1960-08-08

PROCEDURE


Hon. Gordon Churchill (Minister of Trade and Commerce):: Mr. Speaker, I would ask that this motion stand until the question period is over and the report of the civil service commission concerning the House of Commons staff has been dealt with. In other words, it would be the second order of business today.
Motion stands.



AGRICULTURE


Right Hon. J. G. Diefenbaker (Prime Minister):: Mr. Speaker, with the leave of the house I should like to make a statement regarding the western farm situation, which I undertook to do some two weeks ago and have since been awaiting the opportunity to place before the house the views of the government with regard to this matter.
Might I add that, as has been stated, following my statement, certain supplementary estimates will require to be brought to the attention of the house.
On August 30, 1958 I outlined the government's views concerning the development of a national agricultural policy, and pointed out that our concept of such a policy was based on the belief that the national welfare required positive action to meet the basic causes of maladjustment in particular industries and regions. Thus while the agricultural program was designed to be national in scope, it was necessary at all times to be concerned as well with specific regional problems. These regional policies in turn are required to form an integral part of and harmonize with the ends of national policy.
I do not intend to review the policy which I outlined on that occasion nor the achievements that have since been brought about under that policy. I referred to them in general on March 4, 1960. I would simply say that in connection with the broad national aspects of our planned agricultural policy,
the government's intention is to present to parliament further instalments at a subsequent session designed to round out the program which was announced in August, 1958.
On this occasion I wish to deal with one of the regional problems in agriculture which is a matter of particular national concern. I refer to the prairie farm income problem which has arisen from revolutionary changes in technology, world wheat demand conditions and rising costs of production. Partly because of dramatic technological development, more particularly because of the tremendous stimulus given to wheat production by virtually every importing and almost every exporting country, world surpluses have been built up to colossal proportions and the consequence has been a depressing effect on world prices for wheat.
The government has searched diligently for a solution to the question of farm prices which would avoid the evils built into the programs of other countries in recent years. Our determination has been to avoid a cure which would be worse than the disease itself. We have had the benefit of the opinion, in so far as the western grain problem is concerned, of the western members supporting the government, who have continued to place before us their views and have pressed for action in accordance with the situation.
The chief proposal which western farm organizations have advanced for dealing with this problem has been the so-called deficiency payment scheme on western grains. On previous occasions I have endeavoured to show how impossible this proposal would be in relation to a sound agricultural policy, realizing at the same time the necessity of agriculture being prosperous, without which the demands of agriculture or industrial production in other parts of Canada would be greatly reduced, with consequent loss of employment in other parts of Canada.
The summary of the views in this regard is this, as I stated in March, 1960. The government has come to the conclusion that deficiency payments, however attractive at first glance, would not provide a solution to the problems facing prairie agriculture but would indeed create new problems. Deficiency payments applied to deliveries of grain would fail to help those producers most in need and if adopted would require very large subsidies from the treasury, which would

Assistance to Western Farmers inevitably lead to increased surpluses and would add further to the burden of financing the disposal of those surpluses. Such payments would tend to impede essential adjustments to changing conditions of technology and demand which are essential both to the welfare of the producers and to the health of the Canadian economy as a whole.
In other words, the proposal of a fixed support type of deficiency payment would not solve the two main problems of western agriculture, that of income variability and the problem of the small farm. Indeed, it is the considered opinion of those with whom the government has consulted that in the long run the adoption of deficiency payments would have worsened those problems. Our national policy and indeed our regional policies are based on the fundamental principle of aiding rather than impeding essential adjustments to changing conditions of technology and demand.
A measure of assistance roughly analogous to unemployment insurance in industry is economically consistent with our basic policy of ensuring sound adjustments to changing conditions.
There is no way whereby, regardless of efficiency, a guaranteed annual income can be assured. As a result, our policy has consistently emphasized measures to attack the basic problems of agriculture; measures such as export assistance, crop insurance, a vastly improved and comprehensive agricultural credit policy, rural development, conservation and the like. We believe that the basic problems of Canadian agriculture will yield only to long range solutions. Since our national agricultural policy is designed to attack the basic problems of agriculture, I have always made it clear that some time must inevitably elapse before these long range solutions can be fully implemented and before their benefits will begin to raise the standard of farm living. I indicated in August, 1958 that some measure of special assistance to western farmers was justifiable and, as the house will recall, a measure of assistance was provided at that time.
I then discussed one form of special assistance which has always appealed to the members of the Conservative party. I refer to the two-price system. The proposal has seemed to me through the years to have a strong moral justification, while avoiding the dangers of other suggested remedies which, as I said a moment ago, might be a stimulus if not an invitation to increase and further surplus production. Indeed, such remedies among others have been proven to be the chief causes of the decline in world
[Mr. Diefenbaker.f
prices from which western farmers have suffered, as have farmers in other parts of the world.
Under the two-price system for wheat, the domestic price would be above the selling price for wheat on world markets as long as world markets remained substantially depressed. This proposal has quite properly been limited to wheat used for domestic human consumption, since any attempt to impose a domestic price on wheat for feed purposes would simply destroy the market and cause feeders to use other grains or feed products as a substitute. It could not, of course, apply to wheat produced for export. That would be financially impossible.
But attractive as the two-price system is, there have always been dangers and obstacles in the way of its implementation. Those who are primarily concerned with the maintenance and expansion of Canadian markets have pointed out that the establishment of a high domestic price would leave Canada in a vulnerable position when this country requests restraint on the part of other countries which subsidize wheat production and wheat exports. It has also been argued that as long as Canada is selling wheat to domestic consumers at the same price as it is willing to sell wheat abroad, no one can criticize the basis of our participation in export markets.
In opposition to this view, some farm organizations have over the years contended that the Canadian consumer has been getting wheat too cheaply. They argue that while the Canadian wheat producer must export his wheat at world prices, even if those prices are depressed, he should at least receive a fair price for that portion of his wheat sold in the domestic market for human consumption. They point historically, and with justification, to the unique burden imposed by government policy on wheat growers during the war and post-war years, resulting in domestic and export prices far below prevailing world levels.
This government, to fulfil its national and regional responsibilities, must take all points of view into account. On the one hand it must avoid doing anything that would impair the access of Canadian wheat to world markets, for if the world markets were lost nothing, and certainly not the Canadian government, could save the western wheat economy. On the other hand, the western farmers have a case against the continuation of a system in which the price of wheat sold for domestic consumption is set by depressed world prices.
This is a dilemma which this government has searched long and diligently to resolve. At times we have felt that in this search we

have received less constructive help from some western farm spokesmen than we might have expected. But be that as it may, we have been determined all along to resolve this dilemma and to extend a justifiable measure of assistance in a form which would not cause greater difficulties than those it was intended to resolve.
We have reached the conclusion that to attain the ends sought by the two-price system, while avoiding its inherent difficulties, the best way would be to bring about this year an acreage payment similar to that instituted in 1958. The government proposes, subject to the approval of parliament, to make an acreage payment of $1 per cultivated acre, up to a maximum of 200 acres, as shown in the western farmers' wheat board permit books. On the basis of the similar payment made in 1958, this will amount to between $41 and $42 million. This is an amount roughly equal to the average of what the western farmer would get if a two-price system for wheat were put into effect.
I wish now to say a word with regard to the liaison on committee. Since the government's rejection of deficiency payments in March the liaison committee of the western farm organizations has requested' a further meeting with the government to discuss alternatives to the form of assistance they had originally requested. Immediately after they made their first request in this regard they were communicated with and asked that they put in a specific alternative in writing so that it might be studied prior to the meeting. In doing this there was in no way an abdication on the part of the government of its responsibility. It was simply giving to them an opportunity to make their representation if they had such an alternative.
The reply we received was in the form of a brief dated May 10, which went into particulars on three proposals or arguments. The brief ended with a statement that the group were prepared to discuss acreage payments. The government will continue to give consideration to action which may be taken to meet the welfare not only of the western wheat farmer but farmers elsewhere in Canada. In so far as the former are concerned, we will meet with the liaison committee. I think it will be desirable that the three ministers from the western provinces meet with them. If desired I will join them to meet this committee so that its views may be secured in addition to any that were expressed in the brief to which I have made reference.
In concluding, I simply want to say that this proposal I have just presented will, I believe,
Assistance to Western Farmers bring about a measure of justifiable assistance this year to western growers. At the same time it will avoid doing anything that would impair the access of Canadian wheat to world markets or impede the necessary adjustments in the wheat economy resulting from the causes mentioned earlier. This is not a hand-out in any sense of the word. We hope this measure will not only provide some assistance in meeting a difficult regional problem but also, within the context of our national policy, a basis for a stronger economy in Canada.


Hon. Paul Martin (Essex East):: Mr. Speaker, it has not been easy to follow the words of the Prime Minister. Obviously he was embarrassed by the delay attending the announcement which he has made today. He sought to defend himself by a series of words which cannot be described other than to say they were understandably tortuous.
The Prime Minister is dealing with a matter today which will be discussed, of course, in considerable detail when the item on which it is based is presented to the house, but in view of the character of the announcement and its belated nature the Prime Minister, I know, will be among the first to expect me to say a word or two.


John George Diefenbaker: I anticipated that.


Paul Joseph James Martin: The Prime Minister says this is the first opportunity he has had to make this announcement. Of course the Prime Minister forgets easily-I know he does not forget intentionally-but a whole series of questions were addressed to him and to the Minister of Agriculture during the course of this session, all with the intention of trying to elicit from the government some reaction to the representations which were made by 1,000 western farmers over a year and a half ago. The announcement of today had its genesis in that mass movement of western farmers, who were met with a refusal by the government to accept their proposal for deficiency payments. The Prime Minister must be aware that in the brief presented at that time there were three other proposals of an alternative kind about which the government has made no comment whatsoever.
Since that time the Minister of Agriculture has stated on several occasions that the government's action was predicated on the submission by the western liaison committee of proposals which the government would consider; and having considered them, then an announcement would be made by the government, but not until the farmers of western

Assistance to Western Farmers Canada themselves had formulated a policy would this government itself decide on which policy it should embark.
This announced program of acreage assistance of $1 an acre up to a maximum of 200 acres, bringing the total cost to the federal treasury somewhere between $40 million and $41 million, as the Prime Minister noted, is precisely the same as the plan announced in 1958, but not pursued in 1959 by the government. The Prime Minister referred to the submissions made by the western liaison committee on May 10, and he said that in those submissions they had proposed acreage payments. It is significant that in the same submissions not only did they put forward that as an alternative plan, but they also requested an opportunity to meet with the Prime Minister and his cabinet colleagues to discuss the question at the Prime Minister's early convenience.
That was on May 10, and on August 8, 1960, the western liaison committee has not yet been given an opportunity to meet the government to present the requests made on May 10. It is no wonder that farm leaders all over western Canada, as we now know from the records of this house, have expressed their dissatisfaction with the government for refusing to meet with them to discuss alternative proposals. What we have today is not what the people of Canada were led to believe in 1957 the farmers would receive. This is not in line with the Prime Minister's declaration "Parity, not charity"; this is a policy of stand-off and hand-out, and there can be no denial of that fact.
I am sure the hon. member for Rosthern, who so courageously spoke up against the refusal of the government to live up to its election promises, will join with the many thousands of farmers in western Canada in protesting at the meagreness and insufficiency of this particular program. These farmers will remember the words of the Prime Minister when he said, "We will assure the farmer of his fair share of the national income by maintaining a flexible"-I underline the word "flexible"-"price support program to ensure parity for agricultural products based on a price-cost relationship". This program does not deal with the elimination of the cost squeeze. The Prime Minister today acknowledged the rise in the farmers' production costs.
This statement is made in the face of the fact that net farm income for 1959 is below that of 1958. This statement is made in the face of the fact that western farmers, as indeed all farmers in Canada, do not recognize in government policy, in government delays, in government procrastination, the realization of the assurances they were given.


The Prime Minister seeks to clothe this regrettable state of affairs with a so-called over-all policy. He says that further aspects of this policy will be discussed at the next session of parliament. He interlarded what he had to say by mentioning the fact that the government brought in crop insurance, forgetting of course that only one section of one province in Canada has thus far taken advantage of the federal plan.


An hon. Member:: That is their fault.


Mr. Marlin (Essex Easl):: That is the fault
of the inadequacy of the government's program on crop insurance; that is the result of the government's failure to face-


Mr. Fleming (Eglinlon):: What about your 22 years of delay and no crop insurance plan at all?


Mr. Speaker:: Order. I would ask hon. members not to depart into the area of crop insurance, which was not the subject of this statement.


Peter Francis Martin: With respect I did not depart into that area; it was part of the Prime Minister's speech. He himself referred to crop insurance; that was part of the so-called grand plan of attack by the government to meet economic conditions-


Mr. Keays:: And they are being met.


Peter Francis Martin: My hon. friend says they are being met. I am sure when my hon. friend goes back-


Mr. Speaker:: Order. If the hon. member will permit me, I would ask the hon. members not to interrupt the hon. member who has the floor. This is not a debate. This matter will be dealt with on the supplementary estimates when they come forward. The hon. member for Essex East is making a statement in connection with a statement made by the Prime Minister.


Peter Francis Martin: I was going to say, before you properly intervened, Mr. Speaker, that when the hon. gentleman gets back to his constituency he will see whether or not the farmers of Canada agree with his statement that these promises are being met by the policies of the government.


Mr. Speaker:: Order. I hope the hon. member who has the floor will not be diverted by the interruptions which I have asked hon. members not to make.


Peter Francis Martin: 
Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh.


Mr. Speaker:: Order. I hope the hon. member will confine himself to more noncontentious comments which he could make at this time.


Paul Joseph James Martin: I do not see why I should.


Mr. Speaker:: If the hon. member will permit me, I will tell him why he should. He should do so for the simple reason that he has the floor to comment on an announcement preliminary to the submission to the house of estimates, at which time the matter can be debated fully. The hon. member has had some latitude, of course, because the statement contained argument back and forth. If the hon. member wishes to conform to the appropriate practices of this parliament, he will keep away from the partisan approach to a discussion of this subject.


Paul Joseph James Martin: Well, Mr. Speaker, I would ask you to think of the remarks of the Prime Minister. If we want to determine whose remarks were partisan all we have to do is bear in mind that the Prime Minister, in seeking to justify this undue delay, in seeking to justify the inadequacy of this policy, introduced partisan remarks, and it was because of that-


Mr. Speaker:: Order. I followed the Prime Minister's statement carefully, and while he introduced arguments pro and con I did not hear him referring to party contentions such as the hon. member seems to be putting forth.


Paul Joseph James Martin: I accept your view, Mr. Speaker. You will understand, when I feel this way, how the farmers are going to feel.


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh.


Peter Francis Martin: Mr. Speaker, we have an announcement from the Prime Minister that is not based on any precise formula. This policy announced by the Prime Minister will hardly be discernible from direct relief. It is not the kind of policy that the hon. gentleman promised to the farmers, and it is certainly not the kind of policy that will satisfy the farmers who have waited for a year and a half for an announcement from this government. Instead of bringing forth a really constructive program, the government has brought forward a policy that will enable all hon. gentlemen to say to their constituents, "Well, we did something". However, there will always be the judgment, that "you did not do very much".


Mr. Harold E. Winch (Vancouver East):: Mr. Speaker, I rise to speak on the policy announced by the Prime Minister as the deputy to the deputy of the house leader of this group. I fully realize that the hon. member for Assiniboia (Mr. Argue), unavoidably absent in the circumstances-


An hon. Member:: Unavoidably?


Harold Edward Winch: -would expect me to make some comment on the wheat situation and the policy as announced by the government. So, Mr. Speaker, I find myself in the position of having to join with my hon. friend from Essex East (Mr. Martin) -


Mr. Jorgenson:: A fate worse than death.


Harold Edward Winch: -in speaking as a gentleman farmer. I have always maintained that although one is elected by a constituency, he is responsible for having a knowledge and understanding of his province and his country, so I hope that what I have to say will be accepted as the view of this group on the important announcement that has just been made by the Prime Minister.
The Prime Minister in opening his remarks told us that on August 28, 1958 the government's views on agricultural policy were made known. They were made known, sir, yes; but it was our understanding and, I think, the farmers' understanding that the government policy was one of parity, and so far we have not parity in agriculture. It is not until August 8 of this year that we have a further announcement by the Prime Minister on aid to agriculture, particularly regarding those whom we might classify as the western farmers.

Assistance to Western Farmers
I want to make clear right at the outset, sir, that any new policy or additional policy that is going to be of assistance to the farmers has the wholehearted support of this group. But it does not go far enough. That is an old term, but it has to be repeated time after time.
The Prime Minister spent a considerable amount of time, and perhaps understandably so, explaining to the house this afternoon why his government has put aside the idea of deficiency payments in favour of the proposal which is now before us, of $1 an acre payment with a maximum of $200. In view of the fact that the Prime Minister spent some time on that, we in this group would like to make our position known in commenting on the statement of the Prime Minister.
The farmers' case, Mr. Speaker, for deficiency payments is based on the fact that not only has the price of grain not increased, but in fact it has decreased since the end of the last world war. But in the meantime, sir, the cost of production has gone up, I understand by approximately 51 per cent. So to use -and I have no hesitation in using it-the phrase of the hon. member for Assiniboia, the farmer is caught in a price-cost squeeze.
As outlined by the Prime Minister, there are two ways of handling this, either to reduce the cost of production or to increase the price of the farmers' products. The Prime Minister has made it clear that there is no method which they have yet devised-and I rather think he stressed this-of being able to hold down the ever-increasing cost of agricultural production. It is because of this that the farmers have decided that a constructive alternative is to ask for an increase in prices through the medium of deficiency payments.
The Prime Minister has made it clear this afternoon that he has not only decided, but he is defending his government's policy of a $1 an acre payment, with a $200 maximum. He feels that is a better policy than deficiency payments. But, sir, a $1 an acre payment as suggested by the Prime Minister does very little to overcome the price-cost squeeze. Although he denied it-and I noticed that he denied it very emphatically-it still amounts to nothing more or less than a hand out or a relief measure.


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh.


Harold Edward Winch: The Prime Minister emphasized, again, in his statement, and I am sticking strictly, Mr. Speaker, to the statement of the Prime Minister-


An hon. Member:: Nonsense.


Harold Edward Winch: I am saying that I am sticking very strictly to the Prime Minister's statement. If you did not listen, you are the one who is nonsensical, not me. I noticed that the Prime Minister emphasized aid to small farmers. He not only said it once; I think he said it three times. Two hundred dollars, in relation to a farmer's total expense and cost of living is, of course, most welcome; nevertheless it is a trivial sum, because a small farmer with less than 200 acres receives less than $200.
We say, Mr. Speaker, that the Prime Minister and his government, by failing, as they have thus far, to control the farmers' cost of production are partially responsible for the present difficulties of the farmers. We say that by making deficiency payments, by establishing that policy, the government would be discharging its responsibility to the farmer to a greater measure than by the policy now outlined, because deficiency payments mean in effect an increase in the prices of wheat, oats and barley. They mean an increase to at least provide partial compensation for the increase in the cost of production. We say it is the major policy necessary to ensure the survival of the wheat industry, which is so important to the economy of our nation, and in particular to the economy of three of our western provinces.


Mr. Speakman:: What about the livestock industry?


Mr. Speaker:: Before the hon. member proceeds, I must remind him that he is making only a preliminary statement. The time taken up to now in comment has exceeded the time taken for the original statement. I hope he will let us get on with the business of the house and reserve anything else he has to say until this matter comes before the house for debate.


Harold Edward Winch: Great minds think alike, sir; I was coming to my last sentence. I was just going to say in conclusion on the preliminary statement that the C.C.F., in view of the Prime Minister's statements and arguments, affirms its support of the farmers' cause for an increase in the price of wheat, oats and barley to compensate for the increase in the last 15 years in the cost of production, by supporting deficiency payments.



SUPPLEMENTARY ESTIMATES (3), 1960-61

[Stage Direction]
A message from His Excellency the Administrator transmitting further supplementary estimates for the financial year ending March 31, 1961, was presented by Hon. Donald M. Fleming (Minister of Finance), read by Mr. Speaker to the house, and referred to the committee of supply.


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Hon. L. B. Pearson (Leader of Ihe Opposition):: Mr. Speaker, I would like to ask the Secretary of State for External Affairs if he can make any report to the house on the situation in the Congo, or on that at the United Nations concerning the Congo?


