bring in this two-page amendment; because the public at large has not the same kind of
Income Tax Act
advantage with regard to notice that we have. I praised the minister for introducing the amendments on May 6.
The minister has suggested that I asked on a certain date-was it June 13?-that the debate on second reading not be proceeded with. I want to say to the House of Commons, and to the country at large, that I quoted to the minister over the telephone a letter I received from the people in this land chiefly responsible for examining income tax matters, the Canadian tax foundation, in which they said it would be an affront to them and to the taxpayers at large if the minister and the leader of the house on the government side proposed to go ahead on Monday with the debate on second reading, because the public at large would not have had an opportunity of considering the debate that had taken place the preceding week.
The Canadian tax foundation had an appointment-now, I want the Minister of Finance to deny this if it is not so, since he has brought my name into this discussion by saying that I asked for delay-with the officials of his department in the subsequent week. What the minister and the government were proposing was that, prior to that appointment, we would be asked in this house to give second reading to this bill without the consultation which the Canadian tax foundation had informally every year with the officials of the department.
I do not want the Minister of Finance to say, Mr. Chairman, that I asked for postponement of the debate on second reading. It was on a certain Friday that I communicated with the minister, and the minister never called me back. I found that the leader of the house, on that particular Friday night, did indicate that the subject would not be debated on the following Monday. My request was on behalf of those experts who wanted to analyse the bill which had been presented only a few days before.


Donald Methuen Fleming: I wish the hon. member would get his facts straight. The letter which he read to me contained no suggestion about any affront. This is his own, personal interpretation. The purport of the letter was not anything of the kind, and there is no comparison between what the hon. member said this morning and what was in the letter. Let me make it clear, Mr. Chairman. He said I did not call him back a week ago Friday. I called him back but he was not available. I think he ought to distinguish between the two positions. He was told on Monday that I had called him back to discuss this matter with him, as I told him I would. I carried out my undertaking, but he was not there to receive the call.

Income Tax Act
Mr. Chairman, I hope the hon. member has wasted enough time of the committee last night and today, and that we can proceed with the business.


Paul Joseph James Martin: I rise on a question of privilege, Mr. Chairman. The Minister of Finance has just said, referring to the hon. member for Kenora-Rainy River, that we have wasted the time of this committee. The Minister of Finance, of course, is notoriously becoming an expert in the obstruction of his own estimates and his own proposals in this House of Commons. However, that fact does not justify him in saying of any other member that he has wasted the time of the House of Commons. I realize that the Minister of Finance and the members of the government do not like criticism of their policies, and that for that reason they seek at every turn to deny to this opposition the right to criticize important measures like this one. The Minister of Finance is the last man in the world who should accuse another hon. member of wasting the time of the House of Commons. It was a most uncalled for remark.


Jacques Flynn: Order. I do not recognize any question of privilege in what the hon. member for Essex East has said. It is a sure thing that we are not discussing the amendment.


Hazen Robert Argue: We are discussing the statement of the Minister of Finance.


Paul Joseph James Martin: I was discussing the statement of the Minister of Finance.


Jacques Flynn: Yes, but the hon. member for Essex East raised a question of privilege. What I was saying was that I did not recognize any question of privilege in his remarks. What I want to point out to the committee is that for about five minutes we have not been discussing the amendment which is before the committee. I would ask all members to come back to this discussion.


Paul Joseph James Martin: That may be so,
Mr. Chairman, Nevertheless, and notwithstanding what you say, there are certain rights and privileges which are open to members of this committee. The Minister of Finance said that last night the hon. member for Kenora-Rainy River had wasted the time of this committee. I say that is an unparliamentary statement, that it is not worthy of the Minister of Finance, and that it is not calculated to facilitate the passage of this particular bill or of any other legislation introduced by the Minister of Finance, who continually obstructs the proceedings of the House of Commons and takes up more time than any other hon. member.


Donald Methuen Fleming: What is the hon. member doing now but putting on a sham?


Jacques Flynn: Shall clause 2 carry?


William Moore Benidickson: I have a brief reply, Mr. Chairman. I am indicating to you that we have before us an important amendment which involves two pages of close printing in our appendix to Hansard. The minister referred to his attempt to reach me on that certain Friday afternoon to which I referred. I am glad to think he made that attempt. However, all hon. members know that we cannot be in two places at the same time. We cannot be here in the House of Commons and do our duty in connection with the governmental departments all at the same time.
On that particular occasion I will admit that I was not in the chamber after five o'clock in the afternoon, though, I was here in the chamber on that Friday for most of the afternoon. However, I want to say that a matter of a serious nature, such as whether we are going to go ahead with an income tax debate on Monday, deserves the courtesy that was usually shown to the hon. member for Greenwood when he was the official critic of the opposition in previous days.
I went to my office on Saturday and Sunday in order to see whether there was any intimation. The only intimation, of course, was the fact that the Minister of Trade and Commerce, the leader on the government side, at six o'clock indicated that somehow he had communicated to the Minister of Finance, after my telephone conversation on behalf of some of those people whom I thought were interested, that there was a change in the program and we would not proceed on Monday.
I want to say that it is a simple matter to send a letter to an hon. member's office- and I was looking for that letter-if he did not reach me on the phone on an important matter like the changing of the order of debate on Monday. Perhaps in part I am to blame. However, I want to say to the minister that this procedure was not customary under the previous administration.


Jacques Flynn: Shall clause 2 as amended carry?
Clause as amended agreed to.
On clause 3 as amended-Transferred property.


Jacques Flynn: Shall clause 3 as amended carry?


William Moore Benidickson: I do not think clause 3 has reference to any subject that is involved in the resolution. In other words, we have not

had prior announcement of the government's intention in this respect. I think it would be proper for the minister to provide to us and to those taxpayers affected an explanation of what is involved in connection with this section.


Donald Methuen Fleming: I understand we are dealing with clause 3 as amended. The new subsection (5b)-I am speaking now of the original clause 3 of the bill, owing to the fact that the amendment has now been carried and disposed of-is explained in the printed explanatory note. The regulations prescribed under the authority of the Income Tax Act provide for rates of capital cost allowance or depreciation that may be claimed by taxpayers. These regulations divide depreciable assets into about 18 classes, with a different rate for each class. It sometimes happens that a taxpayer regards some asset as falling in a class which enjoys a lower rate of allowance than that for which it properly qualifies and that when he finds his error he will wish to transfer the property to its proper class. It may also happen that the minister will find that a taxpayer has regarded his assets as qualifying for a higher rate of allowance than that to which they are entitled, and the minister will direct that the asset be transferred to its proper class. The amendment made in clause 3 will provide rules to be followed in this event.


Jacques Flynn: Shall clause 3 as amended carry?
Clause 3 as amended agreed to.
On clause 4.


William Moore Benidickson: Is this a necessary amendment every year in consequence of the statute to which there is reference in this subsection, and which was passed in 1956?


Donald Methuen Fleming: This has been an annual provision in this bill for four years now.


William Moore Benidickson: I note that subsection 2 of chapter 39 of the statutes of Canada, 1956, indicates that this must be done every year. Has the government given consideration to the possibility that this procedure could be avoided by some other amendment to our laws? I know it refers to assistance to immigrants and settlers and their rights with regard to family allowances, but are we obliged every year to have an amendment to the Income Tax Act in order to make this provision?


Donald Methuen Fleming: We are obliged to do so if we wish to provide this result, unless the Family Allowances Act were to be amended.
Income Tax Act


William Moore Benidickson: Could that not perhaps be done?


Donald Methuen Fleming: Parliament could do it, but it has not been done.


William Moore Benidickson: With regard to clause 4, we are dealing with family allowances and their relationship to income tax. As to this matter, what is the position of those members of the armed services who have served abroad?


Donald Methuen Fleming: This clause could have no possible bearing on them, Mr. Chairman. This clause applies to the children of immigrants.


[Stage Direction]
Clause agreed to.
On clause 5.
William Moore Benidickson: I do not want to repeat what I said at the resolution stage with respect to this matter. From some organizations that do not always agree, such as the chambers of commerce and the brotherhoods of railway workers, the government has received representations that these ceilings are perhaps not realistic. Will the Minister of Finance give some indication of the review he has given to these representations? We all know that in 1957 Mr. Harris, the former minister of finance, introduced certain budgetary changes which involved a $100 standard deduction whether or not it was actually fortified by receipts. That, I think, simplified some of the subsequent accounting necessary in the Department of National Revenue.
We also note that since that time many of the provinces have taken part in the hospital insurance plan offered to them by the federal legislation enacted in 1956 and amended in 1957. The Canadian Chamber of Commerce, for instance, thinks the new government attitude toward the deduction of hospital costs under this section of the act is not fair to premium-paying taxpayers in some provinces. In some provinces, as we all know, the support for this hospital insurance scheme is provided by-


Donald Methuen Fleming: Mr. Chairman, on a point of order, this has nothing to do with the scope of medical expenses, or what are or what are not admissible expenses. This simply has to do with the maximum amount, in other words the ceiling on the total of admissible medical expenses. There is nothing in this section which relates to what are or what are not admissible categories of medical expense.


William Moore Benidickson: Mr. Chairman, as I think you have learned from your experience here, the minister constantly raises petty matters on points of order. We are referring to an

Income Tax Act
amendment to a certain section of the Income Tax Act, and in that section you will find reference to all the items that up to now I have referred to. I say that if there is a proposal by the minister for the amendment of section 27, it is perfectly in order for any member of the House of Commons to discuss the section in the thought that perhaps the amendment does not go far enough, and that further amendments should possibly follow.


Donald Methuen Fleming: Mr. Chairman, the amendment proposed in clause 5 of this bill does not apply to all of section 27 of the act. It does not apply to all of section 27, subsection 1 of the Income Tax Act. It applies only to subparagraphs (viii) and (ix) of paragraph (c) of subsection 1 of section 27. The only changes made in the section of the act are the figures, and these are underlined in the bill before us. That is all that is before the committee, just the change in the figures.


William Moore Benidickson: Mr. Chairman, would the minister just indicate what reply he may have given to the representations which I believe were made to him and his officials in 1960 by such organizations as the Canadian Chamber of Commerce and the railway brotherhoods relating to the amendment that is proposed here?


Donald Methuen Fleming: Mr. Chairman, I do not recall that those organizations raised any question with regard to the ceiling on admissible medical expenses.


William Moore Benidickson: Well, Mr. Chairman, the minister is wrong.


William Hector McMillan: Mr. Chairman, I think I asked the minister before about medical expenses, as to the time of application, and he said it was within the calendar year. This has to do with the amount, but as to time I have had two or three representations from people who have incurred high medical expenses during the last three months of one calendar year and for two or three months in the next calendar year. They find it difficult not to be able to deduct the full medical expenses for one sickness at one time, and it is discriminatory against those particular people who might pay some of their expenses in the last three months of the year and not carry them over and pay them all at once in the following year.


Donald Methuen Fleming: I can only direct the attention of the hon. member to the provisions of section 27, subsection 1, paragraph (c) of the act, which defines the period covered by the medical expenses in question. It is within a period of twelve months ending

in the year, and not included in the calculation of the deduction for medical expenses for a previous year.
With regard to any particular cases, or the elucidation of provisions contained in any of these sections which are not included in the bill, the hon. member can obtain what assistance he needs from the Department of National Revenue at any time.


William Hector McMillan: I realize that, and I realized that perhaps it was not appropriate to ask that question at this time. But I think the minister told me before that it had to be within the calendar year.


Donald Methuen Fleming: No.


William Hector McMillan: Then I am sorry.


Donald Methuen Fleming: No; it is a period ending in the calendar year, as enacted by the language of section 27(l)(c).


William Moore Benidickson: I think the delegates representing the Canadian Chamber of Commerce and the national legislative committee of the international railway brotherhoods will be disappointed to think that the minister has such a poor recollection of the representations which were made by them this year with respect to this item. In the brief presented by the Canadian Chamber of Commerce in February, 1960 to the government with respect to section 27(l)(e) of the act, medical expenses, the Canadian Chamber of Commerce recommended that all medical expenses in excess of the 3 per cent be deductible.


Donald Methuen Fleming: That is not involved here.


William Moore Benidickson: Yes, it is; we are raising the ceilings.


Donald Methuen Fleming: I was asked if I recalled representations made by these particular organizations, and I said I did not recall any particular representations from them dealing with the amount of the ceiling that is established here. I was relating my answer to the terms of this amendment.


William Moore Benidickson: Well, the representations were that the ceilings should be abandoned, as I read them.


Donald Methuen Fleming: That is a different matter altogether.


William Moore Benidickson: I have the floor, Mr. Chairman. In the case of the brotherhoods, they indicated on page 7 of their brief that all expenditures made by the taxpayer for medical care for himself and dependants be deductible. Now, here we have facing us a proposed limitation, a ceiling, and I think

Income Tax Act
the observations of these organizations are this reference to what I might call the carryrelevant to the discussion which we have forward of losses provision contained in before us.	section 27(l)(e) of the act.


[Stage Direction]
Clause agreed to.
On clause 6-Application of definition of "loss".
William Moore Benidickson: Mr. Chairman, I think in this instance the minister did provide on June 6 an explanation of the purposes of the proposed change in our law. It is to be found on page 4588 of Hansard. Here we have an overriding of a recent supreme court decision. Would the minister just explain why in the public interest it was necessary to alter the law as it would otherwise have stood under the Interprovincial Pipe Lines case, which case went to the supreme court?


Donald Methuen Fleming: Mr. Chairman, the decision to which I think the hon. member refers only incidentally has any bearing on the provisions of clause 6, which were discussed at the resolution stage. As far as clause 6 of the bill is concerned, that decision is only incidental to the subject matter.


[Stage Direction]
Clause agreed to.
Clauses 7 and 8 agreed to.
On clause 9-Amounts to be subtracted from payment out of pension fund.
William Moore Benidickson: On this clause, would the minister give an explanation of the intent? I think this has no reference to our previous debate or to the resolutions presented on budget night, and I should be grateful for an explanation which would give to the taxpaying public an idea of the minister's intentions.


Donald Methuen Fleming: There is a very full note on this clause printed in the bill. This is a technical amendment to prevent a taxpayer receiving benefit under two sections of the act. In other words, the purpose is to avoid giving double benefit.


[Stage Direction]
Clause agreed to.
On clause 10-"Earnings period" defined.
William Moore Benidickson: Is this just something that was overlooked in drafting in 1958, when certain changes were made?


Donald Methuen Fleming: It is an amendment to delete certain words from the existing provision-


William Moore Benidickson: I am thinking of subclause 1, of course.


Donald Methuen Fleming: It is subclause 1 I am dealing with. The amendment deletes the words "in respect of the same business" from


[Stage Direction]
Clause agreed to.
On clause 11-Election.
William Moore Benidickson: I shall not ask the
minister to repeat what I thought was a fairly adequate explanation given with respect to the resolution which appeared in the budget papers when we were at the resolution stage on June 6.


[Stage Direction]
Clause agreed to.
Clause 12 agreed to.
On clause 13-Foreign tax.
William Moore Benidickson: I wonder if we could have an explanation of the purpose of subsection 3 of clause 13?


Donald Methuen Fleming: Subclause 3 is part of the general provisions of clause 13 of the bill designed, as I indicated in discussing this resolution, as reported at page 4588 of Hansard of June 6, to provide a less restrictive method of computing tax credits for foreign taxes paid. This will eliminate one of three restrictions which now apply leaving, two.


[Stage Direction]
Clause agreed to.
Clause 14 agreed to.
On clause 15-Incorrect valuation of inventory: election.
Donald Methuen Fleming: There is an amendment to this clause of which I gave notice, and which is printed in Votes and Proceedings of June 17. I will ask my colleague the Minister of National Defence if he will be good enough to move this amendment.


George Randolph Pearkes: I move:
That Bill C-68, an act to amend the Income Tax Act, be amended by adding thereto, immediately after line 22 on page 12 thereof, the following:
(3) a reference in paragraph (b) of subsection (4) of section 46 of the said act as enacted by this section to a period of four years from the day referred to in subparagraph (ii) of paragraph (a) thereof shall, in its application in any case where an appeal from a reassessment was instituted before the coming into force of this section, be construed as a reference to a period of four years from the day of an original assessment or the day of mailing of a notification described in subsection (4) of section 46 of the said act as enacted by this section.


William Moore Benidickson: With respect to the amendment, would the minister, despite our earlier words, not look at this question with the possibility in mind that next year not only will he follow the good procedure he has now introduced of putting proposed amendments in a form which provides public notice, but

Income Tax Act
also, when he reaches a decision of this kind after budget day, try to inform everybody at the earliest opportunity in order to make the best of an innovation upon which I complimented the hon. gentleman earlier?


Donald Methuen Fleming: That is precisely what I did on Friday.


William Moore Benidickson: Does the minister say he had reached no decision prior to Friday with regard to this item?


Donald Methuen Fleming: Precisely so. This amendment has a limited effect. It is introduced simply to make it clear that the amendment contained in clause 15 of the bill has no retroactive effect on appeals now pending. The question was raised as to whether the clause might possibly have a bearing on appeals now pending. This amendment was introduced as a precaution to make it clear beyond question that this will not be the case.


William Moore Benidickson: I naturally accept the minister's statement that his decision was not really made until the Friday prior to a debate which could have taken place on the following Monday. However, I would urge the minister and his officials to follow through this commendable practice by giving notice as soon as possible after amendments seem clearly indicated following the introduction of the minister's budget proposals.
You know, Mr. Chairman, that my suspicions are somewhat aroused in a matter of this kind, because yesterday the minister waited until practically the last minute, or the midnight hour, before filing for the benefit of his colleagues information with respect to the actuarial position of the superannuation fund prior to the debate.


[Stage Direction]
Amendment agreed to.
Clause as amended agreed to.
Clause 16 agreed to.
On clause 17-Statements or omissions in return.
William Moore Benidickson: On clause 17, there were some representations, as I recall the circumstances, from bodies which are experienced in practice in relation to the income tax department concerning this particular item. Does this satisfy such representations as were made, for example, by the Canadian Chamber of Commerce?


Donald Methuen Fleming: I have not received any representations on clause 17 of the bill. So far as representations prior to the budget are concerned, my understanding is that this

clause is in line with some of them and that it gives effect to requests which have been made.


[Stage Direction]
Clause agreed to.
Clauses 18 to 21 inclusive agreed to.
On clause 22.
William Moore Benidickson: I wonder whether the minister would just provide for our Hansard record and for the benefit of our taxpayers an explanation beyond what is provided in the bill as to intent?


Donald Methuen Fleming: Clause 22 is a relieving provision. Section 81(8) of the Income Tax Act provides that where a corporation has increased its paid-up capital in any way other than in accordance with certain stated exceptions the corporation shall be deemed to have capitalized undistributed income. This would give rise to a situation in which a shareholder would be deemed to have received a dividend. This amendment makes it clear that a reduction of liabilities with an accompanying increase in paid-up capital shall not be deemed to be capitalization of undistributed income.


[Stage Direction]
Clause agreed to.
On clause 23.
William Moore Benidickson: I do not want to bother the minister for a further explanation. On June 6 I asked for an idea of the intended scope of the amendment to the law, and the minister provided it.


[Stage Direction]
Clause agreed to.
Clause 24 agreed to.
On clause 25-Change in residence.
William Moore Benidickson: In connection with this clause, Mr. Chairman, I raised some questions about this at the earlier stage of debate on June 6. What are our means of collecting from a person who departs from Canada?


Donald Methuen Fleming: Mr. Chairman, I really do not think there is anything I can add to what I said in our discussion of this subject on June 6. The Hansard reference is page 4587. The hon. member asked me the same question there. I gave him as full an answer as I could. The means of collecting are not absolute or infallible. The Department of National Revenue has to do the best it can in those circumstances with such means as the statute gives it.


[Stage Direction]
Clause agreed to.
On clause 26.
William Moore Benidickson: Has the minister received any representations protesting the enactment

of this clause since the presentation of the bill for first reading on June 6?


Donald Methuen Fleming: I am informed that we have not, Mr. Chairman.


[Stage Direction]
Clause agreed to.
On clause 27-Board constituted.
William Moore Benidickson: Will the minister indicate what vacancies there are on this board, and how long it is since the vacancies occurred?


Donald Methuen Fleming: There is no vacancy at present, Mr. Chairman. This clause will provide for an enlargement of the tax appeal board by the addition of one more member, raising the total personnel of the board, inclusive of the chairman, from five to six members.


[Stage Direction]
Clause agreed to.
Clause 28 agreed to.
On clause 29.
William Moore Benidickson: Does the minister envisage that here we would in any way meet the suggestion, long advocated by the minister and the Prime Minister, that we should amend our income tax law in such a way that non-residents would not have a special advantage in connection with operations in Canada?


Donald Methuen Fleming: Mr. Chairman, this clause, which is not of far-reaching effect, involves merely a change in wording which makes it clear that the agent of the person concerned has a requirement to "deduct or withhold tax".


William Moore Benidickson: This is done because of penalties imposed for failure to deduct or withhold.


[Stage Direction]
Clause agreed to.
On clause 30.
William Moore Benidickson: Will the minister provide all of us with an explanation of the likely results from this enactment?


Donald Methuen Fleming: This is a relieving provision. Paragraph (a) of section 123, subsection 8 of the act being amended provides a penalty of 10 per cent. Paragraph (b) of section 123, subsection 8, provides as follows:
In any other case, the whole amount that should have been deducted or withheld.
The amendment contained in clause 30 of the bill, by adding the underlined words to paragraph (a) removes the case of failure to deduct tax from payments to non-residents from the application of paragraph (b) which I have quoted, where the penalty is 100 per cent.


[Stage Direction]
Clause agreed to.
Income Tax Act
On clause 31-Penalty upon conviction.
William Moore Benidickson: On this clause, Mr. Chairman, I think it would be timely for the minister to indicate to us and to taxpayers generally what is available in the area of ministerial discretion when it is determined that a certain taxpayer has perhaps wilfully withheld a disclosure of his real income. I think we had a previous section which referred to this, but to what extent have we ministerial discretion in the matter of penalties when the officials of the tax-gathering department find that in their view there has been some, it says here, "wilful withholding of information and disclosure of income"? What leeway has the minister under the act in this respect?


Donald Methuen Fleming: Mr. Chairman, the effect of clauses 16 and 31 of the bill is to reduce ministerial discretion.


William Moore Benidickson: Yes. The minister says the effect is to reduce it, but since this is an important issue and all of us hear from time to time of taxpayers who are in difficulty either with the department or with the courts, I think we would like just a little indication of what is the present law and what will the law be if this particular clause is passed.


Donald Methuen Fleming: The amendment to be found in clause 31 provides for a continuation of the present rule that a person who has been convicted under section 132 of the act may not be required to pay in addition a penalty under section 56 (1) of the act for the same evasion or attempted evasion unless he was assessed for the penalty under section 56 (1) before the information or complaint giving rise to the conviction under section 132 was laid or made.


William Moore Benidickson: Yes; but section 56,
which is now the law, says:
Every person who has wilfully, in any manner, evaded or attempted to evade payment of the tax payable by him under this part for a taxation year or any part thereof is liable to a penalty, to be fixed by the minister, of not less than 25 per cent and not more than 50 per cent of the amount of the tax evaded or sought to be evaded.
I take it that under the present law there is little discretion in the hands of the minister. If the facts indicate an evasion of tax in a wilful manner the taxpayer cannot escape a penalty upon discovery, regardless of any representations made to the minister, of less than 25 per cent, and it cannot exceed 50 per cent. There is the wording "is liable". Is there any escape from that phrase. Does it mean that it is mandatory that in all cases he is liable, or does it mean that he could be liable?

Income Tax Act


Donald Methuen Fleming: I am sure the hon. member does not need any comment from me on the meaning of the word "liable" as it appears in our legislation, particularly in penal provisions. Section 56, which the hon. member has read, is a section applying to cases of wilful evasion. In clause 16 of the bill we are seeking to add to section 56 of the act subsection 2, which will deal now with cases not falling under subsection 1, cases where the taxpayer concerned knowingly, or under circumstances amounting to gross negligence in the carrying out of any duty or obligation imposed by the act, has done or failed to do certain of the things mentioned in the new subsection 2.
The provisions of the old section 56, which now becomes section 56, subsection 1, make an offender liable to a penalty to be fixed by the minister of not less than 25 per cent and not more than 50 per cent of the tax evaded or sought to be evaded, but by clause 16 of the bill subsection 2 is now added, under which an offender is liable to a penalty of 25 per cent of the amount by which the tax that would so have been payable is less than the tax paid by him for the year. There is no ministerial discretion as to the amount of penalty under the new subsection 2 of section 56. So far as clause 31 of the bill is concerned, I pointed out the fact that it has no relation to convictions under section 132 of the act.