Hon. Howard C. Green (Secretary of State for External Affairs):: Mr. Speaker, I am informed that the secretary general has reported to the security council on the implementation of the council's resolutions of July 14 and July 22, with particular reference to their application in the province of Katanga. Last week Dr. Bunche, with appropriate United Nations staff, travelled to that province to make arrangements for the peaceful entry of United Nations troops, planned for August 6. After consulting with the appropriate authorities in the province, Dr. Bunche returned to Leopoldville on August 6 to report to the secretary general.
Dr. Bunche recommended a halt in the Katanga operations of the United Nations because of the unyielding opposition of Premier Tshombe to the coming of United Nations troops and because of repeated warnings that they would be opposed by force. There was evidence that there would be opposition to the United Nations entry, which all along had been assumed to be a peaceful operation, consistent with the governing principles of the force which the secretary general had clearly stated.
Mr. Hammarskjold has now restated the United Nations position as follows. The force is not entitled to take such military initiative and action as, in view of what has now been made clear, would be necessary for an implementation of the security council decisions. The secretary general has now asked for instructions from the security council and for such decisions as the council may find appropriate in order to achieve its aims.
In this report he has stated that the aims of the resolutions cannot be achieved by the use of the United Nations force, as its mandate has been defined; that if the council wishes to maintain its objectives it must either change the character of the force, which to the secretary general appears impossible both for constitutional reasons and in view of the commitment to the contributing governments, or resort to other methods which would enable the secretary general to carry through the implementation without going beyond his instructions as regards the force.
The secretary general has made clear that the difficulty which the council faces in 79951-0-489
Inquiries of the Ministry Katanga does not have its root in the attitude of the Belgian government, which acquiesced in the security council decisions. Nor, it seems, is the problem one of a wish of the authorities of the province of Katanga too secede from the republic of Congo.
The secretary general states that the problem for those resisting the United Nations force in Katanga is that they consider United Nations participation in the control of security in the province would seriously jeopardize their possibility of working for other constitutional solutions than a strictly Unitarian one, that is, some kind of federal structure providing for a higher degree of provincial self government. The secretary general clearly regards this as an internal political problem to which the United Nations as an organization obviously cannot be a party. He asserts that the entry of the force into Katanga would not mean any taking of sides in the conflict, nor any shifting of political weights. He believes that all this can be avoided if the United Nations firmly maintains its aim and acts with clarity and tact. He has suggested that the security council may wish to clarify its views on the matter and to lay down such rules for the United Nations operation as would serve to separate effectively questions of a peaceful and democratic development in the constitutional field from any questions relating to the presence of the United Nations force.
This is the problem which the secretary general has laid before the security council and which it is considering at the present moment. The situation remains extremely delicate, and is rendered more complicated by demands for direct action by those whose interest in the Congo may not coincide with the aims of the United Nations.


Lester Bowles Pearson: May I ask a supplementary question. Are reports accurate that the Soviet representative to the United Nations has questioned the propriety of Canada sending a contingent to this force?


Howard Charles Green: Yes, Mr. Speaker; there has been some meddling in this regard. I am informed that on August 6 the Soviet representative in New York left a memorandum with the United Nations secretary general which argued that because Canada is a member of the NATO alliance, the despatch of Canadian troops to the Congo would be nothing else than assistance to an aggressor on the part of its military allies. This was described as a gross contradiction of the security council resolutions and, therefore, the Soviet union objected to the dispatch of Canadian troops.
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Of course this Soviet charge is completely groundless. The government's decision to provide a Canadian contingent for the United Nations force was in direct response to a request for assistance by the secretary general, who has the responsibility for implementing the security council resolutions. Similar requests have been addressed to many other members of the United Nations, including other members of NATO.
Canada's firm support for the United Nations efforts to maintain peace is in no way inconsistent with our membership in NATO. If other members of the United Nations have differing views in this regard, it is their business to make them known to the secretary general. There has been no formal Soviet approach to the Canadian government concerning this matter, and there has been no change in the Canadian policy of sending this contingent to the Congo.



DISARMAMENT


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Paul Joseph James Martin: I should like to ask the Secretary of State for External Affairs if, notwithstanding the announced intention of the Soviet union to boycott the disarmament commission meeting on the 15th it is still the intention that this meeting should take place. Further, I should like to know whether Canada will be represented at that meeting by our representative on the 10-power commission, General Burns.


Howard Charles Green: The final decision has not yet been announced by the secretary general, but so far as we know the meeting will be taking place on August 15. It is not yet certain, either, who will represent Canada.



CANADIAN NATIONAL STEAMSHIPS


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. Hubert Badanai (Fort William):: Mr. Speaker, I have a question for the Minister of Transport. My question is in two parts: (a) Did the government receive payment for the eight ships sold to the Cuban government in 1958? (b) In view of the fact that seven of these vessels are still in port at Halifax, has the government given any consideration to the repurchase of these ships to rebuild the Canadian merchant marine?


Hon. George H. Hees (Minister of Transport):: Mr. Speaker, this is a repetition of a similar question which has been asked from


time to time over the past two or three years. As the hon. member, I feel sure, well knows, these ships were sold by Canadian National (West Indies) Steamships to the Cuban government, I believe it was, or to their agents. Payment has been guaranteed by the Bank of America; the payments are being made on schedule and in the full amount each year as they fall due by the Bank of America to the Canadian National Railway Company. The Canadian National (West Indies) Steamships does not own the ships any longer. Any controversy is between the agents for the Cuban government and the Cuban government itself.
I think the other point the hon. member has mentioned has been discussed thoroughly on many occasions, and made very clear to the house.


Hubert Badanai: Would the minister answer the second part of my question, as to whether the government has given any consideration to the repurchase of these ships to rebuild the Canadian merchant marine?


George Harris Hees: No, Mr. Speaker, and I know also that the former government did not, because as I remember it, between 1945 and the time they went out of office the Canadian merchant marine went down from about 300 ships to something like 20.



PUBLIC SERVICE


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. Azellus Denis (St. Denis):: Mr. Speaker, may I direct a question to the Postmaster General. Is the minister aware of the statement by Mr. J. E. Roberts, general secretary of the Canadian postal employees association, to the effect that actions of the government over the past two years on salaries were more unreasonable than any taken by postal organizations?


Mr. Speaker:: Order. I remember the hon. member raised a question on salaries the other day. This is not the time to debate the matter, which I mention because the hon. member's question seemed to me to be preliminary to a debate.


Azellus Denis: It is an answer to the statement made by the Postmaster General.


Mr. Speaker:: The hon. member's privilege is to ask questions, not answer them.



POSTAL EMPLOYEES-REQUEST FOR LONGER HOURS FOR CASUAL WORKERS

[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Azellus Denis: May I
address a question to the Postmaster General? While considering salary increases for postal employees, as the hon. gentleman promised to do within a month, will the minister also consider the advisability of increasing the number of working hours of casual employees, who at the present time are limited to four working hours a day and who consequently earn less than $1,500 a year?


Hon. W. M. Hamilton (Postmaster General):: The present arrangement is very satisfactory.
(Translation):



NATIONAL DEFENCE


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. Yvon Dupuis (St. Jean-Iberville-Napier-ville):: Mr. Speaker, I should like to ask the Associate Minister of National Defence (Mr. Sevigny) a question in connection with the statement he made last Friday that a provincial charter would be required to extend by two years the course given at College Militaire Royal de Saint-Jean. Could the minister tell this house whether he has applied to the provincial government for such a charter?


Hon. Pierre Sevigny (Associate Minister of National Defence):: Mr. Speaker, I stated the other day in my remarks in this house that if, at some time, the course now being given at St. Jean were to be extended by two years, it would then most probably be necessary to obtain a charter from the provincial government of Quebec, in order to establish that this course of senior studies would lead to university entrance. As I explained in the house, the question of extending the course is under consideration, but no decision has yet been reached about it. As I say, the utmost consideration is being given to the matter.


Yvon Dupuis: Mr. Speaker, may I ask a supplementary question? Does the Associate Minister of National Defence propose to consider the matter for as long as one does in a classical course, before determining that two additional years of tuition should be provided at College Militaire Royal de Saint-Jean?
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(Text):



FINANCE


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. Frank Howard (Skeena):: I wonder if I may ask the Minister of Finance what effect these various supplementary estimates will have on the balance of his budget?


Mr. Speaker:: Order.



POST OFFICE DEPARTMENT


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Azellus Denis: May I ask
a question of the Postmaster General. Is the minister aware of the existence in the United Kingdom of complicated and tireless robots called Alf and Elsie, which will take over the task of handling and sorting the mail, as reported in the Globe and Mail this morning? If so, will he comment on that report?


Mr. Speaker:: As I understand it, the question relates to postal practices in England.


Azellus Denis: It is a report about postal work being done by employees named Alf and Elsie, whether these are electrical machines or not.


Mr. Speaker:: I am sure that Alf and Elsie are not the responsibility of the Postmaster General for Canada. However, if the minister is willing to reply-


William McLean Hamilton: I may say that a long time before the hon. member for St. Denis became aware of this development-in fact, more than two years ago-I and my officials were in London and watched the development and operation of these machines. A trial model of this device is now being readied for test in reference to its application to Canadian postal needs. I might also add that this was announced in the house about a year ago, and also during the discussion of the estimates, but apparently the hon. member is not aware of that.


Azellus Denis: Well, at that time the Postmaster General did not give us enough details.


Mr. Speaker:: Order. Perhaps a machine of that type would help me sort out some of these questions.

Procedure Committee HOUSE OF COMMONS



MOTION FOR CONCURRENCE IN CIVIL SERVICE REPORT

Donald Methuen Fleming: That the report of the civil service commission, comprising certain recommendations relating to the staff of the house, laid upon the table Thursday, July 14, 1960, be now approved.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to.


Gordon Minto Churchill: That the report of the special committee appointed to consider with Mr. Speaker the procedure in this house, presented Monday, July 25, 1960, be concurred in.
He said: I do not propose to speak at any great length with regard to this motion. Nevertheless, hon. members may wish to give attention to it because of the importance of the rules and procedure of the House of Commons.
I would point out at the outset that the proposals put forward are on a trial basis, suggested for use at the next session and effective only for that particular session, the fourth of the twenty fourth parliament. If the proposals are accepted now and tried out at the next session and found acceptable in practice, then of course the house may decide to incorporate them into the rules as a permanent feature.
The second reason for not dealing at great length with this particular subject is that the committee in its report is suggesting that a similar committee be set up early next session to carry on the studies which have already been started by the present committee, and to include the procedure on private bills of divorce, which the committee has been asked to consider and is willing to consider in so far as the problem is capable of procedural solution.
So we have before us the report of a committee on procedure which indicate that on this important subject there was no time for the committee to consider every phase of the rules and procedure of the house and bring in a complete report.
This follows the practice of other years. A committee which reported in 1955 was engaged in its activities of reviewing the rules for, I think, four sessions. To make an intensive study of the present rules of the house is something that cannot foe done in a few meetings; it must be spread over a considerable period of time. The committee

therefore is suggesting that a similar committee be established at the next session, and I hope it will be early enough in the next session for it to make a complete investigation. The rules of the House of Commons have been established over many years of trial and error, and are not lightly to be altered. However, as time goes on conditions change and it becomes apparent that some of the rules of the house might be altered in order to make it possible for members to deal more expeditiously with the business that comes before us.
It is interesting to review what has happened in former years with regard to alterations of the rules. In 1927 the rules of the house were changed in order to limit the time for speeches which prior to that were unlimited. The 40-minute rule for speeches was introduced following the session of 1927.
We had a number of changes in the rules suggested in 1955, and they have been operative up to the present. Some weaknesses in those changes have become apparent during the last few sessions, and to correct those or to suggest alternatives the committee has put forward certain proposals. These proposals may be carefully examined now, and of course it is open to hon. members to make other suggestions. In summary, the proposals are as follows.
The first proposal is to shorten the debate on the address in reply to the speech from the throne by two days. The rules now provide for 10 days, and the committee suggests that this be reduced to eight. The committee also proposes with respect to speeches during the course of that debate, with the exception of those by the Prime Minister, the Leader of the Opposition and the mover of an amendment or a subamendment, other hon. members participating in the debate shall have 30 minutes available to them rather than the present 40 minutes. This is done so that with a reduction of two days in the over-all length of the debate there will still be an opportunity for as many hon. members to participate as is done normally when 10 days are available and 40 minutes per member.
The second proposal is somewhat similar and deals with the budget debate, which under the present rules has an over-all length of eight days. The suggestion put before us in the second proposal is that we shorten it by two days, to six in all, and that the same restriction be applicable that is applicable to the throne speech debate, with 30 minutes being given each hon. member who participates except the Prime Minister, the Leader of the Opposition, the Minister of Finance, the hon. member speaking on behalf of the opposition following the budget

address, and the mover of a subamendment who will be given 40 minutes. Those two proposals indicate that from the fixed debates which the present rules permit, four days would be taken off.
The third proposal is somewhat different. Under the present rules, after the address in reply to the speech from the throne is concluded the two next Thursdays are provided as private members' days, and the six Mondays succeeding the conclusion of the debate I have mentioned, unless those Mondays are interrupted by provision for supply motions. The result is that for a period of perhaps 10 or 11 weeks, on Monday and sometimes Thursday there is no opportunity to bring forward government business either by way of setting up committees or introducing legislation.
The suggestion now made is that some flexibility be permitted with regard to those private members' Mondays and Thursdays. The explanatory note in the report of the committee with respect to this proposal reads as follows:
In order to provide more time for government business in the early stage of the next session, the foregoing proposal provides machinery whereby private members' days may be deferred when so requested by a minister of the crown. No reduction is being proposed in the number of days now provided for private members' business.
The deferment amounts briefly to this. If in the opinion of the government, on one of the Mondays that would normally be a private members' day there is an opportunity to bring forward government business, that Monday be deferred for a week or two. The same applies to Thursday. The proposed change in the rules as to deferment is set out clearly but it is important to note that the two Thursdays and the six Mondays are retained so there is no reduction in the over-all time now provided under the rules for private members to bring various matters to the attention of the house.
The fourth proposal is quite simple. It suggests an alteration in standing order No. 15, which refers to the hour from five to six o'clock p.m. on Tuesdays and Fridays. The standing order now reads:
Private and public bills, the former having precedence.
The alteration would permit public bills to precede private bills on Friday. The result would be that on Tuesday the first item in the period from five to o'clock would be private bills and on Friday the order would be reversed and public bills would come in advance of private bills. We have found this year that this would have been helpful, in that certain public bills have either been brought forward by unanimous consent of
Procedure Committee
the house or perhaps have not come to the attention of the house. It appears to be rather more equitable to alternate those on Tuesdays and Fridays.
Those are the four proposals which have been put forward by your committee, Mr. Speaker, consisting of representatives of all three parties in the house. I might add that the committee's report is unanimous. The committee met on several occasions and of course would have continued its work had it thought it possible to do more than this in the course of this session, but having made a start the committee would like to see a similar committee appointed next year.
What can be accomplished by revision of the rules is open to serious consideration and, naturally, to question. Whether or not sessions can be reduced in length is something that a committee on rules must look into very carefully. Over the years innumerable suggestions have been made in this connection, but committees sitting on the question of rules and procedures have found it is not easy to determine the length of any session.
A few years ago I was interested in this subject, and took as a starting point the changes made in the rules in 1927. I put forward the proposition that if prior to 1927 hon. members were permitted to speak for an unlimited period of time-two hours, five hours, seven hours-and after 1927 they were restricted to speeches of 40 minutes, therefore it must follow that the sessions from 1927 on were greatly reduced in length from those that preceded 1927. But I did not find that to be the case from my study of the sessions from 1900 to 1955.
I found that one of the longest sessions in Canada's history, perhaps exceeded by the session of 1956 and possibly also by this session, was, I think, the session of 1903 or 1904, when the house met early in March and prorogued late in November. If you look at Hansard for that period you will find hon. members complaining about the lengthy speeches, the use of Hansard, understandably and normally protesting about being away from their families and constituencies for a great length of time, the farmers complaining about missing seed-time and harvest and sitting in Ottawa through a hot summer. Therefore what we are going through this year is perhaps no different from what has happened in the past. I just bring this forward to illustrate that it is an easy generalization to say that things can be changed by an alteration in the rules. It does not necessarily follow.
By way of conclusion, and to give some information to the house in case hon. members want to touch on these matters, up to Saturday, which was the 143rd day of this

Procedure Committee
session, the debates which are either fixed by the rules or which were allotted because of special circumstances took up 44 days. They are divided in this way. The speech from the throne, including the opening day and the day taken up by the mover and the seconder, took 12 days; the budget debate, eight days; the external affairs debate, which was requested, three days; one day on commonwealth relations; six private members' Mondays; three private members' Thursdays, because an extra day was given there on request. There were five supply motions introduced, each taking two days; then recently another supply motion, which took part of a day, so that 11 days were devoted to supply motions, making a total of 44.
On supply itself, we have had 10 days on supplementary estimates, of which two were taken for agriculture and eight for labour. This was earlier in the session. Three days were taken on interim supply. Estimates of the departments which we have been considering recently have taken the greater part of 38 days, giving a total of 51 days for supply and consideration of estimates. The government business on legislation has had the remainder of the time, amounting to 48 days.
I bring this report of the committee to the attention of the house, repeating that it is unanimous; that it is on a trial basis and is suggested for the next session of the house, at which time we hope that another committee will continue a more intensive study of the rules in order to suit the house to the convenience of hon. members without restricting in any way the freedom of speech on which this institution lives and thrives.
It matters not how much we may desire various changes, I think we have to keep in mind that freedom of discussion is essential in a democracy, and restrictions that are imposed should be only such as are agreed on among members so that freedom remains; because if we do not have freedom of speech in this chamber, I am afraid that we could not maintain democracy as we know it.


Mr. G. J. Mcllrailh (Ottawa West):: Mr. Speaker, as one who had the opportunity of serving on this select committee which was appointed to consider with Mr. Speaker the procedure of this house for the purpose of suggesting any changes which may be desired to assure the more expeditious dispatch of public business, I feel it appropriate that I take a moment of the time of the house to indicate some views on this report.
First of all, I should like to make it clear that as far as I am concerned it was a very pleasant committee to have the opportunity of serving on. That was due, perhaps,

to the method of having the committee do its work. It was a small committee, and that makes a committee work much more efficiently, in my view, and is a much better arrangement all around. Of course, I acknowledge at once the method of chairing the committee, and I must say that I found the guiding of the committee most efficiently performed. Then there is another matter of great significance. The committee met in camera, and certainly in discussing technical matters of this sort it is a more satisfactory method than meeting in public.
The committee report itself is, I think it is fair to say, very simple. It puts forward suggestions for the approval of this house for changes to be tried at the next session only. The house can then decide after the trial whether they should be continued or otherwise. I emphasize the fact that the recommended changes are for one session only.
The first proposals, perhaps, do not have very great significance, because they provide for the participation of the same number of members as under existing rules in the throne speech and the budget debates. While it is true that the time is reduced by one-quarter-the time allotted to each member is reduced from 40 minutes to 30 minutes- that perhaps is not any hardship, because these are formal debates and there is an opportunity for preparing speeches. It should result, at least I hope it results, in better preparation of the speeches. I would hope that the next session will reveal that the 30-minute speeches well prepared contain more than the 40-minutes speeches less well prepared.
I do feel that a word should be said about proposal No. 3. It seems to me there is a criticism of the conduct of the business of the house that could be validly made, and it has been made many times during this session; namely that the government business was not brought forward and presented to the house early enough in the session to permit a thorough discussion of it, and the motions to set up committees were not brought forward early enough in the session to permit the committees to start their work immediately after the throne speech had been disposed of. Some committees were set up very late in the session. To the criticism of this the government has from time to time made the reply that the government had no opportunity to bring forward those motions earlier in the session; that the time allotted to the government in the early part of the session is so limited that they do not risk bringing forward those less urgent matters such as motions to set up committees. Invariably, it seems to me, in the last number of years, going back to most of the post-war years, at the start of each session there had been some legislation

that appeared to be of a very urgent nature; the government had to present it in the day or two each week allotted to the government, and they did not feel that it was proper to use that time to present to the house certain motions to set up committees and that sort of thing because they had no way of knowing how long the debates on those motions would take, and indeed they might have to wait another week or so, as the case might be, before proceeding with their legislation.
As far as I am concerned, I think there has been some validity in the criticism made of the government about its lateness in presenting legislation and in setting up committees. There has been the answer that they have been able to give at least in the early weeks in the session, in the first two months after the throne speech, that a disproportionate part of the time at that stage of the session was taken up by private members days. Well, this proposal is put forward in an effort to meet that problem. I think now the government will have an opportunity, immediately the throne speech has been disposed of and it has its vote of confidence, to present its program of legislation to the house so the bills may be given first reading. Then they will be in the possession of hon. members for examination for some time before they come on for debate on second reading. The committees will be set up early in the session, and they can start their work. I feel that is a wholly desirable thing, and I think it-


John George Diefenbaker: I do not want to interrupt, but would the hon. gentleman allow a question?


Mr.   Mc@: Yes.


John George Diefenbaker: The hon. gentleman has given a great deal of study to this matter, and is recognized for that study. I should like to ask him what the situation is, if he can tell the house without having to look up the details, in the United Kingdom. What has their experience been?


Mr.   Mc@: Yes, I shall briefly outline that experience. I do not hold myself out as an authority; in fact I am quite frank to tell you that I am not an authority. If I may just continue my remarks before answering that question, I would say that it seems to me this proposal is worthy of the greatest attention. It will mean that at the next session the government will either have to present the motion to set up the committees and present its program to the house at an early stage in the session, or leave itself open to the criticism of the opposition for not having done so. I believe that is a wholly desirable position from the point of view of both the government and the opposition,
Procedure Committee
and one that should commend itself to the house. I believe this is the most important of all the proposals put forward by the committee.
In so far as the United Kingdom committees are concerned, my understanding of the situation is that the number of members serving on each of their committees is very much smaller than ours. This is the main characteristic. One of the other characteristics is that the committees very frequently meet in camera, and they do not publish their evidence from day to day. The evidence is frequently published and presented with their report, and that is the first time the evidence is made public. These are the three pronounced distinctions, as I understand them, between the committees of the House of Commons in the two countries.
It is not, perhaps, germane to this report because the report does not deal with it, but there is another situation in so far as our committees are concerned, and that is the very large number of members serving on each of the standing committees. I have always felt that should be changed and the number should be reduced, so that instead of having one member serving on a great number of committees there would be greater selectivity and a member would only serve on a small number of committees. Some of our standing committees have as many as 60 members, and it seems to me that is wholly unreasonable. This number represents almost one quarter of the total membership of the house. In my experience I have never observed anything that led me to the opinion that this contributed to the efficiency of the committees, but rather it has another effect altogether.
Since the Prime Minister has raised the matter, perhaps I might add one other thing. It seems to me the great multiplicity of committees we have sitting has tended toward members moving from one committee to another without following one as closely as that member would wish. This is a very real problem, a practical problem, that should be borne in mind. However, I did not intend to digress into the committee question. I merely wanted to deal with the other matter, the expectation of the house that the government would, when these new rules are in operation, provide for the setting up of the committees at the start of the session.


John George Diefenbaker: Would the hon. gentleman say what is the course followed in the United Kingdom with regard to the setting up of committees? Has he that information available without having to look it up?

Procedure Committee


George James McIlraith: I cannot give the Prime Minister a proper and full answer to that question.
It is regrettable that there was not sufficient opportunity to go into a great many other changes in the rules that might have been considered. So far as I am concerned, as a member of the committee, it was wholly proper that we should have contented ourselves with those things to which we thought we could give sufficient attention to bring forward proposals to the house at this session, rather than trying to cover the whole rule book.
There is, of course, one thing that is well for all members to bear in mind in considering these matters, and that is that the mere setting of the rules does not govern the whole procedure of the house. There is the matter of the conduct of the government in the timing of the introduction of legislation, the sequence of legislation, the allocation of days of debate, and all that sort of thing. As I see it, this aspect of the matter cannot be fully covered by the rules, nor would it be proper to do so. There is a whole area that, correctly, must be the responsibility of the government in submitting its business to the house. The government must stand or fall on its record of how it has carried out its responsibilities in this respect. It would be quite wrong, in my view, to attempt to spell out all these details in the book of rules. I hope that in the years that lie ahead the house will never do that.
There is the recommendation that a similar committee be appointed early in the next session. I hope the Prime Minister will give an undertaking to set up such committee very early in the next session.


Harold Edward Winch: Mr. Speaker, the report of the special committee appointed to consider the procedure of the House of Commons is undoubtedly a very important piece of business, and it is now before us. However, in view of the fact that the recommendations are very concise, the explanations are very clear, and it is a unanimous report which, if accepted, will be on a trial basis for a period of one year, I do not intend to speak at any length at this time. My personal views, Mr. Speaker, can best be put forward in the manner in which I have expressed them on previous occasions.
We in this group view the House of Commons as 265 representatives of the people elected to a board of directors, a board which by the will of the people expressed in a democratic election has the responsibility and the right of policy-making for the nation, of making, rescinding or changing laws, imposing taxation and spending the people's [Mr. Diefenbaker.l
money. For these great purposes the parliamentary system has been devised. I have no hesitation in saying, as I have said many times outside this house, that in my estimation the parliamentary institution is the greatest instrument ever devised by man for solving man's problems and for carrying out the will of the majority of the people of the nation.
Because of its responsibility as an institution and the responsibility of those who are elected to carry out the purposes I have just mentioned, it is of the utmost importance that the rules, regulations and procedure be such that every member has the fullest guarantee of the right to participate in all business of the House of Commons; that every member, irrespective of party, government, opposition, or third party like ourselves, or an independent, has full freedom, right and protection in this regard.
However, Mr. Speaker, having said that I would also add that in the necessity of parliament at all times fighting for the maintenance of the rights and freedoms and the exercise of parliamentary authority, at the same time there must be a recognition that an individual must exercise a personal restraint. There must not be the possibility or permissibility of reducing the dignity, decorum, efficiency and purpose of parliament into a state of licence or a mockery. In other words, what I am trying to say is that for the maintenance of the function of parliament, for the guarantee of all rights to all members of parliament, if there cannot be personal restraint then we must have rules, regulations and standing orders in order to maintain the efficiency, dignity and decorum of parliament itself.
Perhaps, Mr. Speaker, I have been as guilty as anybody else, and that is the reason I can speak this way. I think that very, very often speeches that should be made in 30 minutes take 40 minutes. Points that could be made in 10 minutes sometimes take 30 minutes, and perhaps many of us are guilty of that. Also, I am very much afraid that very often cabinet ministers take two or three hours and could do a damned sight better job in one hour.


An hon. Member:: Twenty minutes.


Harold Edward Winch: However I am convinced that the unanimous recommendation of this committee, suggesting that we give a trial to a reduction of two days in the throne speech debate and two days in the budget debate, with the majority of speeches down from 40 minutes to 30 minutes, is one that is well worth while. I have no hesitation in saying I am almost certain that we can all come within those limitations; at least we will find out at the next session.

But I do think some of the changes recommended are of the utmost importance, changes that will give a greater guarantee of the appointment of committees at an earlier time of the session, the introduction of government business at an earlier time of the session, an opportunity of carrying out the people's business as it is seen from the government's point of view. Whether you like it or not, that is the point of view we have to start with, because they have the power. That will be adding to the greater efficiency of parliament itself.
Therefore, sir, I repeat that on the basis of the recommendation of the trial period, it is well worth while, and we should have the opportunity of seeing whether or not this can increase our efficiency without in any way restricting of rights of members of parliament. We should adopt this report and proceed next session as recommended.
Of course, sir, I do want to add a word on the last section of the report:
It is therefore recommended that a similar committee he appointed early in the next session to carry on these studies including the procedure on private bills of divorce which the committee has been asked and is willing to consider in so far as the problem is capable of procedural solution.
This, Mr. Speaker, is a most important and worth-while recommendation. Over the years many of us have been worried about the procedure of parliament, both in this house and the other place, whereby both have to sit as a court and handle divorce proceedings from two provinces. Of course, sir, a solution has got to be found, or consideration given not just to procedural matters but to the entire question of the divorce laws of this country, to modernizing them and getting away from the antiquated divorce laws with which our country is cursed.
However, sir, the procedural committee has not the authority to deal with that phase. At this session the insanity of the present procedure has been made obvious. Two members, the hon. member for Skeena (Mr. Howard) and the hon. member for Timis-kaming (Mr. Peters), have I think done a service to this country in focusing attention on the antiquity and insanity of our present procedure. Perhaps nothing can be done at this session, but I want to commend the committee that has been dealing with the standing orders and parliamentary procedure in that they have unanimously recommended to this house that the committee be reconvened early next session, when it will consider not only the many other matters of importance concerning the business of this house, but will give consideration to divorce procedure as well.
I am convinced, sir, that if this recommendation is accepted we can look forward 79951-0-490
Procedure Committee
next year to real consideration being given by all members of that committee to a most serious and complicated problem. I know they will eventually come up-I hope unan-inously-with a recommendation that will meet with the approbation of the House of Commons and of the other place, so as to remove this iniquitous problem from within the purview of the other place and the House of Commons.
Therefore, sir, in conclusion I say that we believe it is quite conceivable, and most possible, that the acceptance of the report now before us by this committee of a trial period next year, with the further consideration of these and other matters by the early reappointment of the committee, can only prove of benefit to this house, and gives an indication right now of the seriousness with which all members view their responsibility as to the integrity, the decorum and the efficiency of parliament.


Mr. Frank McGee (York-Scarborough):: Mr. Speaker, I should like to begin by confirming and agreeing with the remarks of the hon. member for Ottawa West concerning the chairmanship of the committee and the rather unique manner in which our meetings were conducted, I suspect out of lack of other times during the day, within the lunch or dinner hour. It certainly seemed to me a most appropriate way to proceed.
I am going to have to watch the clock very carefully, Mr. Speaker. I propose to say something about the virtues of a 15-minute speech, and I think it would be most inappropriate if, after making what I hope is a case for such a proposition, I should go beyond that period.
I noticed with considerable interest that the Minister of Trade and Commerce, when introducing the debate on this subject, stated that one of the overriding considerations in reducing the number of days of debate on the address in reply to the speech from the throne was that it was felt the same number of members would participate as has been the case in previous years. I had the figures looked up of the number of speakers who participated in the throne speech debate over the last few years, and I would like to put these figures on record. They are as follows:
1951 (1st session)	 83
1951	(2nd session)	 110
1952		 75
1952-	53	
1211953-	54	
1101955	
1171956	
1091957-58	
891958	
1361959	
921960	
81
Procedure Committee
This averages out over the period to approximately 102 members a year.
One of the suggestions I would like to put on the record at this time for the future consideration of the committee, both with regard to the speech from the throne and the budget debate, is that a certain number of days during those debates be set aside for 15-minute speeches. I have done some very rough arithmetic, and if, say, three of the eight days were restricted to 15-minute speeches, at least 100 and at most about 195 members could participate in the throne speech debate, and a proportionately less number could participate in the budget debate. I think that is a very important and a very desirable end in itself.
I would also like to see portions of other debates allocated on the same basis. We could take, out of a two-day supply motion, two or three hours and restrict contributions at that stage of the debate to 15-minute speeches. This could also apply to certain of the private members' days, and I think would contribute toward more effective debate. I also think that in restricting the length of a speech it might produce the result that there would be more of what is described as the cut and thrust of debate, with a larger number of members interested in the development of the theme of the debate.
I have in this connection examined various debates held in the British House of Commons, and I have found that one speaker will bring forward a point, the speaker following him will knock it down, the next speaker will support the first speaker and prop it up again, and so the battle goes on back and forth like a ball in a tennis match, resulting in both interesting reading and I am sure very good listening as well.
It is a fact, Mr. Speaker, that a 15-minute speech or a short speech is a far more difficult speech to prepare, and I would suggest rather more difficult to deliver effectively. I think the greatest merit in a 15-minute speech as far as most subjects are concerned is that you end up by rejecting certain points and selecting only salient points which you wish to include in your speech, instead of making a 40-minute or even longer speech covering everything even remotely connected with your subject. I think the very selection of your material to include into a short speech inevitably makes it more pointed and better.
I have had discussions with newspapermen and particularly with columnists who have small space to fill each day in their paper, and to a man they all agree that it is far more difficult to write a short column. I was always greatly impressed by some columnists who could fill a long column in a newspaper every day and yet keep it interesting. I have

found, as I have said, that this presents no real challenge, that it is not difficult to keep talking but is sometimes very difficult to stop talking. And as I say, Mr. Speaker, I am keeping a very close watch on my time at this moment.
There are occasions under the English procedure where speechs are limited to ten minutes; but I would like to leave that with the committee as one of my suggestions. I think it would contribute to wider participation and should be adopted on some future occasion on a trial basis. I also think this parliament and this government, with its extended use of committees, has demonstrated that there can be more effective contribution made by the backbenchers, and this has been shown in my view to be beyond any doubt. I think certain periods of days, three in the throne speech debate and possibly two in the budget debate, limited to 15-minute speeches would produce much more effective speeches and wider and more effective contributions.
The last point I would like to make before resuming my seat is to suggest that notices of motions or resolutions be given a better break in the scheme of things than they have hitherto. Very early in the session the resolutions disappear from the order paper and there is no further opportunity to debate them, though some of them are very provocative items indeed. I suggest that one hour a month, alternatively on Tuesdays and Fridays, be devoted to a continuation of the discussion of these notices of motions and resolutions.
Mr. Speaker, I think that brings me fairly close to a 15-minute speech, so I will resume my seat at this point.


Mr. John Drysdale (Burnaby-Richmond):: Mr. Speaker, having in mind the remarks of the hon. member who has just preceded me, I shall also endeavour to keep my remarks fairly short. I think basically the object of the report which is before the House of Commons is to keep in mind the fact that usually the listener tires much more quickly than the speaker does. I notice in the report that it is indicated that this is a temporary report, or at least that the recommendations on procedure be adopted on a trial basis effective only for the next session of parliament.
Recently I read in the newspapers, and no doubt, Mr. Speaker, you have too, that there is a possibility of a fall session. Having this newspaper speculation in mind, I suggest that this would be the time to give serious consideration to the temporary measures you have suggested, and further to give effect to the suggestion that the seats in the House of Commons be removed, as is done at the end of each session, and be replaced if we

have a fall session, with benches in an effort to try out the practice adopted in the United Kingdom house.
I feel that the only way we can get a change in the rules is to create a psychological impact and also to have a change in environment, and I think this would be perhaps one of the most effective ways of doing it. Having benches replace the present seats would not put speakers like myself sitting off at the side at a bolted desk. You would also have a tendency to shorter speeches limited to notes which could be held in the hand or contributed from memory.
In addition, this would put speakers much closer to the Hansard reporter, where they could congregate together. I feel I am at a considerable disadvantage because of my position in the house when I want to raise an objection. All the front benchers on both sides of the house are fairly close to the Hansard reporter and are able to get in what at times are very damaging remarks. That is why I feel that a person like myself off at the side is to a certain extent discriminated against. Although some interjections are of the humorous kind, some of the hon. members over on the side near the Hansard reporter can interject some remark which I do not hear and therefore cannot reply to, yet it is reported and appears in the printed publication, whereas I would have replied had I heard it.
I also feel that having the seats replaced with benches would have the effect of making the criss-cross of debate much more rapid. This will have the effect of making crisscross debate much more accurate and more rapid. As a new member of parliament I find that perhaps the most interesting part of parliament is the question period, and when visitors come here I advise them to attend during the question period because that is the time when there is a fast exchange of ideas and when the proceedings are more akin to a debate of the type one might expect.
Speaking again as a new member, if I had any advice to give to others coming into parliament I would say that with respect to the rules there are only two basic things you need to know. If you wish to get on your feet and talk, regardless of the subject matter under discussion, the first thing to learn to say is: "Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order". Then you stand up and make whatever observation you desire to make. The speaker then draws to your attention the fact that the point of order you raised is really not a point of order and that it does not concern the matter which is before the house. Nevertheless, you have succeeded in getting in your interjection. The other alternative is to say: "Mr. Speaker, I 79951-0-490i
Procedure Committee
rise on a question of privilege." That stops everything. You stand up to deal with your question of privilege and you preface it by a few remarks. Then, ultimately, you come to the question of privilege itself. Since I have been in this house one of the things which has impressed me is the number of times a point of order has been ruled not to be a point of order and a question of privilege not to be a question of privilege. I realize that this is perhaps one of the most difficult problems facing the occupant of the speaker's chair, because by the time the ruling is made whatever has been said is already on the record. But this does underline the importance of knowing the rules and of a healthy discipline among members of parliament themselves.
On this whole matter of a knowledge of the rules-and here again I can only speak as a new member-we are given a basic idea of what the rules are by our parties and then we are handed a large edition of Beauchesne. After that we take our seats in the House of Commons. I feel that serious consideration should be given to setting up a nonpartisan instruction committee on the rules of the house, because it has struck me that on a great many occasions more time has been spent here in discussing the rules, and the effect that can be given to them, than the business itself.
Another suggestion which we might consider is that all members of parliament should sit for an examination at the end of which they must receive a mark of at least 50 per cent. In the province of British Columbia even our drivers have to pass a test as to their ability before they are allowed on the road, but a member of parliament can be turned loose on one of the most expensive roads in the country, metaphorically speaking, without anyone knowing whether he is familiar with any of the rules. In answer to a question which was asked in the house, as reported in Hansard on July 1, 1955, it was estimated that it cost $5,070,235 a session to run parliament. That works out at a cost of something like $17,377 per day and when we consider that a session can be prolonged by a misunderstanding of the rules I think the proposal I have put forward is not too much to suggest, namely that this committee should be set up so that not only is the Speaker aware of the rules but that hon. members may have an understanding of them as well.
If I may make one word of criticism, it is this: I think the older members of parliament who should be setting the standards for the new members have been among the worst offenders in incurring reprimands on

Procedure Committee
questions of order. I think they should take a close look at their own practices and attempt to set a standard which other members such as myself could imitate. I feel that no matter how we try to improve the rules a tremendous amount must depend on the self-discipline of individuals, and we new members of parliament look to the senior members to set the standard. By raising points of order which are not points of order and questions of privilege which are ruled not to be questions of privilege I suggest they are doing a great deal of damage. I understand that it was said of the late Mr. Arthur Meighen that never during his career did he have to be ruled out of order by the speaker.
Another suggestion I have to make is that a loose leaf rule book be prepared containing every rule likely to be encountered printed on a separate page with a comment on the origin and purpose of the particular rule. I suggest, also, that the Speaker's rulings as reported in Votes and Proceedings should also be put in loose leaf form and made available and then each member could have before him up to date rules together with the latest rulings so that he would not be at a disadvantage compared with those who were a little more careful in trying to get some background information.
There are one or two other matters I should like to raise in connection with saving the time of parliament and the first concerns the question of an electrical system of recording votes. I raised this question as a grievance on February 10, 1959 because it seems to me it is a considerable waste of time to spend almost half an hour in getting a vote. I think I would still be in favour of having the first vote of a session a standing vote but I believe that subsequent votes should be recorded by the use of an electronic system. I became interested in this matter through an article in the Christian Science Monitor dealing with the use of such machines in Connecticut and the likelihood of their introduction into the state of Massachusetts. Having read that article I thought that perhaps this would be the solution to our own problem and I wrote to the International Roll-Call Corporation. In reply, I received the following letter dated June 20, 1959. It reads:
Thank you for your letter of May 29. We are enclosing literature.
Thirty two of the 33 electrical roll call systems In use in our legislatures are our machines, and the other is a copy. Our latest model is in 15 of these assemblies. The largest, in Hartford, Connecticut, is the size you require: a 300 member machine with 279 actual members.
[Mr. Drysdale.l
Possibly you or a committee could see this machine in Hartford. We also have a 40-member demonstrator, that we can send by truck to interested legislatures.
The Connecticut machine was installed under a rental and maintenance contract, for $35,000 on the first year, and $10,000 and $15,000. We cannot give exact figures without inspecting the building. The Connecticut contract has a purchase option in it for $175,000 less rentals paid, which was not exercised. Such purchase options seldom are exercised, because in a field as small as this rental with company maintenance seems to be the best arrangement. If such an option was carried in your contract it would no doubt exceed $200,000, and it could make it difficult to get the legislation through. We think a straight rental and maintenance contract is the easiest to have adopted, and the best for both parties, unless there is some specific reason demanding purchase.
The machine in Connecticut records the vote on a perforated card, in triplicate, in 10 to 15 seconds. Any number of duplicate records also can be made. The indicator boards can be kept illuminated or dark while the vote is recorded. Some states display the totals continuously while the members are voting, with the latest totals appearing every six to ten seconds depending on size of the machine. No state ever has given up electrical voting after having once used it.
I was very fortunate in obtaining the co-operation of this company, which has its main office in Richmond, Virginia, in having them send up the demonstrator unit to allow hon. members of parliament and others interested in the procedure to see the machine work at first hand. I received some criticism from some hon. members about the fact that this machine is manufactured by a United States firm. I should like to draw to the attention of the house the fact that these machines are rather unusual. This was the only company I knew of in the United States that manufactured these machines and I do not believe any companies in Canada make such units although I believe it would be possible to have one made here.
I noticed the reference of the Minister of Finance (Mr. Fleming) to his having seen a similar machine in India. I was advised by the people who make this machine that the one in use in India was based on their unit. The people from India came to view their machine and upon returning to India designed a similar one for their own use. I have put forward this information about the machine with the thought in mind that should it be favourably considered by parliament it could be decided to have a Canadian company design and make such a machine.
With regard to the House of Commons itself I would envisage the tabulator boards being placed on the panels above the clocks bn each side of the house. It would be necessary to have the 265 names on the board. At each desk there would be a toggle type switch similar to a light switch which would record a yea and nay vote.