William Moore Benidickson: I thank the minister for this explanation of clause 16 of the bill. Could he give some examples of the difference in operation under the new subsection 2 which involve omissions in a statement of income filed by a taxpayer, having in mind the present law which provides a penalty of 25 per cent to 50 per cent? I take it that under the new subsection 2 the maximum is 25 per cent. What relationship is there to situations under section 56 as it now stands that would call for an automatic penalty of not less than 25 per cent and not more than 50 per cent, without any discretion on the part of the minister?


Donald Methuen Fleming: It is thought that there are differences between cases of wilful evasion and cases where, in the new language employed in clause 16 of the bill, there has been a failure or an omission that is done knowingly or under such circumstances as amount to gross negligence in the discharge of a duty or obligation imposed by the act. I think the hon. member will agree that there are differences of meaning between the offences created by what now becomes the two subsections of section 56.

Section 56 has been in effect in its present form since 1950, and it applies only in the case of a wilful evasion or attempt. The case must be brought clearly within the word "wilful". Where it is brought within the meaning of the word "wilful", then the offender is liable to this higher penalty, a minimum of 25 per cent and a maximum of 50 per cent. The offence defined in the new subsection 2 of section 56 is one which falls short of being wilful in the sense in which that term is used in subsection 1 but is one where the evasion is done knowingly or, for example, where there has been an omission and the omission is equivalent to gross negligence on the part of the taxpayer in the discharge of the duty or obligation created by the act.


William Moore Benidickson: I do not want to press the minister for legal advice, because in the last three or four years he has been engaged in other duties. However, as a layman, shall I say, I do not see what the distinction is between one who has evaded tax in a wilful manner under section 56 as it now stands and one who omits statements in a return knowingly or under circumstances amounting to gross negligence. Could the minister, with the help of the officials who are before him, give an illustration of the in between land that exists with respect to which it is thought fit to change the penalty from one ranging from a minimum of 25 per cent to a maximum of 50 per cent to a maximum penalty of 25 per cent?


Donald Methuen Fleming: In the experience of the Department of National Revenue there have been cases where, in the view of the department, there was not sufficient evidence to establish a clear case of wilful evasion within the meaning of section 56 but where, had there been such a provision in effect as is now proposed by clause 16, there would have been ample evidence to establish a clear case of an offence on the part of a taxpayer who knowingly or as the result of gross negligence on his part has failed to discharge a duty or obligation imposed upon him by the act.


William Moore Benidickson: In other words, in the view of the minister some taxpayers may have hitherto escaped the consequences of the penalties involved in section 56 of the act, where it says that every person who has wilfully done certain things shall be subject to a certain penalty. I take it the minister is saying that such persons may have escaped the results of the law and that some people will perhaps be caught, who otherwise might escape, by reason of the new subsection 2 of section 56 which refers to every person who knowingly, or under circumstances amounting

to gross negligence, has made statements or omissions in his return that were not proper. I find some difficulty in discovering the difference between wilfully doing this kind of thing and doing it knowingly or under circumstances amounting to gross negligence.


Donald Methuen Fleming: The answer to the hon. member's question is yes.


[Stage Direction]
Clause agreed to.
On clause 32-Mailing date.
Donald Methuen Fleming: Clause 32 is the last clause with respect to which an amendment is proposed. I gave notice of it on June 17 and I would ask my colleague the Minister of National Defence to move this amendment.


George Randolph Pearkes: I move:
That Bill C-68, an act to amend the Income Tax Act. be amended
(a)	by striking out lines 10 to 12 on page 20 thereof and substituting therefor the following:
32. (1) Section 136 of the said act is amended by adding thereto, immediately after subsection (12) thereof, the following subsections:
(b)	by adding thereto, immediately after line 19 on page 20 thereof, the following:
(12b) Where any notice of an assessment has been sent by the minister as required by this act, the assessment shall be deemed to have been made on the day of mailing of the notice of the assessment."
(2) Subsection (12b) of section 136 of the said act as enacted by this section is applicable in respect of any assessment whether made before or after the coming into force of this section, except where an appeal from any such assessment was instituted before the coming into force of this section.


William Moore Benidickson: Would the minister provide an explanation? I think the amendment has reference to a recommendation made by the Canadian Chamber of Commerce which the original resolution did not entirely meet.


Donald Methuen Fleming: Mr. Chairman, the hon. member came close to dealing with this subject on June 6. The purpose of the amendment is to establish very clearly, beyond any question, the intent that was set forth at that time in relation to the original resolution. This is in keeping with the recommendations put forward in a joint brief submitted by the chartered accountants and lawyers in relation to the amendment of section 46, subsection 4 of the act.


William Moore Benidickson: Yes, Mr. Chairman; I raised this when we were debating the resolution as worded by the minister when he introduced it on March 31, budget night. I indicated on June 6, during the debate, that I felt the resolution was lacking in some clarity and some substance. I think this amendment takes care of the points that were raised in that debate.


[Stage Direction]
Amendment agreed to.
Clause as amended agreed to.
Income Tax Act
On clause 33-Death benefit.
William Moore Benidickson: I believe clause 33 has very widespread interest, because death benefits which arise as the result of employment are becoming of some consequence today. Perhaps the minister has a statement to read to the committee.


Donald Methuen Fleming: I do not know that I have any statement to read. The explanatory notes in the bill are quite clear and are fairly lengthy. Clause 33 of the bill makes a number of amendments which are related to the definition of death benefits. The present law provides that there shall be an exemption of $10,000 or an amount equal to an employee's yearly remuneration, whichever is the lesser, but it does not state who shall receive this exemption if the employee dies without leaving a widow and the death benefit is payable to several people. The amendment deals with that situation.
Subclause 5 has the same subject matter as paragraph 8 of the income tax resolution which was dealt with on June 6. I refer to Hansard, page 4588. This amendment, Mr. Chairman, is intended to clarify the rules for computing income from a particular place or source. The Income Tax Act permits certain deductions in computing income. It provides also a definition of income from a source or from a particular place, but at present this definition does not make it clear that the deductions generally permitted in computing income also apply when computing income from a source or from a particular place. It is necessary that this be clarified for the purpose of computing income from a foreign country so that the foreign tax credit may be correctly computed. It is necessary also that the meaning of income from a source be clarified for the purpose of computing income of a non-resident person from business or employment in Canada.


William Moore Benidickson: Is subclause 4 something new, or is it just something that was perhaps overlooked when there was an amendment in 1959?


Donald Methuen Fleming: This amendment simply adds the reference to part II (c) to the previous language of section 139.


William Moore Benidickson: Would the minister, with respect to subclause 5, just spell out the definition of income from a source or a particular place, as referred to here?


Donald Methuen Fleming: Well, it was on subclause 5 that I was speaking principally in saying what I did just a moment ago.


William Moore Benidickson: It will be on the record.


[Stage Direction]
Clause agreed to.
[Stage Direction]
Broadcasting
Clause 1 agreed to.
Title agreed to.
Bill reported.


George Clyde Nowlan: That a select committee be appointed on broadcasting to consider radio and television broadcasting with power to examine and inquire into the matters herein referred to and to report from time to time their observations and opinions thereon and to send for persons, papers and records:
That the committee have power to print such papers and evidence from day to day as may be deemed advisable or necessary;
That the committee shall consist of 35 members;
That standing orders 66 and 67 be suspended in relation thereto.


Lionel Chevrier: May we call it one o'clock, Mr. Speaker?
At one o'clock the house took recess.


[Stage Direction]
AFTER RECESS

The house resumed at 2.30 p.m.
George Clyde Nowlan: When the house rose for the luncheon recess order No. 7, dealing with the appointment of a select committee on broadcasting, had been called. It is not my purpose at the moment to make any extended remarks whatsoever on this matter. This motion arises out of the hearings of the committee last year. At the conclusion of those hearings an understanding was arrived at that a similar committee would be set up during this session.
I can anticipate some criticism to the effect that the committee should have been set up earlier, and so on and so forth. I shall be prepared at least to consider those arguments if, as and when they are presented to this house. At the moment all I wish to say is that this committee is being set up now and that the terms of reference are slightly different from those of the committee of last year, but I think only in detail, not in principle.
Last year the committee was set up to deal exclusively with the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. I am advised by the law officers of the department and of the House of Commons that this resolution meets that requirement, and that in addition to the reference to the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation there is included the Canadian association of broadcasters, or in other words the private broadcasters of Canada, and also

the board of broadcast governors. I think the committee last year expressed the opinion that at the next session they should have an opportunity to consider the work of the board of broadcast governors as well as the opinions of the C.A.B. Other than that, this motion is exactly the same as the motion which has been presented to this house throughout the years.
I do not think any good purpose would be served by my making any extensive remarks at this time, although at the conclusion of the debate, if there is one, I shall be glad to deal with any matters which are raised.


John Whitney Pickersgill: Mr. Speaker, I hope there will not be any extended debate on this motion, for this reason. I am going to suggest to the minister -and I might as well make the suggestion right at the outset-that at the conclusion of such debate as there may be he seek leave of the house to withdraw this motion. To introduce this motion at this stage of this session of parliament, unless it is intended to adjourn parliament next week and come back in September or October-in which case I think it would be more sensible to wait until September or October to introduce the motion-is making a mockery of parliament.
In support of that statement I think perhaps I could read no greater authority than the hon. member for Digby-Annapolis-Kings (Mr. Nowlan), the Minister of National Revenue, speaking in this house on August 25, 1958 at a good deal earlier stage of the session of 1958 than we have now reached in the session of 1960. On August 25, 1958 we had not sat for as many days as we have now been sitting in this session. At that time, speaking about a proposal that had appeared in the speech from the throne at the beginning of that session, the minister said he thought it was too late to appoint a committee which could do anything useful. Here are his exact words, which are to be found at page 4045 of Hansard of August 25, 1958:
As far as the regulations are concerned-
That is to say, the regulations which would be made under the Broadcasting Act which was then under consideration in the house.
-they are to be promulgated by the board itself, and neither I nor anyone else can say, except in very broad outline, what they are going to be. So, frankly, I do not know what purpose would be served by a committee at this time. However, if the house wants a committee it will get one. I might, however, point out that this house will probably close, we hope, this week, next week, or some time in the relatively near future.
I certainly echo that hope.
I suspect there will be a certain amount of breath taking and a little relief from pressure-

I think I could echo that hope also.
-and that the government will then be dealing with the backlog of matters-
I think it is about time they started dealing with the backlog of matters today.
-which hon. gentlemen know always accumulate during a session. Then it will give consideration to the personnel of these two boards.
The minister next went on to say something about their appointment. Then he went on to make this statement, about which I want to say something. It is found at page 4046 of Hansard of that year:
On behalf of the government, Mr. Speaker, I would say-


George Clyde Nowlan: Is that 1958?


John Whitney Pickersgill: Yes, the same year; August 25, 1958. The minister said this:
On behalf of the government, Mr. Speaker, I would say that if it is requested at the next session of parliament, we will shortly after the session begins set up a special committee of the house to deal with radio and broadcasting generally. All these matters can be referred to that committee, and perhaps the committee can watch the organization take shape and form and grow during the session rather than speculate, which is all we can do now concerning the operation of the bill.
I took that statement then, as I take it still, to be an undertaking on the part of the government. This matter came up for discussion on a number of other occasions, as the hon. gentleman will recall, when the view taken on this side of the house was that we wanted to have a committee which would not go on fishing expeditions in all sorts of quarters but would have specific terms of reference and would address itself to consideration of the operation of the broadcasting legislation which the hon. gentleman was then piloting through the house.
We in the Liberal opposition took the very strongest exception to certain features of that broadoasting legislation. In forgoing at the request of the hon. gentleman a right which we would have had to have that legislation considered in committee, to have witnesses called, and so on, we always understood that we were to have a committee on the legislation and its operation. But instead of that, when we did get a committee last year we had a committee that turned itself into a kind of super board of governors of the C.B.C. and started to niggle about all kinds of little things about which most members of this house have no real knowledge and no competence to discuss, seeking to supplant the board which parliament had appointed under its legislation-legislation of which we did not entirely approve-for the purpose of regulating broadcasting.
Broadcasting
We do not think any useful purpose at all would be served by that kind of committee. What we want is a committee that will consider the principles on which the broadcasting legislation is based and on which broadcasting operates in this country, and we want to consider them in a reasonable and systematic manner.
That there is need for such a committee I do not for one minute deny, and I want to give one or two illustrations of the kind of thing into which I think there is some need for a committee to look. But before I do that I want to say why we do not think this committee should be set up at this stage of the session.
We do not think it should be set up at this stage of the session because it is utterly impossible for those members of the opposition-and I speak only for my own colleagues in the opposition because other members of the opposition will speak for themselves-who are greatly interested in the subject of broadcasting to do their duty in this house and their duty in one or two other committees which are of the utmost importance, particularly in the banking and commerce committee which is sitting at this very moment and where I ought to be if I did not have to be here.


Mr. McGee:: You have 48 members.


John Whitney Pickersgill: It is going to be quite impossible to give any kind of adequate consideration to this committee. The hon. member for York-Scarborough (Mr. McGee) said something about 48 members. It is quite true that there are 48 members of the opposition, and it is also quite true that every one of them has equal rights and equal opportunities. But we do know as a matter of fact that on both sides of the house there are certain people who have certain interests, and we know that there is legislation before this parliament which has to be considered by committees if the legislation is going to be dealt with at all.
There will be nothing before this committee except the general subject of broadcasting, and the general subject of broadcasting has not changed to any appreciable degree since last January. There is no reason why this committee could not have been set up at latest by February 1, and could not have had its meetings at a time when there was no legislation to be considered and when those members who had devoted some study to the matter and are especially interested in it would have had ample opportunity to give the kind of consideration to the committee which ought to be given a subject of this importance.

Broadcasting
As I say, at this stage I am not going to do more than appeal to the minister to get the consent of the house at the end of this debate to withdraw this motion and give us an undertaking that as the first item of ordinary business at the next session a similar motion will be made. I think it would be preferable if the government would give consideration to an amendment of the standing orders to make the broadcasting committee a standing committee of the house. I have been in government, and I know what an embarrassment it is to find time for a debate such as we are engaged in now.
Perhaps I should not say anything in extenuation of the government, but I know it is sometimes difficult jockeying for position to get things on. It is often said that a certain debate will take a whole day and that that is a day lost and a motion gets put off from week to week and then from month to month, as this motion did. Of course it was not on the order paper for very long; it was only put on the order paper on May 30, but it might have been put on in January and still have been in much the same position. I feel that at this stage of the session we should not be put in this kind of position at all.
The other thing is that I appeal to the minister to do what in 1958 he certainly gave us in the opposition the impression he was going to do, namely to introduce a motion in express terms so the terms of reference of that committee will deal with the Broadcasting Act and the operations of the act itself, instead of permitting these general investigations into this, that and the other thing connected with the detailed operations of broadcasting. I am not saying that if hon. members do not want to do that they should be denied the opportunity; not at all; but I do think a prior commitment was given to the opposition by the government which I maintain has not been kept and which I think should be kept. That is the argument I am making.
I am not arguing that this committee should not be set up because an investigation is not needed. An investigation is needed, but it does seem to me that, at this stage of the session, the only appropriate way in which we can carry on a discussion on broadcasting at all is in committee of supply, when the estimates come before us. I might say that is one reason why this whole situation is different from what it was in the past. In the past, up until 1956, there were no estimates of the C.B.C. and no broadcasting estimates. The C.B.C. was provided with a budget in another way, and the only opportunity for any discussion of broadcasting was in a committee. But now, owing to a regrettable step

taken by the present government, a step which we intend to change when we get into office, there is an annual budget for the C.B.C. which keeps the C.B.C. pretty effectively under the thumb under the Minister of Finance.
That is a principle in which we do not believe. It is a principle which leads in the direction of totalitarianism. We believe that the C.B.C. and the whole broadcasting set-up in Canada should have the same kind of independence the judiciary has. That is the only safe way to have broadcasting by the state.


George Clyde Nowlan: Are you saying that the government should not submit appropriations in this respect to be approved by parliament?


John Whitney Pickersgill: The minister knows as well as I do that the salaries of judges are fixed in the Judges Act, that they are a statutory charge, and that the government has no control of them whatsoever once a judge is appointed.


George Clyde Nowlan: Except that parliament approves them.


John Whitney Pickersgill: Parliament approves the act.


George Clyde Nowlan: Is the hon. member suggesting that parliament should not pass any vote with respect to the C.B.C.?


John Whitney Pickersgill: Oh, no. The hon. minister has no doubt forgotten, but I am suggesting that one of the schemes, or some variant of it, that the Fowler commission recommended for the financing of broadcasting be adopted.


George Clyde Nowlan: Which variant do you suggest?


John Whitney Pickersgill: I am not prepared, until I have the responsibility, to say precisely which variant I would have, but I am prepared to define precisely what ought to be done. There should be an assured budget for a period of not less than five years which cannot be changed up or down by parliament. As we know, under our constitution the only way money can be spent from the treasury of this country is by recommendation from the crown, which means from the ministry of the day. But if the broadcasting corporation is dependent, as it is now, on the treasury board, I am not saying whether or not this has happened but there is the opportunity for it to happen; as the hon. gentleman well knows, and certainly as the Prime Minister that great authority on parliamentary government and on human liberty knows, the moment you make an appropriation which is dependent upon ministers and is settled secretly behind closed doors in treasury board, you are inviting that agency to curry

favour with the government in order to get its appropriation increased, or even to maintain it.


George Clyde Nowlan: Was that the hon. gentleman's opinion prior to 1957?


John Whitney Pickersgill: That was the hon. gentleman's opinion prior to 1957, and that is why I, as a member of the government, joined in the recommendation that Mr. St. Laurent made for the establishment of the Fowler commission. It is true that for one year the previous government, in order to meet an emergency, did act the other way, and we said it was wrong when we did it. We explained that it was an emergency and proceeded to set up the Fowler commission.


George Clyde Nowlan: Then would the hon. member explain to me-and I am not dealing with one year but with every year-why the minister responsible had to approve expenditures of $25,000 or over, whether it was for programming or anything else?


John Whitney Pickersgill: The hon. gentleman is referring to capital expenditure-


George Clyde Nowlan: No.


John Whitney Pickersgill: He is not referring to capital expenditures at all?


George Clyde Nowlan: I was referring to operating expenditures.


John Whitney Pickersgill: Well, it is very unlikely that there was any individual item under operating expenditures of over $25,000.


George Clyde Nowlan: The hon. member does not know what he is talking about.


John Whitney Pickersgill: The minister can make his own speech in his own time. 1 say, of course, that capital expenditure which involves extending the operations of the corporation should, as the Fowler commission very correctly pointed out, be brought before parliament and approved by parliament. On the other hand the control of operating expenditures should be kept as free as possible in order to avoid any possibility or suspicion that any government can say that heads will roll if certain things are not done.
We believe, and we have always believed, that the state-operated broadcasting system should be subject to parliament and not to the government. This was spelled out carefully in the Massey commission report. It was spelled out in the Fowler report and in all previous documents, and never until the present occupants of the treasury benches had to do with this matter has anyone sought to prostitute broadcasting by legislation, over our strong objections, in the way that is now being done.
Broadcasting
I know the minister will beat his breast and say that he and his colleagues respect freedom so much that they lean over backward not to interfere, but it should not be necessary to lean over backward or forward or in any other way. The possibility should not exist, and would not exist-


George Clyde Nowlan: What about Corner Brook?


John Whitney Pickersgill: Well, what about Corner Brook? I do not even know what the hon. gentleman is talking about. If he wants to explain later, he can go ahead and explain. I have no idea what he is referring to in this context.
There is something I do know something about, and it is this. Under this legislation a certain obligation was placed upon the president and the vice president of the C.B.C. and last year, as the hon. gentleman will recall, certain questions were asked in this house about certain regrettable things that happened at a time when the president of the corporation was absent. Then later the vice president, on account of the stress and strain of certain circumstances, also had to be absent.
I asked the hon. member for Greenwood (Mr. Macdonnell), who was then in the government and was the acting minister, to tell us who was presiding over the board of the C.B.C. The hon. member took my question as notice, and subsequently the present minister gave an answer to the question as will be found on page 5777 of Hansard of July 10, 1959. Perhaps it would be convenient to put both the question and the answer on record:


John Whitney Pickersgill: Mr. Speaker, I wonder if I could put a question to the Minister of National Revenue. Could the minister tell us who at the present time is performing the statutory functions of the president of the C.B.C. as chairman of the board of directors?


George Clyde Nowlan: Colonel Landry is, as I said, chairman of the management committee, and Mr. Dunsmore is chairman of the executive committee of the board of directors and the absence of the vice president is acting as chairman of the board.
It cannot be said that the question took the minister by surprise, because he had been given notice of it. One would have thought that in circumstances such as these, when a question of this importance was being asked, the minister would have fortified himself with all the available information. Yet after parliament had adjourned, in fact after the session had been prorogued, an announcement was made that Mr. Dunsmore had been appointed chairman of the board. I have here a news item from the Gazette of August 18, 1959 which reads "Dunsmore is named C.B.C. board head." The text is as follows:
Robert L. Dunsmore, retired oil company head and former president of the Montreal board of

Broadcasting
trade has been named chairman of the C.B.C. board of directors, it was announced yesterday.
On subsequent inquiries being made it turned out-I have all the documents here, but I do not wish to weary the house by going into the details-it turned out that Mr. Dunsmore was elected to be chairman of the board at a meeting on June 23 or 24. This transaction apparently had been kept secret from the minister, or at least the minister said nobody ever told him about it. Then, after parliament had adjourned, this information was ferreted out by the press, who were apparently more successful than I had been by asking a direct question here in parliament. It seems to me that even had there been no question about the legality of this whole performance it was a very shabby way to treat parliament or any member of parliament asking questions about public business in such an important sphere as this. But I have the very greatest doubt about the legality of this whole transaction.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: I must say now that it seems to me the hon. member is widening the debate more than he should, because the motion is concerned with the appointment of a select committee. It seems to me the hon. member is discussing matters which have no relation to this question.


Lionel Chevrier: May I say, on the point of order, that when there is a motion to establish a committee it has been the practice in the past, I believe, to deal not only with matters which are likely to come before the committee but with matters which have already come before the committee. I do not think the hon. member has gone beyond that point in his remarks.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: I agree, but I think the hon. member was not discussing anything which was discussed before the committee last year or that is likely to be discussed this year.


John Whitney Pickersgill: I assure Your Honour that you are under a grave misapprehension, because if the government persists and does establish a committee of the kind proposed, this matter will certainly be discussed in that committee. I say this notwithstanding the fact that it might be an argument for not discussing it here and now.
What I should like to point out to Your Honour is that I am seeking to persuade the minister not to proceed with this motion at the present time. I am seeking to persuade the minister that when he makes the motion at the next session of parliament he should make the kind of motion which will enable us to come to grips with these things that

really matter; that is to say, with the fundamentals of the broadcasting legislation. I am suggesting that the C.B.C. board of governors, under the law as it now stands, had no power to substitute anyone, except in an emergency and for an emergency period, for a temporary period, for the president in his capacity as chairman of the board.
If one examines the debates-and I do not intend to go into details on this; I shall do that on the estimates-if one examines the exchanges that took place on this precise point during the debate on the bill he will find it is perfectly clear that parliament never contemplated-and if the government contemplated it they were misleading parliament -at the time that legislation went through that in this clandestine manner someone would be substituted for the president of the C.B.C. as chairman of the board. Certainly I have nothing to say in a personal way about Mr. Dunsmore one way or another. He may be an altogether more suitable person to be the chairman of the board than the president. That is not the point at issue. What I am saying is that parliament enacted a certain law and something else is being done, and it is certainly something that should not be permitted to continue.
I also wish to say it seems to me that one of the other fundamental matters that ought to be considered by a committee is the whole new question of the criteria for the granting of licences to private television stations in places where the C.B.C. also is, and the duplication as well by the C.B.C. of stations in places now served by private television. Hon. members know, because I have asked questions and expressed views about it, that I regard it as an unnecessary waste of the taxpayers' money to have a public television station established in the city of Edmonton, which is very well served at the present time by a private station, when there are all kinds of outlying points like places in Newfoundland and northern Manitoba,-


Mr. Fisher:: And in northern Ontario.