One of the first questions I had asked me was what is to prevent a person sitting in the seat beside you from reaching over and recording a vote. I suggest that we would have to do what was done in various state legislatures, pass legislation making it an offence to do that. There would also be the check of the board being visible with lights in red or white indicating a yea or nay vote. Each person would be in a position when a vote was recorded to see whether or not an hon. member was in his seat.
One other advantage of this particular type of machine is that there is a switch which calls for page service. This is accomplished by having a board with numbers corresponding to the various seats in the chamber with a light for each seat. The panel could be located in the lobby. By pressing a switch any hon. member requiring a page could have a page come silently to his desk without the usual finger snapping that is necessary to bring a page to us under our present system.
As I said the machine can register a vote in some 15 to 30 seconds. It think it would be of particular value in the committee stage of the proceedings, for example on a bill such as the bill of rights when the hon. member for Essex East (Mr. Martin) introduced innumerable amendments. There would be a considerable saving of time through the use of a machine that could handle a vote in 10 or 15 seconds rather than the three or four minutes required by a standing vote. It would enable us to bring in more amendments and dispose of them much more quickly.
One rather humorous aspect in connection with the machine that was drawn to my attention is that the machine is put in operation in the various state legislatures by the speaker of the legislature activating a switch which rings a gong. I was advised that in the state of Maryland which is noted for its horse racing whenever the gong rings the majority of the people in the legislature immediately shout "They're off!" which lends a humorous note to the proceedings.
I have attempted in my comments with respect to the procedure to draw to the attention of the house my own views as a relatively new member of parliament. I realize that I have not had the experience of many years here and there may be readily discernible faults in some of the remarks I have made. I appreciate the necessity for old age, maturity and experience in examining certain matters but a new member coming to this house has an opportunity to examine the procedures and ask why this or that is
Procedure Committee
being done, or why there is a necessity lor continuing this or that practice.
One matter that has come to my attention is this. I observe that under rule No. 28 I would have to remove my hat, if I were wearing one, before I could rise to address you, Mr. Speaker. I realize that in the early days because of drafts in the chamber hon. members might well have worn hats while in the house and this was perhaps a necessary rule but in this enlightened period of air conditioning and central heating such a rule remains as a humourous anachronism. That is an example of a rule that should be changed.


Paul Joseph James Martin: Is that the rule about the right of wearing one's hat?


John Andrew W. Drysdale: Yes.


Paul Joseph James Martin: Let us not destroy that tradition.


John Andrew W. Drysdale: My friend the hon. member for Essex East seems worried about the situation. Perhaps in consideration of the hon. member's sensibilities we should keep our hats on.


Lester Bowles Pearson: Mr. Speaker, it is interesting
and perhaps not inappropriate that we should be discussing this report designed to improve our procedures on the 144th day of our session after Hansard has broken all records in the number of pages that have been filled. As has been said by other hon. members it is a useful report, one unanimously brought in by the committee and I hope it will win the unanimous support of the house.
Our rules and procedures are designed for many purposes, to minister to the efficiency and the order of our business, to make parliament function as effectively as is possible and also-and this is an important purpose
to protect the rights of the minority in the house as well as to facilitate the business of the house.
In the 1956-57 issue of the Queen's Quarterly, volume LXIII, there were some very interesting articles on parliamentary procedure including one by Your Honour which I should like to quote but perhaps I should not. There was also one by a man who over the years in this house established himself as a recognized expert on our rules and procedures, Mr. Stanley Knowles. Mr. Knowles had this to say:
It is-important, as Bourinot puts it, "to protect a minority and restrain the improvidence or tyranny of a majority,-to enable every member to express his opinion-to give abundant opportunity for the consideration of every measure, and to prevent any legislative action being taken upon sudden impulse."

Procedure Committee
That concludes the quotation from Bouri-not. Mr. Knowles went on to say:
That is the problem that faces anyone who would seek to improve our parliamentary procedure: to maintain a balance between getting the business of the country done and protecting the rights of those who have been chosen by the citizens of the country to speak for them in relation to that business.
It is the reconciliation that Mr. Knowles talks about we are all anxious to achieve. This report makes some recommendations which I think will be useful to that end. It seems to me the changes are very sensible ones as far as they go but perhaps something more far-reaching is required not only in connection with our rules but in connection with our conduct of business if we are to make our parliamentary procedures work more efficiently as we all want to do as parliament faces new, more difficult and increasingly complicated problems. 1 believe we all want to do that without destroying or weakening the traditions of parliament which are our heritage and which we wish to preserve, especially the spirit of those traditions.
When parliament does not operate effectively that leads to the loss of public confidence in and public respect for our parliamentary institutions. This erosion, if you like, of confidence and prestige is, 1 submit, a greater danger to our institutions than direct assault upon them. The feeling -and there seems to be a growing feeling although it goes up and down; at the moment it seems to be going up-that we are not doing our work efficiently; that as an institution we are not meeting in the most effective way the problems that confront us; that our parliamentary business is not well managed. All this does undoubtedly lead to that deterioration of public confidence in parliament which we all, whatever party we may belong to, wish to avoid. We all have our share of responsibility for this. I think the government has the major share of responsibility because it has, up to a point at least, control of business and organization, but we all certainly do have our share. Also the rules under which we operate share in that responsibility, and that is why it is wise from time to time that we should look at them, as we have done this session.
As the Minister of Trade and Commerce (Mr. Churchill) pointed out, in 1955 an examination was made of the procedure of the house, which had not been seriously altered since 1880, although changes have been made since then. The minister pointed out that another change was made in 1927, which was the first time that a time limit was placed on speeches.

In 1955 the government of that day had hoped to make more far reaching proposals for change than were in fact submitted to parliament but there was difficulty, as some hon. members who sat on that committee will recall, in getting unanimous agreement to those changes, and it was felt then that the government should not use its majority to force those changes any more than the government has attempted to use its majority for that purpose in the work of this particular committee. In 1955 I think it can be said that only relatively minor changes were made. The changes that we have before us are, while useful, perhaps not of major importance in altering our procedures and our rules.
The Prime Minister (Mr. Diefenbaker) made a statement on this matter on July 21, on which he anticipated some of the provisions of this report and made some comments on some of the recommendations. He mentioned that in his view we were spending too much time on questions. I do not want to be unfair to him; perhaps he would say on the wrong kind of questions. I have what he said in Hansard on that date. He said that the extra time which was now devoted to questions, although he did not precisely define, because it is difficult indeed to precisely define, what he meant by "extra"-extra from what, but the extra time-the Prime Minister thought had added 14 to 17 days to the present session at that date. I would be interested to ascertain from the Prime Minister the nature of his mathematical calculations which he got from the extra time devoted to questions at this session to total 14 to 17 extra days. Perhaps our question period has begun to exceed the length of previous years, although I am not so sure of that, but I would not think that it had reached any excess, at least to that extent.
I agree there is something to be said-and I speak as a member of the opposition; the opposition are always very sensitive and jealous of their right to ask questions on anything, always subject to the Speaker's guidance; my hon. friends opposite will know what I mean when I say that-for the British practice of putting a limit on the kind of questions that can be asked orally. I welcome the announcement that there is to be a committee next session and I repeat what has been said on this side. It is our hope that that committee can be set up early and that it can be given lots of time and lots of opportunity to go into this whole thing from its foundation and return what will be the kind of unanimous report which we have before us.
Perhaps this is one of the things that they can look into when they go into procedure,

If our questions are becoming too long, so are some of our answers. A long question sometimes produces a short answer and a short question sometimes produces a long answer. While the opposition may have to accept its share of responsibility for this, and we do, the government must also share some of the responsibility by giving answers to questions which on this side do not appear as spontaneous as ours, and answers to questions which are used for the purpose of enunciating government policy sometimes and matters of policy. The Prime Minister will forgive me if I refer to the question the other day on the automobile industry which brought the announcement that a royal commission was going to be set up. Now, our question period may be deteriorating in other respects than length of time, and perhaps we all have some responsibility for that. This is something I am sure which the committee, on which all parties will be represented, would be glad to look into.
When the Prime Minister indicated that in his view this deterioration in some respects was taking place in the question period I looked up the record and I found that a couple of days after the Prime Minister's statement, on July 27 and 28, there were 12 questions from government members of parliament and only 13 from the opposition. I hasten to add that that is not a normal situation. But questions do come from all sides of the house and we all bear our share of the responsibility for the length of questions, if they should be carried on at an inordinate length.
The Prime Minister also made the statement, as reported at page 6673 of Hansard, that we should be careful about complaining too much about being overworked, the length of the session and that kind of thing. I agree with that. I suppose that parliaments from 1867 on have got themselves at one time or another into a position where they complained about overwork, managing the session, the length of speeches, and all the rest of it, sitting into the hot weather and not getting home; but the Prime Minister supported that statement by saying that they had much longer sittings in the United Kingdom where each session, he told us, was approximately 200 parliamentary days. I was surprised at that and perhaps the Prime Minister may not have meant to use that figure.


John George Diefenbaker: Two periods of 75 days
each.


Lester Bowles Pearson: I will quote what the Prime Minister said:
In so far as the United Kingdom is concerned, that parliament sits in each session for approximately 200 parliamentary days.
Procedure Committee
This may well be our longest session. I do not think we have reached the record yet. We have sat only 144 days and if those two figures are right, we certainly have no cause for complaint. I checked the record again and I found that in 1959 the United Kingdom parliament sat for only 142 days, and so far this year it has sat for only 116 days. But in any event, I think we can learn a good deal from United Kingdom procedures. We have in the past, and I think we can in the future. While we do not wish to copy everything that is done by Westminster, they have had a great deal of experience and we can adopt some of their changes in recent years to our own situation. Perhaps we can make some progress in that direction.
Surely what is required is that without abandoning or weakening our traditional practices and procedures we could strive to improve and recast them, if necessary, in the interests of the efficient organization of the business of parliament, and for that the cooperation of everybody in the House of Commons is required. Above all in this respect, and this has been mentioned previously in this discussion, it is of primary importance to plan the work of the House of Commons and to organize that work, if possible by agreement, the kind of agreement which is now customary. Like so many things that are customary in the United Kingdom, it is almost more effective than if it were written. In the United Kingdom, the time to be allocated to important features of legislation is worked out in an informal way, of course with the knowledge and consent of the Speaker who, I believe, can overrule these informal agreements if he so wishes. Perhaps this would be worth looking into, as a way in which we could improve our procedure for the conduct of debates in this house.
Then, of course, a good deal has been said, and a good deal should be said, about the use of committees, committees not merely for partisan witchhunting on either side, committees not merely to get the government out of difficulties or to assist the opposition in creating difficulties for the government, but committees which would take some of the burden off the House of Commons as a whole without prejudicing or preventing in any way the full participation of all members in the House of Commons itself. We could gain something by a further look at the United Kingdom practice in this regard. The Prime Minister asked a question a few moments ago about the United Kingdom committees, and it is my impression that certainly some of the standing committees are set up at the beginning of the session. It

Procedure Committee
is surely important that we try to do that in this House of Commons. If our rules and procedures make that now impossible, and I know there are some difficulties in that regard under our present rules, we could change those rules for that particular purpose to get our committees started early. We could take all the necessary steps to change our rules to make that possible.
Then there is something else-in fact, there are a great many other things which I am not going to mention-and I mention this with some diffidence as it would be a great break with tradition. Perhaps before I come to that I should express my most hearty agreement with the suggestions that have just been made about improving our voting facilities. I do not see why it is any reflection on the democratic process if we are recorded in one way or in another way, provided we are recorded. There are ways of doing this, whether you stand and are counted or whether you are counted without standing, and so long as the principle of an individual record is maintained I would hope we could reduce the 10 or 15 minutes required for that purpose.
I believe there will be agreement that over recent years there has been an assimilation, if that is the right word, of the debate at the resolution stage of the bill to that of second reading which was never meant to take place and which, in earlier days, I do not think did take place. There is a historic reason for the resolution stage of any bill involving public expenditures and it goes back to the 17th century when the crown had control of the purse. This was a way of ensuring that control would come under common scrutiny. This particular justification for the resolution stage in the debate no longer exists. There are other justifications, but if we are to maintain these two stages I think we should look into the process of debate in each stage, and at least examine into the possibility of having merely one debate instead of two. Perhaps this would be going too far, but at least it could be examined. I will conclude, Mr. Speaker, merely by expressing my support for those changes that are suggested, and my strong support for a further, perhaps more complete examination of our rules and procedures by a committee next year than this committee was able to give for reasons which had nothing to do with the competence of the committee and certainly nothing to do with the competence of the chairman. Tribute has already been paid to him, and I think tribute should be paid to the committee as well. We who believe in parliament, we who love parliament, and that includes us all, whether we are on the government side or
tMr. Pearson.]
on the opposition side, are all concerned with making parliament the most effective agency possible for meeting the problems which are facing it now and will face it in the future. We have had some very good illustrations of this problem of the importance of organization at the procedural level in this session. If we do that, we can not only make our work here more effective but we can strengthen the prestige and the good name of parliamentary institutions themselves.


Mr. J. E. Pascoe (Moose Jaw-Lake Centre):: As a new member I hesitate to take part in this debate on this motion regarding the rules of the house. I have only one comment to make at this time, and that is with regard to the growing practice of members who are speaking to continue their remarks even when Mr. Speaker has risen to call order. I mention no particular member, but I can see a few offenders in this regard. The chief offender is not present. I should like to suggest to the committee on procedure which will be set up next session that a recommendation be made to the effect that when you rise, Mr. Speaker, the Hansard reporter immediately cease to report the words of the person speaking. I believe this would end many of the comments which now appear on Hansard after you have called order.
I hope that this suggestion will be considered by the next committee on rules and procedures. I might say that the present practice of continuing to speak after Mr. Speaker has risen has been drawn to my attention with very caustic comments by visitors in the gallery.


Mr. Arnold Peters (Timiskaming):: Mr. Speaker, I have waited to make my remarks on this report until most of the members who may wish to speak on other parts of the report have spoken. I want to refer to only one paragraph near the end of the report, and I hope to confine my remarks to that paragraph. The report of the committee includes this paragraph:
It is therefore recommended that a similar committee be appointed early in the next session to carry on these studies including the procedure on private bills of divorce which the committee has been asked and is willing to consider in so far as the problem is capable of procedural solution.
We are very pleased that the committee had the courage and took the opportunity of making this recommendation. It seems to me that after its consideration the committee will find that very little is to be gained from considering the matter from its procedural aspects.
However, this was necessary. It is necessary for parliament itself to admit that there is a problem in handling divorces in parliament,



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[Stage Direction]
and I am sure that when it examines the situation the committee will come up with the recommendation that a larger committee has to be established which will take in the other house as well as this house in the deliberation as to what will be the final solution regarding this matter of divorce.
We concur in the report in so far as they are willing to discuss this matter and to give consideration to the procedure. I hope, and I am sure, that they will not come up with only a solution of eliminating the opportunity of debate on private bills of divorce, but will come up with a solution that will say that private bills of divorce are not the same type of bills as other private bills sponsored through parliament.
This problem of handling divorce in parliament is not unique to Canada. The same problems have arisen in Europe. They have been predominant in the British parliament, and it is not many years ago that the matter was debated there and conclusions arrived at, when they eliminated some of the problems as they affected the senior parliament in England.
I would recommend to those who are interested in the changes that have been made in England that they read a small novel written by A. P. Herbert called "Holy Deadlock". He wrote this small book, which is a take-off on divorce procedures in that country. It points out the amusing situations that people in Canada get into when they try to get a divorce. I think members would not only be amused in reading this; they would also come to the conclusion that the British people came to, that it was not enough to make a mockery of parliament, but that something had to be done about it. He was subsequently elected to parliament and the divorce laws they have now were introduced.
This problem has also been a problem in all the commonwealth countries. Australia has done something about it in the last two years. New Zealand has given consideration to the problem. It has been discussed in Canada over the years, and we can go back to the years of J. S. Woodsworth when he discussed this matter in the House of Commons. He was shocked with the things that were happening then in relation to divorce. He continuously pestered the government of the day, and Mr. King finally said, "If you will get the province of Ontario to petition us, we will be glad to set up a court in that province". I think public opinion, and probably not Mr. Woodsworth, was responsible for the petition being presented, and subsequently divorce courts were established in the province of Ontario.
Mr. Pallet!: Mr. Speaker, would the hon. member indicate the year of this petition to which he refers?
Procedure Committee
William Arnold Peters: The petition was presented, I believe, in 1928 and 1929, and the divorce courts in the province of Ontario were set up in 1930.
The debates in parliament indicate that this was a very pertinent matter in 1928. Mr. Coldwell, Mr. Knowles and other members of the C.C.F. party, as well as many other members of parliament, have over the years spoken of the problems, the disgusting problem that faces parliament when it has to discuss these things on which it has to pass judgment, things they are not completely fimiliar with and that in the main they do not want to have anything to do with.
Mr. Speaker, when I was first elected to the House of Commons the first experience I had in knowing that we were going to have to discuss and have some consideration for legal matters was the Terry case. In that case, as I remember it, the hon. member for Timmins (Mr. Martin) and I were both shocked with the fact that the woman in that case, if the divorce was granted, could be under the laws of the province of Quebec-[DOT] over which we had no authority-left completely destitute, although it was pointed out that she had put a large sum of money into a company and this company over the years had developed into something worth while.
Mr. Speaker, we spoke on that particular case long enough that it did not pass parliament. It returned to the Senate the next year, and they did not see fit to pass it for the second time. It was reintroduced, I believe, this year and no consideration was given to it.
A divorce is granted in parliament in quite a simple way. People from those provinces who have not the right of redress in their own provinces can come to the federal government, because the British North America Act gives the federal government the right to rule on marriage and divorce. They can come to parliament and petition for relief for any reason they wish. The one that most of them appeal on is relief from a marriage to the other party.
This year 609 applications were made to the Senate divorce committee. Each one cost $210 for the application. This amounted to $127,890. Of these, 492 cases were heard and passed; seven were turned down for lack of evidence as to adultery; 15 were withdrawn; 95 were not ready to be heard at the current session; 12 were contested before the Senate committee.
The Senate committee operates in a manner similar to a court. They have rules which they set for themselves and they have decided on what grounds the divorce action will be accepted. They are composed of a central committee, with three subcommittees, each

Procedure Committee
having three members. So it is not very difficult to ascertain how much time is taken up in the Senate on the matter of handling divorce actions.
The House of Commons, on the other hand, gives consideration to these bills in the form of first and second reading. They have the opportunity of going before a committee of the house and returned for third reading. They then only obtain a decree absolute when the Governor General gives royal assent.
Some of the problems that we are faced with, in my opinion, are these. The committee is not a court, despite legal advice to the contrary. Power on Divorce, in the fourth supplement, points out on page 35, under section 22 dealing with parliamentary divorce in general:
The Senate's committee on divorce is not a court of justice: its report is not a judgment.
This resulted from the case of Coorsh versus Decker (1956) Quebec, Canadian Current Law, 1038. Mr. Speaker, if it were a court of law, many of the things that happen in that committee would not be allowed to happen. We in the House of Commons, and particularly our chairman, have patterned our action on the action of our counterpart in the Senate. I believe that while the Senate has operated to the best of its ability and has set up a procedure of certain rights and certain conditions, the House of Commons in its committee has never set up a set of rules and does not operate according to any particular procedure.
The committee itself has no competent legal advice. It has the use of the house lawyers, and certainly it has a great deal of free advice from lawyers on that committee. But there is no particular legal advice that is worthy of consideration as far as the committee itself is concerned.
It is true that there has been advice given by the house lawyers as to jurisdiction and constitutional problems, but the ordinary jurisprudence that would be decided by a judge is, in my opinion, lacking in this committee. The committee has no power to call witnesses. This has been a problem that has caused a great deal of difficulty for the last year or so. The advice in the past from those who were consulted was that this committee did not have that right because it was a private bill; it was asking for information on private matters.
Mr. Speaker, I would point out that in my opinion this advice is wrong. This committee has the same rights as any other committee and I refer you to page 1098 of Hansard for February 16 of this year where various standing committees were set up, including the miscellaneous private bills committee. At page

1099 under the heading "Powers of committees", the Prime Minister (Mr. Diefenbaker) moved:
That the standing committees of this house be severally empowered to examine and inquire into all such matters and things as may be referred to them by the house, and to report from time to time their observations and opinions thereon, with power to send for persons, papers and records.
I think we have had this power for some time, but I also think we have never exercised it and on many occasion have been advised that we did not have that power. Therefore many people who have been brought before this committee have been unable to prove their case because they did not have the right to subpoena witnesses and bring reluctant and at the same time hostile witnesses before the committee.


Mr. McCleave:: Would the hon. member permit a question. Who has asked for that right?