John Whitney Pickersgill: -and in northern Ontario which are not served, though I have no doubt the hon. member for Port Arthur will have something to say about that. I feel that this kind of extension, this use of public funds to extend television coverage in areas already adequately covered, when there are a great many parts of Canada that have no coverage, indicates a very mistaken idea of priority.
I also feel that we need some explanation of the care with which the board of broadcast governors appeared to follow what I believe everyone thought was the established

principle that, while no place should be denied television coverage because no one except the local newspaper or a corporation largely owned by that newspaper would provide it, in places where there were other applicants equally worthy and equally competent it was undesirable as a matter of public policy, frequently expressed on both sides of this house, that newspapers or organizations closely allied with newspapers should be preferred to other applicants. It is very hard now to understand this extraordinary decision which was made in Toronto in favour of a newspaper whose proprietor, according to all reports, months before the application was heard by the board went about saying that there was no need for them to hold any hearing because he already had it. It does seem to me that is something which needs very careful investigation, as well as the whole policy underlying that situation.
I might say in that context, sir, that the same newspaper apparently has a great deal of worry, because it has spent a lot of time trying to misrepresent what has been said in criticism of the decision in this matter.
I do hope that before the minister approves this Edmonton television station, unless the governor in council has approved it already, the estimates will be brought forward and we shall be given an opportunity to discuss the wisdom of that move.
It does seem to me, sir, that I should go back to my original and fundamental point and not take more of the time of the house on other matters. As I say, we feel that a committee is desirable; we feel that there should be a committee every year; we feel that the most advisable way of dealing with this matter from the point of view of saving the time of the house would be to have a standing committee so that it would be just set up in the same way as the other standing committees and the time of the house saved in those circumstances. But we do not feel that a committee set up on the 107th day of the session can possibly be expected, in view of all the demands upon our time both in the house and in other committees where it is essential for members to be present if they are to do their duty properly, to do the work that requires to be done. We do not think it is the appropriate thing to do at all.
I appeal to the minister to give us an undertaking that the committee will be set up early in the next session, and to withdraw this motion. However, if the minister is not willing to accede to this appeal-and I hope he will indicate what his intentions are one way or the other before he speaks
Broadcasting
in closing the debate-I think we are entitled to be told so by someone from the government side at an early stage; because if that does happen we intend, in order to test the house, to move that this motion be read this day six months hence. But I do not wish to do that unless the minister cares to say one way or the other right now what his intentions are. I would prefer to leave it to the minister to withdraw the motion.


Douglas Mason Fisher: Mr. Speaker, it is very difficult for me and my colleagues to be belligerent, but it is very hard for us to do other than react rather badly to this particular motion at this particular time. We feel that it is a bad time in the session to be bringing it in. It would be different, we feel, if we could contemplate the session moving rather slowly toward an end some time in September, but we are already under a certain amount of forced draft and we are likely to be forced even further in so far as the extension of hours is concerned.
There are a great number of committees meeting. The previous speaker referred to that fact. I was bothered by the interjection from one of the Conservative members challenging the hon. member for Bonavista-Twillingate that there are 48 other Liberals. We have had this challenge thrown, not only to the Liberals but to our very small group, a number of times by the Prime Minister and by other people that we need to learn to spread the work around and we should not expect any special privileges because we are in the opposition. It is not a case of expecting special privileges, but I think the government members, and especially the senior government members, should realize-I know that the veterans know it- that there is a difference in the roles that opposition members and government members play in much of the work here.
Quite frankly, we cannot give the attention that this committee deserves if it is set up and gets under way. That being the case, we can only feel that it is bad to set up the committee. If the Conservative members feel that with their great strength they can man the committee and do the job, they are entitled to believe that; but I think they have to recognize that the opposition should be playing some role.
I want to make some specific references to the committee of last year. I should like to point out to the minister that the members of that committee from the government side who made the greatest contribution in terms of cross-examination and good attendance, and who were the key people in preparing the report, are all involved in activities that

Broadcasting
will make it very difficult tor them to take part in the work of the committee this year. The chairman is already involved as chairman of another committee this session. The hon. member for Carleton (Mr. Bell), who played a large role in the committee, is now parliamentary secretary to the Minister of Finance and is also taking part in other committees. The hon. member who is parliamentary secretary to the Minister of National Defence was very active in the committee last year, and we gather that he has his work cut out for him now in his departmental role. I could go right down the list of members who played an active part in that committee, which might be an invidious thing to do, and point out that all of them, both opposition and government members, are actively involved either in other committees or in extended commitments they did not have last summer.
It seems to me that this supports the logic that the government should withdraw this motion and give us an undertaking that the committee will be set up early in the next session. To argue this way is not to argue that there is not a great deal of work for a committee to do. The aftermaths of last summer still linger. I think the most unfortunate one, and I cannot articulate it in this debate, is that there has been a terrible effect upon the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. I think the programming situation has gone to the dogs. In my opinion there is a gutlessness in the organization which is amazing and most regrettable.
I think we could very well spend a great deal of time in this committee, if we had the time, trying to encourage and develop a completely new approach on the part of parliament and the government. I do not know how the hon. member for Bonavista-Twillingate manages to separate them so neatly. It seems to me we need a new approach as to what the role of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation is going to be. As commercialism has been extended this year in an effort to make more money, partly as a result of the committee's recommendation, it seems to me we are getting more and more vacuity and a poorer and poorer job in public affairs.
For example, I think that the coverage the C.B.C. has given recent Canadian political affairs involving provincial elections is ridiculous. If you turn on the radio at any time you can hear about Khrushchev or Castro or Nasser, but apparently the C.B.C. feels that where people like Stanfield, Hicks, Douglas and Thatcher are concerned it will get into hot water if it gives them any kind of decent coverage. I sometimes wonder how we are going to get a Canadian nationality through

the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation when it seems to concentrate most of its public affairs programs upon foreign affairs, and I say that without any regret at all. Surely there is enough of interest in our own country to give this organization something to do. But its objectives in that field are falling farther and farther away from the mark. I think they are scared stiff to do some decent programming relating to Canadian issues in the public affairs field. They are scared stiff partly because of the incidents of last summer in which the broadcasting committee was involved.
I think the board of broadcast governors has everyone up in the air. I have here the lovely correspondence which the Globe and Mail published as a result of the decision to give the Telegram the television licence in Toronto. I have heard that it was solicited, but whether or not it was solicited it is a magnificent collection of letters, especially starting with the one by Joseph Sedgwick, Q.C., whom we all know was an interested party, entitled by the paper "The Curtain Falls". I think we all appreciated the touch of poetry in the last part of the letter, where these words were used:
'Ere they hewed the Sphinx's visage Favoritism governed kissage,
Even as it does in this age And it will do evermore.
The general reaction to the award of that particular licence to the Telegram and Mr. Aldred and the others associated with him was, I think, the most vivid indication of disappointment in the board of broadcast governors that one could imagine. At one stroke it seemed to undo everything toward which the board of broadcast governors was moving, and it is still unfathomable to me and to many others. Before the award was made there was a great deal of speculation around the House of Commons. A number of us had our No. 1, No. 2 and No. 3 predictions, and invariably for a whole host of reasons the bottom one in the order was the Telegram entry. Yet the Telegram got the licence.
When the board of broadcast governors turned their backs upon the Siftons in Winnipeg we seemed to have an indication that newspapers were not going to be given these licences, but then we got the Telegram. I think it is generally agreed by people who follow newspapers that you have to go a long waj and search extensively to find a metropolitan daily as bad in almost every way as the Toronto Telegram. If the standards of the Toronto Telegram are going to be transferred to the television station all I can say is, God help the Toronto listeners and watchers. I have no brief, and I do not think anyone in this

party has, for the Toronto Globe and Mail, but better the Globe and Mail a thousand times than the Telegram.


An hon. Member:: What about the Star?


Douglas Mason Fisher: Someone says "what about the Star?" The Star did not make a serious application, as I think everyone knows.


George Clyde Nowlan: Mr. Speaker, is this a discussion of newspapers in Toronto or a discussion of a motion to set up a committee? I think we should get back to the subject under discussion. I would be very glad to discuss these matters with the hon. member on another occasion.


Douglas Mason Fisher: If this is a point of order I should like to point out that I do not know of any bigger controversy in the broadcasting field than that involving the issuance of this licence and everything related to it.


George Clyde Nowlan: Get on with the appointment of the committee, then, and do not seek to have it put off.


Douglas Mason Fisher: The point is that I think the committee cannot investigate the board of broadcast governors at this time in any sound way. I do not think the committee can really move unless it has the time to approach the matter carefully, and we all saw what rush did last summer. Maybe it would be just as well if the opposition withdrew from the committee and let a little conclave of Conservative members get together to work out government policy on broadcasting and where the board of broadcast governors stands. I think we might perhaps get a policy from the backbenchers that we could at least take a swing at, instead of the pious suggestion that of course the government would not use any influence in the granting of a licence.
I suppose direct influence was not necessary when you look at the composition of the board of broadcast governors. The only serpent in that particular Eden is Dr. Eugene Forsey. I have not heard a question around Ottawa that is more pertinent and relevant or that has everyone more puzzled than what in the name of the Lord happened to Forsey?


John Whitney Pickersgill: I have been asking that question for years.


Douglas Mason Fisher: After this decision I have reached the stage where I can agree with the hon. member. What did happen to Forsey? In any case, if we look at the others we see that we have a brother in law of the Minister of Transport (Mr. Hees), undoubtedly a fine man. We have Mr. Sabourin who is known as a Conservative organizer in Montreal. We have Mr. Brown, who I understand is a prominent Vancouver Conservative. We have
Broadcasting
Dr. Connell, a neighbour and close friend of the Prime Minister (Mr. Diefenbaker) for many years. We have Mr. Duhamel, who again is a well known Conservative. We have Mr. Duchemin, who is the publisher of a newspaper. I took the trouble to go and read it a little while ago, and I did discover that it seemed to take the Conservative line.


George Clyde Nowlan: How could it help it?


Douglas Mason Fisher: The minister interjects, how could it help it. Another member of the board is a former leader of the Conservative association in Newfoundland, and another was secretary of the Conservative association of Prince Edward Island.


An hon. Member:: All smart men.


Douglas Mason Fisher: I would not doubt that they are smart men, but they are also party men.


George Clyde Nowlan: No.


Douglas Mason Fisher: If the committee, by its
decisions-


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: Order. May I ask the
hon. member to recall that we are discussing a motion to set up a select committee. It is in order, of course, to discuss generally the problems which may be submitted to the committee, but I think the hon. member is going further than that and I would ask him to desist.


Douglas Mason Fisher: I shall try to narrow it down, Mr. Speaker. I should like to point out to the minister that I hope he is-


George Clyde Nowlan: You cannot get much narrower than you have been in the past few minutes.


Douglas Mason Fisher: Then perhaps I should broaden out. I should like to point out that last year a gentleman by the name of Professor Donald Creighton came with another professor to the board of broadcast governors and presented a brief which in essence advocated keeping newspapers out of television. If that particular Conservative voice had been heard or had been on the board I think some of our worries in that direction would not have arisen.
I wanted to reinforce, with one example, the need for some kind of check upon the C.B.C. in connection with these lovely vice presidents it now has. We were told the C.B.C. needed reorganization. Well, it certainly has been reorganized, and it has sprouted vice presidents all over the place.


John Whitney Pickersgill: And they got rid of the
vice president-


Douglas Mason Fisher: Yes. I should like to know whether the new board of directors of the C.B.C. were really consulted in connection

Broadcasting
with these creations, because I find it difficult to believe that you streamline an organization by creating a whole bunch of vice presidents.
One of the matters that has bothered me about the C.B.C. is the tendency to weasel ever since the broadcasting committee sat last year. I want to give an example of this, and it relates to an answer that was given to me through the minister reporting for the C.B.C. Last February I had a question on the order paper, and it was this:
At the meeting of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation board of directors in January at Winnipeg did one of the directors make a statement or a report, verbal or written, on audience reaction to Canadian Broadcasting Corporation programming?
What I had in mind was the well known Mrs. Aitken and her campaign to develop several thousand program critics across the country. The second question was:
If so, which director and in what form was the report?
Was this report prepared by the director in person or was it prepared in co-operation with officials of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation?
If the latter, what officials in which branch of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation?
I should like to ask you to pay attention to this doozer of an answer I got, Mr. Speaker. The answer was as follows:
-I am advised by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation that minutes and proceedings of the board of directors of the corporation have always been regarded as confidential,-
This is a laugh, because that report was spread all over the Winnipeg Free Press and all over the Winnipeg Tribune.
*-and this has been recognized since the inception of the corporation. Names of individuals involved in the business of the corporation have also been regarded as confidential, a practice reaffirmed by the 1959 parliamentary committee on broadcasting.
Yet the minister and others know that in the report that was splattered all over the newspapers Mrs. Aitken said something to the effect that the people of Canada were tired of Foster Hewitt. I have no brief for Foster Hewitt, but what business has she, as the result of her report and her investigation and the subsidized use of C.B.C. personnel, to come out with a report like that? Then we are told by the minister answering for the C.B.C. that this had nothing to do with it at all. Surely when Mrs. Aitken goes to Winnipeg to a meeting of the C.B.C. she is going in a public capacity, and the statements she makes there in regard to her investigations are something relating to the C.B.C. board of directors. The answer the minister gave ended in this way:
Consequently it is not considered in the best interests of the corporation to depart from that practice at this time.

This is nothing but weaseling in not giving an honest or direct answer. I say we are aware that the corporation, through one of its branches, has spent a great deal of time and a great deal of money trying to cooperate with Mrs. Aitken on her audience research survey, this plan of hers to tap the ladies and other people who follow radio and television closely across the country. The result, as revealed in that answer, would tend to be a complete denial that this great big splurge that Mrs. Aitken made in Winnipeg has any substance at all.
This is not the way I understand it, and in my opinion it is another example of the fact that there was a hot potato issue here. I do not believe that this is important. I was just curious as to who gave Mrs. Aitken the right to stand up and sound off about the results of her survey. This is the kind of weasel answer you get instead of a pungent, direct and clear statement. Certainly there is no question about it; we need a much clearer policy on broadcasting and television than we have at the present time.
Issues have been popping up all the time. The hon. member for Bonavista-Twillingate mentioned one, the question of the Edmonton station. I do not know how the members in the cities are affected, but if the hon. member for Churchill (Mr. Simpson), the hon. member for Kenora-Rainy River (Mr. Beni-dickson), and hon. members representing constituencies in northern Saskatchewan do not have people roosting on their tails all the time about the C.B.C. extending its facilities, then I am very much mistaken. This is one of the biggest issues in this part of the country.
What do they find? They find the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation putting up $300,000 to telecast football games. This is fine, and nobody will disagree with it. However, what about the prime responsibility of the corporation to give everyone in Canada service? We check up on the C.B.C. as to its future plans and find one of the most hesitant, backward, mystifying policies one could find in relation to extending their television service in this country. There is no policy at all that I can see. When you do investigate you are given a lot of figures about so many dollars per head, so many dollars per household.
The people in Churchill, in Flin Flon, in the northern part of Port Arthur, in Kenora-Rainy River, in northern New Brunswick and in these places do not want to hear about the cost per head when the C.B.C. is spending $300,000 on football or opening a station in Edmonton for additional coverage. They want to know when they are going to get some television service. If it is not up to those who are on the treasury board, the

Minister of Finance or the minister responsible for this organization to do something, then I do not know where we are going to get the answer.
I had some hope when the board of broadcast governors was appointed that they would give a lead. It seems to me they have been stalling. There are no indications that they are taking this whole question of hinterland development into consideration at all.
Another matter that has come to the fore, it seems to me, is connected with the purchase of this North Bay station by the Thomson interests. It has not been ratified as yet by the board, but I suppose it is going to be considered. Surely they are in a position to decide, yes or no, whether we are going to have a continued build-up of these large corporate aggregations in the communications field.
Now, it seems to me that the Winnipeg decision which gave the Siftons a kick in the teeth-I do not believe the Siftons expected to get anything but a kick in the teeth-led us to believe that we were on our way. We were going to have no control by newspapers in the radio and television field; there was going to be a check on what had been a long-standing trend, but the Telegram case just reversed that.
Now we have Thomson spreading his empire in many parts of the empire, if I can put it that way. He is coming back into television in the manner on which we need a ruling and a decision fairly soon. No matter what the individual enterprise of a person who has a television licence or a station, there is no question that if someone offers a big enough price he will sell it. We can see that trend with the truckers who come down here bucking the C.N.R. They go into trucking and then they turn around the next day and sell out to the C.N.R. If Mr. Thomson gathers all the capital that has been offered to him over in Britain and comes back here I am sure he can wind up by buying almost every television station in Canada. It seems to me that we are at the stage where we need some kind of indication from the B.B.G., the government or some kind of public discussion as to how far this aggregating in television and radio should be allowed to go and the whole relationship of the press with the field.
I think we all noticed the sounding off done by Senator Rupert Davies over in England the other day when he came out with remarks that indicated that he had a low opinion of the board of broadcast governors and the harmful effect these decisions are going to have on broadcasting in Canada. I should like to point out to the hon. member for Bonavista-Twillingate that the senator is a Liberal, and 79951-0-328
Broadcasting
a prominent one. As a matter of fact, he has a couple of newspapers and is interested in a television station. I wonder whether the hon. member for Bonavista-Twillingate does not need to do some work in so far as the Liberal party is concerned.


John Whitney Pickersgill: Perhaps the hon. gentleman would permit me to say that I understand that in the case of both these stations, those interests were the only applicants and that those places would not have obtained television otherwise.


Douglas Mason Fisher: That may be so, Mr. Speaker. But it certainly would seem to me that if Senator Davies is following the Liberal principles we have had enunciated here by the hon. member for Bonavista-Twillingate he would be considering disposing of his interest in one field or the other.


John Whitney Pickersgill: I know the hon. gentleman does not want to misrepresent me and I should really like to make this point clear. The view we took when we were in the government was that no place should be deprived of television because there was no other applicant, or no other applicant able to erect a television station, except a local newspaper. Where there was another applicant able to do so or approximately equally able to do so we took the view that the newspaper should not be preferred.


Douglas Mason Fisher: I was interested in the Liberal convention in Ontario last November, Mr. Speaker, when a gentleman from Port Arthur who has been well known as a broadcaster and newspaperman was there and had this to say:
Kenneth MacGray of Port Arthur said that for any one person to control mass media of communication "is not compatible with the Liberal party thought that broadcast licences must not be held by people already controlling one form of communication."
I just happen to fill that in because this Liberal happened to be working for Mr. Thomson when he said this. He is no longer working for Mr. Thomson.


John Whitney Pickersgill: He is still a Liberal, though.


Douglas Mason Fisher: It is a Liberal principle and I offer it not only to the hon. member for Bonavista-Twillingate but to Senator Davies.
The fundamental question underlying the difficulties of television and broadcasting today in terms of policy stem from the reorientation the government gave to the long standing tradition that went back to the 1930's when it decided to encourage the C.B.C. to commercialize and to grant television licences. I am not the kind of socialist who is going to stand howling about the government making this decision. When you are

Broadcasting
faced with a government decision and a policy that sets us off on another line, while you may be critical of it, you must go along to the extent of trying to see that it works in the best way possible.
However, I now wonder whether we have not reached the stage where we have confusion compounded as a result of the two authorities, namely the B.B.G. and the C.B.C. and as a result of the private interests who are now in the television field. For the life of me I cannot see what we are going to get out of it in terms of what we used to expect from our broadcasting policies, namely some kind of dike or protection from United States cultural influences and some means of bringing national coverage-and I emphasize "national coverage"-to every part of the country. It seems to me that there are holes and pitfalls all over in so far as that policy is concerned as a result of recent developments.
In summing up, may I say that we think there is a great deal for a broadcasting committee to do, but we do not think this is the time or the occasion for it unless we can have the assurance that the government does not plan to extend the hours of the sittings but that it plans to take its time and probably to go on to mid-August or the first of September. In that case, with that length of time available it seems to me that by working slowly, with perhaps one meeting a week, the committee might do some kind of job. In any other circumstances it would be impracticable. I should still like to hear from the minister how he is going to man this committee from the government benches in terms of those people who were so active in the committee last year and who have so many other commitments this year.
(Translation):


Mr. Louis Fortin (Monfmagny-L'Islei):: Mr. Speaker, I shall be extremely brief. I wish to express a view altogether different from the argument advanced by the hon. member for Bonavista-Twillingate (Mr. Pickersgill), who said it is questionable whether the committee on broadcasting should sit at every session. This year that committee has yet to sit. That committee was formed not because of a whim of the Minister of National Revenue (Mr. Nowlan), or of the government, or even of parliament. It is merely the result of a justifiable wish of the general public.
Last year, the committee performed a task that was difficult, I admit, but a useful one,

since there has been a noticeable improvement in the C.B.C. Unfortunately, the improvement noted is not proportionate to the amount of work done by the committee.
I realize that we are now pretty late in this session. The pleasant summer months are starting, but the vital importance and urgent necessity of this committee certainly does not justify the objections being made today against its establishment.
In the first place, the hon. member for Bonavista-Twillingate stated earlier that the C.B.C. should be as independent as the judiciary. If I am mistaken, I know he will correct me, but I believe that is what he said.
The C.B.C. is called upon to spend each year from $50 million to $100 million of taxpayers' money. Parliament is therefore justified in calling the C.B.C. to account for its administration. The public asks for it, the public demands it.
Moreover, even if last year, during committee proceedings we were often accused of partisanship, the number of letters received by committee members and other members of the house, together with the many comments reported in the press, not to mention what we were told by people of all political allegiances and of all schools of thought, all show that everybody readily approved of the work performed by the committee and asked, in fact, that it be carried on this year.
I am one of those who believe that the C.B.C. must enjoy a certain degree of independence. On the other hand, I also believe that this independence is no justification for extravagance or unwarranted expenditures that are even frowned upon by taxpayers.
I believe that in the matter of programming and expenditures, the C.B.C. should be given the free hand it needs for the proper management of its business. I believe, however, that a parliament of representatives elected by those who are paying to insure the efficient operation of the C.B.C. should nevertheless retain some control and ask the corporation for some account of its activity and management. As a matter of fact, it has been said over and again: "For an administration, the fear of parliament is the beginning of wisdom." The hon. member for Port Arthur (Mr. Fisher) said earlier-in what seemed to me the strongest of his arguments-that since the hon. member for Carleton (Mr. Bell) is now parliamentary secretary to the Minister of Finance, the committee could not

possibly be efficient. He mentioned the parliamentary secretary to the Minister of National Defence (Mr. Chambers) and a few others. Now, I believe that, if the committee were to sit next September or January, those gentlemen would not be able to attend it either because I have a feeling that next year, they will be holding the same, if not higher, responsibilities.
That is why I must say that Conservative members of parliament are inclined to take up their work again this year, and are ready to co-operate to every possible extent in order to continue an inquiry started last year which had already begun to bear fruit and to give the committee a little more latitude than last year. People expect us to go on with this inquiry to obtain any information they are entitled to get.
Mr. Speaker, previous speakers listed a series of radio and television stations that have been granted licences. By a strange coincidence, it seemed that all those licences had been delivered to people whose political affiliation was not their own, which they seem-to think extraordinary.
May I recall your attention to that point, Mr. Speaker, and tell you that, before the present administration came into power, licences were delivered, for instance, to station CFCM-TV and to station CKMI-TV owned by Messrs. Picard and Bray, people of known Liberal affiliations.
There is also station CJBR-TV in Rimouski, owned by Mr. Brillant, a Liberal member of the legislative council, Station CKBL, in Matane, is also operated by the same owner. In fact every television station in Quebec is operated under a licence granted by the former government, and is owned by Liberals. Talking of coincidences, the cases I have just mentioned are a rather striking example.
In any event, Mr. Speaker, let me say that if the investigation of the C.B.C. is to be continued, I feel sure that every hon. member will want to take part in the discussions of the committee that is to be set up, and do so in a very objective way. Quite obviously, we are not trying to make political hay. We, in Quebec are just winding up an election campaign, and I think if the committee had been sitting, it would have provided an opportunity for a certain amount of election talk; however, we are pleased that the committee will not be sitting until after the election. Thus, no one will be able to accuse us of trying to make political hay.
We are taking a completely objective attitude. We want to throw some light on the C.B.C. because I must say-and this will be 79951-0-328J
Broadcasting
my last word-that in the province of Quebec people are justly alarmed and concerned over the way a group of individuals are spending the taxpayers' money at the rate of over $50 million a year, without having to account for it to any authority.
(Text):


Lionel Chevrier: May I ask
the minister if he is going to reply to the question asked by the hon. member for Bonavista-Twillingate (Mr. Pickersgill) ?


George Clyde Nowlan: No, Mr. Speaker.