William Arnold Peters: That is true, but I think that whenever they phoned the clerk they have been given that advice and therefore did not appear before the committee and ask for that power. I think it was assumed by the clerks of the committee that they did not have the right to make this type of application.


Robert Jardine McCleave: Nonsense.


William Arnold Peters: The chairman of the committee says nonsense. I think frankly the whole committee has been nonsense and I include in that some of the actions of its chairman, who has set himself up in the position sometimes as judge as well as part of the jury.
In some cases where perjury is being committed, where one party testifies to a fact and the other party contradicts it, I think it would be to the advantage of the public to have the right to investigate and call witnesses to prove perjury was committed and to arrive at some decision about it.
Another problem with this particular committee of the House of Commons has been that the jury itself keeps changing. A juror will come in at the last moment prepared to decide a case he has not heard at all, and those jurors who have sat there and heard the case will get up at the last moment and leave.


Robert Jardine McCleave: You do it all the time, the two of you.


William Arnold Peters: I think another problem is this matter of never being able to investigate the charges which have been made, and I would like to refer to a case of a year or so ago when one of the corespondents showed statements from gas station operators to the effect that he had been in another town and

it was quite within the realm of impossibility for him to be where he was supposed to have been if only he could have proved it. I think in that particular case we should have had the right as a committee to investigate to find out if that was true or not.
One of the biggest problems affecting the whole operation of parliamentary divorce is this matter of our lack of jurisdiction in relation to children. We have continually been brought to task for mentioning the children, yet every law on the statute books of almost every country as far as I know has given predominance to the welfare of children in the matter of divorce. Those countries have always bent over backwards to see that the religion, the welfare, the stability and the education of those children was given paramount consideration. Yet we pass divorces in Canada where we have not the right to say that the children will receive any type of protection or settlement at all. We have given no protection to a wife who is framed, which I think has been the case in several cases, and in particular I refer to the Terry case.
There is another grave failure with this committee, and it is only one of many, and that is the fact that these divorces are granted in the main to people living in the province of Quebec, yet very few Quebec members ever sit on the committee or take any part in deciding what should be done with cases arising from their province. It seems to me that many of them have shirked their duties in refusing or not accepting the responsibility of sitting on the committee.


Mr. Speaker:: I think the hon. member is going a little beyond the scope of relevancy here.


William Arnold Peters: Mr. Speaker, last but by no means least is the fact that these divorces are very expensive and only apply to those people who are in the well-off bracket or are fairly wealthy. It is estimated that a divorce costs anywhere from $1,500 to $2,500, going as high in some cases as $20,000. So it means that divorces before parliament are very expensive and the length of time taken to obtain them is long and can be very costly.
At six o'clock the house took recess.


[Stage Direction]
AFTER RECESS

The house resumed at 8 p.m.
William Arnold Peters: Mr. Speaker, during the current session of parliament we have discussed individually some divorce bills that came before us. The press, radio and other media
Procedure Committee
have given consideration to the matter of divorce as it has been discussed in this chamber and this has created much interest, not only with respect to the principle we raised of removing divorce from parliament but with respect to the wider field of divorce law. This has produced some interesting results. Not long ago on its program called "Close Up" the C.B.C. had a young lady appear-


Mr. Speaker:: Order. I think the hon. member should confine his remarks about divorce to the question of parliament dealing with any procedure in divorce. We are not interested at this time in the substance involved in divorce. In my view it would be outside the scope of this discussion to deal with other than procedural problems.


William Arnold Peters: Mr. Speaker, I was not going into that field. One report on that broadcast had this to say:
Some of the fuss borders on burlesque. In Ottawa, for instance, Senator Roebuck, a lawyer, has been reported as suggesting that the woman and the C.B.C. should be prosecuted for disseminating false information and evidence. If Senator Roebuck spoke out instead for modernizing the crazy law which made the program possible he would have been doing this nation a greater service.
The report goes on to say-


Mr. Speaker:: Order. With all due respect I think the hon. member is getting away from procedural problems into the substance of the matter when he refers to the divorce law itself.


William Arnold Peters: What we have attempted to do in the house is remove divorce from the jurisdiction and responsibility of parliament but others have raised other considerations the interest in which I believe will continue to grow in the months and years ahead.
Much has been said about some things that happened here in this chamber. I have in my hand a translation from Le Petit Journal of Montreal of an article entitled "Unscrupulous Detectives Make a Racket Out of Divorce" by Alain Stanke in which the author described an interview with one of these detectives. They had been discussing the price of a divorce. A portion of the article reads as follows:
Then he became more precise: "If your wife also wants a divorce, then it's in the bag. If she doesn't want one, it is still possible to get one, but the chances are it will cost you a little more. Have you a lawyer?"
"No-I don't know one-I don't know what one is supposed to do-*" I reply innocently.
"So much the better. You are always better off to start by getting your evidence, then you can go and see any lawyer at all. Otherwise it will cost you more. Normally, it takes $1,000 for a lawyer and his costs. As for us you have nothing to worry about. Our discretion is assured; we will give the evidence in Ottawa-it will not be the first time-"

Procedure Committee
It continues in that vein. The article highlights the problem we are faced with in dealing with the evidence presented by lawyers in the stereotyped hotel or motel divorce case.
The Senate can probably be excused for making some mistakes because of the sheer volume of the cases they handle. I am sure they get tired of asking the same type of questions. This year we had one or two cases which highlighted the points we have dealt with in each case.
I will refer to only one, the Eccles case, which was referred back to the miscellaneous private bills committee. The committee heard the conflicting evidence of the petitioner and the respondent. In this case, somebody obviously committed perjury. Collusion was also charged in the case. In my opinion, and in the opinion of many newspapers, many of the faults we say are inherent in most divorce cases that go through parliament were illustrated by the Eccles case.
The case has been referred to the Minister of Justice (Mr. Fulton) for a decision. The hon. gentleman has done what the house has always done with respect to these cases. He took the position that he was not concerned with it and that it should be referred back to the Senate. On the basis of questions I have directed to the minister on this subject we can assume very little will come of it.
I have a photostatic copy of a document, the presentation of a process server of the city of Montreal, in which it is charged that the address at which the lady in the case was served originally was the Y.M.C.A. Subsequently it was changed to No. 1248 at a certain street. To the best of my knowledge and information no such person resides at that address. I am also sure she was not at the Y.M.C.A. although someone probably accepted and signed the document there in the first place. On July 29, as reported at page 7192 of Hansard, I addressed a question to the Minister of Justice about the alleged perjury in the Eccles divorce case. The minister replied as follows:
The hon. member's question anticipate something which has not yet commenced, that is, an investigation by the R.C.M.P. A day or two ago I received a letter from the chief of the committees branch transmitting to me the report of the committee, and I also received a day or two ago the transcript of the evidence.
In considering this matter I have felt that inasmuch as the matters concern themselves with two possible species of misconduct, first collusion and second perjury, and inasmuch as either or both of these, if they occurred, occurred also and primarily with respect to the proceedings before the Senate committee, it should be only appropriate that I should communicate with the chairman of the Senate committee to see whether that

hon. Senator or his committee felt that there was further action their committee decided to take in the matter.
I again put this question to the Minister of Justice on August 3, and it appears that finally the Senate decided to do nothing about it and referred the matter back to the Minister of Justice who is now looking at it with a view to turning it over to the attorney general in Ontario or some place else.
This is not good enough. If we honestly think we should be handling divorce cases in parliament we should set up the machinery which would make it possible not to make such a farce out of the whole proceedings. This committee and the Senate committee are possibly the most expensive kangaroo courts that there are in any place in the world and the injustice of a kangaroo court-


Robert Jardine McCleave: On a point of order, the hon. member has referred to the committees of the Senate and the House of Commons as taking part in a kangaroo court. I suggest that that is unparliamentary, and the hon. member should be asked to withdraw that statement and if he does not withdraw it he should be told to withdraw it.


Mr. Speaker:: I do not quite know what a kangaroo court is. I think it is not complimentary. It is not in order to talk slightingly of committees of this house or of the other place, and I hope the hon. member will rectify what he said in that respect.


William Arnold Peters: If there is objection to the remark I will be happy to withdraw it. I did not mean it to be offensive. Kangaroo courts are courts which used to be held in the army and their verdict did not necessarily meet with the approval of the judicial authority. But we will withdraw it.


Frank Howard: What about trained seal
court?


William Arnold Peters: Yes, it could be a trained seal court, because it is certainly a rubber stamp. I hold in my hand a copy of the Toronto Star containing an article headed: "Charge M. P. Divorce Job Rubber Stamp Process". This amounts to what I said, though perhaps it is expressed somewhat differently.
This is what Mr. Rogers said. He said he was strongly suspicious that the Eccles case is not the only one involving collusion and perjury which has gone through the house this session. Moreover I would point out that only 25 or 30 cases have gone through the house this session. In most of the cases, Mr. Rogers said, there were genuine grounds for divorce, but he did not think that adultery- the only grounds on which parliament grants: divorce-was really involved. He says that.

the hon. member for Davenport (Mr. Morton) says that the house does nothing else but rubber stamp these divorce bills. He continues:
It is very difficult to detect collusion or perjury or anything like that. We get the sworn evidence and all we can do is read it through. If there are glaring discrepancies, we will spot them but otherwise we have no way of even suspecting that everything is anything but above board.
The hon. member for Lincoln, (Mr. Smith) a third member of the committee, said he has never been entirely satisfied that parliament should be dealing with divorce cases. If it continues to handle them, he said, the Senate should be provided with some sort of machinery which will enable its divorce committees to make sure that divorces are not obtained through collusion and perjury.
There was a television broadcast the other day, and I will apologize if this is not a correct transcript; I took it off a tape. Senator Roebuck had this to say:
A marriage breaks up-it is gone.
It is no longer in existence except technically. And they say, how can we dissolve it? There is only one way and that is for one or the other to commit adultery or at least appear to commit adultery. So witnesses will come and describe one or other of them in an embarrassing position and we sit there solemnly and carefully giving it the very best that we've got in judgment-


Mr. Speaker:: The hon. member is getting back again to the grounds for divorce or the substantive law of divorce. We are dealing with divorce bills as a procedure of parliament and not with the grounds for divorce, or the law which permits divorce.


Mr. Valade:: On a point of order, may I draw the attention of the house to standing order No. 34(2) which says:
Mr. Speaker or the chairman, after having called the attention of the house, or of the committee, to the conduct of a member who persists in irrelevance, or repetition, may direct him to discontinue his speech, and if then the member still continues to speak, Mr. Speaker shall name him, or, if in committee, the chairman shall report him to the house.
I would ask that the hon. member should try to be relevant in his remarks.


Frank Howard: On a point of order, I would point out that if that rule were rigidly enforced the house would be three quarters empty most of the time.


William Arnold Peters: I was pointing out that everybody is of the opinion that there are certain things wrong with the procedure here. Senator Roebuck went on to say:
It may be that one or other of the parties commits adultery for the very purpose of getting a divorce.
The hon. member for Halifax, the chairman of our committee, pointed out on the same program that about 150 of these cases are
Procedure Committee
hotel and motel cases of which at least 50 per cent are dishonest or rigged. This statement coming from the chairman of the committee and the other statements I have quoted clearly show that we should be doing something about the present situation. Now is the time for action to be taken. I should like to read a short excerpt from a letter sent to Mr. Claude Gauthier, the secretary to the Prime Minister, and I would suggest that if the Prime Minister knows about these things, this is rather shameful conduct, too. There was a letter sent to the Prime Minister, I presume-


Robert Jardine McCleave: I rise on a point of order. I think the hon. member has imputed shameful conduct to another member of this house and I suggest, again, that he withdraw, and if he does not do so, that he should be ordered to withdraw.


Mr. Speaker:: I think the hon. member for Halifax is perfectly right. I was considering whether the reference to shameful conduct referred to the writer or to the recipient of the letter, and the hon. member for Halifax who raised this point of order has obviously concluded that it referred to the Prime Minister. I thought it referred to the Prime Minister, and that remark should certainly not have been made in the context of a debate in this house, and the hon. member for Timis-kaming ought certainly to withdraw it.


William Arnold Peters: I do not know if the Prime Minister was aware of this correspondence or not-


Some hon. Members:: Withdraw.


Mr. Speaker:: If the hon. member did not intend to impute shameful conduct to the Prime Minister he ought to make it clear that his remark was not intended to apply to the Prime Minister.


William Arnold Peters: I do that, Mr. Speaker.
An excerpt from this letter reads as follows:
Now I am in a state of suspended animation, married yet not married, why! Simply, according to your letter, because a Mr. Howard and a Mr. Peters whom I have never heard of in my life before have decided that it should be so! What mysterious power do these hon. gentlemen have.


Mr. Speaker:: Again I must ask the hon. member to come back to the point of debate. He is now reading from a document which reflects on the conduct of himself and another member of the house, and it is quite out of order. What we are debating is a report of the committee on procedure and in so far as the procedure on private bills of divorce is related to that report it can be discussed. If the hon. member can bring

Procedure Committee
himself back to that point, I hope he will do so. Otherwise, I think perhaps he should discontinue.


William Arnold Peters: I should like to refer to some alternatives to the present arrangement, alternatives which I believe to be an improvement on the present procedure. The first would be that Quebec and Newfoundland should set up divorce courts of their own and deal with these cases. If this is not in keeping with the wishes of Newfoundland and Quebec, then I think my second suggestion would be equally good, namely that we should set up a federal divorce court in the exchequer court in the same way as they set up a divorce court in Britain under the admiralty and probates court. The $100,000 which is now paid annually in respect of the present procedure would more than support one or two judges and the clerks necessary to run such a divorce court. This court would sit only in the province of Ontario, in Ottawa, and it would handle divorces not only from the two provinces I have mentioned, but from other provinces.
A third alternative, and one which I consider a poor one, is that the Senate, which does not handle these matters too well, should have power to handle-


Robert Jardine McCleave: On a point of order, the hon. member is making disparaging remarks about the other body of parliament, which I submit is unparliamentary.


William Arnold Peters: Mr. Chairman, on the point of order, I can express an opinion that I do not think these divorces have been handled properly in the Senate, or as well as they should be. I do not think that is unparliamentary.


Mr. Speaker:: I think it would be drawing rather a fine line to rule out comment on the procedure of handling of divorces before committees, which reflects no more than on the conduct of proceedings, but does not reflect on any particular member.


William Arnold Peters: If it was given the full authority to handle divorces, and all that parliament would be asked to do would be to endorse them, it would be in keeping with the bill before us now in the name of the hon. member for Davenport (Mr. Morton). This would be a method that I think would not be as good as some others.
Fourth, we could establish in Canada a domicile which would allow people to have Canadian domicile and, if they did, then they could get a divorce in any province that handles divorces in Canada. This would

probably be a satisfactory method of dealing with them without solving the problem at all.
Fifth, there are other methods such as allowing people to get United States divorces and recognizing them in Canada; but it seems to me that the answer to this problem is going to be devised only when the House of Commons and the Senate set up a joint committee and decide that they are going to solve the problem of parliamentary divorces.
Certainly this procedural motion is a step in the right direction because we are going to find that under the rules no matter what we do with it we cannot solve this problem, and that we are going to have to look farther afield. I think one of the places we should look is in the direction of a joint committee of both houses. I am quite sure that that committee will come up with the conclusion that we are going to have to divest ourselves of the responsibility that we really have never given much consideration to in the first place.
I think that Canada is ready to take the step that Australia, New Zealand and Britain have taken and set up a divorce court which will handle these matters in such a manner that the ends of justice will be served and the rights of the people themselves will be respected.


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


Mr. Fortin:: Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of privilege. The hon. member for Timis-kaming (Mr. Peters) who just sat down stated in his remarks that members from the province of Quebec are refusing to shoulder their responsibilities with regard to divorce bills.
I think that the phrase "refusing or not accepting their responsibilities" is a reflection on the integrity and honour of Quebec members.
I must say, indeed, that if Quebec members refrain from taking part in discussions on divorce bills, they have two major reasons for doing so.
The first one pertains to civil law; the second one to religion.
From the point of view of civil law, the Civil Code in the province of Quebec provides that marriage can be dissolved only by the death of either of the contracting parties. Thus, if we spoke in favour of divorce bills, we would obviously run counter to existing Quebec law.
From a religious point of view, most Quebec members are practising Catholics, whose religion is opposed to divorce.

Consequently, we are not shirking our responsibilities as members of parliament; on the contrary, our stand in the matter is the one expected of us by our constituents.
(Text):


Mr. Speaker:: I should probably have raised the point that the hon. member raises. As a matter of fact, exception was taken at the time to that remark in so far as it implied any dereliction of duty by hon. members from Quebec.
(Translation):


Mr. Ricard:: Mr. Speaker, I do not intend to speak at any length in such an elaborate discussion on the procedure of the house. I do feel however, that I should say a few words as a member of the committee appointed to consider the procedure of the House of Commons.
On the whole, the previous speeches have been pleasant and quite informative. I just want to add a few personal impressions and suggestions.
Of course, the purpose of that committee was, if possible, to improve the procedure of the house. One does not need to follow the debates of this house very long before realizing that the rules are often transgressed. As evidence of this I need only refer to the speech of the hon. C.C.F. member for Timis-kaming (Mr. Peters), a typical example of how those rules are abused.
His whole speech was made up of halftruths if not untruths. He cast aspersions on the personality of the Prime Minister (Mr. Diefenbaker) and of several members of this house.
As a newcomer in this house, I have not had an opportunity to make a thorough study of each and every rule which governs the proceedings in this house. In my view, there is more to be learned from listening than from speaking.
I would draw the attention of the house to the fact that proceedings here are not always edifying. They even reveal glaring abuses. Of course it is a right of hon. members to raise points of order or matters of privilege.
Reference has been made in this debate to ways of speeding up procedure, including the use of a vote recording machine. That is a worth-while suggestion.
If the proposals put forward were acted upon, private members might enjoy a little more family life.
Unfortunately, proceedings drag on and on. This year, we have been sitting 144 days, and apparently we are going to be here for some time yet.


An hon. Member:: You are talking too much.
Procedure Committee
Another hon. Member: Order.