Lionel Chevrier: Mr. Speaker, in that case I do not desire to delay the passing of this motion, but I do want to move a motion myself. However, before doing so there are one or two things I should like to say. They have already been said in general but perhaps not in as great a detail as I intend to put them on the record.
One of the things I wish to say is this. I think it is a mockery of parliament for the minister and the government to which he belongs to seek to establish a committee of this importance in the dying days of the session. I think it is also a mockery of parliament for the minister and those associated with him to expect that when other committees are sitting, in some cases eleven of them per day, it is going to be possible to discuss intelligently the matters which normally come before a committee such as this.
Mr. Speaker, I happen to have before me Votes and Proceedings for the last week. I hold in my hand the one dated Monday, June 13, and on it there are notices for the meeting of no less than eleven committees. I cannot begin to pick out those which are more important than others, but there are certainly four, if not five, of these which are of extreme importance where all of us sitting on both sides of the house who want to do our duty feel it is necessary to be present.
The next day, Tuesday, June 14, appears in' Votes and Proceedings notices for the sittings of seven committees, several of which are important.
Then on Thursday, June 16, only three committees were required to sit; and on Friday, June 17, five committees were notified of sittings, two of them of extreme importance.
The Votes and Proceedings for Monday of this week, that is yesterday, indicates that notices were sent out of meetings, which ostensibly took place, for nine committees, the vast majority being of importance.

Broadcasting
Now the minister seeks to set up a select committee on broadcasting to deal with a matter which when it was last submitted took many weeks, in fact months, to dispose of the matters which came before it.
I do not know what is in the mind of the house leader but I have some idea that if it is the intention of the government to complete the sittings of this session on one of these days in the not too far off future he will move to take away from us the lunch hour. How then, I ask, is it going to be possible to deal with the matters which should be discussed in a committee such as this? It is at that time that committees should be completing their work. It is at that time that committees should be giving consideration to handing in their reports to the house, not giving consideration to organizing committees.


Mr. Fulton:: May I ask the hon. member a question?


Lionel Chevrier: Yes.


Edmund Davie Fulton: The hon. member has just referred to Votes and Proceedings for Monday last, which he said gave notice of the sittings of nine committees. Is it not a fact that those committee sittings were spread over three days and that the largest number sitting on any one day will be five on Thursday next, June 23? So it is not correct to leave the impression that nine committees were called for one day.


Lionel Chevrier: Yes, the hon. member is correct and I thank him for correcting the impression which I may have left with the house. But none the less, while the Minister of Justice (Mr. Fulton) has made a correction so far as Votes and Proceedings for yesterday are concerned, I am sure he will agree that so far as the other Votes and Proceedings I referred to are concerned I was correct. Therefore, that would indicate that on Monday, a week prior to June 20, there were eleven committees that were sitting, or at least for which notices were given.
I refer now to Votes and Proceedings for Monday, June 13, when on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday of that week there were eleven committees sitting, seven of them on Tuesday, one on Wednesday and three on Thursday.
But the point I was making, notwithstanding the interjection of the Minister of Justice, is none the less valid, that it is not logical and proper to be discussing matters of this kind at the end of the session.
When I was interrupted, I was saying it would take some time before it would be possible to organize this committee. Whoever will be responsible for the organization

will have to give some thought to those who are to appear before the committee; whether the board of broadcast governors are to appear first, whether the independent broadcasting associations are to be called next, and things of that nature, and if, as I said earlier, it is the intention of the government to take away the lunch hour then our position will be an impossible one. Certainly it will be an impossible one in so far as the principles upon which broadcasting is based are concerned, because if we are to give those principles the consideration they deserve then it is in February at the beginning of the session that a committee of this importance should be established.
The hon. member for Montmagny-L'Islet (Mr. Fortin) who is not in his seat at the moment said a word or two this afternoon about matters concerning the province of Quebec. In so far as the province of Quebec is concerned, we remember that there was a very serious strike some years ago between the C.B.C. and the radio and television producers in reference to which the minister claimed the strike was illegal whereas his colleague the Secretary of State (Mr. Balcer) said it was legal. The Minister of Labour (Mr. Starr) was unable to make up his mind one way or the other. The point I am making here is that it seems to be a Tory idea that when there is a Tory government in office the C.B.C. should support the Tory government or be put out of business.


George Clyde Nowlan: Oh.


An hon. Member:: Bunkum.


George Clyde Nowlan: Would you develop that point, because my friends do not believe it?


Lionel Chevrier: The minister says "Oh". I am interrupted, and I am told it is bunk. But I sent the minister yesterday a statement which appeared in he Devoir and which was also, though not in exactly the same terms, in the Gazette a statement which clearly indicated that the Tory premier of one of the provinces of this country had intimated that if a private individual Mr. Rene Levesque was not removed from the post he held with the C.B.C. he, the premier of the province would set up a radio and broadcasting station. If that is not an indication of interference or indicative of an intention to interfere, I do not know what it is.
I think I could go a step further and say to the minister responsible for the C.B.C. that I have looked carefully at a number of the political broadcasts which have taken place in connection with the provincial election in Quebec and can say without hesitation that there has been in some cases a great

unfairness on the part of those who are responsible for allocating the time between the parties involved in an election. I have seen cases, details of which I can give to the minister, where on three different occasions in one broadcast on the eleven o'clock news the premier and two of his ministers appeared. Reference was made to what had been said by the leader of the opposition, Mr. Lesage, but there was no appearance as far as he was concerned. That was repeated on many occasions. Where the fault lies I do not know, but I think this is one of the things that should be corrected. Of course, it is too late to correct it now, but it is not too late to discuss it when this committee is established save that the time which will be available to those who wish to consider some of the principles which will be open to discussion will be far too short unless, of course, as is stated by one hon. member here, it is the intention that we sit right through until the fall.
Then there was some question about the television licence which was granted to the city of Toronto. I know the Minister of National Revenue (Mr. Nowlan) fairly well, and I know he takes his responsibilities seriously. I know, too, that it would be far from his mind to be giving instructions in so far as that licence is concerned. On the other hand, I think he will agree with those of us on this side who state that this is one licence which should not have been granted, because there is no doubt in the world about where that newspaper stands. If the board of broadcast governors are going to be dominated by political considerations, all right, let us be told about it. It certainly appears quite clear from the position which was taken with reference to that application that the intention of the board of broadcast governors was, right from the outset, that the newspaper should be granted a licence. It is not a good thing, in my opinion, that that should have been done and I join with my hon. friend from Bonavista-Twillingate in complaining about it and condemning the decision.


Mr. McGrath:: Would the hon. member permit a question? Is he suggesting that they should be disqualified on this ground alone, because of their apparent partisanship?


Lionel Chevrier: I am suggesting that they should not have boasted in advance that they were going to get a licence and indicated, not only in that field but in another field which I shall have I hope an opportunity to discuss later, that they were going to get the licence, because that was placing the board of broadcast governors in a very unenviable position, certainly in a position which permitted the public to come to no other conclusion but that
Broadcasting
they were unduly influenced by the application. Certainly that is the conclusion to which I come, and it is the conclusion which many of us on this side of the house have reached.
There are a number of things I should like to say about the French language network in the province of Quebec, but there will be another opportunity of doing so and at this stage and in order to remain faithful to the statement I made at the beginning that I did not intend to take up the time of the house for very long, I now move, seconded by the hon. member for Burin-Burgeo (Mr. Carter) the following amendment:
That the words "this day eight months hence" be inserted after the word "appointed" in the second line of the resolution.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: Does some hon. member wish to comment on the proposal?
(Translation):


Louis Fortin: Mr. Speaker, if the hon. member for Laurier (Mr. Chevrier) will allow me, I should like to ask him a question before we take up his amendment.
The hon. member for Laurier referred a moment ago to a Quebec provincial broadcasting organization, in the light of a statement allegedly made by the premier of the province. Is the hon. member for Laurier for or against a Quebec broadcasting organization?


Lionel Chevrier: I referred to that matter in connection with a question I asked the minister (Mr. Nowlan). My views on the subject will be placed on the record in due course.
(Text):


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: If the hon. member will permit me, I will put the amendment.
Is it the pleasure of the house to adopt the amendment?


Harold Edward Winch: I may, Mr. Speaker, I presume if one speaks to the amendment he is also speaking to the main motion.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: I will put the amendment and I assume the hon. member will speak to the amendment.


Harold Edward Winch: On the amendment-


Mr. Bell (Carleton):: Speak on the main motion after the amendment is disposed of.


Harold Edward Winch: I want to be clear on this because I find myself in a bit of a predicament which on occasion an elected member can find himself in. I have a very good reason for the position I am taking. Normally I would be in support of the amendment for all the reasons that have been given by a number of the previous speakers. However, what is causing a doubt in my mind

Broadcasting
is the fact that I have not received any information from the minister on whether at this session there is to be any amendments brought in to the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation Act. Only recently I sent a note over to the minister asking whether there were to be any amendments to the act brought in at this session. If I could be told there are to be amendments brought in I would not need to carry on. If no amendments are to be brought in at this session, then this will be my only opportunity to ask that the committee be set up in order to raise a matter which I think is of the utmost importance to this house. Therefore, may I through you ask whether or not any amendments are to be brought in?


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: Order. May I interrupt the hon. member to say a few words about the amendment. It has been brought to my attention that citation 202, paragraph 11, of Beauchesne's Parliamentary Rules and Forms, fourth edition, reads as follows:
An amendment proposing that a resolution which does not require second reading be considered this day six months is out of order.
It seems that under this citation this kind of amendment is considered a direct negative and, therefore, should be declared out of order. Before I make a final decision, if there is any comment to be made I should be glad to hear it.


Lionel Chevrier: I was quite aware of the citation to which you refer; in fact, I had it in my hand when the motion was drawn, and I wish to direct to your attention the fact that there are two points which I think differentiate it from the paragraph in question. Subparagraph 11 of citation 202 of Beauchesne's Parliamentary Rules and Forms, fourth edition, at page 170, says that:
An amendment proposing that a resolution which does not require second reading be considered this day six months is out of order.
You will note, first of all, that this amendment is for a period of eight months, which would bring it to the month of February of next year, when the next session would normally be sitting and which perhaps would be a more appropriate time than now.
The other point is that our amendment asks that the committee be appointed eight months hence and not this day six months, which is the practice in ordinary motions, which I believe is covered by subparagraph 11, so that it seems to me that these two differentials indicate that the motion is in order.


Edmund Davie Fulton: Mr. Speaker, with respect I think that the arguments of the hon. member for Laurier are not applicable. There is,

surely, only one type of amendment known as a dilatory amendment. The standard form is, of course, six months. I believe that sometimes they have been drawn in the form of three months. It seems to me I have seen reference to the form "three months or six months hence". Whether or not one varies the figure any number of months between three, six, eight, nine and twelve, that form of the amendment and the effect of the amendment are the same and it falls, therefore, within the same category as that described in paragraph 11 of citation 202 to which you have referred.
The effect of the amendment would be to give the motion an eight months hoist and it is therefore, I submit, exactly in the same category as those described in the citation.
There is another point that I would like to raise, however, because of the argument made by the hon. member for Laurier (Mr. Chevrier). He said the effect of the amendment would be to require the appointment of the committee in February next when, as he said, with what prescience I do not know, the house would be again in session. I point out to you, sir, that that would surely be another session and it is a well established rule, as I recall it, that orders of the house applicable or made in one session are not applicable to another session unless they be readopted at the other session. Therefore, the effect of the prorogation of this session would be to destroy or cancel the order. Therefore accepting the argument of the hon. member that the desire of his amendment is to postpone the appointment of the committee to February next, that purpose is not achieved because of the fact that he himself has drawn to our attention, and indeed, in whichever category he wants to put his amendment, the effect is simply that of a straight negative thereby defeating the motion. Therefore, I submit to you, sir, that the citation has application and the amendment is out of order.


John Whitney Pickersgill: May I say a word, sir. I agree with the Minister of Justice that whether the motion said six months or eight months is not relevant; what is relevant is that this is not such a motion at all. My hon. friend's amendment is not a motion at all to defer the consideration or the decision of the house; it is a motion to amend a resolution before the house by inserting into that resolution the words "that a select committee be appointed this day eight months". It is not a motion to defer a decision. If this amendment were passed it would be a declaration of the house that the resolution was accepted; whereas the six months hoist is a motion that

something be not read now, or be not adopted now, but be adopted six months later which is an entirely different thing.
As for the subsidiary matter raised by the Minister of Justice, the factor of the secrets of the future, of course, his judgment is a little better than ours because he has perhaps a little more to say about when the session will end or, at least, when it will begin, but we do not know that. But we do not know whether this same session may not be going on next February. In the memory of some members, including the Prime Minister, who were in the house at the time, it did happen that a session started on November 7, 1940 and, if my recollection is accurate, it was not prorogued until some time in January of 1942. Therefore it could very well happen. It certainly is not for the Chair but rather for the house to decide whether or not a motion which says that something should be done eight months hence would in fact be capable of being carried out. If members of the house do not think it is a sensible thing to adopt, they can of course defeat it, but it would appear to be a very arbitrary thing for the Chair to decide that.
I submit that what my hon. friend has asked the house to decide in this amendment, which provides that a select committee on broadcasting be appointed this day eight months hence and so on and so forth, is an amendment of the proposition itself and not in any sense an attempt to defer a decision on the motion. It is certainly not a negative.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: I must say I agree that the amendment does not fall exactly within the type mentioned in paragraph 11 of citation 202 because, as the hon. member for Bonavista-Twillingate has intimated, it is not consideration of the resolution which is postponed for six months or eight months. I might say that the difference between six and eight months, which the hon. member for Laurier mentioned, has not impressed me too much. However, whatever the difference between this amendment and the six months hoist may be, it seems to me that because we do not know whether it will be possible to appoint this committee eight months from now the same result would be produced if the original motion were simply negatived. Therefore I think that for this reason I must declare the amendment out of order.


Herbert Wilfred Herridge: Mr. Speaker-


Harold Edward Winch: On a question of privilege, I believe I was speaking at the time of the interruption and if I do not proceed now I may be told I have made my remarks and have no right to speak again. It is only on that ground that I dare interfere with the
Broadcasting
hon. member for Kootenay West (Mr. Herridge) . I was mentioning that I find myself in a somewhat difficult position in this matter, as a member of parliament very often does.
I Was impressed with the remarks of previous speakers that, having regard to the importance of the terms of reference, it might be that a very poor job would be done by this committee that would not be in the best interests of the C.B.C. or the people of Canada if the committee were to sit at this stage of the session when so many other committees are meeting. I would be quite prepared to support these contentions if it were not for one thing. I have not been able to get an answer from the minister with respect to whether there is any intention to bring in any changes to the act governing the C.B.C. at this session. If it is the intention of the minister or the government to bring in changes this session, particularly with respect to one matter, I would be quite satisfied to sit down but so far I have not been able to get any assurance either by word of mouth or in writing. Therefore I have to raise a matter which I do not like to raise. However, I feel that I must do so, although it does not concern me personally at all.
It is a matter which in my opinion is of such importance that if the minister is not going to deal with it voluntarily then it should be considered by the committee to be appointed under this motion so that a recommendation can be made to the minister and the government for action to be taken at this session. I am not trying to keep members in suspense. The matter I have in mind concerns all members of the House of Commons generally and a number in particular. I believe it has to be dealt with and should be dealt with by a committee now.
As a result of my study of the situation and according to the best information I can get from top calibre legal counsel outside of the house and also from the Department of Justice it would appear to me that prior to the present parliament some members sat in their places illegally and there may be some who, unconsciously and unintentionally, are sitting in the house illegally at the present time under the wording of two acts affecting the House of Commons.
I drew this matter to the attention of the Department of Justice on January 20 this year so there has been plenty of notice. I did not know about this matter before and I am certain that nobody else knew about it. I refer to the fact that if a member of the House of Commons or the Senate accepts an invitation to take part in a C.B.C. radio or television broadcast for which an honorarium is paid they do not have the right to sit in the House of Commons. The opinion I have

Broadcasting
received goes even further in that even if the member turns down the honorarium but accepts expenses in connection with attending the radio or television broadcast it is against the law of parliament and he can be challenged on the ground that he is illegally sitting in the house.
To my knowledge hon. members of various parties in previous parliaments have accepted invitations to take part in radio and television broadcasts and have accepted honoraria and expenses. To the best of my information, which comes from a very responsible source, unfortunately there are some members now sitting in the House of Commons who if they have not accepted an honorarium have accepted payment for expenses or have instructed the C.B.C. not to give them the money but to pay it to charity. I do not think the law is evaded in that way. However, that is not the point about which I am so concerned. I almost got into the same situation myself because I accepted an invitation to appear on "Fighting Words" last January. I had to go from Ottawa to Toronto and if I had accepted the honorarium I would have received $100 and also approximately $80 for expenses because I had to fly to Toronto.
For some reason or other something bothered me about the whole matter so I investigated. I inquired not only from high calibre counsel throughout Canada but also in the Department of Justice. I know that the Department of Justice cannot give advice but I received certain information that I think I should give to the house. Anyone who wants it can look it up. This is the information I received:
The statutory provision that has to be considered is section 15 of the Senate and House of Commons Act, K.S.C. 1952, chapter 249, which reads as follows:
No person, directly or indirectly, alone or with any other, by himself or by the interposition of any trustee or third party, holding or enjoying, undertaking or executing any contract or agreement, expressed or implied, with or for the government of Canada on behalf of the crown, or with or for any of the officers of the government of Canada, for which any public money of Canada is to be paid, is eligible as a member of the House of Commons, or shall sit or vote in the said house.
That is the pertinent section from the Senate and House of Commons Act. Then we have subsection 1 of section 4 of the Canadian Broadcasting Act, Revised Statutes of Canada, 1952, chapter 32, which expressly states:
The corporation is a body corporate having capacity to contract and to sue and be sued in the name of the corporation.
(2) The corporation is for all purposes of this act an agent of Her Majesty and its powers under this act may be exercised only as an agent of Her Majesty.

I am told, therefore, "that it is clear that any arrangement with the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation under which the corporation is to pay money falls within the terms of section 15 of the Senate and House of Commons Act. In view of the wording of that section I have difficulty in perceiving any distinction between the payment of a fee or honorarium and the payment of expenses." That is the opinion of the officers of the Department of Justice, and that is the opinion of others on this subject with whom I have consulted outside of the House of Commons. It seems that any member of the House of Commons who accepts any honorarium or payment for expenses from the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation for appearance on a radio or television program is breaking the law and cannot sit or vote as a member.
As I have said, I drew this to the attention of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation which had never warned a member of parliament previously and, in fact, the corporation had not even recognized this fact. I drew it to the attention of the Department of Justice on January 20 because of my concern. It was my understanding, not in writing but verbally, that notice of this would be taken by the government and that in the view of the Department of Justice itself the thing to do was to have an amendment introduced to the Canadian Broadcasting Act. I believe this is of the utmost importance because no member of this house should be placed in a position in which I know hon. members have been placed quite unintentionally by accepting the payment of expenses for travelling to appear on a panel show or something of that nature under the auspices of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. I feel it is absolutely essential that if the minister is not concerned at the moment, then the committee must be. This matter must be considered for the protection of the members of the House of Commons, and an amendment must be made for their protection in the future.
I do not believe in a matter of this nature elected members should be paid an honorarium. However, I do believe it should be possible for a member of parliament to attend a radio or television show and not to have to pay his own expenses. There should be a provision whereby a member could accept expenses for attending something of that nature of public interest or national interest. My understanding is, as I have pointed out several times already and confirmed completely by information I have from the Department of Justice, that that is not the present situation.

So, Mr. Speaker, I point out I have only raised this point publicly because I have been waiting now since January 20 and have received no information that any action was going to be taken. I have received no information that the minister now concerned with the department or the Department of Justice had changed their minds on the information they gave me last January. This kind of amendment, therefore, or some other provision is required in the interests of, and for the protection of the members of the House of Commons.
I say, therefore, that if something is going to be done, then I go along with what has been said previously about it being rather late in the session for an important matter like the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation to be referred to a special committee. If nothing is going to be done then I feel that in the interests of the House of Commons this committee should be cognizant of this rather dangerous situation because you can never tell when some crank-you know there are always some cranks-might decide to lay charges against a member of the House of Commons as a result of this situation. I say it is unfair that some member of parliament might be caught because he did something unintentionally. In any event, members of parliament now know what the situation is in the opinion of the Department of Justice and others, and they will be very careful in the future. '


Herbert Wilfred Herridge: In
view of the wish of the house to have this resolution go the committee as soon as possible, I shall be very brief. I see there is a rather strained look on the minister's face at the present time. I am rising to bring to the attention of the house and urge upon the committee the study of a particular problem.
First of all, like other members, I am sorry that this resolution was not brought before the house earlier this session so that this very important committee would have had more time to deal with the subjects it has to consider. However, I am rising particularly to say a word or two for the people in the hinterlands because I am a hinterlander and I can speak from experience. Do you know that even today there are thousands of people in Canada who have never had the opportunity of enjoying Canadian Broadcasting Corporation programs? These Canadian programs, except in some areas for certain periods during the day and occasionally under certain atmospheric conditions at night, are not available. These people have never had the opportunity of enjoying the programs of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation on a reliable basis. The areas of which I speak 79951-0-329
Broadcasting
are naturally in the Kootenay district from which I come, the northern part of Kootenay West, some areas in northern British Columbia. I know there are areas in northern Manitoba and northern Ontario, and there may be others.
I do urge that every consideration be given to supplying these people with the necessary low power relay stations that are required to give them at least adequate radio coverage. I know that considerable has been done in recent years, but there is still more to be done. I feel it is most unfair to the people who are living in isolated places, in some cases in mountainous terrain, that they are not able to receive programs from the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. I do hope that these circumstances, in view of the very large expenditure by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation on television, will be rectified so that the people in the hinterland will be able to enjoy this opportunity.
I should like also to make a few references to the same situation which applies with respect to television. There are areas which are affected in exactly the same way because of their location in the mountains. These people today are being denied television of any kind, that is either Canadian or United States television. There is a provision, I understand, providing the regulations of the telecommunications branch of the Department of Transport are met, for persons to instal, after application and acceptance under proper circumstances, a satellite television station.
I have seen one or two in operation. They were most useful. I think in some cases they were called community satellite stations. They are most useful in providing television to those persons beyond the main stream of communication, whether it is radio or television, in certain areas or in areas similar to the ones affected by being unable to receive Canadian radio programs. I urge that every consideration be given to this problem and that those who can provide these services be given an opportunity to do so, in some cases by the formation of crown companies, in other cases co-operatives and in some cases as a result of free enterprise.
Before concluding 1 want to bring one other matter to the attention of the house and it is this. I am of the opinion that at times the C.B.C. takes a somewhat Olympian attitude-and I say that from experience-in not understanding how the people in a certain area or in a certain district are interested in what the C.B.C. intends to do in their district, whether it concerns radio facilities or television facilities. I just want to give an illustration. Over a year ago provision was made for the establishment of a television station to serve the Rossland-Trail area in my

Broadcasting
constituency. Then some unexpected difficulties were encountered in acquiring a site from the provincial government. The provincial government was not able to sell the C.B.C. the site and after a long period the C.B.C. was able to make arrangements for leasing a site to its satisfaction.
My point is this. The people concerned heard the announcement or read the announcement of the minister in the house that this station was going to be established a year ago last October, I think it was; I refer to the announcement. Then they expected something to happen. Nothing happened. Then the area became full of rumours. The defeated Conservative candidate announced that he had had a special message from the Minister of National Revenue (Mr. Nowlan) and that so and so were the facts. Then the elected member for the riding said a week or two later that he had another message from some other department of government. Then the defeated candidate said he had a later message and this was what was going to happen, and so on.
All that unnecessary concern and activity could be avoided if the C.B.C., under such circumstances, would simply issue a press release-so that people would know-that the station was going to be established, that certain difficulties had been encountered, and so on. By this means the people themselves who are going to be the patrons of this service, would understand what was happening and all these rumours and so on would be avoided.
The same thing has happened with respect to the establishment of a satellite television station in Nelson. Arrangements were being made for that station and rumours are going around that it will serve the people on this side of the mountain and not the people on the other side of the mountain, that it will serve the people on this side of the valley and not the people on the other side of the valley. Under the circumstances I think the C.B.C., as a result of study of the question by its engineers, could very well make an announcement and say they intend to locate the station at such and such a place, that it will service all the people within such and such an area, and so on.
I say that, Mr. Speaker, because I think that the senior officials of the C.B.C. on occasion take a somewhat Olympian attitude and ignore the interests of local people in the developments in television and in radio. I suggest that some system be adopted of giving accurate information-and the C.B.C. is not under security in that respect-as to the C.B.C.'s intention and so on in any particular district or area.

I had intended to have a bit to say on policy and so on but as I realize the wish of the minister to rise and reply to the many questions that have been raised, I am content at this time merely to deal with matters that are of concern to my own constituency and to others who live in the hinterlands of Canada.


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


Some hon. Members:: Question.


Mr. Speaker:: I must inform the house that if the minister speaks now, he will close the debate.


George Clyde Nowlan: It is not my intention, Mr. Speaker, to delay the house for very long. I am very sorry if any look on my face disturbed the hon. member for Kootenay West (Mr. Herridge). I should much prefer to have him go on. He said he had some questions to raise with respect to the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. It would be interesting to hear one question raised in this house this afternoon with which one could deal instead of the grapeshot and the variety of camouflage and innuendo with which we have had to deal during the afternoon, with nothing specific whatsoever.
This is a motion to set up a committee to consider broadcasting. The motion is made pursuant to an undertaking which was given last year when the committee rose and it also was set forth in the speech from the throne.
When the hon. member for Montmagny-L'lslet (Mr. Fortin) spoke a short time ago I think he dealt with this matter more effectively than did anyone else when he said it was not up to one or two members of the House of Commons to decide whether the committee should be set up or whether it should not be set up but that it should be through the house itself and that, as far as he was concerned, as well as many others, this undertaking had been given and of course the committee should be set up.
I have been rather intrigued by this discussion about the great delay which has taken place in the setting up of this committee and the enormity of the offence which has been committed by this government. I have here in my hand a list of the dates of the opening and closing of parliament in years gone by in the days when a similar committee was set up; and in those days only three or four committees were set up rather than the seven, eight or nine which we have today. For instance, in the session of 1952-53 I find that the house opened on November 20, 1952. This committee or a similar committee was

set up on March 21, 1953, which is about four months after the house opened. Parliament prorogued on May 14. Hence there was there a matter of sitting time that this house would equal somewhere about the end of July. There is at least a comparable period there as at this time.
In the session of 1950 parliament opened in February. The motion was passed on April 19, two months after the house opened and parliament prorogued on June 30. One could go on and on in setting forth the facts that there never was, when hon. gentlemen opposite were sitting on the treasury benches, despite the urging of the opposition, any great disposition on their part to accelerate the business of the house despite the fact that, as I said, there were only three or four committees at the most that ever sat in those days. We never had any action such as has been deplored this afternoon because we waited from January to June to set up this committee. Who have been crying, lamenting, weeping and howling about the load that has been placed upon them by the setting up of so many committees, deploring the fact that committees are set up, asking that this cross may pass them by, that they should not have such a burden placed upon them? That is why, Mr. Speaker, I say frankly that we have deliberately delayed the setting up of this committee, important as it is.


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh.


George Clyde Nowlan: I hear "oh, oh" from the other side. But this is the situation as of today. I have this information from the clerk of the committees. The committee on estimates is concluding its work. The committee on external affairs may have one more meeting. The committee on privileges and elections is concluding its work. The committee on railways, airlines and shipping is concluding its work or has concluded it. The committee on veterans affairs may have one more sitting. I personally feel that the committee on broadcasting is more important than is any one of those committees. However, I am only one member of this House of Commons. I am only one minister who indirectly has some responsibility for this broadcasting corporation and the board of broadcast governors whereas other ministers have a direct responsibility for their departments.
Who am I to say that broadcasting shall come first and veterans affairs shall come last? I do not propose to arrogate to myself that authority. What I propose to do is to co-operate with the House of Commons and particularly with hon. members of the opposition in order to try to arrange the business of this house so that they will not be suffering nervous breakdowns, strokes of 79951-0-3291
Broadcasting
apoplexy, and all that sort of thing, which they said would be their fate when the house opened, yet now when we are accommodating we are told we are doing something which violates the rules of the house.
I wish Lewis Carroll were here today to write Alice in Wonderland again. I think he would say something like this:
You are old, Jack the Sailor, the young man said,
And your hair has become very white;
Yet you incessantly stand on your head,
And you think at your age it is right.
I must say that I am highly flattered at being a minister, although I have no responsibility for these organizations whatsoever except in reporting to parliament. I am also highly flattered by the debate this afternoon, which has been relatively brief, a couple of hours, in that there has been no criticism of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation whatsoever. The whole time has been spent on the fact that we are bringing this motion in too late; and there have been some innuendoes about the board of broadcast governors. If the government had been inclined to accept the suggestion-which it was not because, as I said, an undertaking was given-that we should wait until another session before we set up such a committee, does anyone think that any government which adopted that course and which had any respect for the organizations and boards which it had created, in view of the innuendoes and the snide and sneering attacks which have been made on the board of broadcast governors this afternoon because of the decision in Toronto and the decision in Edmonton, would sit down and accept such snide references and agree to defer this matter?
If there is anything to be criticized with regard to decisions of the board of broadcast governors that is all the more reason why a committee should be set up this year and not next year. The fact that hon. members say in one breath that something is wrong, but in another breath say that this is not the time to bring it forward is in my opinion the best argument to suggest that there is no criticism which can be levelled at the board whatsoever.
This board was set up by this government, that is true; but I doubt if anyone in Canada can point a finger at the board of broadcast governors in any respect at all. They may disapprove of its decisions and question its decisions, but so far as suggesting that any member of the board is under the influence of the government, if that is the case we want the board in question brought before a committee of parliament and we want that board to make its defence, if such

Broadcasting
defence is necessary. In particular we want the people who are prepared to make these charges to stand up and make them and not hide behind the excuses such as we have heard this afternoon, and would we please defer this matter to next year despite the fact that the board has done a terrible thing. We do not accept that position; that is why I could not accept this afternoon the suggestion that the committee should be deferred until next year.
Mr. Speaker, as I have said there is not much to reply to in connection with this debate other than that one matter. The whole argument for the most part has been that the committee should be deferred until next year, and I think I have explained why we cannot do that. I think it is highly desirable that this committee be set up. The committee of course, not the government, Will determine its own procedure, but I hope that the first party to be brought before it will be the board of broadcast governors. The board of broadcast governors are today sitting in Halifax and are returning to sit in Ottawa during the latter part of the week. I am hopeful that if a committee is set up immediately or during this week they will have finished their sittings by the end of this week or the very first of next week, and personally I hope that the board of broadcast governors will come before this committee and give an accounting of their operations, the principles and procedures under which they function. If they are subject to criticism, then let us have that criticism aired where it can be aired effectively, definitively and properly rather than by insinuation and innuendo, as was the case this afternoon.
Second, I would hope that the C.A.B., the private broadcasters, will appear before that committee and have their opinions expressed and their judgments laid before the committee with respect to the board of broadcast governors. Mr. Speaker, you will remember that the hon. member for Bonavista-Twillingate (Mr. Pickersgill) referred to something I said a year ago in deferring the setting up of a committee.


John Whitney Pickersgill: It was two years ago.


George Clyde Nowlan: That was when we were passing the legislation and hon. members opposite, as was their right, suggested that there should be a committee to determine the matter.


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


George Clyde Nowlan: Surely.


John Whitney Pickersgill: I am sure he would not want the record to be wrong. Is it not true

that the government in the speech from the throne indicated that a committee should be set up?


George Clyde Nowlan: Are you speaking of a year ago?


John Whitney Pickersgill: Two years ago, in 1958.


George Clyde Nowlan: I will accept the hon. member's word for that. I had forgotten the details and I have not got the speech from the throne in front of me. However, what I want to say is that when this matter was raised, and I could not accept this because we had the legislation before the house, we all remember the dire prophecies, the gloom and the doom, with which the C.B.C. was confronted; the suggestion that the system could not work, and all the rest of it.
We listened to all that two years ago and I say without any fear of contradiction that as far as the system is concerned this government developed and evolved, the division between judge and jury, relieving the C.B.C. of the responsibility of having to pass on applications, setting up an independent board and giving the C.B.C. jurisdiction in its own realm, nothing which this government has done or which any other government has done has worked more effectively than that division between the two. Canada can be proud of the fact that we have a board of broadcast governors and a Canadian Broadcasting Corporation who are operating in the public interest the way those ladies and gentlemen are doing, despite the gloom and the doom with which we were confronted two years ago.
As I said, there is no great point in going over these matters. I was very much intrigued by the hon. member for Laurier (Mr. Che-vrier). I wish he had kept on because it sort of relieved the burden put on my shoulders, of which I am accused of carrying. I understand that apparently the C.B.C. in certain areas of Canada is regarded as a very nefarious political organization and one certainly not unfavourable to this government. I was glad indeed to hear the hon. member enumerate, as he attempted to enumerate, one example where he said he saw a division of time between a provincial government candidate and an opposition candidate. I am not entering into the realm of provincial politics and I know nothing about how time is divided in the province of Quebec. Elsewhere in Canada I understand it is divided by discussions between the relative political parties, and I have no doubt the same principle has been followed in the province of Quebec. I can remember one time not very long ago-



I960

Lionel Chevrier: May I just interrupt the minister here. I think we are at cross purposes. I was talking about the news broadcast at eleven o'clock and I think the minister is talking about the division of time between the political parties, which is a different thing.


George Clyde Nowlan: Very well. I would draw to the hon. member's attention a news broadcast a short time ago when the Minister of Finance (Mr. Fleming) was piloting through this house a bill with respect to university grants. A long, laborious and interesting debate preceded the passing of that bill.
What happened as far as the C.B.C. or Radio Canada was concerned was this. Although I did not see the program I was besieged the next day by hon. members in the same tone of complaint as that of the hon. member for Laurier this afternoon. The Minister of Finance was not mentioned, or he got only passing mention. But two hon. gentlemen sitting behind the hon. member for Laurier had their pictures on the television screen because of the position they took with respect to that.
Anybody can criticize individual programs. The most intriguing thing I know about the C.B.C. is that those who have it, if you listen to some of them, do not want it, while those who have not got it, want it. It is a very interesting problem to try to maintain this balance between those who criticize continually and those who complain because they have not got a service at all.
These are matters which can be determined by the committee when it sits rather than by my discussing them here. I do wish, however, to mention one specific matter to which the hon. member for Bonavista-Twillingate referred when he said the budget of the C.B.C. was controlled too tightly by this government. As usual, there was some innuendo, some snide remarks, about the control which the Minister of Finance (Mr. Fleming) exercised. No minister of finance who is worth his salt -and our Minister of Finance is certainly one of the outstanding ministers of finance of Canada-can fail in his task of exercising some control over the expenditures of all the crown corporations. I want to point this out-. I have said it before, and I say it again-that when we came to power this government, whieh was going to wreck the C.B.C., this government about which so many fears were expressed and so many lamentations uttered compared to which those of Job were a paean of thanksgiving, found, when we considered the former act under which hon. gentlemen opposite had operated-and I am not criticizing them for it-these are the facts-that every expenditure over $25,000 laid out by the
Broadcasting
C.B.C. had to receive government approval. The hon. member for Bonavista-Twillingate corrected me this afternoon-and he was probably right-saying this concerned only capital expenditure. In any event, it had to be approved by the governor in council; in other words, it had to be approved by my predecessor recommending it to the government. We raised that figure from $25,000 to $100,000 so that now the C.B.C. is free to spend any money it sees fit up to $100,000 without referring the matter to the government in any shape or form.


John Whitney Pickersgill: Is it not true that under the legislation the minister put through the house the C.B.C. had to submit a capital budget and, therefore, would such expenditures not be included in that budget?


George Clyde Nowlan: We are not here discussing the details of treasury board. It is perfectly true that the C.B.C. has to submit a capital budget, but the capital budget certainly does not go into details of that kind. The capital budget asks for X millions of dollars for capital development, and that is all there is in it.
This is an important step, as I have tried to indicate, and I think it is a point in which the people of Canada are particularly interested. They are concerned about any government or political party exercising influence over the programming of a great national organization. Not only did we change the act so as to raise the floor from $25,000 to $100,000, but we said at the same time that there should be no control of expenditures whatsoever so far as programming is concerned. I know of programs upon which the C.B.C. is embarked-whether they are good or not is not for me to say, but I am thinking of programs such as the R.C.M. Police series-whose costs are running today into hundreds of thousands of dollars over the whole period. These costs have been approved by the C.B.C. without any reference to the. government whatsoever. So when the hon. gentleman attacks us about cost, as he says prostituting broadcasting or too tight budgeting control, I do think, with all due respect to a man whom I respect and like personally, that he was talking sheer nonsense, and no one knows this better than the hon. member for Bonavista-Twillingate.


John Whitney Pickersgill: I dissent.


George Clyde Nowlan: I shall not say very much more this afternoon. The hon. member for Port Arthur (Mr. Fisher) spent some time dealing with the board of broadcast governors. He enumerated the members of the board and suggested that they were appointed by this government. Of course they were. They are intelligent men and women and in

Broadcasting
Canada, in the delightful condition in which the country finds itself today it is rather hard to find intelligent men and women to appoint to a board who do not, like the majority of intelligent men and women in this country, support the present administration. Surely, with all due respect to the members of the C.C.F., we are at liberty to choose those whom we think best fitted to occupy such positions as these rather than from the somewhat dilapidated remains of the once great party represented opposite.
We have chosen men and women who are, very largely, independent, and it is surely strange for anyone in the C.C.F. party to be questioning the judgment of a board of which Dr. Eugene Forsey is one of the leading members. I never expected to see that day, with respect to the C.C.F. One could go on and list Dr. Emlyn Davies, and many others; people who, because of their intelligence, I hope support the government, though in fact no one has any knowledge of whether they do or not. Indeed, we could not care less because they are men and women of integrity whose judgment the country respects and we are prepared to accept their decisions. That is the situation with respect to this board.
The hon. member for Laurier also made some passing reference to a statement made by the premier of Quebec about proposed interference with the C.B.C. I fail to see where that statement has shown any interference, but I am not going to get involved in the internal politics of Quebec. The premier said: if such and such a thing happens, we are going to establish our own network. If that is interference with the C.B.C. it is certainly not interference which is going to have any effect.
These are words uttered, perhaps in the irritation of the moment, by a leading public figure in this country who is entitled to express his opinions.


Lionel Chevrier: But who is not entitled to threaten anyone.


George Clyde Nowlan: There is no threat whatsoever. As I said in the answer I gave to the hon. member's question this morning, if a crown agency in the province of Quebec sees fit to make an application it will be dealt with on its merits the same as an application from Nova Scotia or British Columbia would be dealt with.


Mr. Speaker:: It being five o'clock, the house will now proceed to consideration of private and public bills-


Lionel Chevrier: I think that the minister has almost completed his statement and, if the house wishes, with the approval of those who

sit on your left, we could dispose of this before five o'clock.


Mr. Speaker:: I think perhaps the minister should speak for himself.


Lionel Chevrier: Provided he ceases attacking me.


George Clyde Nowlan: I have no desire to go on further. If I had been watching the clock I would have ended earlier.


Mr. Speaker:: Does the house give unanimous consent to my putting the motion at this time?


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


Harold Edward Winch: Could I ask the minister if, when he used the word "innuendo" as a charge against those who have spoken, he included my statement about the need for some action to be taken to protect members who appear on programs and accept expense costs?


George Clyde Nowlan: As and when the government decides to introduce legislation, legislation will be brought down. I cannot go farther than that at the moment.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to.
Mr. Speaker:: It being five o'clock the house will now proceed to the consideration of private and public bills, the former having precedence, pursuant to subsection 3 of standing order 15.



PRIVATE BILLS


[Stage Direction]
The house in committee on Bill No. SD-54, for the relief of George William Douglas Edmonds-Mr. McCleave-Mr. Rea in the chair.
On clause 1-Marriage dissolved.
Mr. Howard:: 
Mr. McCleave:: Nonsense.



S214 HOUSE OF COMMONS

[Stage Direction]
Private Bills-Divorce
Charles Benjamin Howard: As to that extent, the discussion took place. Then the chairman, Senator Croll, asked this question:
Q. You told us you went to see your wife at the apartment because you wanted a divorce?
A. Yes, that is true,
Q. Was that in July some time?
A, Around there.
I do not know whether the witness went on more than one occasion to see his wife and to tell her he wanted a divorce but in previous evidence he had been quite specific as to the date. He said that on July 10, 1959 he went to see his wife in order to tell her that he wanted to get a divorce. In response to the question by Senator Croll as to whether that was in July he said "around there". Perhaps that refers to the same date, July 10, 1959, but it may refer to other dates when he went to see her. Mr. Cohen proceeded to ask these questions:
Q. When did you visit my office?
A, I visited your office X think in the spring, June.
Q. Did I tell you to go over and see whom your wife was living with and to give me a report?
A. Yes.
He said that Mr. Cohen did tell him to go there and yet in previous examination with respect to his going to see his wife this question was asked by Mr. Cohen:
Q. On whose recommendation?
A. On my own.
Here is yet another point of conflict between the evidence given at one time and the evidence given at another. He said that he was told by Mr. Cohen to go there and he also said that it was on his own recommendation. Then Mr. Cohen continues:
Q. You went over there?
A. Yes; that is when I asked her
Q. You went to give me a report on it?
A. Yes, to give you a report on it and to find out if she would come to Ottawa.
Q. And whether they were living together?
A. Yes-
Q. Before X sent you over there had you ever discussed divorce with your wife?
A. No.
Q. Had you ever visited your wife there previously?
A. No,
As you can see, Mr. Chairman, there is a conflict here with respect to whose recommendation he acted on when he went to see his wife. In one place he says that he went on his own and in another place he said that he went on instructions from Mr. Cohen. There is a conflict, as I said, with respect to whether he ever discussed divorce with his wife because in one instance he said no and in another instance he said yes. He told her he wanted to get a divorce. These are points of conflict that I think should be examined and cleared up.


Mr. Mandziuk;: Would the hon. member permit a question? By referring to these conflicts in the evidence is he imputing collusion between the two parties or would he agree that it is sensible and probably good law that if evidence exists as in this case that the respondent is living with another man there is absolutely nothing wrong in the husband going to see his wife and discussing the matter? Is it material for the purpose of the hon. member's objection to the bill to question who approached whom or at whose instigation the petitioner interviewed his wife or took divorce proceedings? I think it would shorten proceedings-


The Deputy Chairman:: Order. The hon. member for Skeena gave permission to the hon. member to ask a question. I hope he will ask it because if he wishes to speak he will have to wait until later.


Charles Benjamin Howard: I will be glad to attempt to answer the question. First of all, let me say that unfortunately we are restricted by the rules of the house as they apply to these matters in coming to some conclusion on the point of what is and what is not collusion. There has been general reference to it and in general terms I understand it to be an arrangement between a man and wife to obtain a divorce, that they agree jointly that evidence of certain circumstances will be presented to the committee. Because we have been prevented by the rules, and probably quite properly so, from discussing what constitutes collusion, I do not think I can be accused of imputing collusion here. I did make use of the word because, as I have said, it is my general understanding that it means that two people work together and attempt to present evidence to the body which will be granting the divorce. I do not know whether it is permissible in law for a husband and wife to agree that each will appear and give evidence about one of them having committed adultery. I do not know whether it puts a different light on the matter if they both agree that one of them will be caught in compromising circumstances by investigators in order to provide evidence to support a charge of adultery.
As I say, we have been prevented from going into the question of what is and what is not collusion. I hope that answers my friend's question with respect to whether I am imputing collusion to these two parties. The evidence shows that in this case the petitioner in one instance said yes and in another instance said no, although he may be talking about two different things. He may have been advised by his lawyer to a finer degree as to what is and what is not collusion than we



I960

[Stage Direction]
have been able to determine here. The evidence does show that in one instance he said he went to see his wife and told her he wanted to divorce her and asked her to come here, I assume to give evidence whether or not adultery had been committed.
J. Nicholas (Nick) Mandziuk: If the hon. member will permit a question, I will restrict myself to asking a question. What are the grounds upon which the hon. member is challenging the decision of the divorce committee of the other place? The divorce committee of the other place has granted this petition and that is what we are interested in. Is the hon. member simply going to read the evidence from beginning to end until it is six o'clock? That is my question.


Charles Edward Rea: Order. I have allowed the hon. member to ask a question and that is as far as he can go.


Charles Benjamin Howard: He asked two questions. He asked whether I am challenging the decision of the committee of the other place and the answer to that is no. The answer to the second question is yes.


Robert Jardine McCleave: Are you going to keep on reading until six o'clock?


Charles Benjamin Howard: I would suggest, Mr. Chairman-


Charles Edward Rea: Order. Let us get
back to Bill No. SD-54.


Mr. Peters:: Why not call it six o'clock?


Charles Benjamin Howard: I was going to suggest that if there are any questions I would be glad to yield the floor to the hon. member who wishes to ask a question. If the hon. member for Halifax wants to ask questions in that manner I will be pleased to answer them.


J. Nicholas (Nick) Mandziuk: On a point of order, does the reading of the evidence from A to Z, with no personal comments and no conclusions drawn, constitute debating the bill?


Charles Edward Rea: Order. We have had this point many times before. No doubt the hon. member was away. The Chair has ruled on it several times and I am sure the hon. member knows what the answer is. If not,
I will be very happy to tell him. I will allow consideration of the evidence given that is relevant to the bill. I think all members can readily understand that if we did not do so evidence taken in committee on all private bills would be affected. That is why the Chair is allowing reference to evidence that is relevant to the bill.


Mr, McCleave:: May I ask the hon. member a question?
Private Bills-Divorce


Charles Benjamin Howard: Yes. I should have liked to make some comment on the point of order, Mr. Chairman, but unfortunately I did not catch your eye before you rose. I wonder whether you would allow me to do so now.


Charles Edward Rea: No. The point of order has been settled not only this time but several times.


Robert Jardine McCleave: The question I had to ask of the hon. member, Mr. Chairman, is, is it his intention to defeat this petition in parliament?


Charles Benjamin Howard: I do not know what my friend means by "defeat it".


Robert Jardine McCleave: See that the persons concerned do not obtain justice.


Charles Benjamin Howard: I am concerned with justice, fairness and equality. I have said that on a number of occasions. There is one way we have of bringing this justice, fairness and equality to the people of these two provinces.


Robert Jardine McCleave: You have said it but-


Charles Edward Rea: Order; I must ask the hon. members to come back once more to Bill No. SD-54. We are not going into procedure.


Charles Benjamin Howard: I have been trying to do that for the past five minutes, Mr. Chairman, but hon. members opposite would like to ask questions and I would be the last one to deny them that opportunity.


J. Nicholas (Nick) Mandziuk: I should like to ask a question in connection with this bill. Has adultery been proven?


Charles Benjamin Howard: Is the hon. member asking a question?


J. Nicholas (Nick) Mandziuk: Yes.


Charles Benjamin Howard: If the hon. gentleman will contain himself we will get to that part of the evidence which deals with that question and which, in my opinion, is answered in the negative. As I have indicated on other occasions, whether or not under circumstances such as these adultery has been proved to have occurred on the date which is alleged, is another matter. Whether or not we should give weight to that in considering the passage of the bill or whether we should give weight to other factors, is an argument to which I shall direct myself. I submit that adultery has not been proved, as hon. members will see later on, on this particular date.
I was dealing with some points of conflict in the evidence given by the petitioner, not for the purpose of imputing any motives but for the purpose of pointing out that there are these conflicts, at least in my mind, about

Private Bills-Divorce
these particular matters. There is a reference here, following questions by the chairman of the subcommittee, Senator Croll, to the time when the petitioner went to visit his wife and what he discovered there. The petitioner explained the circumstances which existed at that time. Senator Croll asked a question and he says, giving the surname of the petitioner: -how do you know she was living with Mr.-
And he gives here the name of the corespondent.
-as man and wife?
A. They were living together because she admitted to me they were.
Q. What did she admit to you?
A. That she was living with him.
Q. What do you mean by living with him? Was she living with him as man and wife?
A. As man and wife, yes.
Q. Did she tell you that?
A. Yes.
Apparently it was some time ago that he had been told this and subsequent examination reveals that he forgets the exact date but it was probably the time he went there, about the tenth day of July, upon instructions from Mr. Cohen. The questioning along this line is followed by Senator Croll, who says:
Q. Before that, how do you know she had been living as man and wife with Mr.-
It gives here the name of the corespondent.
A. Because she told me at one time.
Q. But you had never seen her before that day, since she left?
A. No.
Mr. Cohen interjects a question about telephone communications, and Senator Croll said:
Mr. Cohen, when senators are asking questions, please refrain.
Then the witness continues:
You see, sir, a long time ago I knew there was something between this Mr.-
Then he gives the name of the corespondent.
-and my wife. I met Mr.-
He gives the name of the corespondent.
-on the street one day and I asked him would he come down to the house with me.
Then Senator Croll asks:
Q. To your house?
A. When we were living together, my wife and I. He came down, and I asked my wife then, "Who is it going to be, him or me?" She said it was me, that she was going to live with me and everything was going to be all right; but still things were going on between them.
Then subsequent examination indicates that he still suspected things were not the same. He had reason to believe they went to moving pictures together and went to pther places together before he and his wife 
actually separated. Then Mr. Cohen had been consulted and in his questioning he says:
Q. Why do you tell the committee that you believe when you called Mr.-
Giving the name of the corespondent.
-into the house and said to your wife, either I am your husband or he is, why did you have any suspicion? You must have had some reason?
A. It was because my wife had told me that they had relations together.
Q. Your wife had admitted having relations with him?
A. Yes.
Then later it is established that this was some time ago. I believe, Mr. Chairman, that is the evidence of the petitioner himself, but apart from the fact that he tesified quite frankly his wife openly admitted to him that she had had extramarital relations with the corespondent, the other evidence is sort of vague.