J.-H.-Théogène Ricard: Mr. Speaker, there are things that have to be said. But it seems that some members in the opposition fail to understand that some measure of control must be exercised in parliamentary procedure.
A number of committees have been set up. I am of those who believe that a great deal of work can be done in committee-thus sparing the house some delays-by expediting legislation which, after all, must meet the wishes of the people of Canada.
Just now, I referred to abuses. During this session, opposition members managed to deal with unemployment for 13 days, endlessly repeating the same things. In fact, the first speech made by the hon. member for Essex East (Mr. Martin) sounds very much like the last one he made on the same subject. Indeed, if we compare his first speech with his last, we note very little difference between the two.
Like the Leader of the Opposition (Mr. Pearson), I hope that the special committee will be established as early as possible during the next session, so as to enable its members to consider procedure properly and to improve the standing orders to the fullest extent.
(Text):


Mr. M. D. Morton (Davenport):: Mr. Speaker, as one who is still an apprentice in so far as the rules are concerned and the purposes behind the rules, I am somewhat hesitant at entering this debate. However, as one who is interested in seeing that the house gets down to business perhaps more directly I should like to make a few suggestions with respect to the rules. When some of us first came into the house we thought the rules seemed a bit cumbersome, but as we began to study the purposes behind our rules our judgments became less severe. There are some things, however, that perhaps can be done and the report that is before us recommends certain steps which I believe will streamline our procedure to a greater degree.
There are one or two points I should like to bring to the attention of the house that may help us achieve our purpose. The first one is in respect of standing order 56 which sets out the days on which motions are necessary before the house can resolve itself into committee of supply, and further states that after six such motions all the estimates of the various departments should be before the committee. The opposition has an opportunity on any of these six motions to present grievances which they would like to have discussed. I would suggest, as the result of a recent experience, that after these six motions have been disposed of and the estimates are all

Procedure Committee
before the committee of supply the motion to go into committee of supply should not be debatable but should be in the same category as the motion for interim supply or the consideration of the supplementary estimates. This would enable more time to be spent on the discussion of the estimates.
I would suggest that when the rules were amended in 1955, the rules committee must have had that in mind when they specifically stated there should be six debatable motions for supply and yet they exempted the motions for interim supply. We have had a recent experience in this field when after the six motions were disposed of and a motion was moved to go into committee of supply, a want of confidence motion was moved which precipitated a debate. This debate could have taken place on the estimates of the Department of National Health and Welfare.
I noticed that on page 9 of the report of the committee the recommendation is to give public bills precedence over private bills from five to six o'clock on Fridays. I believe this recommendation results from the fact that private bills have occupied so much of the time of the house this year that the discussion of certain public bills has been prevented. I did think that perhaps if this house were to continue to entertain divorce petitions we should set up a separate category for these petitions. However, I know that is something that will have to be given a great deal of study before we would commit ourselves to such a suggestion.
I was very interested in the references to the procedures in other parliaments such as the ones in India and in England, where a committee is set up composed of representatives of the various parties and time is allotted to the parties to discuss certain matters. As I understand it, these arrangements are not really binding on the house, but it is an effort to streamline the debate and perhaps get more directly to the points at issue. This might be a procedure that could be studied by this house. Some members have made suggestions that our committees are too large and they might be more efficient if they were composed of a smaller number of members. I agree with this suggestion.
I should like now to turn to a matter that has been troubling many hon. members in this house, namely the manner in which divorce bills are handled in this house. If I may be permitted I should like to refer to the fact that they were faced with the same problem in England before 1857. Over a period of 150 years prior to 1857 the parliament of England dealt with 230 divorces. They felt, because they had dealt with this number over this long period of time, that it was a cumbersome burden on their house and they

decided to do something about it. As a result, in 1857 the matrimonial causes act was passed by means of which divorce courts were established in that country. Here, in Canada, we have not had 230 cases over a period of 150 years, but this year we have had over 600 applications for divorce come before the two houses, the Senate and the House of Commons. Reference has been made to the fact that about 500 of these bills are still to be passed. There has been an average of 300 divorce bills each year for the last 10 years.
The problem was much easier of solution in England because there is just the one jurisdiction. It was only a matter of convincing the people who were opposed to divorce that if there were to be divorces granted there was a more efficient way of handling them. Unfortunately, in Canada, it is not as easy. I should like to try to bring this question into some perspective so that we may better understand it because a great deal of confusion has arisen as a result of accusations made in the press concerning the manner in which evidence is obtained for divorce proceedings. Even in our courts in Ontario there has been a cloud as to how evidence in divorces has been obtained, even under a judicial system. I think that with these accusations being made we should not cloud the issue until we see the problem that we have in proper perspective. What is the reason that these cases are before us in any event?
The previous speaker from the C.C.F. party mentioned that here is a matter where certain citizens in the provinces of Quebec and Newfoundland have a right, shall I say, to obtain something that they cannot obtain in any other forum. Since this house has jurisdiction to deal with divorce, they as private individuals petition the parliament of Canada in order that they may obtain some right of action to overcome their matrimonial difficulties.
I think we would be rather hasty to deny these people their right to apply here for a divorce. We would be denying them a fundamental right, just because it is a divorce, when for some other reason they may want to come to parliament to have their rights protected. But the fact that we do not want to deny them their rights does not necessarily say that this is the proper forum for divorce.
But having that in mind, Mr. Speaker, let us look at the proper role of the committee in dealing with these divorces. I think the committee of the House of Commons, the same as the committee in the Senate, must try to take the same perspective, the same

Procedure Committee
outlook as if they were judges in a court dealing with a divorce action that is brought before them.
There is some dispute whether that committee is acting as a court or is acting as an arm of the legislative body. Many of us feel that parliament as such is the supreme court of the country, and as such the committee of that parliament should carry out judicial functions. It is true that the committee has much more than judicial functions; it also has legislative functions. It also has the power, if it so wishes, to grant a divorce on any ground whatsoever.


An hon. Member:: And does.


Murray Douglas Morton: The hon. member says, "And does". I would dispute that. However, with that perspective in mind, a petition comes before the committee of the other place. That committee, using rules that they have set up and the best judgment that they have, come to certain decisions. Their decisions are then forwarded to this house in the form of a private bill. That private bill is in due course referred to a committee of our house and it is dealt with there by the members of the committee in a judicial capacity. Unless there is something very drastically wrong on the surface with the bill that is brought before it, the committee usually passes the bill in rather short order and, as some of us have said, we have more or less rubber-stamped the bill.
But there are a number of bills which we, in our examination, are suspicious of and cause further investigation to be made, and perhaps call witnesses or send them back to the other place for further consideration. Then a number of bills come before us that are disputed, where in effect we are made a court of appeal of the decision made in the other place. At that time the committee must sit as a court of appeal.
I think if we were to give the committee the proper designation and were not to falsely criticize its role we would realize that a person making an appeal before that committee must prove the facts that he alleges on the appeal the same as he would in any other court of appeal in the province. He has the right, I believe-although it has been stated that we have been advised to the contrary-to ask to bring witnesses before us, and I understand there are forms prepared which can ask for witnesses to be subpoenaed.
It has been stated that we have not the power to pay for these witnesses. But, Mr. Speaker, that is not the function, nor is it necessary, because it will be recalled that in any of our courts across the country everyone has a right to subpoena a witness
before the court, but the party who subpoenas that witness-who wants the witness-must pay for him to appear before the court. Therefore, when any of these cases come before the committee it is up to the party concerned to pay for the witnesses. They are making an appeal before the committee and it is up to them to have these witnesses there to prove the things which they allege. It is not our fault if they do not appear before the committee to substantiate the things which they allege.
The committee can do no more than any other court in the land but to dismiss an appeal, to dismiss an allegation that is not proved. It is not our function to go out and investigate and take sides. If there is any situation such as arose in the Eccles case, as we did in that case, we would refer it to the Minister of Justice (Mr. Fulton) and the Minister of Justice would refer it to the proper authorities.
I would make this suggestion with respect to certain charges of perjury and collusion. The better way of handling such suspicions as these would be to send them back to the other place where these allegations had been committed against that forum, and let them deal with them or get the proper authorities to deal with them. The suggestion was made that because we have before us conflicting evidence-yes, even diametrically opposed evidence-and we must choose between it, that someone must be committing perjury and we must therefore go out and hunt to find out who was right and who was wrong, and perhaps bring charges of perjury.
I would suggest that every day in our courts there are cases that come before them where evidence is diametrically opposed, or differs, and in very rare cases do the judges go out of their way to suggest that the losing party should be investigated for perjury. I think perhaps it might go too far to say that everyone who has lost has committed perjury. I think we should be very careful in our accusations along that line.
With that in mind and believing that that is the true function of our committee and its operations, when we are considering the rules today and are considering the problems we should consider them in that light. I and many others feel that this committee is not adequate to deal with these problems that come before us, because I believe that the committee on divorce that we have is too large in the first place to deal with these things when it comes to an appeal or trial. It is all right if we are going through the evidence and agreeing with the evidence that has gone through the other place. When it comes to a point that we have to hear the

Procedure Committee
evidence de novo I do not feel that we have adequate powers to deal with it.
There can be another injustice, that toward the end of a session the committee can be put in a very severe dilemma. Someone brings an appeal, and it becomes difficult to get the witnesses before the committee before the house prorogues. As we all know, when parliament prorogues this session all bills which have not been passes through all stages are then lost. Here we have a dilemma, that we see either by affidavit or by a statement an application for an appeal, and if we accept it and call for a hearing but in the meantime the house prorogues, then in effect we have dismissed that action without having heard the pros or cons of the case. If we are required for a few years or so to continue wrestling with this problem, I would suggest power be granted to hold over such cases so they would not lose the preliminary steps taken to date toward making them law, and at the next session of parliament we could continue to deal with the next stage of the matter.
A number of suggestions have been made as to what we should do to remedy this situation. Annoyed as many of us may be at having to deal with these matters, I think we must look at the thing squarely, recognizing the rights and the beliefs of those concerned and see what compromise can be made. There are three methods, as has been stated before, whereby this matter might be dealt with.
First of all, the matter could be referred back to the provinces concerned and dealt with as in other provinces. This would be the most efficient way of dealing with it because the provinces have the power to deal with the disposition and custody of the children of the marriage, as well as matters of alimony and maintenance as between the aggrieved parties. In that way the whole matter could be dealt with in a sort of package deal.
I am coming to the belief that it is not just a matter of providing a divorce court. All these cases for divorce should be processed through what we call a family court first and every attempt made by counsellors of marriage and those who have made a study of what causes the break-up of homes in order to see if these people could not be brought together again. A great deal has been done, but it is not for me to pursue that matter at this time.
The other method would be to set up a division of the exchequer court or even to set up some other court altogether to deal with all these cases judicially, and I think we could do this constitutionally. But the great weakness in that is that the court could

only dissolve the marriage. It could not deal with the rights of the children, nor could it deal with maintenance or alimony, because they are matters which pertain to the provinces. But it would clear the House of Commons and the other place of this problem of dealing with divorces, and as a judicial body I feel they could deal with that aspect of it more efficiently than we could. As a second best method I would suggest we work toward that end.
However, perhaps being a realist I think we may not be ready politically for that move, although I can see no difference if we are going to deal with divorces in this house between dissolving a marriage here or dissolving it in an exchequer court or any other court we may set up. There is no different sanction if it were dealt with judicially than if it were dealt with in a semi-judicial manner by parliament.
As I have said, I have a bill on the order paper, Bill No. C-17, in which I suggest we give power to the other house to deal with divorces exclusively. But I would like to make this one additional suggestion which is not included in the bill. In order to overcome certain constitutional difficulties and the objections of those who would not like to see the business of the House of Commons transferred to the other place, I suggest that this house pass an act annually to the effect that every bill passed by the other place authorizing the dissolution of marriage once it has received royal assent shall be considered law.
There is a precedent for this type of procedure in the parliament of the United Kingdom where under an act of 1911, as a result of a dispute between the House of Lords and the House of Commons, the House of Commons, having had a bill passed three times by that house but rejected three times by the House of Lords, may now pass the bill which on receiving royal assent will become law without having been passed by the House of Lords.
Perhaps that is a precedent which we would not like to extend here, but it might be a temporary method of dealing with the problem we have, and by passing an annual act we are not completely depriving this house of its jurisdiction in that field. If that were done I suggest the other place would provide in addition to their committee which deals with bills as they go through a committee which would act as a sort of court of appeal for all those bills under dispute so that any matter could be given a second look and the party concerned would have an appeal to them as they have an appeal presently to this house.

I know that this is a matter which perhaps cannot be dealt with logically because of certain strong feelings of many members concerned. I feel that the members of the C.C.F. party in perhaps a sincere effort to bring this matter before the public have placed themselves and this house in a rather severe dilemma. Because if by a method of what some of us call a filibuster-what they have called careful consideration of those bills-[DOT] we have delayed or prevented their passage we are preventing the rights of these people from being properly attended to in the only form available to them at the present time. That is not doing any good in the sense of persuading those who should give them the right to do so, because in those provinces the forces behind the government there say, "We do not want to permit divorce in this province. You are only helping us to prevent those people getting their divorce. We say they should not have a divorce and we thank you for not letting them get a divorce by not letting them go to the House of Commons". I know that is not their purpose but that is in effect what would happen if we follow through logically the tactics being used.
In effect they are trying to force the government to adopt a procedure to remedy the situation which, to be dealt with logically, effectively and correctly would be trying to force the provinces to do something which it is within their rights to refuse. I do not think any government is going to be placed in that position and politically, I am sure, members on this side are not going to alienate themselves by forcing those provinces to do something which they do not want to do. That might cause our defeat, but it certainly would not bring the C.C.F. to power. It might bring the Liberals back to power and perhaps the hon. member for Timiskaming and his friends would prefer them to us-


Frank Howard: Anything would be better
than the Tories.


Murray Douglas Morton: However, I do not think that is the purpose which they have in mind. I do not know. I suggest we must consider not only the logic of the situation but the rights and feelings of others. We must not force those who are not ready for this move into a position which would make them even more antagonistic to a change. A great deal of education still remains to be done. I think we should also bear in mind that although we are dealing here primarily with procedures inside this house, a much greater debate with respect to divorce is raging not only in the provinces where these bills originate but in other provinces. A great deal of study must be given to this question
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before we can be assured that we are setting out a proper procedure. I should like to suggest that perhaps the time has come when the authorities of government at both dominion and provincial levels, the religious leaders of the country and the social workers of the country should get together at a conference and study this whole matter of divorce and divorce procedures in its wider aspect and consider how it may be dealt with, because divorce is a cancerous growth in the family institution which is weakening that institution. It is one of the great evils of our society and the sooner we wake up to this menace and the sooner we attack the problem on a scientific social basis the better it will be for our country.
This question of the procedure in the House of Commons is only one small part of a much wider and deeper subject. I hope the people of this country will wake up and not ignore the problem any longer. It is not a matter of making divorce easier, but a matter of preventive training and making sure that those who marry are given proper training and that if there are any difficulties proper study is given to their problems.


Frank Howard: Perhaps I should say a word or two. Perhaps, like the hon. member for Davenport, I should make a comment or two first about the rules of the house in connection with the changes which have been made by the committee, other than dealing with divorces.
Without going into the detailed changes about hours, time allotted for debate and things of that nature, there is one matter which I think should occupy the concern and interest of parliament and of hon. members in the opposition particularly. This is a matter which I have thought about and considered for some time, and my thoughts apply to whatever government is in power. It merely happens to be a Conservative government at the moment. These are things which I think perhaps cannot be dealt with by alterations in the rules themselves.
There seems to have been over the years a growing increase in the authority of the government in office over parliament through the party system, and a decline in the functions as it were of the individual private member. The desire which we all have for independence of expression and for casting our votes on particular issues in parliament based upon what we think, has in recent years been stifled to a degree by the party control that exists within the Conservative party, as it exists within other parties. I submit, however, that, generally speaking, control of this sort on a party basis is stronger on the government side than it is

Procedure Committee
on the opposition side, and this is true of any government when it is in office. I think this is true of the government in Saskatchewan which is of the same party as I am, which does not make it any more tolerable or acceptable.
I do not think this party control is compatible with our sense of democracy or with our sense of promoting the interests of our constituencies as best we can. Too often we find that motions critical of the government are looked upon as falling within the class of being want of confidence motions. Opposition amendments or proposals are accepted in some cases, but in many cases they are rejected out of hand as it were, and again the house is divided on a party basis. I do not believe that this leads to holding the balance of our democratic system in parliament, and I should like to see it reduced as much as possible and, as far as possible, a return to the right of individual members to independence of thought, independence of speech and independence when it comes to voting. I think there may be some differences of opinion as to the means by which this objective may best be achieved. My own views are merely injected into the debate at this stage as an indication of how this problem may be approached.
It may be that the debate on the budget, the debate on the address and the debates which take place on the various supply motions afford ample opportunity for the opposition parties in parliament to express lack of confidence in the government on a variety of subjects. Possibly legislation which is closely connected with the budget proposals, such as taxation and things of that nature, should also fall within a stricter category. Government sponsored bills should not be looked upon as ones in which the party should control their ultimate destiny.
When individual private members regardless of party introduce bills, as some have done this session although we have been restricted in debating them, they should automatically go to a committee for study and consultation with government officials from the department and with the minister concerned to clarify the bill or bring it into line with existing legislation. These bills often represent the views of an hon. member concerning alterations in legislation. They should not be allowed to die on the order paper whether or not they are debated. We should attempt to put these things into effect so the independence of private members will be enhanced more than in the past. Then we would have the kind of government we had when responsible government came into being. Government should be responsible to parliament and not the other way round.

My primary concern is to deal with divorce procedure and alternate methods as was dealt with by the hon. members for Vancouver East, Timiskaming and Davenport. As the hon. member for Davenport put it, there may be some concern on the part of individual members who are angry at the hon. member for Timiskaming and myself for carrying on such a detailed study of these bills. Perhaps some of their concern stems from the fact that they had introduced private bills which they would have liked to see debated. That is understandable. I am angry at myself because I caused six of my own bills to die on the order paper because of my extended debate on divorce. Other hon. members have beeen angry at us for other reasons. We have been concerned about the unfortunate feeling that existed and perhaps still exists. We felt this matter was so important that we could not alter our course regardless of the pressure exerted on us or the individual expressions of anger directed to us from inside the house and outside of it. We have caused grief and anxiety in the minds and hearts of those who have in good faith petitioned for divorce. We have great concern, interest and sorrow-


Mr. Horner (Acadia):: For yourself.


Frank Howard: -for any anxiety we have caused them.


Robert Jardine McCleave: Can you restore the sanity of a woman who lost it because of your actions? Can you do that?


Frank Howard: Mr. Speaker, I am on my feet so I do not have to rise on a point of order.


Robert Jardine McCleave: I will ask that question on my feet.


Mr. Speaker:: Is the hon. member for Halifax rising on a point of order?


Robert Jardine McCleave: No, Mr. Speaker, I had a question.


Mr. Speaker:: Is the hon. member for Skeena rising to deal with the subject matter before the house?


Frank Howard: Yes. My point of order has to do with the interjection made by the hon. member for Halifax. He has a great propensity for making interjections while in his seat and I submit this should be brought to his attention.


Mr. Speaker:: The hon. member is quite right in bringing to the attention of the Chair that interjections should not be made by an hon. member from his seat.


Frank Howard: If the hon. member for Halifax wishes to put his question I will be glad to answer it. Apparently he does not.


Robert Jardine McCleave: Mr. Speaker, I simply
wanted to ask the hon. member for Skeena whose cup is overflowing with sorrow this evening whether or not he could bring back sanity to a woman who has lost it because of his actions.


Frank Howard: I did not know I was considered in the class of a psychiatrist. I do not know what 1 can do in so far as this woman is concerned. If I tried to restore the sanity of the hon. member for Halifax I know I would fail.
The report of this committee contains some interesting factors. On the committee along with yourself, Mr. Speaker-incidentally, you did a commendable job-were three important cabinet ministers, even if I would like to do away with the salary of one of them. The Minister of Justice (Mr. Fulton) was one. He has under study now one of the divorce proceedings. Another was the Minister of Trade and Commerce (Mr. Churchill), a distinguished hon. member and leader of the house. The other was the Solicitor General (Mr. Balcer). They participated in this study and endorsed the recommendations concerning divorce procedure. This indicates that they did not act independently and I am sure this reflects cabinet approval. They had approval to deal with these questions in this way at this time. There is some doubt as to whether the problem of private bills of divorce is capable of procedural solution, as is stated in the report.
The report recommends that a similar committee be appointed early in the next session to continue the studies made including a study of the procedure on divorce bills. I hope the members of the committee next year conclude that this problem is not capable of a procedural solution and perhaps the alternatives outlined by the hon. member for Timiskaming could be considered. Possibly a joint committee of the House of Commons and Senate could be set up to deal with these other alternatives. This could be completed before the end of the next session, whether it is next fall as intimated or in January of next year.
The procedural committee could be established almost immediately next session to study the question. If it concludes that the problem does not lend itself to a procedural solution it could report back recommending the establishment of a royal commission or joint committee or some other method of studying the alternatives, and solutions could be found before the end of next session. If that course is followed we will perhaps find, if not a complete solution at least a partial one leading to a final one, even if it is the solution advocated by the hon. member for
Procedure Committee
Davenport which I understand will be put forward by other hon. members.
The hon. member for Timiskaming and I, principally, and a couple of other hon. members have made a detailed study and examination of these divorce bills. The petitioners who petitioned parliament during this session did so in good faith. Of course, the way in which divorce bills were handled in years past would indicate that there would be no difficulty in having divorces granted or their divorce bills passed provided the evidence adduced before the committee met the rules laid down by that committee, and on that basis the petitioners had every reason to expect that their divorces would be granted.
However, they suddenly came to realize that this was not the position this session because without warning-I admit this without hesitation-the hon. member for Timiskaming	(Mr. Peters)	and	I	proceeded toexamine	and study the	bills	in	detail. It maybe said	that this was	sort	of	unfair to thepetitioners, and that is quite true. This is one of the main and major compelling reasons, coupled with the fact that our campaign has met with a great degree of success, as witness the debate we are having at the present time, why we feel it would be most unwise and unfair this session to proceed further	with any detailed	examination of
these particular bills.
Perhaps if this motion passes in a short time and the next order having to do with private bills is called there will be no difficulty in getting wholesale automatic passage of the various bills on the order paper. However, I think the activity this year would indicate very clearly and definitely that the possibilities of this thing occurring in future years are great. I refer to the possibility of detailed examination of divorce bills in the years to come so long as they remain a part of the business of parliament. I think that each lawyer in the province of Quebec and Newfoundland who is approached in the months to come to take action or to represent a petitioner for a bill of divorce should in good faith indicate to that petitioner that the chances of a bill of divorce passing in parliament in future sessions are very slim indeed, because of the detailed examination that has taken place this year, and so long as they remain a part of the business of this house and debate on them is allowed perhaps the same course will be followed in the future, and I submit that this is what will happen and that people should be informed accordingly.
As I said, this year the petitioners petitioned in good faith, fully expecting no

Procedure Committee
difficulty. For the difficulties they have encountered we are extremely sorry but no further difficulties will be encountered by them this session.
I listened to the hon. member for Davenport (Mr. Morton) with extreme interest. I think he made an excellent presentation and supported the idea we are propounding. If I wanted to have counsel to plead argument for me in this particular matter I could do no better in this entire House of Commons than to retain the hon. member for Davenport to plead the particular case and set forth those particular arguments. I would, of course, give him a little guidance on the way he should tackle the matter but in general his presentation was excellent.