Robert Jardine McCleave: Will the hon. member permit another question? He has been very patient. If a woman admits that she is guilty of an adulterous relationship, would that not be a humane reason for dissolving the marriage instead of trying to keep it together?


Charles Benjamin Howard: Perhaps the hon. members of the other place did not think so because they insisted upon additional witnesses appearing to prove this particular point. This is the evidence of the petitioner himself, that his wife had admitted to him this had occurred, and subsequently we come to the point where the wife appeared-


Robert Jardine McCleave: And said the same thing.


Charles Benjamin Howard: -and made a reference to this. I submit she does not say the same thing; it has a relationship to one particular date. It is not the wife who admits that adultery took place on that particular date, it is the corespondent. The petitioner indicates that he went to see the corespondent-this is on page 14 of the evidence-and then this question is asked:
Q. What did you see? How was she dressed, and where were they living?
A. They were dressed, but I know for a fact they do live together because they both have admitted they were living together.
By Senator Farquhar:
Q. Was it during the day or night you went there?
A. I went in the evening.
By the Chairman (Senator Croll):
Q. They were dressed normally?
A. I think my wife at the time was in a dressing gown.
Then the respondent is called and sworn, gives her name and address and she is advised by the chairman, Senator Croll-perhaps I should read this:
Before you proceed, it is my duty to inform you that you are not liable to be asked or bound

to answer any question tending to show that you are guilty of adultery, unless you have already given evidence in this proceeding in disproof of your alleged adultery. While you are not liable to be asked or bound to answer any question tending to the proof of your own adultery, you have the right to do so if you see fit-that is your right and privilege-in which event everything you say will be told voluntarily and not under any compulsion. Do you understand your position in this regard?
A. Yes.
Then Mr. Cohen says:
Q. -are you living as man and wife with one,-
He gives the name of the corespondent.
A. Yes.
Q. And more particularly on the evening of July 10, 1959, at 1631 St. Luke street, apartment 7, Montreal, were you living as man and wife?
A. Yes.
Q. And you had been how long?
A. I do not know-a couple of years, I guess.
Then Senator Croll follows up that particular point. I submit here that so far as the evidence of the respondent is concerned -which evidence she gave of her own volition without any hesitation at all-no question is asked about adultery. The only question asked is whether they were living together as man and wife. I draw a distinction as I have done in other instances. I draw a distinction between adultery having been committed on a particular day and people living together as man and wife on a particular day. I contend there is a distinction between the two.
Further evidence is given by the corespondent on this particular point and this is the thing with which I should like to deal. I submit again that there is no evidence so far that adultery took place as alleged in the petition on this particular day. It may have occurred on other occasions. It may have occurred subsequently to this time.


Charles Edward Rea: Order. I must advise the hon. member that his time has expired.


Robert Jardine McCleave: This is one of some 450 cases that are before us for determination at this particular session of parliament. As in most cases, this petition is from a person who lives in the province of Quebec and who comes from a somewhat humble rung of society in that particular province. In short, this man comes before us, as have a good many others, because his means are limited and parliament is the only way that he can obtain relief from a marriage which, to all practical intents and purposes, has long since been dissolved.
The petitioner in this particular case is 40 years old. He lives in the city of Montreal and he is a private chauffeur. He was married on June 4, 1947 and 13 years later he
Private Bills-Divorce
is before parliament asking that his marriage be dissolved because his wife is no longer living with him and indeed, as is clearly established by the evidence to the satisfaction of any reasonable person, his wife has been committing adultery, if you want to put it in that way, or living as man and wife, if you want to put it in that way, for four or five years with another man.
There have been suggestions made, and they are the type of suggestions we hear so often-these little legal phrases that make my blood boil when they come from the depths and wells of ignorance-I refer to phrases about collusion and so on, putting a tarnish on a very proper case and then just left there so that we in parliament who have this duty are somehow tarnished ourselves because we are trying to help decide the merits of a petition.
As far as any inference of collusion is concerned in this case, I say that there is not one jot or tittle of evidence to suggest that anything like that took place. Here we have the woman leaving her home for four or five years. She has lived with somebody else as man and wife. Any conversation that her husband has had with her to help him procure evidence to present to the committee of the other place and by the reports being presented before us is clearly not collusion. I repeat again that for reasonable minds and reasonable men this person, 40 years old, a humble person, from the province of Quebec, is coming before us asking for justice and the proper dissolution of the marriage that, to all intents and purposes disappeared four or five years ago. The challenge I put to the two hon. members opposite who have been carrying out this scandalous-


Charles Edward Rea: Order.


Robert Jardine McCleave: The challenge I put to the hon. members opposite is that they must decide within a few minutes whether they are going to grant this man his just rights or whether they are going to deny him those rights.


Charles Benjamin Howard: The hon. member need not challenge me to anything. From what I have indicated so far, it is quite evident what our position is.


Robert Jardine McCleave: What is your position on the bill before us?


Charles Benjamin Howard: If the hon. member had followed the trend of the discussion perhaps he would have discovered that position already. Let me say once more, Mr. Chairman, that my argument here is with respect to the point in the petition, and this is what I think perhaps is being glossed over. The petition
5218	HOUSE OF
Private Bills-Divorce
states "and more particularly that on or about July 10, 1959" in the city of Montreal and so on adultery was committed. It makes reference to this particular date. There is evidence here as I indicated. The corespondent appeared. He is asked questions by Mr. Cohen. He is asked whether he had been living together with the respondent as man and wife:
-"and more particularly, were you on the 10th day of July" and he says "yes". Then he is asked "Have you committed adultery with-?" and he gives the name of the respondent there, and the answer is yes. However, he does not answer that they committed adultery one with the other or that he committed adultery with her or however it took place on that particular date. That is the point I should like to make. We have mentioned this point on a number of occasions in connection with cases where there is evidence of a common law arrangement between a couple.


Robert Jardine McCleave: It is not common law.


Charles Benjamin Howard: My hon. friend can squirm around in his seat and say that there is an argument, if he so wishes, as to whether it is or is not common law.


Robert Jardine McCleave: It is not common law.


Charles Benjamin Howard: That is the general term that laymen understand or that I understand. It may not be the term that my hon. and learned friend understands and wants to apply to these things, under a strict application. I assume that the proper term or phraseology would just be that they were living together as man and wife. I do not know whether that is the proper term to apply to situations such as this one. However, that is the term used in evidence given before the committee of the other place. I have seen both of them, namely reference to a common law arrangement and reference to a couple living together as man and wife. If it would suit the sensitivities of my friend the hon. member for Halifax I shall be glad to comply and make reference to his living together as man and wife.
I say that, in my opinion, evidence to that effect is sufficient grounds to grant a divorce. But to attempt to ask this committee-and this is what they are doing-to put in a petition that adultery took place on a particular day and then give no evidence at all that it took place on that particular day is stretching the point quite a bit, in my opinion.
I am not prepared to vote in favour of the passing of this particular bill on the ground that adultery was committed on the tenth day of July, 1959, because nowhere in evidence
tMr. Howard.]

is it stated that adultery was committed on that particular date. I am prepared to vote in favour of this bill on the ground that the respondent and the corespondent have been living together as I put it, common law, or, as my sensitive friend the hon. member for Halifax wants it put, have been living together as man and wife. That is the ground upon which I am prepared to vote in support of this particular bill. The discussion I was leading up to was to point out that, regardless of the conflict in the evidence of the petitioner and further on between the respondent and the corespondent, which may be inconsequential things, on the basis of this couple-


J. Nicholas (Nick) Mandziuk: I am sorry to interrupt the hon. member but apparently he insists on this particular date. Did he overlook the third line in paragraph 7 of the petition where it is alleged "that on or about July 10, 1959", not necessarily on that particular date.


Charles Benjamin Howard: Quite right.


J. Nicholas (Nick) Mandziuk: Did the hon. member notice that?


Charles Benjamin Howard: Yes. I read that phraseology previously, namely "on or about".


Robert Jardine McCleave: What do you say?


Charles Benjamin Howard: I do not know what the word "about" means to start with. There is no evidence that adultery took place on July 10 or about July 10. Does this mean within six months, two months, a week, or what? There is no attempt to specify it. The only reference here is an admission by the petitioner that his wife told him she had committed adultery at some time in the past, and an admission by the respondent that she was living as man and wife with another individual named. The word "adultery" is not even used in the questions submitted to her or the answers she gave. There is only the reference to her living with someone else as man and wife, particularly on the evening of July 10, 1959.


Robert Jardine McCleave: I wonder if the hon. member would permit a question, or it is a point of information. Under normal court procedure you could not ask a leading question using the word adultery, such as the question "Did you commit adultery?", giving a particular night, because that is the point in issue. A court would not allow that form of questioning on that ground.


Charles Benjamin Howard: I did not know that. If that is the case, apparently the committee in the other place does not follow that practice because Mr. Cohen is allowed to ask such a leading question of the corespondent. It is not only a leading question in the sense of

"Have you committed adultery?", but he puts it quite emphatically almost forcing the witness to say yes. He asks: "And you have committed adultery with the corespondent?", and the answer is yes.


Robert Jardine McCleave: That would not be allowed either.


Charles Benjamin Howard: While this form of questioning may not be acceptable in a court of law, apparently it is acceptable in the committee of the other place because even though Mr. Cohen does not pose that question to the respondent, he is allowed to pose it in a very direct way to the corespondent. Therefore, I think perhaps the rules in a court of law are probably not followed in the committee of the other house, and members of the other place consider themselves, as perhaps we do, not as a court of law but as legislators passing a law and in reality the grounds can be as broad or as narrow as we so choose.


Mr. Drysdale:: Would the hon. member permit a further question. Is he prepared to vote now in favour of this petition?


Charles Benjamin Howard: I am not going to vote for the petition at all, because I do not think the petition is before us. What is before us is a bill, and as you have pointed out on a number of occasions, Mr. Chairman, we are at the moment on clause 1 which says that the marriage is hereby dissolved, et cetera. This is the point I indicated I would vote for and I wish to indicate on what grounds I will vote for it. It is not that adultery has been proven to be committed on July 10 or about, but that adultery at some time has been committed on the evidence of the corespondent. But not on any particular day or at any particular time does he indicate that adultery has been committed.
The basic reason I intend to vote for the passage of this bill, if it comes to a vote, is that which I indicated earlier. Here is a couple living together as man and wife. Apparently they are not too sure for how long because the respondent says that she does not know, she guesses a couple of years, and the corespondent indicates it is about four or five years. Perhaps with an arrangement as loose as this it is easy to lose a year or two. I know when my wife asks me how long I have been married I have to think about it sometimes, and I dare say other husbands and wives do too. It is on that basis I intend to give my vote in favour of the bill, not on the basis of adultery having been proven.
That is why I think perhaps parliament should insist that if these particular cases are to continue to come before us some alteration in the form of the petition and in the
Private Bills-Divorce
rules of the committee of the other place should be made so that in circumstances such as this the petition may properly state that the respondent and corespondent have been living together as man and wife at a particular address for a particular length of time. I submit that is the form in which a petition should be presented, and then this attempt to find evidence of adultery being committed on a particular date would not have to be made.


Charles Edward Rea: Shall clause 1 carry?


Robert Jardine McCleave: Mr. Chairman, before you call the clauses I think it should be pointed out while on this matter of direct questions put to the respondent and corespondent that that would not normally be the practice in the courts, none the less when you have a clear cut case such as this some latitude is allowed.
The other comment of the hon. member was as to how these cases are conducted. It has been the practice in the committee of the other place and in our own committee, as he would discover if he would attend it, that these cases are conducted on a quite proper judicial basis.


William Arnold Peters: Mr. Chairman, I would like to raise an objection to the method by which adultery is charged in an attempt to prove these particular cases. We have here, as we have had recently in a number of other cases, an alliance between two people which technically may not be a common law alliance because one party is already married and no reference is made to bigamy. It is an alliance where a man says he is living with a woman as man and wife or where a woman is living with a man as man and wife, but their alliance is not legal because one is already married. That, in my opinion, is what we would consider to be what adultery normally covers and the possibility of adultery taking place is pretty well a foregone conclusion.
The committee of the other house and of this house is being asked in these cases, not to establish a divorce on the ground of the relationships of the parties. The relationship in this case is admitted by three people. Two people have firsthand knowledge and a third secondhand. But the adultery charged is not proved and no attempt is made to prove it.
I suggest that the phrase "on or about" even in a court of law where it is used to a great extent refers here to either the tenth or the eleventh of the month or the eleventh or the twelfth, and when one says "on the tenth or thereabouts one means a little before that date-

Private Bills-Divorce


Charles Edward Rea: Order. We are back on procedure and on what certain terms mean, which has absolutely nothing to do with the bill. Therefore I will have to ask the hon. member to come back to Bill No. SD-54.


Robert Jardine McCleave: Has the hon. member read paragraph 7 of the petition which alleges that these two people "have been living as man and wife"? What more does he want?


Charles Benjamin Howard: It should stop there.


William Arnold Peters: I agree with what the hon. member for Skeena says, that it should stop there. This is what we should have before us and then we could grant a divorce on that ground. But when it goes on to say "on or about" a certain day adultery took place, a common law alliance would not mean they were necessarily committing adultery on every day of that alliance. In fact, I should be very surprised if any learned hon. member present would suggest that this was the case, and yet we have picked out one particular day and said that adultery occurred on or about that day, simply because we have had to establish an adultery charge, and adultery is a specific incident of sexual relations between the two people in question. They deal specifically with this relationship and then rely on the evidence of a common law alliance. No adultery charge can be proved on this basis. We would be prepared to argue, and argue successfully, that many people could live together as man and wife without adultery taking place even though one of the parties was married to another person.


Robert Jardine McCleave: Only two people in the world could believe that argument and they are sitting in the House of Commons.


William Arnold Peters: It may surprise the hon. member to know that on a number of occasions we will be dealing with the cases of people who have been living together over a period of years yet no adultery has taken place; cases where parliament is being asked to grant an annulment and cases where we are being asked to grant a divorce on the grounds that it is physically-


Some hon. Members:: Order.


Charles Edward Rea: I cannot allow the hon. member to discuss matters which are not strictly relevant, as he has done in the past. We must come back to Bill No. SD-54.


William Arnold Peters: I think the remarks we are making are relevant.


Robert Jardine McCleave: They are self-relevant. They reveal depths of ignorance.


William Arnold Peters: There are a lot of backroom lawyers here, or at least some are lawyers, and they are not in another place for the simple reason that they do not know the answers to some of these questions. It may be that they do not know what adultery means and I think it is important for them to learn.
We are granting divorces on the ground of adultery having been committed on a particularly day and I am suggesting there is no proof here that adultery took place at the time suggested except the admission by these two people that they were living together. Learned counsel have stated that the greatest attention must be paid to evidence given in this way if there is reason to believe that the two people concerned are desiring a divorce. People are warned that they do not have to make such statements, yet they voluntarily make them and indicate that they have committed adultery on a specific date. The warning was read in this particular case by the chairman, as follow:
Q. Mrs. Edmonds, listen to me carefully. Before you proceed, it is my duty to inform you that you are not liable to be asked or bound to answer any question tending to show that you are guilty of adultery, unless you have already given evidence in this proceedings in disproof of your alleged adultery. While you are not liable to be asked or bound to answer any question tending to the proof of your own adultery, you have the right to do so if you see fit-that is your right and privilege-in which event everything you say will be told voluntarily and not under any compulsion. Do you understand your position in this regard?
A. Yes.
The questioning goes on:
Q. Mrs. Edmonds, are you living as man and wife with one Mike Maloney?
A. Yes.


Robert Jardine McCleave: Would the hon. member permit a question? Does he think that he and his associate have given us $1,800 worth of debate during the last 60 minutes?


William Arnold Peters: If we have accomplished anything in removing this divorce procedure from parliament we have accomplished our $1,800 worth.


Charles Edward Rea: Order.


Charles Benjamin Howard: Mr. Chairman, you permitted the hon. member for Halifax to ask a question which was obviously completely irrelevant. Perhaps this was where the stop should have been made.


Charles Edward Rea: I said "order" half way through the hon. member's question.


Charles Benjamin Howard: The hon. member disobeyed you, obviously.


Charles Edward Rea: Shall this clause carry?


An hon. Member:: Carry it. Give the guy a break.


William Arnold Peters: I think further consideration should be given to this bill in relation to what we think may be a great miscarriage of justice by those who are sitting in this House of Commons and who sit in the Senate-


Charles Edward Rea: I shall have to ask the hon. member to take his seat.


[Stage Direction]
Clause agreed to.
Preamble agreed to.
Title agreed to.
Bill reported.
Mr. Speaker:: When shall this bill be read the third time? Now?


Some hon. Members:: Now.


William Arnold Peters: On the grounds of common law.
Bill read the third time and passed.



JUDGES ACT


William McLean Hamilton: that the house go into committee to consider the following resolution:
That it is expedient to introduce a measure to amend the Judges Act to provide salaries for four additional puisne judges of the Superior Court of Quebec: for the grant of annuities to judges upon attaining the age of 75 years; to remove anomalies in the present law relating to the grant of annuities under the act; and to alter the method of payment of travelling allowances to judges.
Motion agreed to and the house went into committee thereon, Mr. Rea in the chair.


Charles Edward Rea: It being six o'clock I do now leave the chair.
At six o'clock the committee took recess.


[Stage Direction]
AFTER RECESS

The committee resumed at 8 p.m.
Charles Edward Rea: House in committee of the whole on a certain proposed resolution to amend the Judges Act. Shall the resolution carry?


Edmund Davie Fulton: Mr. Chairman, I think I should, for the benefit of the committee, make a brief explanation of the main purposes and provisions of the legislation to be based on the resolution now before the committee. This resolution and the bill which will be introduced when it carries are in large measure complementary
Judges Act
to the resolution which was recently before the house to provide for an address to Her Majesty asking that she will cause to be laid before the United Kingdom parliament a measure to amend the British North America Act to provide for a retirement age of 75 for all judges of superior courts in Canada. In the view of the government the two measures should be considered as interdependent and the passage of this one is in a very real sense, or should be in a very real sense, dependent upon the passage of the other resolution through this parliament.
The reason why we hold this view is that the occasion of the introduction of this resolution and the main purpose of the legislation are to adjust the pensions of judges who will be now, all of them in Canada, retiring at the age of 75 years. We consider, therefore, that at a time when we are completing the program which will bring about the retirement of all judges at the age of 75 it is especially desirable to put the pensions of judges appointed by parliament on a proper footing. It is my own submission, Mr. Chairman, that for a number of years our judges have not had proper provision with respect to the annuities which they receive on their retirement or which their wives and widows receive on their decease.
Although, as I have said, we regard the main occasion or reason for this measure as being the simultaneous presentation to parliament of the measure regarding retirement age, there are other reasons for its introduction which I suggest may be best understood by a reference to the main provisions of the measure which will follow this resolution.
I should say a word about the desirability of providing adequately for the judiciary of our country. There are, of course, a number of fields in which this problem confronts us, but the main field in which I propose to deal with it tonight is in that of their retirement allowances. Of course this field is closely related to the field of salaries; but the measure, I should like to make clear, does not touch the salaries of judges. It deals with their retirement allowances, the provisions for their retirement, and also with the provision for travelling allowances while they are on circuit or travelling on judicial duty.
I think it is a fact-a principle, if you like-which will not be disputed by hon. members of this house, that not only is it essential that we should make provision for the adequate compensation of our judiciary while they hold office but, as an essential part of the position of the judiciary generally, adequate provision should be made for their situation after they will have retired from

Judges Act
office, because it is a fact that in the vast majority of cases those who accepted appointments to the bench have in the past, and I am sure they will in the future, accepted those appointments at a very real sacrifice in terms of the immediate monetary compensation which they receive.
This, of course, is in itself not an improper feature because there is attached to the position of the judiciary the attributes which surround one of the highest, if not the highest, positions in the land. There is an element of public service. There is, of course, also the position and the esteem in which our judges are properly held. All of these things are attributes of judicial office, and they are essential attributes of judicial office; but I think that one must always also take a realistic and practical approach to this matter and not allow one's regard for the attraction which individuals so appointed might properly feel to this high position to outweigh the fact that it is not right that we should ask them to make too great a sacrifice, a completely disproportionate sacrifice, when we call upon them to assume that office.
One of the features with regard to this office and to the position of judges is this question of the retirement allowances which they will receive when they retire. As I said a moment ago, the reasons for the introduction of this particular measure may be understood by reference to its main provisions, the principle one of those being the revision of the rules and regulations regarding retirement allowances for judges,
The main change we are making in this connection is to adjust what I believe to have been an unfortunate provision introduced in the amendment to the Judges Act of 1955. As a result of that amendment judges retirement allowances have been based upon the salaries that they were receiving prior to 1955. By the amendment of 1955 an increase with respect to superior court judges of $2,500 in their salaries was provided for; but it was a part of that amendment that their pensions, their retirement allowances, should have relation not to the new salary but to the salary that had been in effect before that change of 1955. The result has been that up to the present time our judges have been retiring on a pension based on the salaries which were set in 1951.
For the information of hon. members it should be recalled that judges retire on two thirds of the salary which is set as the basis of their pension. So that the situation now is that all judges in Canada retire on two thirds of their 1951 salary and it has been felt by the government that it was and is a mistake to relate the retiring allowances

of judges to their former salaries. Most, if not all, of the persons for whom parliament makes provision with respect to pension or superannuation have that pension provision related to the salary of which they were in receipt at the time of their retirement. This, of course, was always the situation with respect to the Judges Act until the amendment of 1955, but the result of that amendment has been to relate the retirement allowances of our judiciary not to the actual salary received at the time of their retirement but to the salary they received some years prior to the last amendment.
One of the other effects of this situation has been not only general in its nature with respect to the question of whether or not it is a sound principle but it has also had the result that again of those for whom parliament provides retirement allowances under federal legislation judges alone have had no revision of their retirement allowances since the year 1951. As I have explained, in the revision of 1955 it was provided that judges would retire on a pension based on their previous salary, which has had the effect that their pension rates have not been changed since the year 1951. So far as I have been able to ascertain they are the only group for whom we are responsible who have waited this long for an adjustment in the level of their retirement allowances.
I think I should also emphasize to the committee that the changes to be proposed in the legislation itself will also affect the wives and widows of those judges who are covered by the provisions we make for their annuities. It is the intention that all those who have retired since 1955 will also have their situations and those of their wives and widows covered by the provisions that will be introduced in the bill to follow the resolution.


Paul Joseph James Martin: Since 1955 or 1951?


Edmund Davie Fulton: Since 1955. Another main group of provisions in the legislation will be those affecting the circumstances under which judges may receive retirement allowances on their retirement. It will be provided that in the future for any judge to be entitled to a full retirement allowance when he reaches the retirement age of 75 he must have served 10 years on the bench. When I say "in the future" I mean with respect to any future appointments. The implications of this will be obvious. It is our feeling that when we are asking parliament to provide for a retirement age of 75 we should at the same time suggest and lay before parliament this proposal that a judge will hot have earned his full retirement allowance for his judicial

functions unless he has served 10 years in that capacity. This, of course, must be read subject to the provisions for retirement on account of sickness or on account of other considerations in the national interest, but in general a judge appointed in the future who is in good health and reaches the retirement age of 75 must have served 10 years before he will be qualified for a full retirement allowance.
"We are also proposing to change the provision with regard to the receipt of annuities on voluntary retirement, At the present time a judge may only receive the full annuity to which he is entitled if he retires on account of sickness and it is found that that retirement is in the public interest. We propose to make three changes in this situation. We propose to provide that any judge who has served 15 years in judicial office may retire on full annuity at the age of 70. This retirement will be entirely voluntary but it is our feeling that there are cases, and an appreciable number of them, in which the interests of the judiciary as well as the position of the individual judge may well warrant retirement of that judge at the age of 70. It is our feeling, therefore, that if after having served for 15 years in a judicial capacity any individual judge feels that he should retire he may do so at the age of 70 and receive the full retirement allowance. It will be realized, of course, that the provision of 15 years service is closely related to the present 15-year provision with regard to certain of the existing retirement arrangements.
The second change to be made in this field is that if at any time after having served 15 years a judge wishes to retire and if, in the opinion of the governor in council, his retirement will contribute to the better administration of justice or is in the national interest, that judge may also be permitted to retire voluntarily and receive the full retirement allowance. The third provision to be made in the new legislation with respect to voluntary retirement is that if by reason of sickness or other disability a judge is rendered unable to discharge the full functions of his office then again he may be permitted to retire with a full retirement allowance.
I am quite sure the committee will realize without my going into detail that there have been a number of occasions in the past when the present provision with regard to retirement, related strictly as it is to the question of sickness and the public interest, have created very great difficulties not only for the present government but also, I know, for the former government with respect to whether in fact retirement should be accepted and the pension or retirement allowance should be
Judges Act
paid. What we are seeking to do, therefore, is to clarify and bring more into accord with the actual position the provisions with regard to the circumstances under which judges may be allowed to retire on full pension before they reach the age of 75.


Paul Joseph James Martin: Does the 15 years apply to the third case?


Edmund Davie Fulton: No, the 15 years does not apply to the case of sickness or other incapacity disabling a judge from the due fulfillment of his judicial office.
The third main provision that is being made in the legislation is with respect to living allowances. At the present time there is in my view a rather artificial distinction between the amounts that judges may receive for living allowances or expenses when they proceed on circuit or go on journeys in connection with their judicial functions. There is an artificial distinction between communities with a population of 5,000 or less and those with a population of 5,000 or over. Generally it is provided that if a judge attends as a judge at a centre of 5,000 population or less he is entitled to living expenses of $8 a day. If the centre is over 5,000 the amount is $12 a day. There is provision that in special circumstances these rates may be increased from $8 to $12 and from $12 to $15 a day respectively. It does not, I am sure, take much argument to convince the committee that there are very few, if any, communities in Canada today where a judge can live for $15, let alone $12 or $8, a day. Yet, these are the full amounts that he may be allowed for living expenses while in that community away from his home.
There have been cases where I know judges have economized in ways that I am sure this committee would readily agree no member of the judiciary should be expected to adopt. They have to economize because, contrary to popular belief, judges are not all rich people before they are appointed and they are certainly not all rich people on the basis of the salaries we pay them. Judges do find a very real drain upon their income when they travel, as they do sometimes, on lengthy journeys on circuit. I should like anyone to reflect for a moment and ask himself the question whether a judge coming from Toronto to Ottawa to take the assizes can possibly live and pay his hotel expenses on $15 a day, although that is the maximum that judges are authorized to receive. Some of them, therefore, do economize, to use a polite term, with regard to the places where they stay. This is not a proper position, nor I believe is it a fair position, in which to put members of the judiciary.

Judges Act
We propose to make, not an extravagant change but what I regard as a very practical change in that situation by simply providing that a judge who is absent from his home on judicial duties will be entitled to living allowance in accord with the expenses that he has actually incurred. All a judge will have to do will be to file a statement of his actual living expenses while away from home on judicial duties and he will be entitled to recover that amount. This, it seems to me, is not what can be described as a really generous gesture with respect to our judges. It only means they will be entitled to recover what they have actually paid out while absent from their homes in the service of their country.
There will be one or two other minor changes with respect to travel and living allowances, principally a change that will place the province of Quebec once more on the same footing as all other provinces. This change will have the result that judges in Quebec will no longer have to have their travel and living expenses certified by the chief judge of their court. In no other province is that required, and it seems to us it is anomalous in the extreme that judges in Quebec should be subject to that requirement when no others are.
These, Mr. Chairman, are the main provisions of the legislation which will be based on this resolution. They are, I believe, a first very practical step in the direction of revising the situation of the judiciary. They are a concurrent step with the one which parliament was asked to ratify regarding retirement ages. We will, in the future, when this legislation carries, be in a position where all judges appointed by this parliament retire at 75 years of age and where the conditions and circumstances under which they receive their retirement allowances and the amount of those retirement allowances will have been placed on a rational basis, in my view. The other circumstances with regard to the performance of their functions, that is those relating to their allowances while travelling, also will have been rationalized and placed on the same acceptable basis.
There are I recognize, and I am sure the committee will agree, a number of other features of the Judges Act which call for study and review. Those are still under study and review. I am not able to say when I shall be introducing legislation to deal with them, but I believe that with the measure which I am placing before parliament tonight we are making a useful first step forward in connection with the physical and financial position of our judiciary.


Lionel Chevrier: May I ask the minister a question? In his opening remarks he stated that this resolution was complementary to one previously before the house amending the British North America Act, and that this measure and the former measure were interdependent. Then as he was about to sit down he made some further reference to that, but the whole of his remarks dealt with other matters in the resolution. I wonder if he would not explain in greater detail how these two are interdependent?


Edmund Davie Fulton: I thought I did that, Mr. Chairman, but I would be glad to explain again. As I said, the occasion of the introduction of this resolution and the bill to follow it, and the main reason for its introduction, is the fact that we are asking parliament to place a limit on the retirement age of judges of superior courts. This will affect, as I explained to the house previously, some 12 judges immediately who will be 75 years of age when that measure comes into effect. Those judges who are now on the bench will be required to retire at 75 years of age and it has seemed to the government, therefore, appropriate now, if not essential, that we should make these adjustments in the pension provisions. It is in that sense that we regard them, as I say, as complementary measures and we said that, in our view, the passage of this one should be dependent upon the passage of the other.


Paul Joseph James Martin: Mr. Chairman, I wish to make a few comments on this resolution. We will have an opportunity when the bill comes before the house of examining it in greater detail than I now propose to do. The minister has given us a general outline, and I should like to make a few comments.
The resolution before us seeks to do, as the minister indicated, four different things. It would, first of all, provide salaries for four additional puisne judges of the Superior Court of Quebec; grant annuities to judges upon attainment of the age of 75 years and remove anomalies in the present law relating to the grant of annuities under the act as well as alter the method of payment of travel allowances to judges. The minister did not say anything, in so far as I now recall, about the circumstances requiring four additional puisne judges of the Superior Court of Quebec.


Edmund Davie Fulton: I am sorry about that; that slipped my mind.


Paul Joseph James Martin: I presume that there is justification for that, but as I say the minister has not explained the circumstances. We may now have to wait until

he concludes this debate. If he wishes to intervene now, I would have no objection to his doing so. I would be prepared to put a question to him. I would ask him why it is necessary, at this time, to appoint four additional puisne judges to the superior court in Quebec?


Edmund Davie Fulton: Mr. Chairman, I thought I had covered all these matters in my notes. However I find I have overlooked this question and I appreciate the hon. member for Essex East raising it now.
The answer is twofold. First, the province of Quebec, in legislation passed at its session this year, provided for six, I think it was, additional superior court judges in the Montreal division and one in the Three Rivers district. We are asking parliament to authorize the provision of four out of these seven. The intention is to appoint one for Three Rivers and three for Montreal.
In so far as the necessity for these appointments is concerned, of course, in large measure I think we should be guided by the views of the province which has the constitutional responsibility for the organization of the courts. The province is of the opinion that this extra number of judges is required. In addition I have asked the province, and I have asked others who are concerned, to let me know the basis upon which this decision was arrived at, and I have been satisfied that the need for extra judges in both of these districts, that is the Three Rivers division and the Montreal division, is well established by virtue of the backlog of work that confronts the courts there. We are therefore asking parliament for the authority to provide the salaries for four additional appointments at this time.


Paul Joseph James Martin: This explanation by the Minister of Justice naturally raises some curiosity as to why the government of Canada has not acceded to the request of the government of the province of Quebec for the appointment of seven judges which that province has requested. The minister has indicated that in the view of the government of Canada only four judges are required, certainly at the present time.
I think the minister will agree that it is somewhat unusual for this kind of situation to arise. Usually when a province asks for the appointment of judges, having in mind provincial competence in the constitution of the courts, I believe there has generally been recognition on the part of the federal government that the request of the province should be met. In this instance, in the absence of any evidence to the contrary, it is to be presumed that the request, in the view of the Minister
Judges Act
of Justice, is one that should not be granted in its entirety and that seven judges are not needed. One might inquire why the province of Quebec has taken the view that it requires seven judges. In any event, the Minister of Justice has taken the position, judging by what he has just said, that only four judges are required.


Edmund Davie Fulton: Four to be appointed at the moment.


Paul Joseph James Martin: At the moment. The minister has not said whether there have been any conferences between the two jurisdictions in the matter. However, if the Attorney General of the province of Quebec had reasons for impressing his colleagues with the desirability of appointing seven judges, it would seem that this evidence would have had at least a persuasive effect on the Minister of Justice. However, it has not had that effect. One of the two jurisdictions not being in agreement, that fact presents us with the obligation of asking on what grounds the Minister of Justice of Canada did not accede to the request of the province of Quebec. If that request was unreasonable, the minister should indicate the incidents of the unreasonableness. Also, when he is doing that, and when he closes the debate he might indicate what the constitutional position, in fact, is in a case where a request is made by the province in this particular context and is not acceded to by the federal government.
The minister said that the resolution and the bill which will follow and the other measure dealt with by this house several days ago when we agreed to present an address to the parliament of the United Kingdom in the matter of the retirement of judges-including what we thought at that time was an unnecessary violation of the present constitutional practice with regard to the county and district courts-were interdependent and that both should be read together. They are interdependent only, of course, I would suggest, in one particular and that is with regard to the compulsory retirement at the age of 75 of judges who now-and properly, I believe-are to be given more satisfactory pension or annuity arrangements attendant upon their retirement. However, I would submit that only in that sense are these two measures really interdependent.
To the extent that there is interdependence I should have thought that this measure, in so far as it provides for other terms of annuity arrangements, should have preceded the introduction of the other measure of which this is a companion, to use the analogy of the minister. In that event it would have been possible in discussing the former measure to give full consideration to the extent to which

Judges Act
there was any violation of the independence of the judiciary in the minds of those who expressed concern on that point and also whether there was, with regard to judges now on the bench, any breach of contract or any breach of implied contract.
With regard to the judges who are now on the bench and who, after the parliament of the United Kingdom will have dealt with the matter, will be forced to retire, one wonders whether or not the minister has met the argument-admittedly it was not accepted on the other side but it is one that was made with sincerity and conviction in this house a few days ago-that to cause a judge to retire under circumstances of which he could not be expected to be aware at the time of appointment, was a matter that involved a breach of ^/hat I would call at least an implied contract. I am aware of the fact that the other night we used the phrase "breach of contract". Possibly that was too loose a use of the expression "breach of contract". There was not a contract in the sense perhaps of an enforceable contract at law but there were certainly present all of the elements of what one might regard as an arrangement between the state and the judicial appointee having all the qualities of a contractual arrangement which the state would feel at least morally bound to recognize as imposing on it an obligation not less than the kind of obligation that would have been imposed if an arrangement of some sort based on the same principle had prevailed between individuals, one of whom was not a judge and the other who did not represent the crown.
I suggest to the Minister of Justice that the argument of "breach of contract" in the sense in which I have mentioned it tonight is a sound one and is one that is not met by this resolution. Those judges who are now on the bench and who in the future will be forced to retire will retire under circumstances that were not present, were not made known to them or could not have been presumed at the time of appointments. I have no hesitation in saying that the government is justified-and the house is with the government-in suggesting that judges should retire at the age of 75. That is not a matter in issue. What is in issue in so far as I am concerned is that this failure to provide for an economic treatment of judges now on the bench, in a manner that would not in any way put them in a less advantageous position than they would be in if there was no compulsory period of retirement, is an act which in principle-and if you will, only theoretically at this stage-involves a breach of contract and, I submit, moreover

is a violation in principle again of the independence which all of us in this house want to see the judiciary have in Canada. That principle was argued in this house in 1927, in 1930, in 1933 and in 1954 was thoroughly discussed in the parliament of the United Kingdom. There the position was taken, as I reminded the house the other night, by Mr. Churchill among others, that any economic treatment of the judges that would be less than what they would be entitled to pursuant to the terms of their appointment would be regarded and must be regarded as a violation of the kind of independence which in that island they regard the judges as being deserving of, which indeed they regard as one of the essential conditions of guaranteeing the integrity and independence of the bench.
However, in the resolution and the bill based on it which the minister will introduce the government does not accept this argument because the judges who are now on the bench will retire on the same annuity terms as judges who have yet to be appointed. I contend that that is wrong on the two grounds I have mentioned. It is wrong on the ground that it is a violation of the terms of the arrangement, and for me more particularly it is a violation of the kind of independence which I believe our judiciary should possess.
That is not an empty statement. Whether the argument which has provoked it is accepted or not, we will all agree, I think, on the necessity of recognizing how important in a free society the judicial arm is. We pride ourselves on the preservation of freedom in this country, and rightly so. We know that one of the reasons for the preservation or existence of that freedom is because, unlike in totalitarian countries, our judiciary is not, and is not under any circumstances encouraged to be influenced in any way by the executive or by political or any other considerations than those which should attend an absolute regard for judicial objectivity.
So I feel that we are making a mistake in principle in treating judges on the bench now who will have to retire at the age of 75 in the way that they will be treated under this particular measure. No great economic loss or inconvenience would result if we had made, or were even now to make, a differentiation between judges on the bench and the financial terms of their retirement as distinguished from the situation in that regard which under this measure we are going to apply to judges yet to be appointed and the circumstances of their retirement. However, the government has given this matter its consideration; it has taken this

position and I can do no more than point out what I believe to be the unsound position it takes.
I agree with the minister that our judges should be able to retire in dignity. In saying that I am not oblivious of the fact that in dealing with the judges consideration must be given at some other time to the retirement circumstances of other classes of people in our community. I am not going to say, as one could easily be tempted to say, that the pension requirements of other classes in the community deserve attention. That I assume we will all recognize to be the case. We are now dealing with the judges. The judiciary is an important institution in our country and it must be surrounded by the kind of economic security which will enable it to discharge its functions ably, objectively and honourably; and I say that without in any way being open to the suggestion that I am oblivious of the need to provide satisfactory retirement schemes for the people of Canada as well as for other groups in our country.
The minister said that the annuities for the widows of judges are not adequate at the present time and that he proposes to take steps to deal with this problem. When the bill is presented to the house we shall be able to examine that question. He pointed out that judges now retire on salaries fixed in 1951. That being the situation I think we will have to recognize the equity of the matter and raise the level of annuities in relation not to the salary of nine years ago but to the salary of the present day.
As the minister has said, and I think we would all agree he has said rightly, the annuity paid to a judge should not be related to a former salary but should be based upon the salary which under the law is given at the time of retirement. Certainly this matter is one that should now come before the house, because as the minister has said there has been no revision since 1951.
The minister then spoke of judges retiring on a voluntary basis, and in that connection he said that there were three changes in contemplation. In the first case a full annuity would be provided to a judge at the age of 70 providing that judge had been on the bench for 15 years. The second case had to do with judges retiring after 15 years, if in the national interest he should do so. I will be interested when the bill is presented in knowing precisely what the minister means by "in the national interest". Incidentally, in all three of these cases, the judge will receive, I understand, the full annuity. As I say, I will be interested to know what the term "in the national interest" means in this particular
Judges Act
situation. Does voluntary retirement mean that a judge is retiring because of criticism of his administration, because of criticism of his capacity or because of a possible intervention that might be made to have him removed? Would that warrant a consideration of the matter "in the national interest"? In any event, Mr. Chairman, when the bill is presented I would want to know more about what is meant in that regard.
Then the minister instanced the third case where retirement of a judge is voluntary because of sickness or disability. The full annuity is provided in that case, and as the minister pointed out in answer to a question of mine, voluntary retirement can take place even though a judge may have been on the bench for less than 15 years.
The minister then dealt with the matter of travelling allowances, and I think this general statement by him will appeal to all of us, knowing the cost of living particularly in the larger communities of our country. As I understood the scale, it will be from $8 to $12 and then to $15 a day, beginning at $12 where the judge was presiding in a community of over 5,000 people. I did not catch what the circumstances were with regard to the amount of $15, but I suspect that would depend upon the cost of living in a community likewise over 5,000 people.


Edmund Davie Fulton: Perhaps I did not make it clear, but the hon. member realizes that that is the present provision. What he has just enunciated are the present provisions and I propose to put it on the basis of actual living expenses incurred by the judge when he is away from home.


Paul Joseph James Martin: I thank the minister; I did not catch that. It is based on actual living expenses, and I thank him for correcting me on that point. While I am dealing with this, I will simply observe in passing that this principle might possibly be applied to other public servants, notably those serving Canada at the United Nations. I am not referring to members of parliament or members of the government but to the public servants who work in New York and whose per diem allowance is not, as I recollect it, altogether adequate.
The minister pointed out that hereafter judges in the province of Quebec will have their travelling allowances approved on the same basis as judges in the other nine provinces. I do not know why in the past a different arrangement was made, and it may be that when the bill is before us in committee we shall have an opportunity of going into this matter further.
Finally, the minister said there would be other matters which would ultimately be dealt

Judges Act
with by way of legislation. He indicated there were other questions he had under review. He did not, however, say what those matters were, and it might be possible for the hon. gentleman when he concludes this debate, to give us some information in that regard.
Briefly, to summarize what I have said, I repeat that in principle this resolution is one that is acceptable to those of us in the official opposition. We shall want some explanation along the lines I have mentioned with regard to the federal government's acceptance of only four federal judges in the province of Quebec when seven were asked for. That can only mean that the government will have to indicate why the seven asked for by the province of Quebec were not warranted in the circumstances. No doubt the minister will give us his point of view in that regard.
Then there is the argument that I made, and which I believe to be a sound one, that we are here concerned with the independence of the judiciary and the decision to treat judges now on the bench on terms similar to those to be appointed from this date onward. This is a matter which we regard as a vital one, affecting not any individual judge but the whole of the judiciary which in a free society is no less important in the preserving of good order in the state than are the other arms of government.
Our system of government could not possibly function if alongside the executive and parliament we did not have an objective, neutral, capable and industrious judiciary not open to interference or influence from any quarter. I am not suggesting that our judiciary is open to such influence, but because we want to take the greatest possible care to ensure that it is not, I again tell the minister and the house that we shall examine with interest the bill on which this resolution is based.
Finally, I say again that no one can say from anything we have said on this side of the house in support of this measure that there is a failure to appreciate that the problem of the retirement of other classes in our community is still a problem that has to be dealt with. We are not seeking to deal with those matters tonight, but we ought to be able to deal with all these matters on terms that do not necessarily affect objective consideration of the case of each group.


Herbert Wilfred Herridge: I do not for a moment suggest that I have the same knowledge and understanding of this subject as has the distinguished member for Essex East who has just resumed his seat, an hon. gentleman who is a distinguished member of the

bar and who has demonstrated on occasion after occasion his great capacity to plead lost causes in this house.
However, speaking for this group, I must say that judging from the minister's explanation the proposed amendments to the Judges Act to be based on this resolution appear to us to be reasonable and founded on humane considerations of the need of judges' status, their responsibilities to the nation, their duties and their requirements. I listened carefully while the Minister of Justice was making his explanation and while, as I said before, I have not the detailed knowledge of this subject which the hon. member for Essex East possesses I think the explanation the minister gave was very reasonable and very fair. On that account this group will be pleased to support this resolution.
However-don't clap-I must say we do hope that the government will soon give some humane consideration to the needs of disability pensioners many of whom are on war veterans allowance; to the needs of those on old age security relief and a considerable number of persons in Canada who are unemployed and not able to receive unemployment insurance benefits. Like the hon. member for Essex East, I hope the government gives early consideration-similar consideration-to the needs of these people in our society. With those few remarks I will conclude, though I may possibly have more to say on second reading.


Lionel Chevrier: The hon. member for Essex East has dealt with our position on this side of the house and I have no intention of repeating the points he put forward. I think all of us would agree with most of the points which were made by the Minister of Justice in bringing in this resolution, subject, of course, to what will be contained in the bill.
It is impossible on the resolution stage of any bill to give complete consent to what may be contained in the measure itself but I do not think we on this side can quarrel with the greater part of the statements made by the Minister of Justice. There are, however, one or two things which I should like to bring to his attention.
One of them has already been dealt with by my hon. friend from Essex East, and that is the number of judges in the province of Quebec. The minister said at the outset that this matter had slipped his mind and that he had therefore made no reference to it. I will not repeat the arguments of my hon. friend other than to put it this way; that I know there is a great shortage of superior court judges in the city of Montreal. The Minister of Justice is perhaps far more aware

than I am of the tremendous number of cases which have to be handled from day to day in the various courts of that city. With the increasing population, and for other reasons, it becomes every day more necessary and more important to have additional judges. I shall say no more as far as the request from the province of Quebec is concerned.
I presume that when the request was made and approved of by the legislative assembly it was done after careful consideration with the chief justices of the various districts in the province of Quebec. However, I notice the minister said that it was the intention to appoint four judges at this time. It may well be that the minister, after consultation with the provincial authorities and with those who are in touch with the various districts of the province of Quebec, may come to the conclusion either before the bill is brought in or at a later date that the needs of justice and of the national interest as he put it, would be met by an additional number of judges.
Then there is the point dealing with the question I raised at the end of his remarks, namely that the minister takes it that this resolution is complementary to the one which was discussed in the house recently and that the two are interdependent. I simply want to support the view of my colleague, the hon. member for Essex East, and our position taken at the time of the discussion of the earlier resolution which sought to amend the British North America Act, and the attitude taken by us at that time. We felt then and we feel now that there should be included in this bill consideration of those judges who had certainly an implied contract when they were appointed. Surely, they could not be presumed to know that at a later date an amendment such as that which was made earlier and that which is now contained in the bill which will follow this resolution would be enacted.
In so far as the other matters are concerned, I think that we on this side of the house And ourselves in agreement with the minister.


Edmund Davie Fulton: There are one or two points which I should like to reply to before the resolution carries. I appreciate the position taken and the comments made by hon. members opposite with respect to the question of the provision which is to be made for those who are compulsorily retired, but I am sorry we will apparently not be able to reconcile our views in that regard. However, I point out that while I do not in any way retreat from my view that there is an absolute right in this parliament, in conjunction with provincial governments, to make amendments to the British North America Act in this field, I do agree, and
Judges Act
said at the time of the earlier debate that I did agree that one must take account of the financial position of those who will be affected thereby. In fairness and in decency one must do that.
I therefore point out that under this resolution the positions of those judges who will be affected by the introduction of the retirement age, will be very appreciably improved, not perhaps to the full extent that would have been done by the measure suggested by my hon. friends, namely that they retire on full salary, but their financial position will be appreciably improved and brought closer to that point. Certainly, I would suggest that in a large number of cases, particularly those appointed a number of years ago, their positions will be brought up to the level of at least the salary prevailing at the time they were appointed. I think that at least meets the argument of my hon. friends in effect even though we are not entirely agreed in principle.
The other point that I should like to reply to is the question of the extra judges for the province of Quebec. I regret very much to have to apologize to the committee for having made an error. I think I said the Quebec legislature provided six for Montreal and one for Three Rivers. I should have said five for Montreal and one for Three Rivers. The total provided by their legislation is six. We are asking parliament to authorize salaries for four.
My hon. friend will, I know, understand that I am not for a moment disagreeing with the fact of the need for additional judges in the Montreal area where five are provided for provincially. I think my hon. friends will also agree that five is a substantial number of judges to ask parliament to provide salaries for and to appoint at one fell swoop. The fact that we are asking for salaries for only three now should not be taken as an indication that we think three will meet the problem. It is only an indication-and I hope it will only be taken as an indication- that we are asking for three and intend to appoint three at the present time and that we shall have another look at the situation as soon as possible at, say, the next session.
This has been discussed with the provincial authorities and while they do not moderate their position, as one would not expect them to with respect to the need, they have agreed that the provision of three extra judges at this time, as soon as we can do it, will be a real contribution toward meeting that need. Therefore, there is no difficulty between us on this point.
With respect to the other question that was raised in this connection, that is the propriety
5230	HOUSE OF
Emergency Gold Mining Assistance Act of the federal authority in not filling immediately the number of positions provided for by the provinces, there are two cases that I can cite which might serve as a precedent for this. There is the case of Prince Edward Island. There has been on the statute books of that province for many years provision for an extra judge which position has not yet been filled, and there is the case of Saskatchewan where originally there were provided positions for 20 district court judges. By agreement with the province the actual number to be appointed for years was set at 18. It is only recently that Saskatchewan legislation has actually been changed to provide positions for only 16; so that for all those years, until last year, although their legislation provided for 20, Saskatchewan asked Ottawa to appoint only 18, and that was the number that we in fact appointed, notwithstanding the provision made by their legislature. Therefore, there is no new or startling precedent in the fact that for a short period although five have been authorized for Montreal by the provincial legislature we are appointing only three, I emphasize that this is merely the situation for the present. It does go, and it is agreed by the provincial authorities to go a long way toward meeting the need they felt when they asked their legislature to provide for five further positions.
These, I think, Mr. Chairman, are the two main points raised by my hon. friends opposite. As they said, when they see the bill there may be other specific questions that will come up and I shall endeavour at that time to give such further explanations as the house may wish.
Resolution reported and concurred in.
Mr. Fulton thereupon moved for leave to introduce Bill No. C-78, to amend the Judges Act.
Motion agreed to and bill read the first time.