John (Jack) Henry Horner: We think a lot of
ourselves, don't we?


Frank Howard: I am saying that in a gentle way only to show that I disagree with some of the points the hon. member for Davenport made, but in spite of that disagreement, which is slight, I say he made an excellent contribution and argument in favour of a certain course of action with which I generally agree. I would have given him a little bit of guidance; if he happened to be counsel for me I would ask him to argue in a certain way.
If hon. members take the course of action on this question of divorce proceedings in the house this evening that is suggested it will solve the matter at least temporarily for next year without any difficulty. I submit the motion before us at the moment could be proceeded with rather quickly. I imagine the debate had almost concluded when I rose and it could be completed rather quickly. The government could forgo calling any further government orders and we would then proceed with the next item on the order paper which is private bills relating to divorce. They could be dispatched, I am sure, in a moment, and the next item on the order paper to be dealt with is public bills and orders and we could then proceed with the bill in the name of the hon. member for Davenport. We could then debate it and pass it and after it was passed by the Senate it would become law. If this action were taken it would be applauded by every member in the house. I am sure there would be no objection to it. I do not know whether this course of action is acceptable to the government but I submit it for consideration at this time as perhaps a tentative step in the direction of modernizing our divorce laws in Canada.
The hon. member for Davenport also dealt with procedure and I hope I will be permitted to follow his line of reasoning. Many others

have mentioned what takes place before the committee in the other place, the manner in which these bills get there and what happens to them when they get here. We have had occasion as you know, sir, to look at, examine and discuss in some detail the evidence taken before the committee of the other place. The procedure of parliament in dealing with divorces I submit allows us to examine the evidence.
Some of the bills which we have already examined in the past shows that there is an extreme amount of concern on the part of those asking questions and hearing the evidence with respect to the question of desertion. Questions are asked as to whether there has been desertion and a relatively minor amount of concern is taken in the evidence respecting adultery. The prepon-derence of questioning is on desertion. In some instances the evidence of adultery is flimsy. Certainly that is what we found in some of the bills we examined. I am sure that members of the other place and members of our committee vote in favour of granting a particular divorce not on the grounds of adultery, although there is evidence to that effect, but primarily on the evidence given with respect to desertion. I submit that in a roundabout way that is what we are doing.
The same thing applies if there is extensive examination of witnesses with respect to cruel action on the part of the respondent, whether there were beatings, whether there was alcoholism, whether there were other activities of a similar nature which could be classified as cruelty, and relatively little examination of the flimsy evidence in so far as adultery is concerned. I submit that in so far as the evidence is concerned or in so far as the rules of the other place are concerned, divorces in fact have been passed by the members of the other place and by some of the members here on the grounds and on the basis of evidence with respect to cruelty.
I submit that these are subject matters which should be considered, and the substantive law changed in so far as divorce is concerned to include these subject matters as grounds for divorce.
This, of course, is getting into the substance of the question itself, and I do not want to transgress on your rulings, Mr. Speaker. I only raise this in a slight way in order to indicate that at the next session, if the committee on procedure is re-established and it should find, as I am sure it will, that it is not possible, not advantageous, not desirable to proceed in the manner we have or in any other similar manner by which divorces may be handled in parliament or to

find an alternative step, then something should be done by means of a joint committee or a royal commission or whatever mode the government chooses in order to examine in detail not only the mechanics by which divorces are granted, either in parliament or through some other agency, but also the grounds upon which divorces are granted. This would be a means of bringing our divorce laws into a position where they would be more compatible with those in other countries so that we will have some sense instead of hyprocrisy applying to divorce procedures in Canada.


Mr. Speaker:: I asked the hon. member not to pursue that line because, as he knows and has already suggested himself, it goes beyond the scope of the debate.


Robert Jardine McCleave: Mr. Speaker, in a few moments I will give some sort of consideration to the thoughtful contribution made by the hon. member for Davenport (Mr. Morton) on the vexatious question of parliamentary divorce, and also answer the sundry remarks that have been made by the hon. member for Timiskaming (Mr. Peters) and the hon. member for Skeena (Mr. Howard). Before I turn to the motion which arises out of the work of the committee, there are two points which should be made about the contribution of the hon. member for Skeena who spoke soulfully about the rights of private members which have been practically denied, at least in the private members' hours this session, because of the divorce filibuster. I would suggest that one knows a person by his actions rather than by his words. It would be a bitter day for private members in any parliament in which the hon. member for Skeena had any position of authority.


Frank Howard: I rise on a point of order. I object strenuously to these slanderous accusations against my actions in the house. The hon. member has suggested that if I had authority I would remove the rights of private members. I suggest that he should be asked not only to withdraw but also to refrain from making these scandalous accusations in the future.


Mr. Speaker:: If the hon. member will withdraw the word "slanderous", I will deal with the other matter.


Frank Howard: Yes.


Mr. Speaker:: The point the hon. member makes is that in what the hon. member for Halifax said he had imputed some improper conduct which could be expected from the hon. member if he were to occupy a position of authority. If that was the purport of the
Procedure Committee
remarks of the hon. member for Halifax, and I am not clear that it was, I am sure he would wish to modify such a statement.


Robert Jardine McCleave: Of course, I will modify those remarks.
The second point I want to make about the contributions of the hon. member for Skeena concerns his suggestion that the lawyers in Quebec and Newfoundland tell the people in those two provinces that they could not always be guaranteed the right to a divorce in parliament in the future. The answer to that point is very easy, Mr. Speaker. The main burden of parliament is now in the hands of people of the calibre of the Prime Minister (Mr. Diefenbaker) and the Leader of the Opposition (Mr. Pearson) and we are not going to be held up by the actions of one or two members, no matter what their feelings on this particular subject may be. I think that that message can be passed along to the lawyers in Quebec and Newfoundland, too.


William Arnold Peters: And let us see who wins.


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh.


Robert Jardine McCleave: That is typical of the contributions these hon. members make from their seats. They do not like it if somebody else uses that tactic against them. If I have fallen into bad habits, and perhaps I have, it is because I learned them from these two hon. members.


Frank Howard: Timber, timber.


Robert Jardine McCleave: I will be back to you in a moment, and in great detail; that is not a threat, it is an actuality.
The purpose of the committee report, and I had the honour of serving with you, Mr. Speaker, and the other distinguished members of the House of Commons on the committee, is to provide a more flexible and practical method of handling the affairs of parliament. We wish to provide a means by which an earlier start can be made on government business without in any way hurting the rights of private members in the way they have been hurt this session. As I see the session of the House of Commons, it divides itself into three main parts. The first part is the throne speech debate, the first votes of confidence in the government, and then a number of private members' days, very proper days and very important ones from my point of view. The second part we might almost give exclusively to the minister of finance, who deals with the budget, then the budget resolutions and any legislation arising out of them. The third part would be concerned with the bulk of the government's program.

Procedure Committee
It was the purpose of your committee, sir, and I gather all members support the suggestion, that we do make an earlier start on government business and get the committees of the house functioning earlier. I think back to my earlier years, all of which have been extremely pleasant except this one, and I find that in the first part of the session most of the members seem to become bored or restless. Then during the second half of the session they are worked to death. Of course, parliamentary reform must lie within the hearts and minds of the members. If we were to put ourselves under discipline in the dramatic fashion of the hon. member for York-Scarborough (Mr. McGee), who limits himself to 15-minute speeches, then we would get through our work sooner and not bore each other in the process.
Then another point which I think perhaps could be solved by the rules committee in future years, not this year, is to provide more variety in private members' days, the eight of them in a session, so that we could deal with more resolutions and more bills. Frequently a debate will start on a very interesting piece of legislation, the mover of which has a direct interest in it and he will bring a great deal of variety into that debate. However, by the middle of the afternoon or an hour or two later, it simply becomes a matter of talking things out in a rather pedestrian fashion. Perhaps the committee could give some consideration to this matter, so that the points of view on different matters that are pets to private members can be deliberated.
Now, Mr. Speaker, this is one of those rare occasions upon which no one has claimed the paternity of the ideas concerning the reference in the committee report to procedural reforms for divorce in parliament. I will let you in on a secret, sir, which you already know, but of which perhaps all hon. members are not aware, that it was something I raised and asked the committee if it would be good enough to hear my views on the matter of procedural reform for divorce.


Frank Howard: Would the hon. member permit a question?


Robert Jardine McCleave: Those who know me here, and I think have some faith in me, know that I would not willingly see any abuse of any existing procedure if I thought there were methods of clearing it up. I think the hon. member had a question.


Frank Howard: I wonder if my friend from Halifax could indicate if he presented these views that he is putting forward to the committee itself when the committee was meeting?
[Mr. McCleave.1


Robert Jardine McCleave: I asked that; but I have drawn up a very rough draft of the points I would like raised in the committee, which will be circulated as soon as I have completed that memorandum. Is that the question?


Frank Howard: No. I understood the hon. member for Halifax to say that in so far as the committee investigating the question of divorce is concerned, he himself raised that with the committee.


Robert Jardine McCleave: That is right, Mr. Speaker, I did.


Frank Howard: Another question. When the committee was being established in the house, did the hon. member hear us suggest that this would be a proper course of action for the committee to take?


Robert Jardine McCleave: Then perhaps I did not listen to the hon. member at that time. If he did make that suggestion, it undoubtedly was a wise one. But nobody else brought it up in the rules committee, so I did myself. I hope that answers the question.
So it is my desire, as a person charged with a difficult responsibility and a rather thankless one, to do the best I can with it and to play my part with others by being the conscience of the House of Commons as a whole to see that things are proceeded with as properly as possible.
The hon. members of the C.C.F. are apparently willing to allow the remainder of the divorce bills to go through on the understanding that the procedural problems of divorce will be studied, and this is a very fine gesture. I wish to refer the house to the Journals of the House of Commons for Saturday, July 18, 1959. That is a little over a year ago, Mr. Speaker. At that time I presented a report from the committee which says in part:
Your committee has considered three hundred and fifty three (353) divorce bills sent from the Senate and rejected one during the current session.
Your committee found itself seriously handicapped because there are no standing orders applicable to the procedure in committee such as exists in the other place.
Your committee strongly recommends that when it is reconstituted next session it be empowered, with the help of the chief of the committees and private legislation branch and the law officers of the house, to draft rules of procedure for its guidance and to submit these to the house for consideration by the standing committee on standing orders.
That was put by you, Mr. Speaker, at that time and accepted. The point is that we are now getting, or I hope we will get by the vote of the house later this evening or tomorrow, what was asked for by the committee over a year ago. But a lot of time has been

wasted on the so-called detailed examination d! the divorce problem in the meantime.


William Arnold Peters: Mr. Speaker, would the hon. member permit a question? In what relationship would the matter of the detailed examination delay the passing of the recommendation of the committee of three years ago?


Robert Jardine McCleave: I think the hon. member has been around long enough to know the mood of the House of Commons as well as I do. Mr. Speaker, may I turn to some of the practical matters that need reform on a procedural level. The hon. member for Timis-kaming (Mr. Peters) mentioned this afternoon the problem of summoning witnesses, and he confused two situations that can arise in dealing with this problem. The house and the committee does have the power to issue a summons for either party to require witnesses to come to the committee. What it apparently does not have is the right for the committee itself to issue such summonses to ask people to appear before it. These are substantially different things. I was very sorry to hear the attack made on the law clerk of the House of Commons late this afternoon by the hon. member for Timiska-ming, when he made a reference to the committee not having competent legal advice. Dr. Maurice Ollivier has been around here for 35 years. He has advised prime ministers and others during that time on some of the most important constitutional and other legal problems that can arise in Canada. I am sorry that I was not quicker on my feet to suggest to the hon. member that he would not like to leave such a remark on the record against a very devoted, dedicated, first-rate servant of the House of Commons.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear.


Robert Jardine McCleave: As for his remarks about myself, I do not think I have to answer them. I could put it this way, that if any member of the Conservative party, or any member of the Liberal party-just one member, Mr. Speaker-were to object to my fairness. my integrity or my honesty in these matters, then I would withdraw from the committee.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear.


Robert Jardine McCleave: Another matter that demands procedural reform, as was pointed out by the hon. member for Davenport (Mr. Morton), or at least he pointed out the problem that can arise, is the time to contest cases. There are two types of cases. One is where all matters have been thoroughly at issue before the other place and then come before us, which is properly a matter for us of course to consider. Sometimes jocularly 79951-0-491
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we call ourselves the chamber of sober second thought on these divorce matters. On other matters, and we have had three of them this session, people have come to parliament very late to say they were not served properly, there was collusion, or there were other matters that were not brought out before the committee of the other place. Here we need a procedural reform, it seems to me, to see that such cases shall go back to the other place so that they may deal with them, if that was the judicial process that was abused in the first place.
The matter of the service of relevant documents in the case has not been raised, I think. None the less, it is very important. There have been abuses this year, particularly by a Montreal detective named Charles Char-ron. The chairman of the other place, with whom I work quite closely, has made it a point to circularize the Montreal bar that in no instances are proceedings in divorce cases to be served by a detective who was involved in the investigation of the case. That is a very useful reform that is needed.
Then we should consider renumbering the cases so they are more intelligible to members of the House of Commons. Perhaps we should also figure out some way where a judicial procedure will not be abused by what is called the process of talking out. The hon. member for Timiskaming mentioned with some pride that he had been instrumental in talking a case out of parliament. That case was a very hard fought one. There were bitter passions on both the pros and cons of the case, and certainly there was a great division of our own. Perhaps in cases where the decision of the committee is so close it is legitimate to talk it out and leave the parties to come back next year. Otherwise I think it is simply an abuse to use parliamentary devices to deny justice to people who do petition us.
Mr. Speaker, the hon. member for Vancouver East (Mr. Winch), in an otherwise good speech, praised the accomplishments of the hon. members for Skeena and Timiskaming and what they had done this year. In the first place, I have shown that they have done precisely nothing, because the motion we are going to approve later tonight is simply, in its divorce section, something that has existed before parliament as a recommendation for 13 months.
I would also point out that in my remarks on the bill of rights I mentioned some of the great social mischief that had been caused by the filibuster, and it is mischief that can never really properly be repaired. I hope that when the history and the pros and cons of this are written up the journalists will make

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some study of just what effect this has had on the little man and woman of Quebec and Newfoundland.
One of the things that cheered me on this whole matter was right around the House of Commons in our corridors among our own servants who said, "Keep after these fellows and do not let them push these people around". That has been my object and intention all along, and it will be my object and intention if I am ever again mixed up in one of these divorce filibusters.
One of the hon. members said that this was not a judicial proceeding, and he quoted a law book that is slightly out of date. I would simply refer him to the Criminal Code, section 99 (c), which defines what a judicial proceeding is. That section reads:
(c) "judicial proceeding" means a proceeding ...
(ii) before the Senate or House of Commons of Canada or a committee of the Senate or House of Commons... that is authorized by law to administer an oath,-
I think that should solve that matter. It was put very ably the other day by the hon. member for Marquette (Mr. Mandziuk) in the presence of the two hon. members but they were not listening.
Now some further thoughts on judicial proceedings. A judicial proceeding to me involving members of this house is a proceeding in which the members do not take sides before the particular case comes on for trial. They do not investigate it, but when it is properly contested they leave it up to the lawyer or to the witnesses for both parties. I would like to think that that was the example followed by all hon. members but I know from looking over the voting record of two members in regard to all the cases which have come forward this year and in previous years, whenever one party has made contact with those members they have invariably voted for that party.


Frank Howard: Would you like to name the two members?


Robert Jardine McCleave: Yes; I would like to name the two members and refer to the cases. The two members are the hon. member for Timiskaming and the hon. member for Skeena (Mr. Howard), and the cases are Eccles, Freeman and Walker.


Frank Howard: Would the hon. member permit a question. Does he know that I have consistently voted against every divorce case coming before parliament?


Robert Jardine McCleave: I was told that while I was away the hon. member for Skeena was good enough to second a divorce case on my behalf.

One of the hon. members also mentioned what he called the failure of Quebec members to attend the miscellaneous private bills committee. I know one member who has attended almost twice as many meetings as the hon. member for Skeena and the hon. member for Timiskaming combined.
Yet another abuse of judicial procedure. One hon. member made a statement. He had a chance to cross-examine on it earlier, but he made a statement to the committee which, if accepted, could have meant that a case would have been thrown out instead of the petition being granted. Fortunately there was another member there who could correct that misstatement of fact.
Those are very serious matters. If the hon. members say that this is not a judicial procedure, I think it is right if they do not bring the qualities of heart and mind to that body properly to judge cases. But I would not allow that to be said of members of the Conservative or members of the Liberal parties who have gone there with open minds and waited until all the evidence was in before deciding the cases.
Finally, on this point, Mr. Speaker, the hon. member for Davenport asked whether public opinion can be changed to deal with these divorce cases. I think that is up to the people of Quebec and Newfoundland. When the first province confederated some protection had to be given to the people of that province because the majority did not want divorce courts established there, and this place was found to be the most workable solution possible. Again, when Newfoundland entered confederation exactly the same thing ensued. I would be as happy as anybody else in this chamber to see divorce cases dealt with elsewhere. I do not like the job. It has been a miserable one and it is more miserable than ever because of what has happened lately, but at least I have tried to do what I can to make it as correct as possible and to make it easier for members here to rely in the committee on the sponsor of the bill when they come to vote on each particular measure. But as long as these provinces and the people in the provinces say no, and their wishes have to be taken first, then let us carry on with what is properly ours.
I support the recommendations in the committee's report. It has been a pleasure to be associated with you in that work and I hope the experiment of next year will turn out to be something we might write permanently into our rules.


William Arnold Peters: Mr. Speaker, I rise under standing order 37 to explain what I consider to be a misrepresentation of something said earlier

by me today. The last speaker has referred to the fact that I made disparaging remarks about the legal counsel of the house. That is not true. What I said was that the legal counsel of the house has given advice when requested by the chairman or the committee on points of order. What I would wish for-it is certainly afforded to a court-is that the judge, or those in control of the committee, be continually supplied with this information instead of having to request it. I think there is a considerable difference there. We were certainly not casting any aspersions on Dr. Ollivier's record. He is certainly competent and although the advice he has given has not always been agreed with, he has certainly been competent and has been respected.


Robert Jardine McCleave: Then I rise on exactly the same point, under the section the hon. member brought up. The aspersions were not directed at Dr. Ollivier but at me for giving the committee legal advice. I am a lawyer and that is one of the reasons I suppose I was asked to chair that particular committee. I do give that advice when it will help hon. members. They are always free to challenge it, and I have never yet had a lawyer before me who has walked out of that committee unsatisfied with the conduct of the case.


Mr. Speaker:: Order. The hon. member is now speaking to the matter which is different from what was raised as an explanation.


Mr. N. L. Spencer (Essex West):: Mr. Speaker, the presentation of this report affords me an opportunity of speaking on the procedure of the house, a matter which over the last three sessions, including this one, has given me a good deal of concern. I recognize at once that I am one of the new members of this house and when I came here I presumed that I as well as other hon. members would receive the same sort of instruction, and I was supplied with the standing orders of the house as well as the fourth edition of Beauchesne's Parliamentary Rules and Forms.
This evening we have heard from the last four successive speakers in this debate about divorce, private bills coming before the house, and the procedures applicable to private members. I think that subject has been pretty well exhausted and I do not intend to devote any time to that aspect of the business which comes before the house. I am more concerned, as I think most people are, with the conduct of the affairs of the public in this chamber, so I propose to deal with the procedures relating to government business.
I know that those of us who are here realize that this session began on January 14, approximately seven months ago. We are now nearing the end of the two summer months 79951-0-491J
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of vacation, and I hope we are nearing the end of the business of this session. But may I say that the public little realize that this house is in session today. As far as I am concerned, some call my home and they are quite surprised when they do not find me there and learn that this house is still in session.
This report is the first step, and a very good step, toward shortening the sessions of the house. But it is a Very short step. I feel, as I believe almost everybody feels, that there is an unjustifiable waste of time in this house and a waste of the taxpayers' money in unnecessarily prolonging debate and, what I think is more serious still, an undue repetition of arguments on the various subjects which come before the house.
I well recall the first session of parliament, which began in May and the hope was expressed when it began that the work of that session would be completed before the summer was over. We found, as time went by, that this was not possible, and it was not until well into the month of September that that session prorogued. The cause of that was nothing more or less than a constant repetition of arguments time and time again during the debates of the house. I concede that we do not have a specific rule which deals with this matter. We do have a rule which deals with the repetition of argument and indulgence in irrelevancy by hon. members. However, I can find nothing in the rules which deals with one member repeating the arguments of another member, and I suggest to the committee, if and when it is set up in the next session, that consideration might well be given to some rule which would be effective in curbing what I consider to be an abuse of the privileges of the house.
In this connection I should like to put on the record an editorial which appeared in the Globe and Mail on August 18, 1958 and which is headed "Parliament's Garrulous Octet". I think it is significant and appropriate that I should refer to this editorial atthis time, because, although it relates to what occurred during the first session of this parliament, we have witnessed in this session of parliament tactics of filibuster by members of the C.C.F. party with respect to private bills of divorce. The editorial reads as follows:
There are 265 seats in the Canadian House of Commons. Only eight of them are occupied by members of the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation. With eight votes C.C.F. can do little to make or change the decisions of the house on the issues which come before it. However, with eight voices and with the right to raise-


Frank Howard: 1 understand the rule is that it is not permitted to read editorials in

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the house, especially when they cast reflections on the activities of some hon. members.


Norman Leonard Spencer: On the point of order, I consider that it is in order to read editorials. It has been done many, many times. The only possible objection could be that it might relate to a matter which is before the house.
I am pointing out that the rules do permit reading of an editorial as long as it is not intended to affect the decision of this house in a particular debate.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: I am unable to find the citation which deals with this matter. If my memory is correct, it is not in accordance with the practice to quote newspaper editorials dealing with the conduct of hon. members. It is in conformity with the practice to have the opinion of newspapers on matters discussed in the house, but it would not be permitted to read editorials in which the conduct of members or the conduct of the house is discussed.


Norman Leonard Spencer: If you consider this would be out of order, Mr. Speaker, because this is an editorial, then, inasmuch as I believe it is correct and that it does relate exactly what happened in the first session of this parliament, I am prepared to adopt these words as my own:
With eight votes C.C.F. can do little to make or change the decisions of the house on the issues which come before it. However with eight voices and with the right to raise them on every issue, it can do much to obstruct the house in reaching decisions. And this it seems to be doing deliberately at every opportunity.
The C.C.F. engage in silly and childish prolongation of debates. They get up, one after the other, and repeat one another's speeches. They do this to no apparent purpose, they say little that is constructive or useful, and they say little that is particularly critical. They just talk and talk until the other members want nothing more than to tell them to be quiet.
Last Friday, for instance, by the time the house adjourned for lunch at 1 p.m., four C.C.F. members had spoken among them, eight times and at least once on almost every subject which came up. After lunch, three of them made very long speeches, one made two very long speeches and took up almost the whole afternoon.
This has been going on for months. A look at the latest available index to Hansard shows that, between May 12 and June 30, C.C.F. leader Hazen Argue spoke on 81 different topics-more than did L. B. Pearson who spoke on 78, and less only than did the Prime Minister, who spoke on 99. Moreover, no C.C.F. member during that period spoke on fewer than 25 subjects and 3 spoke on more than 70. Compared, for example, with Conservative members, George Hees who spoke on 57 and D. S. Harkness who spoke on 21.
There is no possible reason for the C.C.F. bloc to talk so much, so often. It is abusing its parliamentary privilege. It is creating an atmosphere in which the government may well hesitate to bring forward new business because it will only give the C.C.F. another chance to prolong an

already over-worked session. Is there no way, short of another election, to shut these people up?
The Leader of the Opposition (Mr. Pearson) earlier in this debate talked about organization of the business of the house. I think that what is required is not so much organization of the business of the house but rather a little organization and discipline of the parties in the house so that these debates will not be dragged on endlessly and there will not be the repetition of which I complain.
What the C.C.F. group did in the first session I believe the Liberal party has continued to do in the second session and again in this third session of parliament. I believe this matter came to the fore when about two weeks ago the motion was moved to extend the hours of sitting of the house. That motion was strenuously opposed by both opposition parties. I think it would be better if hon. members opposite were, during the early part of the session, to think of the longer hours which will undoubtedly result from their making long and repetitive speeches.
This prolongation of debate has also been true of this session. In that connection may I refer to a Canadian Press dispatch of March 7 last referring to the progress that was made during the present session:
After seven weeks of commons sittings with relatively little to show for it, talk is beginning to be heard about parliament sitting all summer or perhaps going into a fall session. When parliament opened January 14, it was with the fairly confident expectation that it would be through by mid-June, give or take a week. But as the daily question periods consistently lengthened into an hour or more and as the unemployment debate dragged into 7| days, hope of hitting that target has faded. About the only concrete measure approved has been for emergency aid to prairie farmers with grain crops caught in the field by early fall snows. Most of the committee work is just getting under way. By far the major part of the government's legislative program remains to be considered. And the budget debate which will take another eight sitting days is still in the future. On top of that work is just beginning on the 1960-61 spending.
No one seems to have been able to determine accurately the cost to the country of keeping parliament in session but it obviously runs into thousands of dollars each day. Unnecessary prolongation of a session is therefore a waste of the taxpayers' dollars.
Another point I should like to make is that there appears nowhere in the rules any provision dealing with the questions which are directed to members of the government on the calling of the orders of the day. This practice seems to have grown up over the years but it is not a practice covered by oi dealt with by the rules. I suggest that if this is a good practice

and I believe it is-and it is to be entertained then it should be

covered explicitly under a rule. It should also be clearly provided that the questions which are asked of the ministry must be questions of immediate urgency. We have had many instances of the abuse of this privilege. In fact we had an instance today when a rather nonsensical question was asked of the Postmaster General (Mr. Hamilton).
I also believe that the question period should be limited in point of time. We have a precedent for that in that under standing order 39 (2) (b) there is a limitation placed upon the time to be devoted to starred questions on Wednesday. I think that period of time should be shortened although in my experience in the house it has never exceeded the hour allotted. Nevertheless I believe that period of one hour for starred questions might well be shortened.
I believe that questions which by practice or courtesy hon. members are allowed to direct to members of the government should also have a time limit imposed upon them and I see no reason why matters of immediate urgency cannot be dealt with and disposed of within a period of 15 minutes at the longest. On many occasions during this session the question period has exceeded an hour.
There is one other matter- on procedure to which I should like to make reference. I refer to the debate which has occasionally occurred on the various stages of an appropriation bill. As hon. members know, this bill relates to estimates presented in the house. Of course, I refer more particularly to the appropriation bill in connection with supplementary estimates. Under our procedure, supplementary estimates are subject to debate and on many occasions in the past the debate has been very extended. May I simply remind hon. members of the debate on supplementary estimates in March of this year, which was mentioned in the Canadian Press dispatch to which I made reference. As I recall it those supplementary estimates contained 20 items and some of them were quite small in amount. One of those items alone involved the expenditure of some $15 million, being the government's contribution to the municipalities in connection with the winter works incentive program. That item occasioned a debate of nine days, and the supplementary estimates in all consumed 14 days of debate. After that extensive and detailed examination of the estimates one would think that when the appropriation bill was presented to the house to give effect to the supplementary estimates which had already been considered and passed by the house there would be little or no debate on the bill. However, apparently in keeping with the designed policy of prolonging debate, we find
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in this case the opposition again debated that bill through its various stages and a whole evening session of this house was taken up in the passage of that bill, a purely pro forme procedure of the house.
At this point it might be well to recall to mind the concern of the Minister of Finance (Mr. Fleming) at that time because of the attitude and the action of the opposition. May I quote from his remarks at that time as reported at page 1824 of Hansard:
Is it not about time that hon. members opposite gathered together some sense of responsibility with respect to the business of the house and the transaction of affairs that mean a great deal to the farmers of the country, to employed persons who will otherwise be threatened with unemployment and to many others in this country as well... As a result of their holding up this bill... 15 senior officials are sitting in my office right now who have come there for a budget meeting. I suppose my evening will be spent in the house listening to hon. members opposite fan the air with their incessant repetition.
I think the Minister of Finance pointed out at that time that in some 15 years of experience in this house he had never known of an appropriation bill being debated at all stages.
I have one other suggestion to make. When this committee is set up at the next session to continue its study of the procedure of the house I believe it would be well to enlarge its membership. At the present time I believe nearly all the members of that committee are members who have been in the house for a great many years. I think it would be well, and it would be helpful, if the membership of that committee were enlarged and there were added to its membership many of those members who have been here only a relatively short period of time. I think there is too much, shall I say, reliance placed upon precedents, habits and policies of the house and not enough consideration given to ways and means of dealing with the business expeditiously but carefully and with a reasonable amount of consideration. I think that those who have come to this house fresh from business, fresh from other positions where they have seen business done quickly, effectively and with due consideration would be of great help to this committee in devising ways and means whereby the rules could be amended and the business of the house transacted efficiently and expeditiously but also thoughtfully and carefully.


Mr. Alexis Caron (Hull):: Mr. Speaker, may I rise just to express my surprise. Everybody has been talking on this motion and saying that there are too many long speeches, too much repetition, and all that I have heard today has been long speeches and repetition on a

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motion that everybody wants to pass. Therefore, I think we should stop talking and move to something else.


Mr. H. F. Jones (Saskatoon):: Mr. Speaker, the hon. member who has just spoken could not have been here all day if he is of the opinion that the speeches have been repetitious. I have listened to the contributions of various hon. members on this particular matter throughout the day and I thought they placed before Your Honour many useful suggestions. After all, Mr. Speaker, when we are amending the rules of this house we are dealing with the rules of an institution which embodies almost a thousand years of the hopes and dreams of our people. This is not a thing that can be done lightly. This is not a project through which we should rush, but it is a project which requires careful consideration, as was pointed out by the hon. member for Essex West (Mr. Spencer).
I was encouraged, as I am sure every other hon. member was encouraged, when the committee over which you, sir, presided presented these thoughtful proposals which were to be initiated on a trial basis and thus bring about adjustments which would be in keeping with the times. I was pleased to hear the suggestion of the hon. member for Halifax (Mr. McCleave), and his thought that progress would be made in dealing with this matter of divorce next year. I should like to take this opportunity, Mr. Speaker, and I am sure other hon. members will join me, in acknowledging our appreciation of the tremendous work he has done as chairman of the miscellaneous private bills committee.
There are two particular aspects of this situation with which I should like to deal very briefly. One arises out of the suggestions which are made from time to time to adjourn the house for the purpose of discussing a definite matter of urgent importance under rule 26. This particular rule is a very useful rule, but I think it can be improved upon. The procedure followed at the present time is set out in subsection 2 of that rule, which says:
The member desiring to make such a motion rises in his place, asks leave to move the adjournment of the house for the purpose of discussing a definite matter of urgent public importance and states the matter.
Then he hands a written statement of the matter he proposes to discuss to the Speaker who decides whether or not it complies with the rule. Upon the ruling of the Speaker that the requisite conditions have been fulfilled, the debate begins at once. I suggest that that is not a good practice because it seems to me that if the matter is of such importance that the business of the house should be adjourned to discuss it there should be some sort of

notice or warning given so that hon. members who may wish to speak on that particular matter may gather their thoughts before they enter the debate.
In the British House of Commons provision is made for that very thing. I find by referring to the book "Honourable Members, A Study of the British Backbencher", by Peter G. Richards, a very distinguished member of the British parliament, that he says this:
Under standing order No. 9, the motion for the adjournment may also be used in an emergency to raise a matter of public importance-
I might explain that such a motion can be moved by either the opposition or the government. Then the debate does not take place immediately but at seven o'clock that night. In the intervening period hon. members who wish to take part in the debate can complete their preparations for doing so, which most certainly would add to the quality of the debate and would most certainly place before the public through the report of that debate the more considered views of members who had adequate time for preparation. I would commend to the committee consideration of this rule of the United Kingdom parliament when the committee studies these matters next year.
There is another point I should like to make in connection with private members' days. From time to time there arises in the course of the affairs of our nation matters which members feel should be discussed. They may be matters of extreme importance, but not of the complexity that would require prolonged debate. They are not matters of national interest that would require the adjournment of the business of the house under standing order 26. The British provide for this by means of what they call the daily adjournment of the debate. Under this provision there is a half-hour provided at the end of the day, three days a week, during which debates may take place on subjects drawn by lot from the numerous suggestions made by members of the house. These subjects are debated for half an hour. The usual procedure is that the mover or proposer of the subject speaks for 15 minutes, and then the minister under whose jurisdiction that particular matter falls or his parliamentary secretary replies. In that way many useful matters are ventilated and many useful discussions are initiated. I think perhaps if we gave thought to the provision of a similar rule in our house, it would permit, during the course of the session, many more matters to be discussed and it might save some time for discussion of other matters on private members' days. This half-hour is provided

in the United Kingdom on Mondays, Thursdays and Fridays, and I find this in Mr. Richards' book with reference to this subject:
This procedure may not be used to raise issues that would involve legislation, or for which the government has no responsibility.
Since this procedure has been adopted by the United Kingdom parliament it has come into great favour, as I understand it, and has proved to be a very useful device for enabling private members to place before the house and the country matters which they feel to be of great concern. Since time passes quickly I shall resume my seat after expressing the hope that during the deliberations of the committee next year the two suggestions I have made will be considered worthy of investigation.
(Translation) :


Mr. Paul Martineau (Ponliac-Temiscamin-gue):: Mr. Speaker, I have only a few minutes at my disposal, and I should like to make a few brief comments regarding the report of the special committee on the procedure of the house. That report contained four recommendations. The acceptance of two of those recommendations would have the effect of shortening by four days the sittings of the house. The other two recommendations mainly concerned matters of procedure and might-depending on how they were applied -speed up the dispatch of the business of the house.
Mr. Speaker, we are now at a critical stage in our parliamentary system. On the one hand, we are assailed by an ever growing quantity of increasingly complex public affairs.
In fact, we need only look into our copy of the estimates to see hundreds of items amounting to several billions of dollars, that the committee of supply is called upon to approve or reject.
How can a private member devote the required time to a serious consideration of those matters? I suggest that such consideration is far beyond the capacity of any ordinary brain and I think hon. members must recognize, in all humility, that they belong in that category. It therefore seems to me that we should accept the basic reforms suggested by several members today. The Leader of the Opposition (Mr. Pearson) suggested, among other things, that we should do away with details and that the debates of the house should be limited to the consideration of major issues. For my part, I would suggest- and this is my own personal opinion-that the special committee that will be set up
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next year to study house procedure, look into the possibility of eliminating discussion in committee of legislation.
I would also suggest that detailed study of the estimates be done away with.
I suggest that the house study only the principle of the legislaion introduced by the government. Besides, it might be well if the debate in committee of supply were limited to consideration of the general policy of the department, i.e., the first item.


Mr. J. P. Deschafelefs (Maisonneuve-Rosemoni):: Mr. Speaker, would the hon. member allow a question?


Paul Raymond Martineau: Of course.


Jean-Paul Deschatelets: Does the hon. member think we should abolish closure?


Paul Raymond Martineau: I did not understand the question.


Jean-Paul Deschatelets: Could the hon. member tell the house whether he thinks we should abolish closure?


Paul Raymond Martineau: Mr. Speaker, the hon. member ought to let me make my speech as I see fit; if he wants to express his views, he will have an opportunity to do so.
As I was saying, there should be a limit to minute study of certain items. Suppose the committee of supply is asked to consider a vote of several million dollars for the building of a nuclear reactor. I wonder what point there is in submitting so technical a matter to a general assembly of laymen. It would certainly be better to refer such matters to a special committee of the house, a committee of supply, which could be divided into subcommittees on estimates, where experts would be called upon to give evidence. Such a committee could then submit its report either to a committee of the whole house, or to the house itself. I think that even if this report did not recommend the basic reforms that seem necessary, we should eventually come to recognize that principle by the very nature of things.
If we wish to preserve respect for our democratic parliamentary system, sooner or later we shall have to consider taking such decisions.
Before resuming my seat, I have only one more comment to make and it has to do with the remarks of the hon. member for York-Scarborough (Mr. McGee) who suggested that speeches delivered in this house should be restricted to 15 minutes. I do not share that

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view, because, in my opinion, a speech cannot be reduced to simple mathematical proportions. Certain subjects can be discussed for hours without being fully covered, while others can be summarized in a few sentences. There are many historical examples to prove it and if I had more time at my disposal, I should like to quote a few of them.
Mr. Speaker, this may be an age of specialization and technique, but eloquence is still highly prized. And true eloquence, as Bossuet once said, must be based on simplicity and truth.
It was Tacitus who said:
Eloquence is like a flame: it requires matter to feed on, motion to excite it, and it brightens as it burns.
(Text):


Mr. Speaker:: If the minister speaks now he will close the debate.


Gordon Minto Churchill: Mr. Speaker, we have had a very useful discussion on matters of prime importance to the House of Commons, its method of conducting its business based on the rules. Quite a number of very useful suggestions have been advanced which I am sure will be used as a guide for the committee which will be set up next year.
The complexity of the problem appears as people discuss the matter, and some very thoughtful contributions were made during the course of the afternoon and evening by people who have been making a study of the rules and procedure of this house and of other legislative bodies. Careless generalizations often take the place of careful research and thought, and frequently all of us become a bit impatient with the parliamentary system and hope that matters can be speeded up. But on examination it is very difficult to say what matters should be dispensed with quickly and on what subjects time should be taken.
While the debate has been in progress I have been looking through a record that I have kept this year to see how the time has been utilized. I have a complete record, but I will not burden the house with it all. But it is interesting to note that in the first three months of this session the house used only 17 days of that time for legislative purposes. On those 17 days three special committees were set up; 10 items of legislation were started and nine were completed. Other days that were available for government purposes were consumed in discussion of supplementary estimates, interim supply and so forth. During the course of the three months the house did deal with the address

in reply to the speech from the throne, with most of the private members' days that are allotted by the rules, with I think four of the six supply motions, with interim supply, with supplementary estimates and with the budget debate.
When you look at those three months you see quite a considerable amount of the business of the house was done, but not business in the way of a great amount of legislation and no discussion of the main estimates in that period. But who is to say that there should not have been a debate on the speech from the throne or a lengthy debate on supplementary estimates or on interim supply, a practice which has grown up in recent years of using those two items for vehicles for rather lengthy debate? He would be very bold indeed to say that matters of importance to Canada were not discussed during those periods.
So I just draw to the attention of the house that short summary of what happened in the first three months of this session because it points up the complexity of the situation when you attempt by rules to determine the length of time which shall be spent on any one subject in the course of a parliamentary session. I suppose to a certain extent it depends on self-discipline, restricting the length of speeches which members may make, and on what was mentioned by the Leader of the Opposition (Mr. Pearson) earlier this afternoon, an allocation of time to various debates.
That can be done and has been done in this house session after session with regard to certain matters which have come before it. For example, we have had success in allotting time for debates on external affairs, either one days or two days. This year we allotted three and that was by arrangement, and then the debate came to a conclusion. By consultation and arrangement of allocation of time I think there is much which can be accomplished without a specific rule being laid down for debates which are before us. On the other hand if a controversial issue comes before the House of Commons no one can say how long a debate may last. It may go on for days or for weeks.
However, all of the discussion we have had today I think will be very useful and will serve as a guide to the committee which will be set up quite promptly next session, because we have now all admonished each other as to what should be done earlier on in the next session. If we have available to us in this modification of the rules, the opportunity of postponing the first private member's Thursday or the first private member's Monday and use days like that for the setting up of, say, special committees or bringing down legislation which is of urgency, then

we may advance some of these measures earlier in the session than has been done in the past. From my study of the sessions of the House of Commons over a long period of years I do not hold out much hope for shortening the sessions very much, but on the other hand we can increase the efficiency.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to.
Gordon Minto Churchill: Perhaps we might call it eleven o'clock and reward ourselves for a good piece of work today.



BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE

George James McIlraith: I wonder if the house leader would indicate the order of business for tomorrow.


Gordon Minto Churchill: Yes. For tomorrow we will deal with supplementary estimates commencing with the one which was tabled today, No. 576 under agriculture, being the payment of an amount as a higher return for wheat used for human consumption in Canada to western grain producers, et cetera, followed by supplementary estimates in agriculture Nos. 500 to 504. As this department's estimates were completed some time ago it will be necessary to consider these supplemen-taries.
Then there is the supplementary estimate for external affairs, another department
Business of the House
which has been completed and was brought down today, No. 577 relating to a purchase of flour to be given to the United Nations relief and works agency. If we complete those there is the supplementary estimate No. 498 under finance dealing with the salaries of civil servants.
Then we have a problem which we may have to face tomorrow, but which we do not have to decide tonight, namely whether or not interim supply should be considered tomorrow. I am in the hands of the people on the other side of the house as to that. If the house will complete all the estimates and pass the usual appropriation act with not too long a debate, as was mentioned by my hon. friend behind me, within the next two or three days, it will not be necessary to have interim supply tomorrow night. On the other hand, if the business of the house takes more time than the next two or three days, then in order that people in the employ of the government and others may be paid we might have to have interim supply tomorrow. But I leave it to the good sense of the house as to what we do and we can make that decision tomorrow.


[Stage Direction]
At eleven o'clock the house adjourned, without question put, pursuant to special order.
79951-0-492
[Stage Direction]
Tuesday, August 9, 1960