EMERGENCY GOLD MINING ASSISTANCE ACT


[Stage Direction]
The house resumed, from Monday, June 13, consideration of the motion of Mr. Comtois for the second reading of Bill No. C-64, to amend the Emergency Gold Mining Assistance Act.
Mr. Speaker:: When this debate was last adjourned the Minister of Trade and Commerce (Mr. Churchill) had raised a point of order which I shall be glad to deal with very briefly now. The point of order was raised as a result of lengthy quotations by the hon.


member for Port Arthur (Mr. Fisher) from the Winnipeg Free Press. I am sorry the hon. member is not here at the moment. The point made was that our practice does not permit the reading of such extracts in a debate, which is correct. I refer the house to Beauchesne, fourth edition, citation 157, paragraphs 5 and 7. Paragraph 5 reads as follows:
It is not in order to read articles in newspapers, letters or communications emanating from persons outside the house and referring to, or commenting on, or denying anything said by a member or expressing any opinion reflecting on proceedings within the house.
That is the general rule and practice. Although I had some thought there might be some difference between a case where the article quoted was against the interests of the member speaking and a case where it was in favour of the point of view he was expressing I think that perhaps the better view is that such articles should not be read at all. If it is against the interests of the member speaking and amounts to a question of privilege then paragraph 7 of the same citation applies. It is in the following terms:
When a complaint is made Of a newspaper, it is the practice in the House of Commons of Canada for the member to rise on a question of privilege and point out that he has been libelled or misrepresented. He may read as much of the article as is necessary to prove his case but he cannot go farther. He is bound to confine himself strictly to the question of privilege.
In effect what the hon. member was doing was dealing with a question of privilege in the course of the debate, and in my view the point taken by the minister was well taken.


Mr. Churchill:: Mr. Speaker, I Should like to put this suggestion before the house this evening. The Minister of Mines and Technical Surveys (Mr. Comtois) is absent at the present moment but this bill has been before us for some time and is not opposed. I have read the long debate at the resolution stage on May 25 in which eight members of the house participated and expressed their intention to support the bill.
Debate on second reading commenced on June 13. Two members of the opposition indicated support for the bill in very brief remarks and the hon. member for Port Arthur (Mr. Fisher) was making comments with respect to the newspaper article you have just mentioned, Mr. Speaker. In view of the fact that the house would like to proceed with the business fairly rapidly, I was Wondering whether we could go on with this bill tonight and put it through second reading and the committee stage. I make this suggestion for the reason that the estimates of the Department of Mines and Technical Surveys



I960

[Stage Direction]
are before the house and will be called again on Thursday or Friday. The minister will be available and I give the undertaking now that any questions which might arise during a study of the bill on second reading or in the committee stage can be asked on the estimates of the Minister of Mines and Technical Surveys. If this course of action is not agreeable to the house, I will not press the point.
Lionel Chevrier: Mr. Speaker, I think the suggestion made by the house leader is a very reasonable one. I think he is quite correct in assuming that those of us on this side of the house have supported the measure. Our main speaker was the hon. member for Villeneuve (Mr. Dumas) and, as the house leader has said, there was one other speaker, if not more, who gave their support to the measure. Therefore I can see no reason why we should hold up the bill, particularly in the light of the very reasonable suggestion which has been made that if second reading is given the matter can be discussed more fully in committee or on the estimates when the minister will be here. There is only one reservation I should like to make and I make it with my tongue in my cheek. It is that, like the Minister of Mines and Technical Surveys, I too should like to be away from the house at this time.


Herbert Wilfred Herridge: Mr. Speaker, in view of the late date in the session, the fact that coming legislation will no doubt require lengthy debate and that this subject can be dealt with on the estimates of the Minister of Mines and Technical Surveys, and as we are in a very generous and amiable mood tonight, we agree with the minister's suggestion.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to, bill read the second time, considered in committee and reported.
Mr. Speaker:: When shall the said bill be read the third time? By leave, now?


Lionel Chevrier: Next sitting of the house.


Mr. Speaker:: Next sitting of the house.



BRIDGES


David James Walker: the second reading of Bill No. S-32, to authorize the construction and maintenance of a bridge across the St. Lawrence river at or near the town of La Salle, in the province of Quebec.
He said: Mr. Speaker, I hope the temper of the house will be the same when I am finished. May I say that this is a simple bill
79951-0-330
Bridges
which is merely a formality. Its purpose is to authorize the province of Quebec to go ahead with the building of a building- excuse me, I am talking about buildings all the time because I am so overwrought on account of the housing problems-the building of a bridge adjacent to the Mercier bridge. It will be a one-way bridge to take the traffic load from the town of La Salle to the south side of the river off the Mercier bridge. The building of the bridge involves parliament in no responsibility other than the fact that because of the Navigable Waters Protection Act it becomes necessary to get the authorization of parliament for the building of any structure across navigable waters. This involves us in no cost and no responsibility. The cost will be borne entirely by the province of Quebec, as well as the maintenance. I suggest that the house might give consent to the authorization of the construction of this bridge.


Lionel Chevrier: Mr. Speaker, I do not think there will be, and in fact I am sure there will not be any objection to this legislation. None the less, there are some things I think should be said at this time on the subject of the construction of this bridge. I hope the minister will not take issue with what I am about to say. I am in agreement with him that by virtue of section 11 of the Navigable Waters Protection Act, no approval shall be given under this part for the site or plan of any bridge over the St. Lawrence. In other words, because of the Navigable Waters Protection Act, no bridge can be built over the St. Lawrence except by authorization of special legislation. It cannot be done by virtue of the act, but it may be done by a separate bill such as is being done in this case. This was done in the case of the construction of the present Mercier bridge which links Caugh-nawaga with Ville La Salle, and was done in the case of the Victoria bridge as well as in the case of the Jacques Cartier bridge.
My main purpose in rising was to make some reference to the traffic conditions in the city of Montreal, that is the conditions separating the island from the south shore. I am sure that the Minister of Transport (Mr. Hees) and also the Minister of Public Works (Mr. Walker), who has been in his post for perhaps a lesser period of time than the Minister of Transport, are well aware of the very difficult transportation problem that exists in Montreal. They are brought about by a number of reasons. They are brought about by an increase in the population of greater Montreal. They are brought about by economic conditions. They are brought about by a tremendous development on the south

Bridges
shore that includes the whole Laprairie basin as well as along the St. Lawrence river from Montreal down to Sorel. It therefore becomes extremely important for the metropolitan area of Montreal to have adequate transportation facilities.
With that in mind I am sure the house and the minister will not begrudge my saying that when the St. Lawrence seaway was built provision was made for the construction of approaches to the Mercier bridge, the one now under construction. Provision was made for the construction of approaches to meet not one bridge, as was then in existence, but to meet a parallel bridge. While the province did, for a period of years, give the indication that they intended to build a parallel bridge to that of Mercier, nothing was done in that regard. I believe that because of the decision, about which I should like to say a word later on, to build the approaches as they were then built, that is approaches of such a nature as to permit the construction of the parallel bridge. We would not have this bridge now. Because of the approaches which were built on the south side it will not be necessary for the province of Quebec to do these now but only to link the bridge with the approaches which were constructed by the St. Lawrence seaway authority.
Here I should like to bring to the attention of the house the fact that this is a vehicular bridge which is located at the head of the Lachine rapids and was built by a private corporation. It was built by La Corporation du Pont du Lac Saint-Louis, which corporation was authorized by a special Quebec act known as 18 George V, 1928, chapter 110. The provision was made for the construction from Ville La Salle to Caugh-nawaga. At the time the Mercier bridge was constructed it was thought that the seaway channel would be on the north side of the river and provision was made in the legislation for the appropriate works to be constructed by La Corporation du Pont du Lac Saint-Louis, and the federal government gave approval to the construction of this bridge upon certain conditions. I should like to put on the record one or two of those conditions:
1.	The corporation undertakes to instal a movable span in the bridge, if and when, in the opinion of the governor in council, such action is required in the interest of navigation, the cost of installation of such movable span to accommodate deep water navigation on the proposed canal section, as well as the cost of operation and maintenance of this movable span to be borne by the owners of the bridge.
2.	The corporation further undertakes to remove, after the completion of the proposed work, all temporary constructions such as cofferdams, false works, rip raps, pile work, etc., from the bed of the river or the site of the work as the governor

in council may direct, in order that there shall be no obstruction in the way of navigation or of the flow of water or of future works.
I am sure the Minister of Public Works will realize immediately the importance of introducing conditions such as these, having regard to the Navigable Waters Protection Act itself. Then there was clause 3 which said:
3.	Should the works mentioned in clauses 1 and 2 not be carried out within the time specified in the notice of the governor in council, the latter shall have the right to perform the same and recover the cost thereof from the corporation.
4.	The corporation further undertakes to maintain at night on the work during construction the necessary lights at its own expense.
5.	The corporation further undertakes, in constructing, maintaining or operating the said bridge, not to interfere with navigation in any way avoidable in the opinion of the governor in council.
6.	It is further understood that the approval of this application shall not relieve the corporation from any liability for damage which may be caused either directly or indirectly by the said work.
The house may wonder why I put these conditions which were in the legislation on the record. I put them on the record for this purpose, and I think the house should know this. At the time the St. Lawrence seaway was under construction a decision was taken in the early years to move the channel from the north side to the south side. A legal point arose as to whether the liability of the province of Quebec to conform to the clauses which I have just mentioned was related to the south shore in the same manner as it was to the north shore.
I must say that we in the seaway authority took the position that they were liable and the government of the province of Quebec took the position that they were not liable. There were several discussions between the minister of transport at the time, members of the seaway authority and the government of the province of Quebec, through several of its departments, including the premier himself, but it was not possible to reach agreement. If the matter had been referred to the courts or had been delayed further it would not have been possible to complete the St. Lawrence seaway in the time required.
I mention that matter at this time simply so that those who are in office now, including both the Minister of Public Works and the Minister of Transport, may keep this matter in mind when there is a reckoning of accounts with the province of Quebec. As the house knows, water lots were expropriated-and properly so-under this bridge now under construction and all along the Laprairie basin to the entrance of the Jacques Cartier bridge and certainly there will be moneys owing by the federal government

to the province of Quebec. It may well be that the government will want to take these matters under consideration.
The Mercier bridge in any event was constructed in due course-I refer to the one which is now in existence-under the supervision of the Quebec commission already referred to and was initially operated as a toll bridge but the tolls were discontinued in 1942. The abolition of tolls referred to a number of bridges in the province of Quebec on which tolls were abolished under the provisions of the Quebec act which was known as 6 George VI, 1944, chapter 44, section 13.
The principal features which were mentioned in the discussions between the various departments of the province of Quebec and the seaway authority namely the department of public works which is responsible for the maintenance and operation of the bridge, the department of roads which is responsible for the highway connections, had to do with the provision by the province of Quebec of a four-lane highway on the south shore and connections from that four-lane highway to the bridge that is now under discussion.
I should like to place on record the principal features involved in the reconstruction of the southern approaches to the Mercier bridge. They were, first, the construction of a temporary diversion from pier 14 of the existing bridge to the south shore; second, the demolition of the southerly approach to the bridge from pier 14; and, finally, the reconstruction of the southerly approach to the bridge by means of a steel and concrete viaduct to provide for four-lane traffic ascending on a grade of approximately 4.5 per cent from pier 14 over the seaway channel with a clearance of 120 feet; and descending partly on a steel and concrete viaduct and partly on a fill to easterly and westerly connections with highway No. 9C in its revised location.
I do not know whether the final cost of this work has been estimated but it was substantial. I want to come back to the question of transportation facilities across the St. Lawrence river. Unquestionably the construction of this bridge is going to be of tremendous assistance. However, I am afraid that this will not be sufficient and that a great deal more will be required by way of bridges between the island of Montreal and the shores of the St. Lawrence.
There was prepared in 1957 a study of conditions of traffic over the bridges which separate Montreal from the south shore. I should like to put some of these figures on the record before I conclude. The traffic counts which were made at that time-that was in 1957-indicated that the annual daily 79951-0-330i
Bridges
average for the Jacques Cartier bridge was about 40,000 cars per day. Peak hour flows of 3,500 cars per hour had been registered almost daily while several peaks of more than
4,000	cars per hour had been counted, particularly during the summer season. As to the practical capacity of one bridge, namely the Jacques Cartier bridge, it will accommodate up to 7,500 cars per hour, especially if in the two lanes that have been added to this bridge-one by the former administration and the other by this administration-the traffic is reversible and they are used to balance the directional pattern of the traffic demand.
The Victoria bridge has had a bracket constructed on the downstream side and there is now provision for two lanes of 17 feet wide, one in each direction. These lanes will accommodate 1,800 cars per hour with no trouble. Several counts have shown a density of more than 2,000 cars per hour in one direction. The annual daily average is a little less than 20,000 cars per day.
The Mercier bridge figures which were taken at that time indicated that that facility was going through a complete change-over, following the completion of the approaches which were constructed by the St. Lawrence authority and to which I have referred. The new approaches on the south side, the traffic study reported, will guarantee capacity equivalent to that of the existing roadway. However, since the construction of a twin structure has been strongly suggested for the near future, the study was taking for granted the availability of the increased capacity of the Mercier bridge. When the two bridges, one operating in one direction and the other operating in the other direction, are in operation as twin structures, the Mercier bridge should be easily able to accommodate 4,500 cars per hour. At present the bridge has an annual daily average of about 15,000 cars and peak hour flows of 1,500 to 1,700 cars per hour. But as the study indicated at the time, that was not nearly sufficient to look after the traffic conditions in Montreal. It is true, of course, that a new bridge is under construction, namely the Champlain bridge, which also will link the island of Montreal with the south shore over Nuns' island. That bridge also will assist tremendously.
Here let me bring to the attention of the Minister of Transport, if I may, the fact that that bridge is not proceeding according to schedule. I do not want to be critical in any way but I want to raise the matter at this stage because I find that when these matters are brought up in the House of Commons the Minister of Transport generally takes cognizance of them and brings these suggestions

Bridges
to the attention of his officers. There is no doubt but that the progress of the work on the Champlain bridge is certainly not going according to schedule. It may well be that the majority of the contracts have been let, but I do think-


Mr. Speaker:: Order. I would suggest to the hon. member that he is straying a little from the principle of the bill when he deals with the progress of construction of the Champlain bridge.


David James Walker: Mr. Speaker, I would like to hear the hon. member, I think he is making a very good contrioution to the debate.


Lionel Chevrier: I thank the Minister of Public Works for his intervention and I would be the last one to quarrel with Your Honour's suggestion that I am not in order. But may I draw your attention to the fact that the Navigable Waters Protection Act provides clearly that no bridge across the St. Lawrence shall be built except by special legislation such as this, and I believe this authorizes a member of parliament to deal with all of the bridges that were constructed by virtue of legislation of this character.


Mr. Speaker:: I would not argue with that but I did think the hon. member was straying a little in dealing with the rate of progress of construction. However, the house apparently is quite content to have him proceed.


Lionel Chevrier: I am not going to take undue advantage of this kindness on the part of the other side of the house, but none the less I was just concluding my remarks on that matter. I would ask the Minister of Transport to bring this matter to the attention of his officers. I think if he does there should and will be greater progress.
Now I come back to the position of vehicular traffic across the St. Lawrence river. I make another plea here for the construction of a bridge east of the Jacques Cartier bridge. I am not going to labour it unduly because this matter was discussed during the estimates of the minister, but I would say that according to the study which was made in 1957 the construction of this bridge, which is the most westerly of the four, will certainly not look after transportation conditions adequately in so far as conditions east of the Jacques Cartier bridge are concerned.
There is, as I have said, tremendous industrial development here, much of it in steel. There are the equivalent of three large steel industries which have been developed in that area. I think the government should give careful consideration to the representations which have been made by its own members and which have been made by the

Associate Minister of National Delence (Mr. Sevigny) following a statement which I made in the house some time ago when I referred to a report on the St. Lawrence ship channel and the Montreal harbour committee in 1950, which report recommended construction of a bridge east of the Jacques Cartier bridge.
All I want to say on that is this. I think the time has come to give consideration to it now, because I know that in order to prepare plans and specifications and to get the various approvals from the province, the municipality, and so forth, time is necessary and unless it is done now and consideration is given to it at this time I doubt very much whether any progress will be made. Where it should go I am not in a position to say. I think that should be determined by a committee, as many committees are established from time to time by the government concerning railways. In fact there is one royal commission at the present time determining what location the Pine Point railway should follow. It might be advisable for the government to estabush a committee which would determine where the location of this bridge should be.
In the eyes of some people it should be at the foot of Boulevard Pie IX, adjoining it with the south shore. In the eyes of others it should be further east of that. As I say, I am not in a position to state where it should be other than to say that owing to the increasing population in Montreal, and because of this traffic study which indicates that within the next ten years there will be an increase of close to one million in population of the city, consideration must of necessity be given at once to the plans for an additional bridge in that area.
I think we on this side of the house are quite happy about the construction of this bridge. We think it is timely. We support it and we trust and hope that it will be built with the least possible delay.


Herbert Wilfred Herridge: Mr. Speaker, after listening to the quite brief but lucid explanation of the purposes of this measure given us by the minister, and the longer and very interesting speech of the hon. member for Laurier (Mr. Chevrier), who has a first-class knowledge of the situation along the St. Lawrence and the traffic requirements as a result of the very high position he held in connection with the St. Lawrence seaway, we in this group have no hesitation whatever in supporting this non-contentious measure which provides for the province of Quebec to build a bridge as a transportation facility across the St. Lawrence river to meet the increasing traffic

requirements occasioned by the developments in that province about which we are pleased to hear.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to, bill read the second time and the house went into committee thereon, Mr. Flynn in the chair.
On clause 1-Short Title.
Mr. Macdonnell:: Mr. Chairman, I ask this question purely for information and I think perhaps the hon. member for Laurier can answer it. Who paid for the original Jacques Cartier bridge?


Lionel Chevrier: The Minister of Transport perhaps knows the answer better than I, but it was paid for by the Montreal harbour commissioners, and eventually by the government of Canada.


David James Walker: Yes, the hon. member for Laurier is correct.


[Stage Direction]
Clause agreed to.
Clauses 2 to 4 inclusive agreed to.
Title agreed to.
Bill reported, read the third time and passed.


George Harris Hees: that the house go into committee on Bill No. C-72, respecting the construction by the Canadian National Railway Company of certain railway terminal facilities at and in the vicinity of the city of Toronto.
Motion agreed to and the house went into committee, Mr. Flynn in the chair.
On clause 1-Short Title.


Paul Theodore Hellyer: Just before this carries there are a few brief questions I should like to ask. Unfortunately, I was not able to be present in the committee which dealt with this matter. I wonder if the minister received any report of the discussions in that committee. As I said at the resolution stage, I think this is a very useful project as far as the life and growth of metropolitan Toronto community is concerned. There have been some problems with respect to location. I do not know whether these were discussed in the committee. Perhaps the minister could indicate whether they were.
In addition, I wonder if the minister would give us some indication of how soon this project can get under way so that we may have some idea whether it will assist in providing a limited amount of employment in Toronto in the near future.
21, 1960	5235
Railway Terminal Facilities at Toronto


George Harris Hees: As hon. members know, following second reading this bill was referred to the committee on railways, canals and telegraph lines where it was thoroughly discussed over a period of about four and a half hours with officials of the C.N.R. who were present to answer all questions.
The officials outlined the route, gave reasons for choosing it and dealt exhaustively with this whole project. I can say in answer to the hon. member for Trinity that I will be very glad to see that he gets a copy of the report of the committee. As I say, it covered about a four and a half hour period-


Lionel Chevrier: How long?


George Harris Hees: It just shows how thoroughly we go into these matters of importance, and it is right that we should. Regarding the time when this project may be started, I may say that as soon as this bill passes, as I hope it will, the C.N.R. officials will begin the preliminary work. I do not believe it will be possible to do very much extensive work requiring a large labour force this winter, though everything that can be done will be done to get work done during the winter period.


Frank Charles McGee: It is more in sorrow than in anger that I rise at this point to make a final contribution regarding this matter of the bypass line which runs for most of its length through the constituency of York-Scarbor-ough. For the information of the hon. member for Trinity, the subject of employment did come up at the committee. The question was asked, I believe by myself, and the answer was a rough estimate of 5,000 man-years as a gauge of the direct labour content of the project, to say nothing of the endless thousands of jobs created in secondary industries as a result of the large amount of material required for construction.
The committee during its hearings was left, I will not say unimpressed, but certainly unconvinced about the alternative routes which were suggested by various ratepayers whose districts are to be greatly affected by the proposed route. None of the three alternative routes commended themselves to the committee.
There was one unusual aspect. The timing of the committee was such that an opportunity was not given to me at the time to reply to the allegation of an hon. member who made certain comments. I was hoping he would be in the house tonight to hear my reply. Certainly I would like to put it on record. The suggestion made by the hon. member for York North to the effect that the objections to the proposed route in the Thornhill area were largely centred on a
5236	HOUSE OF
Railway Terminal Facilities at Toronto few large estates in a certain area is completely and utterly without foundation. The proof of that pudding is in the eating, or in the reading of the many hundreds of letters which I and other hon. members connected with the area have received from persons of modest means.
As I said, it is more in sorrow than in anger that reluctantly I accept that this route will have to pass through the sleepy village of Thornhill bringing an accompanying disturbance to that area.


[Stage Direction]
Clause agreed to.
Clause 2 agreed to
On clause 3-Competitive bids or tenders.
Paul Theodore Hellyer: I wonder if the minister could tell us if this is the usual clause including the provision that the lowest tender must not necessarily be accepted and that the management is not precluded from negotiating better prices or terms?


An hon. Member:: Oh, oh.


Paul Theodore Hellyer: None of your interjections. If you have anything to say, stand on your feet and say it. I was asking the minister if he could tell us whether this is the usual provision and, second, if this would in any circumstances permit the renegotiation of a bid or tender after tenders have been opened.


George Harris Hees: This question was asked of the vice president of Canadian National Railways and he assured the committee that this was the usual clause introduced in bills of this kind. I do not believe that renegotiation could take place under it.


[Stage Direction]
Clause agreed to.
Clauses 4 to 10 agreed to.
Title agreed to.
On the schedule.
Paul Theodore Hellyer: With respect to the schedule, which includes a number of works to be constructed, I have just two or three brief questions to ask. The first concerns grade separations. I wonder if the minister could give us any indication of how many grade separations would be required in respect to this proposed yard. That was under item 6. Second, under item 7, I should like to know,

where it refers to terminal and local stations, if this is just for freight or whether any other facilities are planned such as limited passenger facilities.


George Harris Hees: Regarding the number of grade separations, that whole matter was thoroughly discussed. I am afraid I have not got the information here as to the exact number, but it is in the evidence which was given. It is on record. Further, it is my understanding that these stations are only for handling freight.


William Arnold Peters: Will this have any effect on the union station itself and the line running from the north into the union station?


George Harris Hees: No; I am advised this will not affect operations into the union station, which are primarily for passenger traffic, and that will still be handled by the union station.


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

Lionel Chevrier: Mr. Speaker, I think it is a case of saying that we really have reached the bottom of the barrel. May I ask the house leader what he intends to do tomorrow? I see there are only two pieces of legislation left. I do not know whether he intends to take legislation or to deal with estimates alone.


Gordon Minto Churchill: The house has made very good progress and I should like to thank hon. members for their co-operation.
Perhaps tomorrow we will go on with estimates. I have to make a change from the tentative program I announced last week. We will call health and welfare, followed by northern affairs, and then continuing on through Thursday and Friday with those departments if not completed. Justice and mines and technical surveys will be resumed. These four departments are available for the next three days.


[Stage Direction]
It being five minutes after ten o'clock the house adjourned, without question put, pursuant to standing order.
[Stage Direction]
Wednesday, June 22, 1960